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Comment by bearjaws | Hacker News Reader

I don't entirely agree with going after SaaS as an addictive "thing".

SaaS solved the issue of: I want continually improved and supported software, but I don't want to pay $5000 (or whatever fee makes sense) upfront for it.

I used to work for a CD / DVD / Blu ray mastering company that powered pretty much every major movie release (mastering), and every consumer CD burner (drivers).

Meanwhile, people call in complaining that X is broken, on a version we released 6 years ago and no longer maintain. Since we had to float 2 years of revenue per customer, a license was around $3000, meaning smaller shops hated upgrading...

To claim that now that they're familiar with our software, all their processes use it, that they're "addicted" is quite the leap.

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I think this makes a ton of sense for corporate customers and specialized, expensive software packages, but the model has trickled down to weather apps and text editors. Software that didn't/wouldn't cost more than ~$50 in an "up front purchase" model, but now requires an ongoing subscription to keep using. Many apps using a SaaS business model also don't like to let you manage your own data and insist or at least nudge you towards storing data in their cloud - which locks you in a lot more.

In addition, B2C subscription software incentivizes making the customer dependent upon your software. If I pay up-front for software, the business is agnostic as to how much or little I use the software. If I subscribe to a SaaS service, they are incentivized to manipulate me to use the software more.

> B2C subscription software incentivizes making the customer dependent upon your software.

This is one of the points made in the video, explicitly.

>but the model has trickled down to weather apps and text editors. Software that didn't/wouldn't cost more than ~$50 in an "up front purchase" model, but now requires an ongoing subscription to keep using.

How about using a free text editor or weather app instead? Feels weird to complain about subscription models when there's free first party weather apps for ios and android, and most of the popular text editors are free.

They're just examples of wider issues - not sure why you're getting hung up on the examples.

No, I think that's exactly the point.

I've heard this many of times: "I want to use X but it is subscription-only! .. What about Y, it does the same? ... Y is not polished enough for me, it is missing (some totally optional feature)"

I am sure there are some cases where subscription is the only options, but I bet those are super rare. A lot of times when people complain about subscriptions, they are themselves subscribing to totally optional things like games and weather app and text editors.

My brother in Christ, the video itself gives other examples than text editors and games and weather apps!

The big one is Adobe and the lockin using Adobe products. I wouldn't say there is an industry standard replacement for Photoshop with the features people need, that is interoperable with others using Photoshop, and without a subscription fee otherwise people would already be using it!

> My brother in Christ, the video itself gives other examples than text editors and games and weather apps!

And if you read my or the parent's comment more carefully, you'd see that we're not dismissing concerns for all subscription software, only pointing out that weather apps and text editors are particularly bad examples. It's like making a rant about companies are profiteering, and using sports cars as examples. True, the fact that profiteering in sports cars can be justified doesn't mean that profiteering in other parts of the economy doesn't exist, but it's fair to point out how bad of an example it is.

I agree that in a way it makes sense for a lot of software. But as a consumer who just wants something to use once in a while it does not make any sense. It just feels like you are being milked.

I think there are 2 issues. The first is that if you dont use a piece of software very often it does not make sense to have the subscription because it is super expensive compared to the value you get. The second issue is that you make your workflow depended on something and that gives them so much pricing power and you can't stop paying because it would be a lot of work to move to something else.

Music streaming is a good model for me because I like to listen to lots of different music and if I bought all of it it would be much more expensive. I also don't feel locked in because I backup my playlists and listening history so if spotify dissappeared tomorrow I still have everything and just move to somrthing else. But I don't like netflix because I am not big on tv shows and I just want to watch one show every couple months.

the problem with music streaming is that music randomly disappears from the sites! I remember the first time I tried to queue up an album on Spotify and it was just gone. Heartbreaking.

Nope, not worth it. Bandcamp lets you listen to albums before you buy them, and once you own them, you have the files and they can't just disappear.

not to mention that you can't even hear music on streaming sites that has unauthorized samples in it, which is a sort of absurd and related topic (that it's illegal to make some kinds of art) but practically speaking I just want to listen to Neil Cicierega in the same place as everything else.

Seconded (though I subscribe to Netflix and not Spotify).

