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Comment by carsongross | Hacker News Reader

It's more like noting that cutting off the frogs legs makes the frog unable to jump: after cutting off all future revenue from a user, you no longer receive revenue from that user.

Regarding your second point, software is plagued by the zombie minimal-viable product. Sparrow is a pretty damned good email client right now. What could they offer to make me upgrade?

This is why smart developers and good software will move into SaaS, whether users are excited about it or not.

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I can buy a lawn mower, why should I have to rent software?

You can buy a lawn mower or rent a lawn mower, but you can't buy it for a rental price.

I'd rather own myself, but I suspect we've got a lot of market education on all sides to go through before we figure out that you can't sell apps for $0.99 at anything other than lottery-ticket odds.

A lawn mover still has cost after the initial purchase. You need to buy oil and gas, fix minor issues, etc, and at some point it dies and you need to buy a new one. Similarly, software needs to be maintained. Except, somebody else maintains (and even improves) it for you, and they need to make a living as well.

Not true. Software should work without any oil or maintenance (modulo bugs). Consumables are a lousy argument. My computer uses electricity, the money I pay for it doesn't go to the software developers any more than the gas money goes to the lawnmower manufacturer.

The maintenance is keeping compatibility with current versions of the operating system.

I'm starting to become a fan of base module free/low cost + pay per extra feature.

> The maintenance is keeping compatibility with current versions of the operating system.

Back in my days, operating systems kept compatibility with applications. If you want it the other way around, you'll have to pay more for the application, one way or another.

Eh, Apple has had an issue with this historically.

Because the developers that sold you software are all out of business, and the ones that are left will only rent it to you.

I think the devs that rent software have yet to demonstrate longevity. Renting services, e.g. Cloud storage, Internet access, or whatever yes, but pure software rental has yet to demonstrate it can work.

The devs that don't rent are demonstrating lack of longevity today. If the market choices become rent software or learn to make it yourself, people will rent and deal with it--a demonstration won't enter into it.

The customers you want are the ones that recognize value, and are willing to pay good money for it.

I think this captures it. You develop your code, you charge a price that allows you to be supported, and if the value equation is there you win, if not you try again.

This is not a software-specific problem, see planned obsolescence in the real world. Everyone loves a steady revenue stream.

Lawn mowers cost hundreds of dollars for the most basic bare-bones package, and into tens of thousands of dollars if you want all the bells and whistles.

If you want to buy software, then you need to pay buyer's pricing. Almost nobody is willing to do that.

There are a lot of lawnmowing and landscaping services out there which save you the time of having to mow.

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