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Comment by cube2222 | Hacker News Reader

I don't really share OP's impressions. I think the move to the subscription model is one of the best things that happened to our industry in the recent years.

It's a model which lets you sustainably sell software and keep working on it, delivering updates, etc.

The pay per update model forces the creator to release big feature updates, even if the features are just bloat, as bug fix releases and stability work will usually sell much worse. That's mostly fixed by the subscription model.

I don't see how these are user hostile.

Yeah, subscriptions that are hard to cancel are bad. But that's just a scam, not an inherent problem with subscriptions. I can go and cancel any subscription I have in a few clicks - with the best experience being in the Apple App Store, where I have a single place to manage all subscriptions paid through the App Store.

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> I don't see how these are user hostile.

They lock you in to continuing to pay even when you no longer derive value.

Say you stopped using Photoshop years ago but suddenly need to export one of your old documents. You’re now forced to pay rent to Adobe for at least one month to access one of your own files. And Adobe won’t make it easy to unsubscribe again, which adds to the hassle.

> The pay per update model forces the creator to release big feature updates, even if the features are just bloat, as bug fix releases and stability work will usually sell much worse. That's mostly fixed by the subscription model.

Perpetual fallback licenses[1] solve that issue without forcing users to keep paying rent.

[1]: https://github.com/vitorgalvao/perpetual-fallback-licenses

> Say you stopped using Photoshop years ago but suddenly need to export one of your old documents. You’re now forced to pay rent to Adobe for at least one month to access one of your own files. And Adobe won’t make it easy to unsubscribe again, which adds to the hassle.

Yes, if a software uses a proprietary file format and you lose access to that software, then you can't open the files anymore. That sounds pretty straightforward to me. Though in the case of Photoshop files it doesn't really apply, as a lot of other software accepts their file format.

> Perpetual fallback licenses[1] solve that issue without forcing users to keep paying rent.

That's basically what I meant with paid updates. I know the model, I use Jetbrains software. I don't think the model would work as universally as subscriptions. I expect most people wouldn't keep paying if the maintainers are only doing stability and bug fixing work, as long as these specific issues don't affect them, which in turn would raise the price of a single fallback license.

I do agree… since adobe started they their subscription service I was finally able to afford photoshop!

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