[danpalmer]

Subscriptions are uncontroversial when there's a perceived cost to the user of the ongoing usage. In fact I believe it tracks very closely with the "Cost of Goods Sold" (COGS).

No one questions whether Dropbox should be a one-off price or a subscription, there's obviously ongoing cost to storing the data. However for apps that don't have this there's always going to be push back.

Developers typically point to customer support and maintenance as reasons, but customer support is not typically part of COGS as it's not part of the product, most users won't use it, so counting the cost per user doesn't really work. Any user can justify why they won't use support. As for maintenance, this wasn't a problem when software got new versions every year or so with upgrade pricing.

Devs looking for ways to build sustainable business is great, but it's also reasonable for users to reject subscriptions where there's no explicit cost to providing that software.

[barbazoo]

For ongoing development there already exists a model where you buy a license that lets you use the current version plus maybe any upgrades happening in the next X months. I'd be happy to regularly pay 5 or 10 bucks for an app I love if it gets updates but that's not what we're seeing I think. The current model is based on subscriptions because of exactly one reason. Hope that the consumer forgets about the recurring charge.

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

I think that's a cynical view of the model. People are unwilling to pay a lump sum price that'd justify the development costs, many SAAS companies offer a lifetime license that matches the average life time value of a customer but people don't want that.

The long ramp of death for SAAS products is something like 12 to 18 months (if I remember right), without the subscription model I don't see customers paying enough money to sustain the time, energy and risk involved. We're talking thousands of customers paying 100$ licenses just to match a normal software salary and that's not counting the benefits of a normal job, the work-life balance, the stress, the risk factor and so on.

[nulld3v]

Why not have both pricing options?

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

Many companies do, it's generally advantageous from what I've read.

At the start you go for the slice of the market where (size of slice * price the slice will pay) is the maximum. So not the largest slice that will pay 1$ like in an app store, nor the smallest slice that will pay the luxury prices. And then once you've got that middle slice nailed down and product market fit you expend your pricing plans to account for price sensitive customers with lower prices and fewer features, and luxury customers with higher prices and more features.

Going off what I've read and a few talks I've seen, I'm not an expert.

[pavon]

From what I understand the iOS App Store doesn't support that model. I've heard complaints from developers who have used that model with success on the Mac, and are frustrated that they can't do so on iOS.

[selykg]

There are apps using this though. Two that ring a bell for me are Agenda and Hook though only the first one has an iOS app that also utilizes this model.

I assume they give each feature a date of availability and compare to the last purchase made via the App Store receipts and make features available or unavailable based on that intersection.

Edit: Edited for URLs, I wish this stupid site would support at least basic markdown... So mind-blowing it doesn't.

[aseipp]

It doesn't explicitly support but today people work around it with one-time in-app purchases for all the functionality. Two apps I can think of doing this are Halide and Darkroom.

But yes, you can't just pay $X upfront in the App Store directly. The app makes you this offer, not the store. I agree it's not ideal.

[jelled]

Well said. I never really thought about why some SASS offerings make intuitive sense while others seem unnecessary.

[Veuxdo]

> No one questions whether Dropbox should be a one-off price or a subscription, there's obviously ongoing cost to storing the data.

I'd wager the data storage costs for Dropbox are less than 1% of what it charges for subscriptions, though.

[danpalmer]

I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think it really matters. What matters is that customers attribute some cost to the providing of the service, rather than it being entirely free of variable cost.