Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.
That pricing sounds fair. Unfortunately, I feel that's the exception. Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 was $400 [1]. Now Dreamweawer Creative Cloud is $250 per year [2]. So after 1.75 years, you've already taken a loss.
Office used to be $600 for one copy that could run on one operating system.
I can now get an Office 365 subscription for $99 a year for five users and I can use it on my Mac, a Windows PC, iPad, iPhone and all five users get 1TB of storage each
That's not a fair comparison. Final Cut Pro's price on macOS has been $299.99 since 2011, and Apple sells a "Pro Apps Bundle for Education" available to everyone that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and other macOS apps for $199.99 (https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/BMGE2Z/A/pro-apps-...).
I'm sure a lot of users would appreciate a one-time payment option for Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro on the iPad, including teenagers who have some money saved up.
Especially consider the need to update your software for NLE is highly selective. H.264 and H.265 were used over the years for LongGOP, while ProRes and DNxHD/DNxHR were all supported a long time ago. There are no reasons to update unless you need latest blackmagic RAW or ProRes RAW, which are well beyond normal consumer realm. AV1 may be a new thing, but that's it.
There are no continuous vital features updates like being able to read newer camera RAW files for ACR. I find a one-time payment much more suitable for FCP.
With LPX and anything remotely in music production area the subscription just seems dumb. Omnisphere, Komplete, FL Studio, Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live were all in the realm for decades, and while subscription did became a thing (especially for very expensive samples like Hollywood, Spitfire, etc.) features in a DAW are sufficient for a long life cycle in production, and mandating a subscription for "keeping latest" just seems odd.
If you used to need to use software for a weeklong project, you'd have to pirate it because there was no way to justify the cost.
Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel.
It's a huge improvement in flexibility and paying for what you use. Not to mention the software is always updated, so you don't need to worry about whether your image editor you purchased 7 years ago supports the RAW format of the camera that came out 2 years ago.
> It's a huge improvement in flexibility and paying for what you use. Not to mention the software is always updated, so you don't need to worry about whether your image editor you purchased 7 years ago supports the RAW format of the camera that came out 2 years ago.
I see this the other way. I don't want to be forced to upgrade. If you add valuable features, I'll pay for them. Otherwise, I'm happy to stick with what I have. Oftentimes the upgrades come with a new UX to learn, are slower, and remove functionality I relied on all to add new stuff I have no need for.
I think JetBrains hits an interesting middle ground. I can run whatever version of the IDE I want (as far as I can tell) but pay to have access to the full suite.
The problem is when it adds up: you pay for FCP, for Adobe, for Office, for Figma, for X... at the end, you are paying 200 dollars per month in software (without counting Netflix, Spotify, hosting, etc).
15 years ago most teenagers i knew had the full office suite, photoshop and most other softwares for free. I'm not gonna tell you how, but it's easy to imagine.
Guess what, those people wouldn't have paid for a license anyway, so no real license money is lost.
More importantly, it needs to be said that if you got an older computer you could just use an older version of the software, no problem. Now you can't do that anymore. You not only have to pay the 7$/month, you also need to buy a new ipad every once in a while.
I'm still anti subscription. I do pay for software (paid 150 euros out of my personal pocket last year for a SecureCRT license and i love it).
Its always been an open question to me in the case of Adobe if rampant piracy in the 2000s helped rather than hinder them. If these teenagers went on to work in industry, they already knew the adobe suite inside out and likely ended up advocating the software and buying licenses in the workplace... As you probably rightly state, almost none of the folks pirating the software would have converted to real sales anyway.
> paid 150 euros out of my personal pocket last year for a SecureCRT license and i love it
I'm curious what makes SecureCRT better than PuTTY or even Windows Terminal enough to be worth paying for - am I missing out on some amazing experience, or does it have certain amazing features others lack, or...?
I, for one, am very grateful for Adobe's shitty subscription model, as it has allowed companies like Serif to launch fantastic products with perpetual licenses.
Sure, as long as Adobe doesn't arbitrarily decide to permanently ban your account and no longer accept your money. Also, speaking of ships that have sailed, you could just as easily check out Final Cut Pro or Adobe subscriptions from some libraries for no additional fee.
