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Comment by makecheck | Hacker News Reader

There are at least two elements to software maintenance: one is adding truly new features, and the other is making stupid changes just to keep old features working as they always did (often due to platform or hardware changes, especially with Apple!).

I see Apple coughing up none of the costs that they create by regularly fiddling with their platforms and hardware in breaking ways, yet that is a big reason why software can’t be sensibly “bought once”. Now they’ve come up with a scheme where they not only don’t give developers discounts for maintaining software but actually take yet another cut.

Don’t judge developers too harshly.

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> There are at least two elements to software maintenance: one is adding truly new features, and the other is making stupid changes just to keep old features working as they always did (often due to platform or hardware changes, especially with Apple!).

I'm OK with the model that VMware is using, at least on the Mac.

You buy version X, you have version X. Version X gets updates for some amount of time. Eventually, a Mac OS upgrade makes version X no longer work, so you have to pay an upgrade price to upgrade to version Y. There is no subscription, but there is regular income to the company to make the updates you describe.

I like that model, too, but at least for something like 1Password I can see two issues. You'll have people using older versions with possible security vulnerabilities. If you're using hosted passwords you have to deal with dealing with multiple versions of the client indefinitely (although, you'll probably have to deal with a bit of that anyway)

When you include the hosting service, having a subscription (since you're providing an ongoing service) makes perfect sense. In this case, so does also forcing the current version.

I agree that subscriptions make perfect sense for services (because servers, support, etc. cost money on a monthly basis), but the trend seems to be to create an arbitrary reliance on a hosted service as a way to justify subscriptions. Luckily 1Password hasn't totally gone that way yet, since they still offer standalone licenses for local vaults, but I feel like it's the direction they're going.

This is what this article is about. The App Store offers no mechanism for upgrade pricing, your only options are to 1. upgrade existing app (free for existing users) or 2. release a new app (full price for existing users).

Yes. I feel that, because of the currently constantly changing nature of hardware and software platforms, subscriptions are going to be the only way of sustaining a business. It’s no longer even software as a service, but software IS a service.

The only exceptions are situations where hardware and platforms change slowly or not at all. e.g. Single player video games (and even that is largely consoles), certain kinds of embedded, etc.

People are already becoming frustrated with all the subscriptions they have, though. People are “fine” with paying to maintain things like their home and car. The problem with software is that it doesn’t really “break” from use. Updating the platform and hardware around the software is what can break it. It would be like the pipes in your home are indestructible and never burst in winter, but they can explode when building codes update or the water treatment plant changes it’s equipment.

I hope that it's only a matter of time before people start turning their pitchforks at Apple, Microsoft, maybe Google et al who are the perpetrators of the majority of this platform fiddling that stops software from working.

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