[qubex]

I’m so fed up of paying for software subscriptions. If I can choose between a single payment and a subscription service, I go for the one-shot every time. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it just nauseates me at this point. I’ve also cancelled Netflix and Amazon Prime is not going to be renewed either. I know it’s irrational but I’ve just been pushed to the brink.

[n_ary]

Subscription is a psychology hack.

As an average Joe, if I see a one-off fee of $60, it seems like a lot of money upfront and makes the decision hard and may be if I stall a but, I will forget about the whole thing by next weekend.

Compare that to $5/month, doesn’t look so bad, I spend that amount for a good coffee and donut daily… let me enter my credit-card there… eventually I forget about this in one week but am continued being charged and there are too many little charges for me to go over and figure out where my money is going.

This subscription model is a psychology hack to reduce the resistance of general people and not targeted at us, who try to be extra cautious about the value proposition over long term.

P.S. I attended some marketing fluff seminar from big honcho sales people as part of business trip, thought I’d share it about where this sudden rise of subscription model came from.

[1123581321]

That's not typically where the software industry sets the one-time purchase though. 18-30 months is more typical. In your example that would be $5/mo for software costing between perhaps $100-150.

If it's set correctly, and the software is actually valuable enough to be worth something, there's a more balanced tradeoff between the risk of overpaying and underpaying and the benefit of the subscription acting like an inexpensive trial that will likely convert to a one-time purchase if the buyer is budget-minded.

(That said, it's certainly true that you can approach the same pricing strategies fairly or greedily; I've overheard both.)

[qubex]

Basically it’s a dark pattern.

[fooblat]

Yeah, I refuse to buy any product that requires a subscript simply to be able to use it. A subscription should bring new value every month, like a magazine. I'm OK with subscribing to streaming video services as long as they keep updating the content.

I mostly run open source at this point because I'm also tire of everything commercial having telemetry built in.

[qubex]

Yeah that’s a good point: if substantial value is added every month (as in a streaming service), a subscription model is not quite so offensive. Subscription models for software that remains essentially static (aside from bug-fixes and occasional features) is just a rip-off. And yes, I understand that these folks need a constant revenue stream to pay their bills… but so does everybody else, including the mom & pop grocery stores that have to get by with whatever margin they make on the goods they sell and don’t have the option of charging for a monthly membership just to have the privilege of walking through their door.

This crap has to stop. I’ve stopped paying for subscriptions. Hopefully I’m not the only one and revenues will be impacted enough for developers to react.

I’m sure I’ll draw substantial ire from developers here who depend on the subscription model but I don’t really care. You have monthly expenses for your AWS services? Mom & pop pay for rent. Unlike them you can probably re-architect your app to rely on on-device processing. I’m through with this crap.