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I don't think it is a question of good guy or not, rather it's about honoring the contract. The moment you sign up for something you are entering a contract to

I don't think it is a question of good guy or not, rather it's about honoring the contract. The moment you sign up for something you are entering a contract to pay. It's your obligation to do so. Now the other side can choose not to enforce that, but that doesn't make them a "good guy". E.g. If you rented out an apartment but stayed at friend's place for a month, then is the landlord going to skip asking for rent for that month? No. Does that make him a bad guy? No. It's your responsibility to pay for rent. Same thing applies to car loans/leases/rentals, Newspaper subscriptions and Gym memberships. So, why should SaaS pricing be different? Granted an app can easily figure out if you haven't used their system that month, but then so could a gym.

chadkruse 12y ago
I think rent is a good analogy, particularly for mission-critical apps (as Sprintly was for me at the time). Looking at non-mission-critical apps like Gliffy though, I only really wanted to enter a contract for one-month's worth (actually, just one diagram's worth), but I didn't have the option. I didn't want an apartment, I wanted a hotel room. After paying for the empty apartment for too long, I realized I wasn't getting my money's worth and bailed. Next time I needed a diagram tool, I chose a different hotel (LucidCharts), and they got a few months rent from me when I needed an extended stay. I'd probably still be using Gliffy if they offered a hotel room option. Now that the rent analogy is beat to death...
biggerfisch 12y ago
I think a flaw of the rent analogy is the same one as in comparing the (illegal) downloading of movies/music/etc to stealing the physical medium. In the physical space, when one rents or buys something, the seller has less product available at that time and the impact of theft is much more noticeable whereas online, if a user signs up but never hits the servers, they uses no resources at all (except maybe a few rows in a database). That said, I agree that contracts should be honored and paid - even when not used.

chadkruse 12y ago

I think rent is a good analogy, particularly for mission-critical apps (as Sprintly was for me at the time). Looking at non-mission-critical apps like Gliffy though, I only really wanted to enter a contract for one-month's worth (actually, just one diagram's worth), but I didn't have the option. I didn't want an apartment, I wanted a hotel room. After paying for the empty apartment for too long, I realized I wasn't getting my money's worth and bailed. Next time I needed a diagram tool, I chose a different hotel (LucidCharts), and they got a few months rent from me when I needed an extended stay. I'd probably still be using Gliffy if they offered a hotel room option. Now that the rent analogy is beat to death...

biggerfisch 12y ago

I think a flaw of the rent analogy is the same one as in comparing the (illegal) downloading of movies/music/etc to stealing the physical medium. In the physical space, when one rents or buys something, the seller has less product available at that time and the impact of theft is much more noticeable whereas online, if a user signs up but never hits the servers, they uses no resources at all (except maybe a few rows in a database). That said, I agree that contracts should be honored and paid - even when not used.