Makers aren't interested in paying for software because they don't generally make money off what they make. The key to any business is proving value. For makers, they're already used to providing sweat equity, so to speak. The thought of a little more probably isn't troubling, but paying more money (over and above their investment in hardware and software they weren't able to get to free) is very possibly what pushes it from hobby to detrimental to their fiscal health.
I don't know codebenders, so I'm out on a limb here with respect to their business. But for any business in this market, you need to figure out a way to be some kind of Kickstarter, not just major their lives a bit easier. Enable something they couldn't do before you came along. Help them turn their hobby into a business, or at least make it a zero-sum game by making a tiny profit off what they're doing. Even that isn't a guarantee but it'll put you a little closer to the goal.
> Makers aren't interested in paying for software because they don't generally make money off what they make
I'm not sure this is true. Makers will pay money for other tools and materials (some of which are quite expensive) without any expectation that they'll make that money back.
How many of their existing 10,000 monthly active users would be happy to pay for the service?
Well, if you start with a movement predicated on sharing, and then say that "everything you keep public will be free", you're not exactly picking a good start.
I wish more startups would charge for their product, instead of offering a $#*!@!# free tier that then proceeds to kill them more often than not. Yeah, yeah, "growth hacking", blah blah.
It's not that users don't want to pay, it's that startups turn down money so they can roll the dice for hypergrowth and acquisition.
People naturally overvalue physical goods and their cost to make, while under-valuing virtual goods (you're willing to pay for a $10 coffee with a 95% profit margin than a $5 Monthly subscription)
In the Maker movement, people gladly buy an Arduino with a 75% markup (the final cost is 3-4X the cost of making it), but they wouldn't pay for an IDE, or a library etc.
It's also true that there are many things aiming for your hard-earned money so people are reluctant to go ahead.
And then of course, there's the competition. With the Arduino IDE (and now Arduino Create) being available for free given Arduino's business model (make money from H/W), Makers aren't incentivized to pay, in fact they (naturally?) expect other things to be free as well
> you're willing to pay for a $10 coffee with a 95% profit margin than a $5 Monthly subscription
One of those is $10, the other costs infinity dollars.
There's a large, and IMO underappreciated, amount of friction involved in subscription payment plans, given how often people are trying to get customers to sign up for them.
I'd buy a $50 tool more or less on impulse. A $10 or even $5/mo subscription is something I'd need to think over, not even because of the cost, but because I know it's something I'm going to have to deal with later on -- it means another place that I need to remember to update my credit card number whenever it gets changed, another thing that I might have to deal with the hassle of canceling later... overall, beyond the potential for the costs to add up over time, it's the construction of an ongoing relationship when all I wanted as a consumer was a sort of "one night stand".
Lots of vendors are looking for commitment from their customers, and I think a lot of potential customers are getting tired of it. Subscription business models are attractive for obvious reasons on the vendor side, but I wonder how many drive-by customers they pass up.
The cost of running a website forever is also infinity dollars, so if you want to provide a service in the cloud, you have to charge a cost that is at least proportional to the cost of running it.
I guess I'm a maker now. It's not that one $5US/month subscription is going to hurt, it's that there's tens of these kinds of tools. If I subscribed to an online code editor, maybe a graphics editor, a CAD tool, a circuit making tool - that'd add up. Yes it's a contrived example but it's the same issue you see in the video/music streaming space. Everyone's carved out their own little niche so you can't just pay for one service, you're paying over and over again.
The problem is the software is free, but if every user of their service sent $2.50/month then you could run it on their computer instead of your own computer. Seeing as I have perfectly good computers, why do I need to pay to use someone elses computer and insert all the middleman inefficiencies?
Last bubble there was a stereotypical internet gnomes underpants model of becoming tech billionaires. Its the same thing today:
"I want you to pay me to be your middleman"
"OK then what will the UX be?"
"It'll be like I'm not even here... well, best case anyway"
....
"Profit!"
Its getting to be a hard sell in the market. Nobody ever woke up and said "My HVAC system is too simple and too predictable, I need to get Google into the flowchart somehow".
Edited to add another way to look at the problem is at high cost its now possible for people without "the knack" to use an IDE. Now... why would people without "the knack" need an IDE? "A soldering iron so simple my mom could use it" "Cool but my mom doesn't want to use a soldering iron" "... crickets ..."
I don't know codebenders, so I'm out on a limb here with respect to their business. But for any business in this market, you need to figure out a way to be some kind of Kickstarter, not just major their lives a bit easier. Enable something they couldn't do before you came along. Help them turn their hobby into a business, or at least make it a zero-sum game by making a tiny profit off what they're doing. Even that isn't a guarantee but it'll put you a little closer to the goal.