[mjw1007]

Every now and again I see someone on this site saying things along the lines of "it's a shame that programmers in general are so unwilling to pay for quality tools", and I feel myself tempted to agree.

Then something like this comes along and it becomes clear why it's so important that everything we rely on is, at the least, free from "I changed the deal" events.

[iliketrains]

This is not about "unwilling to pay for quality tools", but completely changing the way they charge for the tools, which gets applied to all legacy software that ever used their tools, despite their previous (now deleted) clauses that new TOS won't apply unless you use the new version, is just ridiculous to me.

Even if one stopped using Unity to develop new things before this change, they are still on the hook for product installs (even if they are free games), which are by the way tracked by Unity "proprietary data model".

Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/16hgmqm/unity_want...

A few quotes from the FAQ:

Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs?

A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones.

A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

[duped]

Many years ago I worked at a startup that tried to do this. To make a long story short the goal was to make money off content that was made with the tool instead of selling the tool directly to people making the content.

Zero sales later, we all lost our jobs because if you show up with a new pricing model that completely upends how businesses even account for their spending and pricing, it better be the greatest fucking piece of software ever made that has zero competition or an industry standard because no one is going to use it.

[senectus1]

lol, in the last week I have:

Setup dualboot linux/windows, installed my 6 fav games on the linux side

Decided I didnt like that distro, wiped it and reinstalled with a new distro. then installed my 6 fav games

messed something up and decided it would be faster to reinstall again, did that and re-installed my 6 fav games.

got issues with my steam deployment, mucked about and fixed it but in the process deleted my previous install. realized i could just copy the data from the windows partition across and did that.

With this scenario I could be up for 24 install charges, despite never playing the games.

My 15 yr old son is teaching himself programing for the purpose of being a games developer and this news horrifies him. I really dont see this is going to last.

*Edit, 30 installs. forgot to count the windows installs.

[kyleee]

Unity sends their thanks

[falcolas]

> This is not about "unwilling to pay for quality tools", but completely changing the way they charge for the tools, which gets applied to all legacy software that ever used their tools, despite their previous (now deleted) clauses that new TOS won't apply unless you use the new version, is just ridiculous to me.

That's a risk you run when the company you're buying your tools from is beholden to shareholders. Which a vast majority of the companies we can even buy tools from are/will be.

[ffhhttt]

I’m not sure shareholders asked them to over hire since 2019 by more than 2x (conservatively) and start spending billions to acquire random companies without having a clear vision what are they planning to so with them.

That mostly came from the board and the executives. It’s not like shareholders really that many ways to influence company policy that much besides selling or buying their stock

[johnnyanmac]

Programmers are peak "fine I'll do it myself" with a culture of freely sharing knowledge, so I both get it as a point to criticize and an honorable mindset.

With that in mind, I a fine paying for tools I need if I understand the service behind it is massive and hard to replicate. A less controversial example is IDE's. Visual Studio has a great free Suite and a justifiable pro edition to pay for (and enterprise, but I'll leave the costs of million dollar corporations out of this). Jetbrains is pay up front (unless you use Android Studio) but their model lets you keep the version you paid a year for. These are good balances between subscription and ownership.

Of course, these game engines are doing very heavy lifting, but it's never okay to retroactively change you you monetize product you already launched. On top of all that, this plan simply doesn't sound well thought out (or actively malicious if you want to go that direction).

[vanderZwan]

> Programmers are peak "fine I'll do it myself" with a culture of freely sharing knowledge, so I both get it as a point to criticize and an honorable mindset.

Tangent: I feel like you're selling many other professions a little short here. Farmers come to mind, although I admit growing up in the countryside makes me a little biased there.

[pixl97]

This is the problem of "electrionicification" of everything. Oh, sorry, you need to sign a new EULA to use your cyber-hammer is the first thing every company would try if they could get away with it.

[plagiarist]

https://hackaday.com/2021/08/02/home-depot-is-selling-power-...

[pixl97]

We are going to hell in a handbasket.

[fxtentacle]

I think the solution is a model like JetBrains. You pay a subscription to get upgrades, but in effect you're just automatically buying perpetual licenses.

[_aavaa_]

Perpetual licenses mean nothing if the vendor changes the TOS on your old version (which is literally what’s happening here).

[RetroTechie]

Is that legal? You agree to version X, you didn't agree to version X+1, right?

So at least a license update would require confirmation of your continuing agreement with the new license, right? (whether that be silent, offering opt-out or whatever).

Otherwise "you agree to ANY future version" would equate to "we can 100% rewrite this agreement after you signed it". Doesn't seem like that would hold up in a courtroom.

Game engines ship with products & are covered by licenses. Unlike some service covered by a ToS where company can change or stop offering service at any time.

[_aavaa_]

Who knows.

Unity silently changed the TOS to remove the clause stating you could stay with an older version of the TOS before this whole fiasco. Is that legally binding given that people probably just click “I agree”, if they were even prompted in the first place?

Is it legal that much of the digital goods we “buy” are marketed as purchases but are at best squirrelly licenses to get around letting people actually own the thing they “bought”?

[fidotron]

TBH it is kind of amazing we don’t regulate these change of terms more strongly.

As you rightly point out it is causing a justifiable lack of trust in things you actually pay for which is going to be very counter productive.

[Incipient]

Regulation is hard. Especially for contracts. You can couldn't add "it's illegal to retroactively change the terms of a contract" because there are often terms in a contract relating to just that. It's often required in certain circumstances.

In an instance like this, I'd say "market forces" isn't entirely the wrong approach. Everyone migrates away from them and destroys their business.

[makeitdouble]

The "unwilling to pay for quality tools" is too shallow to be honest.

One one hand we all pay a lot for quality hardware for instance, those machines aren't free. Or we see people spend ungodly amounts on keyboards.

On the other hand, I don't see carpenters paying an arm and a leg for high quality tables. Nor home architects paying millions to other architects to build their homes. So why are people expecting programmers to be forthcoming about paying other programmers to build their tools ? Sure one can't build everything by themselves, but at its core people will try to only pay for what is absolutely good value (or they have no choice than to pay), and not just throwing money at "quality tools".