[pembrook]

$3/month? Seriously?

Does nobody here see the irony of being a community of people who make their income working in software that refuses to pay even $3/month for software? Ditto for the universal hatred of ad-based business models.

This is why the consumer market for software is basically non-existent. Consumers value their time at $0 so they get free tools subsidized by intrusive ads or expensive hardware.

Businesses make more rational decisions with their time and resources. To the developer of this cool product, I recommend targeting B2B instead.

[troupe]

It feels like this product isn't a good fit for people who have a free mail client that they are happy with. The probably describes a large portion of HN readers. But there are people who will be happy to pay $3 per month for something that does exactly what they need.

[Longlius]

Subscription models are cancer. Sell me a license for a flat cost and stop wasting my time.

[szundi]

Quite simplistic view of the world. Of course when the company or guy selling the stuff has a rough sales period, he exits and your software that you love is over.

Or you can pay subscription, stable revenues, everyone is happy.

[EspadaV9]

Or, the company closes and you keep using the version of the software that you bought X years ago for $30 and were perfectly happy with. If you want to upgrade it's on the company to continue improving the product with new features that are worthwhile investing in, rather than adding stuff no one cares about, with forced upgrades, or worse, doesn't improve the product at all, and you're stuck paying everything month for the same thing.

[pembrook]

Where do you work?

How does the business that pays your salary make its money?

Do they pay you for your efforts on a subscription based model or a one time-payment + ownership model?

[freetanga]

I bought my house. I bought my car. I bought my laptop. I bought my servers. I don’t need to pay for them every month.

In broad terms I am tired of having to make a paycheck every month and having a long list of companies wanting to take a slice from it for “making my life magically better”. Hidden price hikes, dark patterns to cancel, etc.

[pembrook]

You haven’t addressed any of my questions, but I’ll play along.

Im also tired of having to pay my employees a slice of my revenue every month for “making my business magically better.” Hidden salary demands, dark patterns to fire them, etc.

I own my car. I own my laptop. Why can’t I own you?

I guess what I’m saying is, why do you think the code you write for your employer deserves to be sold on a subscription model (salary) —- yet you don’t afford the same opportunity to indie developers?

[alexschnapp]

Wait this doesn’t make sense. They own the code I wrote for them. The ‘subscription’ is for future updates of that code. They can keep the version and never update. If I quit they still have what I wrote.

[pembrook]

And they pay you 10,000X the cost of $3/month for the ability to own that code.

But it seems you still aren’t following the hypocrisy inherent here.

If this one time payment + ownership model is so great for everyone as you say, why aren’t you working exclusively as a project-based freelancer? Why hasn’t your employer fired you the minute you finish every project?

Is the company that hired you stupid? Are you taking advantage of them?

Or does the subscription model for software only make sense when you’re the one selling it?

[joshmanders]

Your house and car also have monthly subscriptions that come with them. Electricity, gas, etc.

Probably not a good comparison.

[Brian_K_White]

Gas is not a subscription. It's a recurring consumable, but when you buy a gallon of gas, or a cheeseburger, you bought an object and you own that object. You didn't rent the momentary use of it. Electricity has only a token subscription component.

The subscription aspect of a house is the property tax, which does blur the definition of ownership when it comes to land, if the government always has the ultimate claim.

Still they are perfectly apt comparisons. Consumables, even recurring ones, are not subscriptions unless you happen to subscribe to a service to provide those consumables. Even then you still actually own the delivered product and the only thing that stops when you stop paying is the service. They don't take the cheeseburger back, you just don't get a new one.

HP printers are now a subscription. They do retain control over the object and even the already-delivered ink stops working.

And it's an outrage, not reasonable. Artificially turning the seat heater in a car into a subscription is an outrage, not reasonable.

For most software, there is no reason it must be a subscription.

None of the value of updates and the treadmill of maintaining compatibility with other software, and the developer's wish to collect recurring income changes the fact that the software itself, if it functions today, can function exactly the same forever.

Maybe it will need to be run in a vm to provide an entire preserved world to go around it, maybe no one else will accept the files it produces any more after a while, and maybe you don't want to do any of that, but those are separate issues.

You could address those issues some other way like by writing a converter or something. If that's impractical, then you will surely buy new versions voluntarily, and there is no excuse for forcing you by breaking your existing things and essentially holding your life hostage all day every day.

[Longlius]

The guy making the mail client is not being retained as a full-time employee for his expertise by the people buying his mail client. It's not at all a similar relationship.

But to answer your question - I work on a variety of internal projects for a company that moves freight. Every year I have to justify my salary by either being budgeted to continue supporting a product or by moving to a new product undergoing active development. I'm hardly writing one product and then receiving a unending revenue stream from it.

[joshmanders]

Which scenario would you rather have?

A: $3/mo

B: $72 with a year of free upgrades

[Longlius]

The latter, easily.

[joshmanders]

So you would pay what equates to $6/mo to have it all as a single charge once a year instead of monthly?

[0x073]

Its about "owning" and you can use the client for longer than this time.

This is why i love jetbrain, ITS a subscribtion, but you have a fallback licence.

[DistractionRect]

Most things are flat payment for the thing plus a support window (aka warranty period).

Just let me own it as is, and decide if I want to pay for new features/updates later. Plenty of software is sold under this licensing model, and it works.

[15457345234]

> Consumers value their time at $0 so they get free tools subsidized by intrusive ads

I mean, I just use Thunderbird, but I'm sure there are ways to torture myself if I wanted to.

100% reliable contacts and calendars and email for the last 20 years.