[fxtentacle]

As someone who has previously worked on real time audio apps on Mac, I find the price justified.

Supporting MacOS with anything that needs kernel drivers requires constant updates and the potential market is so small that it kind of needs to be expensive per customer or else you need to cut corners with the quality.

Windows has 5x the market share, so there you can sell for 80% less per user because you'll sell more licenses which compensates that. And a windows version for $2 per month sounds fair, so then $10 monthly on Mac is fair, too.

[qppo]

Why do you need kernel extensions for realtime audio on Mac? If anything, CoreAudio is a dream to work with compared to the shitshow of APIs on Linux and Windows.

Not to mention there are plenty of cross platform libraries for real time audio where you would never need to care about the difference.

[klik99]

Anything that needs to create input/output devices for routing into other apps “in the box” requires kernel extensions. I’ve heard some hack together more real time guarantees for performance purposes (mac os has a habit of regressing on audio stream stability) but most people who need that guarantee will build on an open source os anyway.

CoreAudio is great, but since everyone just uses cross platform libraries will rarely be utilized to its fullest.

[nikanj]

Big Sur doesn't even support kernel extensions, so this sounds unlikely.

[klik99]

Quick google shows that subset of kexts still allowed. I updated to Big Sur last week and installed kernel extensions for exactly this reason.

[user-the-name]

You might be confusing this with the fact that Big Sur, on Apple Silicon, does not support x86 kernel extensions. It still supports them elsewhere, and it supports arm64 kernel extensions on Apple Silicon.

[Bishonen88]

in most cases, tools with subscriptions do not need more maintenance than products with a one-time purchase (don't know anything about this specific case, so dunno if it applies here). It's just that after adobe/jetbrains and others opened pandoras box, slowly but surely more and more devs try to make their tools to a continuous income stream...

It get's really silly to the point that a snipping app has a yearly subscription (xnip), calendars have subscriptions (fantastical) and many other tools which once would have been a $20-$30 purchase all now want $3-$10 a month.

Personally I'm sick of it. I'd rather go back to the 'old days'...

[hedora]

I recently installed dosbox on my rpi, and it made me seriously consider how hard it would be to modernize all that old software.

Desktop apps were mostly better, and were all much faster on the rpi than native alternatives are on my recent $2700 laptop.

Edit: modernize = app store for abandonware + docker-alike for dos instances.

[laumars]

GOG already does this for old games. But there’s a much bigger retro gaming following than there is a market sector for folk who just prefer older applications.

[ljm]

Typically also done by forcing some 'cloud sync' into it and then using that to justify the switch, moving control of your data into their hands and holding it hostage.

That was enough for me to ditch 1password in favour of bitwarden.

[reaperducer]

Typically also done by forcing some 'cloud sync' into it and then using that to justify the switch

Is this even needed on a Mac? Can't all Macintosh software just sync through iCloud, instead of relying on the developer's solution?

/ Serious question. I'm not a Mac software dev.

[airtonix]

except that in order to control your own data with bitwarden across many devices you need to spin up your own server.

Should checkout Enpass. - Has google drive/dropbox/webdave sync connectors. - runs on android/ios/mac/linux/windows

[fxtentacle]

While I agree with you in general, this tool appears to rely on a kernel extension for their virtual Webcam. And that creates a lot of additional and ongoing maintenance work.

[toast0]

Or they could charge you a simple price for the version for Mac OS 2020, and when Apple breaks it next year, you can buy the version for Mac OS 2021.

[imposterr]

Try explaining that to customers who paid for the software and don't understand why they have to pay again.

[reaperducer]

Tell them that's how it was done for decades and decades?

Plenty of successful software companies sell their software, instead of renting it.

Moreover, the billion dollar company I work for will not buy any software that requires a subscription, unless it's from Microsoft, Adobe, or another big name. If a program from Rando Joe's Softworks requires a subscription, the company will tell the employee to find another solution.

[kovek]

Anyone could make a copy of fantastical and sell it for cheaper with less support. What do you think about such an alternative?

[dakial1]

I completely understand your point of view of charging for the resources needed to get the work done, but the market does not really care for this and you need to charge what the clients are willing to pay for your product.

If clients are willing to pay less than the value of the resources necessary to build and maintain the product, you have either a communication problem (you're not showing the right value to your clients), or a market fit problem.

[maest]

The problem is, the price is capped at the top by the value the buyer gets.

The vagaries of doing real time audio on Macs don't have much weight on the price people will pay.