Have you ever looked at Affinity (https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/)? I bought their universal license a year or so ago and would definitely recommend it over Adobe for anybody who doesn't necessarily need to use Adobe, it's a lifetime license and the product is pretty comparable to Photoshop/Illustrator for whatever a hobbyist could need. I would strongly recommend giving them a look if you haven't already.
It’s a no brainer, the vendor gets paid for the continued work they do and the user pays over time as long as they get value out of the product.
However, For some apps it makes sense to have it as a one time payment - things like offline games or utilities the solve a problem and don’t need continuous updates.
Other than that, subscriptions are the way to go because software is a service more than a final product.
But that's not how the subscription pricing goes. Final Cut Pro X was $299, not $999 so it's not even a good example.
One the other end of the spectrum are all the mobile apps that start as a $2.99 one time purchase, add a bunch of features, and say "Actually it'll be $11.99/year forever thanks."
That particular case feels better because the original price you mention was incredibly high, not because the model is better for the customer. Especially when more than 1 application does that.
I have an iOS app that I love and rely upon, but it’s effectively abandonware because the developer didn’t charge enough. I too am pro-subscription: take my money, please.
Until you look at Intuit, you used to be able to buy their accounting software and have the critical records for your business. Now their accounting software requires an internet connection and a subscription and puts your critical records behind a paywall and gives them access to your data for whatever purpose they want. And they keep ratcheting up the price and putting more and more features behind higher tier subscriptions.
My favourite licensing models for self-hosted software are perpetual fallback licenses. Jetbrains does this well and their description of it is:
A perpetual fallback license is a license that allows you to use a specific version of software without an active subscription for it. The license also includes all bugfix updates, more specifically in X.Y.Z version all Z releases are included.
My gripe with the JetBrains license change is that the perpetual license is for a version that's already 12 months old when they have an aggressive release schedule that put's your perpetual license as a _large_ step backwards.
I say this as a personal subscriber to the JetBrains Toolbox. I'm unhappy about the mechanics of the fallback license, but I also find utility in paying the subscription for right now (really the last few years).
This is great until a company starts making file formats completely incompatible with back versions, making it impossible to use with friends or anyone else. Oh or when they just change the plan to subscription only anyways.
I KNEW you were talking about Sketch from the moment I read your first sentence. I have a hypothesis that Figma never would've become so big had they not screwed up so badly with their licensing and lack of seamless collaboration features.
This happened with me for Evernote. Incredibly frustrating. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised with how well the latest versions of Microsoft Office still support most non x formats (eg .doc, .xls).
Even better is the licensing model where you can keep using the version as-is after the subscription ends. You just don't get any new features. It's even possible to do on iOS, as Working Copy [0] is doing it. (You also get all the bug fixes and stuff, only new features are behind a flag that requires you to purchase another year of updates. I would also argue that Working Copy specifically is too cheap, but I guess it's working for them.)
This is what Binary Ninja (Reverse Eng. tool) does, and why its a community favorite. https://binary.ninja/faq/#subscription. However it seems they don't keep download links public, but my old license/dl link from my email still seems to work.
I would rather have them offer a full purchase option, with, say, 10 years of upgrades included. I could pay 750 EUR for it once, and be set for the rest of my career, basically, instead of having to deal with purchases every year.
My problem with Jetbrains' software is that it comes with DRM so, sure, i can buy their thing once but i'm still reliant on them regardless. It isn't like i can pay them once and forget about their existence afterwards.
Agreed. Admittedly, 37 Signals does have a great history of actually delivering on its announcements, but I'll withhold judgement until I actually see some real software.
Sounds good, but I mean, it's just pros and cons with the SaaS model, or with the pay-once...
Before SaaS there used to be a massive pool of native apps, doing all kinds of different things... You indeed paid your license and lived with the product until the next major version, but there was little chance to just use something for a month or two, so the prices were higher.
With SaaS you do end up renting stuff all over the place, and never owning anything, but the prices are more affordable... Think about an AutoCAD license, that shit is privative for a hobbyist... With SaaS you can in fact afford something to begin with.
This doesn’t address a major gripe with the subscription model - taking away the option to purchase software outright. Were both to exist, we would not be having this discussion.
