Hacker News Reader

Comment by randmeerkat | Hacker News Reader

> Technically that's what we call "buying software".

What a novel idea. You mean once upon a time you didn’t have to pay a monthly racket for a piece of software you wanted..?

View on HN

That's right. Rather than paying your $10/month 'racket', you simply paid $300 one time.

Then every 3 years or so you spent $300 again to get the updated version. It was a much better system!

> Then every 3 years or so you spent $300 again to get the updated version. It was a much better system!

By your math it was. 10x12x3=360 > 300. Subscriptions cost more than buying the actual software. Why do you think most companies switched to a subscription model?

It was a better system, because if I didn't need the new features, I could keep using the version of Microsoft Word that I bought 15 years prior. That's why they stopped selling it that way.

Even if the price is the same, "old" distribution models have benefits. If you're satisfied with your current version and it still works, no need to continue paying. If you maintain older systems, your software still works without continuing to pay in perpetuity.

I much prefer buying software licenses outright than renting them forever.

Apples and ladybugs are both red but (I imagine) they taste quite differently. Which one you should use probably depends on whether you’re baking a pie or dealing with pests in your garden.

Declaring them equal based on a single metric like color would be as silly as suggesting subscriptions and purchases are the same because their costs over an arbitrary period of time are roughly similar.

it’s owning versus rent-seeking and this is a ridiculous hair to split

my owned software doesn’t abruptly stop working when I don’t pay my “rent”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com