[ryandrake]

> One significant advantage of SaaS over traditional download-and-run-and-pay-for-updates apps is the fact that everyone is always on the same version.

This is undeniably an advantage to the developer, but much less so for users. When a developer releases a terrible update that removes features or does an unnecessary re-design, in the world of non-SaaS, I could simply choose to stay on the older version. Now that choice is gone and the company is in charge of what version I am using. This is a huge step backwards.

I expect when I obtain software, it will continue to work forever, behave the same way forever, until/unless I choose to update it. That fundamental promise is going away quickly.