In reality, corporations are driven by greed and greed pushed the subscription model. For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one. For others, it is terrible. CAD software is a great example especially at larger orgs. Why should software be a recurring cost in the name of development and support?
I agree with the majority of what you wrote, but I'm utterly confused by this statement
> For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one.
I've only ever purchased albums. Why in the world would I pay a monthly fee for something I presumably want to listen for for the rest of my life? 10-15$ for a one time purchase is far preferable to a monthly fee of nearly the same. I'm also weary of the idea of the services that have the right to stream music from labels X, Y, and Z suddenly pulling out, cutting off my access to the albums from artists I want to listen to at any given time.
I hope none of that comes off sounding "snobby" or whatever, I just don't understand how subscribing to listen to music is adventitious. Is it just not having to transfer music from the computer to your devices? Or is there something deeper I'm not getting?
> CAD software is a great example especially at larger orgs. Why should software be a recurring cost in the name of development and support?
But it always has been. Every larger org has always wound up purchasing upgrades. Not only for new features, but because professional tools often include all sorts of interoperability plugins and you need the upgraded ones to interact with other newer third-party products.
Maybe an individual hobbyist can get away with not upgrading, but upgrades have always been just a recurring cost for larger orgs.
Funny that you talk about greed when one of the reasons everything went the way of subscriptions is because of piracy. Even here and today, people defend pirating movies when you can rent one for a few bucks in 4K HDR with Dolby.
Nothing but greed by people making top 1%-10%ile incomes.
I’m 40 years old and generally hate subscriptions for desktop software. Local tools that work offline should be “ownable” in the licensed sense.
When I built my indie app “Label LIVE” it was designed to work offline and be paid for ONCE. After a few years there was enough user demand for a less expensive subscription-based license. Today, about 20% of customers purchase the subscription and the rest buy one-time licenses.
Why would someone buy the subscription? Here are some good reasons: 1) seasonal need, 2) monthly price is small enough for company credit card without manager approval, 3) extend the 14 day trial without larger commitment, 4) can’t afford one time license due to cash flow.
Another unintended benefit to me (as a solo developer) is the inexpensive monthly license lowers the demand for pirating and cracking. That’s a nice plus, because it makes the app accessible to all.
Pretty vague announcement, I find it hard to believe 37 signals will stray too far from the SaaS cash cow they arguably helped to create with basecamp..
I’ve fully flipped the bozo bit on 37Signals. They just keep smelling their own farts. Their attitude is incredibly off putting and while it’s been many years since I last used their software I found it lackluster.
Subscriptions are preferable for 90% of the software I use. I’d rather pay a lower upfront cost and be able to cancel whenever I want. If it’s for business I rarely want to self-host at my scale and I self-host a ton of little things locally (open source). If I’m already paying I’d rather have someone else maintain it for me.
> Add up your SaaS subscriptions last year. You should own that shit by now.
I know a lot of companies are adopting a more irreverent marketing approach, using words that 20 years ago would have been bleeped out.
The swear word itself does not offend me. But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed, especially when the words are coming straight from the CEO.
Purchasing the domain Once.com alone was likely a large investment, and so I would expect this announcement to be more polished. Yet this copy reads more like a blogger's grumpy manifesto.
On the other hand, i liked that part. Hell, the fact that it was straight and on topic made me read it, otherwise i'd ignore it - after all it is an announcement for a bunch of products they'll make.
These "polished" announcements you mention tend to be generic borefests that use a bunch of words meaning nothing and feel like some basic AI could write them. Often accompanied with a bunch of generic humans smiling on the camera or doing "work" by pointing/touching their devices. On a site with a white background and a couple inoffensive colors. You know exactly what style i refer to, there have been 283923 of them and i'm sure there are as many site templates for them in pretty much every sort of technology to make sites out there.
> But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed…
If you dig a bit more, the use of the word "shit" may fall lower on your list of things that give you a negative opinion about how the business is managed.
I mean, they lost a good percentage of their top engineers a couple years back because leadership had a pretty serious communications issue with their employees. So not exactly surprised.
