[corysama]

I’ve never worked on indie desktop software, but I’ve heard the same story repeated here for over a decade by those who have:

Everyone wants buy once, updated forever software. But, they don’t want to pay for it. Usually they think a fair, up-front price is less than they’d pay month-to-month as a subscription for a year. And, then 80+% of them will only buy when there is a big sale cutting that price to a fraction. And, even when you have a good product at a good price, your sales plummet every time the crack for your DRM gets updated. So, you have to push frivolous updates that mainly exist to keep your DRM ahead of the crackers.

Buy once works great for consumers. And, has worked great for a handful of products. But, commercial desktop software has been an excessively difficult market for two decades now. That’s why it is a hollow shell of what it could be with the issues I listed above. That’s why we get so many web apps that would be better for consumers as desktop apps: can’t pirate a web app, subscribing to a web app feels justifiable.

[klyrs]

> Everyone wants buy once, updated forever software.

I want buy once, free minor bugfixes until the next major version comes out software.

For example, I liked windows 3.1, hated windows 95, liked windows 98, hated ME, liked 2000, and never liked another windows. Likewise, I liked early versions of Google maps, but they change the interface in small and large ways unpredictably. I could go on.

With the subscription model, you're stuck with every whim of the developers, stuck with horrible interface changes and you're constantly re-learning how to use the software to do the things you need to do with it. There's a tendency to make new features prominent, which comes at a cost to old (that is to say, core) features.

Auto-updates are a pox on usability. Stability in tools is severely underrated and destroyed by the subscription model.

[PragmaticPulp]

JetBrains made a good compromise, IMO: You get a perpetual license that allows you to use whatever version you had at the time, but you only get updates as long as you're paying the subscription.

And that's fair, IMO. A lot of my "buy once" software in the past turned into a never-ending game of unpredictable upgrades. I'd have to re-buy upgrade licenses at unpredictable intervals to continue using the software with new version of MacOS or new plugins. At least with the subscription model, it's honest and open.

[omoikane]

I like DxO's model, which is "buy once and receive updates for a while". Minor bug fixes appears to continue for about a year, while major feature updates requires buying new versions. This model means I get to choose when to upgrade (and thus when to pay), and it's one reason why I use their software instead of Adobe's.

[pvarangot]

Ableton is on the same model.

[logicalmonster]

> Everyone wants buy once, updated forever software.

People pretend they hate Paradox Interactive's DLC-based business model, but I like knowing that the games I buy will very likely be well-developed with many years of extra work put into them. More commercial software should take a little inspiration from them in terms of figuring out a way to fund and work on projects long term.

For those that don't know, Paradox is a game publisher that often release a basic shell of a grand strategy game that serves as a platform for DLC. The bad news is you have to shell out more money every so often for the biggest new features: but the good news is that they're continuously making big improvements and adding big features and have an incentive to make them as good as possible.

I confess that I don't know exactly if this model would work for a text editor, but nothing is as off-putting to me as software subscriptions when something can work locally.

[badsectoracula]

On the completely opposite side of this spectrum, i avoid any game that i see having DLC getting pumped out constantly - Paradox being one developer i avoid.

I want to buy the final full game whenever the developers are done with it, not buy pieces of it. If the developers want to add new stuff they can always make a sequel.

Because of this i tend to wait until some "game of the year edition" is out and the developer has started working on a new game (only a very tiny fraction of developers are going to bother making DLCs for their previous games instead of focusing their development efforts towards the new games).

The only exception to that is MMOs and the like that by their nature need updates and IMO the best approach there is having a subscription to fund the game's development. Of course the greedy powers that be figured out that giving the game for free and monetizing microtransactions on the easily preyed upon "whales" makes more money regardless of the detriment that may have on the games' design.

[logicalmonster]

I get where you're coming from. I suspect that a lot of peoples' aversion to all DLC stems from really greedy phone games, where the trend has been to try and monetize either extremely basic functionality or the ability to play more often through gems/coins/diamonds/stars/etc. Good DLC like XCOM 2's War of the Chosen basically transformed and improved the experience of the entire game and can be very much worth it.

For many kinds of games with a level of complexity beyond a shoot-em-up, I feel like these kinds of games would be very difficult to make without a lengthier iterative process that probably requires an additional revenue stream.

As the example given, Paradox makes grand strategy games with intricate war/politics/economics and other game systems that are all interrelated. Ideally, a company has a lot of data and community feedback on the tiniest minute details to figure out what elements work and what elements don't and eventually refine the systems into the best possible version.

That said, I'm not saying it's impossible to avoid adding DLC and still fund quality long-term development. A different good game Project Zomboid has been in Steam early access for a decade and is in a very good state and still getting big new features: but those occasional indie gems are the exception, not the rule. With most of Paradox's games, you basically know that it'll be supported and improved for years specifically because of their business model.

[xedrac]

> Everyone wants buy once, updated forever software.

Actually, I prefer buy never, updated forever software. Somehow free* software fills all my needs these days. I wouldn't mind paying for exceptionally good software, if it came with source code and the ability to build new versions of it.

[fhd2]

Didn't downvote you, but this is essentially why I have no desire to build anything for programmers - unless I happen to need it for myself, then I casually open source it (rarely actively maintained as soon as I stop needing it).

I go to _fantastic_ lengths to not pay for software, to mostly use software I could theoretically contribute to, or even to not have to deal with learning new tools. I even built my own accounting system (based on Ledger though).

We're an insanely tough crowd to monetise, I suppose. At least some of us. Meanwhile, prosumer software in other areas seems to be doing quite well, happy users, decent income for the developers and all.

[not_the_fda]

I think some people are always hesitant to open their pocketbook, but I've spend quite a bit on my software development tools. I've bought countless IDE's, code editors, diff tools, and source control clients. If it makes my job easier its usually worth the price.