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Comment by adastra22 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm old school, but I won't "buy" (rent?) subscriptions for software. I expect to own it outright, at to receive at least security updates for a reasonable time period.

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There is a middle ground in that you buy the current major version and get updates to it, but you would have to pay again if you ever want to upgrade to the next major version. (If you don’t want to, you can still continue to use the version you bought indefinitely.)

But this model introduces an incentive to artificially bump the major version ASAP so as to be able to charge again for updates. One way this happens is with feature creep, to justify a new version every few months. A "done" application wouldn't reasonably get a new major version ever, so the software becomes ever-growing and then bloat ends up happening.

>A "done" application wouldn't reasonably get a new major version ever

Did that company not want to make money? Even if they want to pretend their software is done, there is incentive to just change the name, add a new feature or two, and maybe poke at the UI so it looks different enough to be a definitely new product that you should buy and not mostly the same as last time.

There is the counter-incentive that people won’t upgrade if they don’t think it’s worth it. What you describe doesn’t usually happen, in my experience.

These are three different models:

1) Free lifetime updates 2) No subscription, but limited updates 3) Subscription model

The parent was suggesting no. 2 (what you would find acceptable as well).

I just don't think the old model of "one shot" software works. Firstly, security updates. Next, dependencies change over time and you want the software to still work. Third, adding new features and keeping it integrated with the OS / UI kits etc. requires ongoing work.

In theory you could have a single binary that never changes, ever, but it's just unrealistic.

Subscription models are fine, Jetbrains is the fallback if you're going to be super adamant about refusing to fund ongoing development, but software is not like other products. Maybe in the past when it was very simple within a simple ecosystem it was different.

There's something to be said for reducing the pricing to something more sustainable and more explicity upstream donations, but "pay once, have the developer continue to work for me for free if I keep it long enough" isn't realistic.

You're right, most of people wont buy this app if it had subscription-based model

> I expect to own it outright

Unless you are the legal creator or buy the copyright, you never own software outright, you license it from the owner (or its public domain and has no owner.)

At least in Europe, you do own the copy of the software you bought. The first-sale doctrine applies.

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/201...

Well, yeah, that's what the GP is suggesting.

Do you expect to receive a free car every new model year after buying one outright?

One time purchase + annual maintenance fee is a pretty common pricing model.

If the product stops working if you don’t pay the maintenance fee then it’s a subscription model with an initial down-payment. Car maintenance doesn’t fall into the annual fee model, as much as manufacturers and dealers would like, you don’t have to use them for periodic repairs or servicing. Car features that require yearly renewals (navigation and the like) would be subscriptions with a one-time free trial.

One time purchase plus yearly renewals to keep the product operating are one shaky legal grounds.

I think you're misunderstanding the above comment. Buying a perpetual license for a particular version (or set of versions), then in the future optionally paying a fee for a new major version not covered by that license is extremely common and imo the most fair model for both creator and customer. If you never buy an upgrade or newer version, the version you own continues to work the same way it always has. You just don't get the newest updates for free.

It's common and fair, but it seemed it somehow didn't qualify as outright ownership.

Security updates is not a new model; most cars come with a warranty (which is not the same thing either but the point is you do get some form of support for free for a period of time).

My car comes with free recall servicing (security updates) and a manufacturer warranty.

I bet this doesn't come from the kindness of car manufacturers, but through laws and regulations requiring that.

We probably don't have any of that with software, yet.

Some jurisdictions do.

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