[brookst]

> If you're lucky the subscription price is similar to the price of the standalone price after X years,

Yes! That is how it should work. Think of it as costing the same if you find value for years, but you have the option of bailing early and getting a refund if you don’t find it as valuable as you expected.

> where the subscription is several times the price of the app in a year

Don’t conflate the price and the model. Those developers found that they were not financially viable and changed both price and model. The thinking was probably something like “in order to make a decent living, we have to increase price by 3x” / “wow! Nobody will pay that up front, it’s too risky. But subscriptions will produce the same financial result and not scare off new customers.”

This is a pie-slicing problem. Developers want to make money, users don’t want to pay. Upfront pricing is a lose-lose, with lower sales for developers and higher risks for buyers.

[goosedragons]

Okay. But if you're happy with the feature set AS IS the day you subscribe then you're paying more. E.g. if Photoshop 7 still meets your needs then you don't need to upgrade to CS, CS2,... etc. Now with CC you're "upgrading" every version even if you don't touch a single new feature. That's not cheaper. There's no guarantee the user needs or wants the upgrade but with a subscription there's no choice.

Let me bail early with a trial or a return period.

It's also not cheaper if devs reprice things to be more expensive even if that's more sustainable for them.

[ghaff]

Right. (Also in-app purchases.)

It used to be routine to spend maybe $100 up to even a $1000 in today's dollars for a retail software package--and you probably got some discount on the next upgrade. Good luck selling that today. People have just gotten away from paying for digital content up-front (whether software, music, or movies)