I think the usage of the swear word is to explicitly differentiate themselves from all the spineless companies that can't do that, potentially due to a bullshit "growth & engagement"/advertising-based business model. I like it.
Readit News
[1] https://prodesigntools.com/products/adobe-cs6-pricing-list.h...
[2] https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html
Office used to be $600 for one copy that could run on one operating system.
I can now get an Office 365 subscription for $99 a year for five users and I can use it on my Mac, a Windows PC, iPad, iPhone and all five users get 1TB of storage each
1. CS6 came out in 2012. According to the BLS calculator, $400 in 2012 is $532 today: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=400.00&year1=2...
2. You're cherry picking the worst one, do the math for CS6 After Effects at $999 (~$1.3k today) vs $21/month and you only break even after >5 years.
I don’t want to defend Adobe, but inflation is real.
And they used to have upgrades that cost less money.
I think this price is more or less what it used to be, the real advantages of that everyone’s just up-to-date all the time.
I can’t imagine trying to support software on like 20 different versions, that would’ve been insanity for the support team.
Keeping everyone on one version is probably the real cost savings money maker for Adobe here. =P
Additionally the individual Dreamweaver price is very high compared to "All Apps" plan at $660 per year.
I'm sure a lot of users would appreciate a one-time payment option for Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro on the iPad, including teenagers who have some money saved up.
There are no continuous vital features updates like being able to read newer camera RAW files for ACR. I find a one-time payment much more suitable for FCP.
With LPX and anything remotely in music production area the subscription just seems dumb. Omnisphere, Komplete, FL Studio, Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live were all in the realm for decades, and while subscription did became a thing (especially for very expensive samples like Hollywood, Spitfire, etc.) features in a DAW are sufficient for a long life cycle in production, and mandating a subscription for "keeping latest" just seems odd.
If you used to need to use software for a weeklong project, you'd have to pirate it because there was no way to justify the cost.
Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel.
It's a huge improvement in flexibility and paying for what you use. Not to mention the software is always updated, so you don't need to worry about whether your image editor you purchased 7 years ago supports the RAW format of the camera that came out 2 years ago.
I see this the other way. I don't want to be forced to upgrade. If you add valuable features, I'll pay for them. Otherwise, I'm happy to stick with what I have. Oftentimes the upgrades come with a new UX to learn, are slower, and remove functionality I relied on all to add new stuff I have no need for.
I think JetBrains hits an interesting middle ground. I can run whatever version of the IDE I want (as far as I can tell) but pay to have access to the full suite.
Or you sign up and then Adobe does everything in its power to stop you from cancelling, including lying to your face: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10930079 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170324161306/http://www.geek.c...). Just because subscriptions can work out well doesn't mean they don't get abused by companies.
Guess what, those people wouldn't have paid for a license anyway, so no real license money is lost.
More importantly, it needs to be said that if you got an older computer you could just use an older version of the software, no problem. Now you can't do that anymore. You not only have to pay the 7$/month, you also need to buy a new ipad every once in a while.
I'm still anti subscription. I do pay for software (paid 150 euros out of my personal pocket last year for a SecureCRT license and i love it).
But the whole subscription thing is just BS.
I'm curious what makes SecureCRT better than PuTTY or even Windows Terminal enough to be worth paying for - am I missing out on some amazing experience, or does it have certain amazing features others lack, or...?
EDIT: I think I've misunderstood the V2 Universal License. Looks like it means I get access to all version 2 apps from Affinity.
It a distraught for her to think of losing access to her creatively outlet if she was to unable to afford the current subscription model.
Subscriptions should be followed up with a perpetual license. She's just glad she forked out on CS2 when it was DVD based.
However, For some apps it makes sense to have it as a one time payment - things like offline games or utilities the solve a problem and don’t need continuous updates.
Other than that, subscriptions are the way to go because software is a service more than a final product.
One the other end of the spectrum are all the mobile apps that start as a $2.99 one time purchase, add a bunch of features, and say "Actually it'll be $11.99/year forever thanks."
When every app starts to do that it adds up fast.
I say this as a personal subscriber to the JetBrains Toolbox. I'm unhappy about the mechanics of the fallback license, but I also find utility in paying the subscription for right now (really the last few years).
