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Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

There's a lot of arguments one way or another - but the killer deal-breaker for many of us is the feeling of being held hostage: once you stop paying subscription, you typically don't get to "keep last paid version" - you loose application, and any files, data or artifacts that you created with it or would open/manipulate with it :-/

The other aspect is just how well we each feel we can keep track of and be disciplined with dozens of subscriptions. I'm the other way around from you - I'd pay $5 for an app without blinking, even to "try it out"; but I hesitate to "commit" to $3 a year, let alone $3 a month, for something new.

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I think the way Jetbrains does it is ideal - every chunk of 12 months you pay for with your subscription gives you permanent use of that version.

But this only works if you're releasing a new version every subscription period -- and in that case, it's equivalent to upgrade pricing.

If the developer isn't providing upgrades then they shouldn't keep getting paid for a product someone already bought. If the argument is that developers need _regular_ pay days then we have dedicated financial instruments for smoothing an irregular cash flow.

In any case, subscriptions aren't directly equivalent to upgrade pricing even when an upgrade is provided every subscription period because in an upgrade pricing model the end user can always choose to stop paying and continue to use software they already bought.

Oh yeah, I agree with you. I was replying to the above commenter about the Jetbrains subscription system and trying to understand how it differs from a pay-to-upgrade system.

If the argument is that developers need _regular_ pay days then we have dedicated financial instruments for smoothing an irregular cash flow.

I think that ignores how little most developers make in the app store. They aren't rolling in money, most are just trying to figure out a way to eke out a living.

I think developers would make a ton more of money, if the App store didn't suck so badly. My spending on iOS apps has rather gone down over time, because the App universe got increasingly worse.

Yes, most models converge in the case of frequent updates by the developer and regular usage by the customer and the customer upgrading regularly. The difference is, that when there are no regular updates, why should a developer get constantly paid? And sometimes, there are huge updates, which are not really reflected in value by a reasonable subscription. On the other side, the subscription model holds the customer hostage, the customer cannot decide to use an older version a bit longer and update later.

I firmly believe this model is the future, and really, the only sustainable way forward.

It's the only solution so far that doesn't lock customers into a subscription that may stop giving them value commensurate with what they're paying, while giving developers a recurring source of revenue that incentivizes continuous improvement.

I've seen it work wonders for Sketch, which seems to have increased its pace of development after switching to an update-subscription model (as a side note, the lack of a clear, standard name for this model may be its greatest disadvantage). I use an active subscription at work, while I have a slightly older version that I've currently let lapse on my personal machine because I only need it occasionally. Between subscriptions and major-version upgrades, it really is the best of both worlds.

The maddening thing with Apple is that this model would slot neatly into the App Store. All they'd need is a new type of subscription that gates App Store updates. Apple already keeps old packages on the server, as one discovers if they download a purchased app on a device stuck on an old version of iOS – the only thing missing is the will to implement this model.

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