As a prelude, I should note that I strongly prefer listening to albums over singles, which puts me in a minority, so the following probably doesn't apply to you:

I've been purchasing music since the early 90s, and specifically on CDs since the mid 90s. Currently one month of Spotify costs about the same as a new album, and 2-10 used albums, depending on what sort of deal I can get.

In a counterfactual world in which Spotify existed in 1995, Let's say I purchased mostly new albums for an average of 1.5 albums[1] per month instead of paying for Spotify. I would end up with 342 albums, which is a pretty decent variety. I just checked my library, and I don't own quite that many. Part of this is due to how @#$# expensive CDs were when I was at my poorest[2]

1: This is probably low, because I might pick up 10 albums for $10 in one visit to a flea-market or via a craigslist find, while I'm not going to go on a triple-digit new-CD binge.

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_price_fixing

> I agree that in a way it makes sense for a lot of software. But as a consumer who just wants something to use once in a while it does not make any sense. It just feels like you are being milked.

What's the alternative? I suspect users would be equally upset if they were charged per use of the software (eg. $5 per photo edited).

I would honestly love to pay $2-$5 for a weekend license to Canva or Illustrator. Once in a blue moon I need to hammer a logo or an event flyer or a random SVG and then I won't touch the tool again for 3 months.

> What's the alternative? I suspect users would be equally upset if they were charged per use of the software (eg. $5 per photo edited).

For the publisher: offer the customer a choice. I doubt that many businesses and enthusiasts that depend upon a product are going to dump a subscription if it is tied to product support and upgrades. Occasional users who aren't interested in support or upgrades may end up purchasing a perpetual license. It's not exactly a new concept. From the descriptions I've seen, this is pretty much what JetBrains does.

As for fee per use, that $5 is a deal if you only have a half dozen photos to edit. (The least expensive way to access Photoshop for a one-time task is $35/month.) Granted, that's probably not the type of service that Adobe is interested in. Which is fine. There are plenty of companies that would be more than happy to develop a product that is better suited to that market.

As for myself, I have found a much better solution for infrequent tasks: open source software. In my younger days, I would have considered less expensive commercial options but I have been burnt too many times by "perpetual" licenses being temporary licenses. So instead of businesses getting revenue, they end up with nothing at all.

I might be an exception here but I’m actually pretty happy turning on and off a one month subscription twice a year for something I use that often. For things that offer a trial that resets after a few months, it actually ends up free.

I wish there was some sort of "$40 for 40 hours" (eg: sketchup), and even better if there were some sort of "Humble Bundle" where you could do "$100 for 100 days of usage on any of ...these... services".

A lot of time I need the tool for a project (eg: one week), and would rather look for something open source or non-subscription-based since agreeing to ANY subscription to an important tool temporarily is akin to agreeing to it permanently.

It's not the same as "rent a rug cleaner from Home Depot" where there's competition, low learning curve, high compatibility, etc.

At https://youtu.be/XuTQbOo3Y30?t=1391 the speaker agrees with you: "Particularly for freelancers and small businesses then, the appeal to this model is actually pretty clear. Previously, access to such software required substantial investment. But now it was relatively manageable overhead which could be paid for over time."

The counter-argument, at https://youtu.be/XuTQbOo3Y30?t=1433, is that once you have a large set of documents in a proprietary format (in the Adobe example) and built-up muscle memory then you "addicted" in the sense you are dependent on the service and can't easily switch without a lot of effort, and the only option is to go cold-turkey.

> SaaS solved the issue of: I want continually improved and supported software, but I don't want to pay $5000 (or whatever fee makes sense) upfront for it.

Jetbrains solved this is in an even better and consumer-friendly way:

- You buy the software on a recurring subscription and always get the latest version

- If you stop your subscription, you can continue using a year-old version of the software forever

This aligns everyone's incentives! Jetbrains is incentivized to invest in R&D, because they don't want customers to decide the older version is fine and not continue their subscription. The customers know that regardless of what happens, they will always have access to the software they need.

Same with cheap printers being a form of addiction creation, that's a real stretch of the analogy. It's a business model where most of the charges are backloaded, that's it.

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