The fact that they do churn out lots of good updates is an argument for SaaS.
I'm looking at you, Sketch.
But you're right, now that I'm reading the FAQ on their pricing page, I'm finding it really confusing:
"""
Q: Is Sketch only available as a subscription?
A: No. You can still get a Mac-only license for $120 yearly [sic] if you don’t need the web app and only want to use the Mac app to design. (...)
"""
Their answer seems rather contradictory. Does anybody know whether they offer perpetual licenses or not? Or know of a competitor who does?
[0]: https://workingcopyapp.com
I bought that subscription in September 2022, after having paid monthly for a long while.
Now I won’t have to think about renewing the subscription again until September 2025.
Looks like this is an announcement of an announcement. Those are off topic on HN.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Before SaaS there used to be a massive pool of native apps, doing all kinds of different things... You indeed paid your license and lived with the product until the next major version, but there was little chance to just use something for a month or two, so the prices were higher.
With SaaS you do end up renting stuff all over the place, and never owning anything, but the prices are more affordable... Think about an AutoCAD license, that shit is privative for a hobbyist... With SaaS you can in fact afford something to begin with.
In reality, corporations are driven by greed and greed pushed the subscription model. For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one. For others, it is terrible. CAD software is a great example especially at larger orgs. Why should software be a recurring cost in the name of development and support?
> For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one.
I've only ever purchased albums. Why in the world would I pay a monthly fee for something I presumably want to listen for for the rest of my life? 10-15$ for a one time purchase is far preferable to a monthly fee of nearly the same. I'm also weary of the idea of the services that have the right to stream music from labels X, Y, and Z suddenly pulling out, cutting off my access to the albums from artists I want to listen to at any given time.
I hope none of that comes off sounding "snobby" or whatever, I just don't understand how subscribing to listen to music is adventitious. Is it just not having to transfer music from the computer to your devices? Or is there something deeper I'm not getting?
But it always has been. Every larger org has always wound up purchasing upgrades. Not only for new features, but because professional tools often include all sorts of interoperability plugins and you need the upgraded ones to interact with other newer third-party products.
Maybe an individual hobbyist can get away with not upgrading, but upgrades have always been just a recurring cost for larger orgs.
Nothing but greed by people making top 1%-10%ile incomes.
When I built my indie app “Label LIVE” it was designed to work offline and be paid for ONCE. After a few years there was enough user demand for a less expensive subscription-based license. Today, about 20% of customers purchase the subscription and the rest buy one-time licenses.
Why would someone buy the subscription? Here are some good reasons: 1) seasonal need, 2) monthly price is small enough for company credit card without manager approval, 3) extend the 14 day trial without larger commitment, 4) can’t afford one time license due to cash flow.
Another unintended benefit to me (as a solo developer) is the inexpensive monthly license lowers the demand for pirating and cracking. That’s a nice plus, because it makes the app accessible to all.
Good for them I guess, I do hope we see more custom artisan software out there and less VC SaaS milkcows
Deleted Comment
Subscriptions are preferable for 90% of the software I use. I’d rather pay a lower upfront cost and be able to cancel whenever I want. If it’s for business I rarely want to self-host at my scale and I self-host a ton of little things locally (open source). If I’m already paying I’d rather have someone else maintain it for me.
I know a lot of companies are adopting a more irreverent marketing approach, using words that 20 years ago would have been bleeped out.
The swear word itself does not offend me. But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed, especially when the words are coming straight from the CEO.
Purchasing the domain Once.com alone was likely a large investment, and so I would expect this announcement to be more polished. Yet this copy reads more like a blogger's grumpy manifesto.
These "polished" announcements you mention tend to be generic borefests that use a bunch of words meaning nothing and feel like some basic AI could write them. Often accompanied with a bunch of generic humans smiling on the camera or doing "work" by pointing/touching their devices. On a site with a white background and a couple inoffensive colors. You know exactly what style i refer to, there have been 283923 of them and i'm sure there are as many site templates for them in pretty much every sort of technology to make sites out there.
If you dig a bit more, the use of the word "shit" may fall lower on your list of things that give you a negative opinion about how the business is managed.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22418208/basecamp-all-hand...