[dghlsakjg]

Yep. Businesses have overhead.

There are plenty of businesses that have all that overhead and still sell things instead of subscriptions.

Flip this argument around: you go buy a rake at the hardware store. They tell you they need to charge $5 a month for as long as you want to use it since they have to pay for a phone and website, no apple fee, but their city business license is more than that, etc.

Precisely no one will take that deal. If the store wants to stay in business they must continue to sell more products. It’s not my responsibility to keep paying them for a product so they can have a phone line.

If you are selling an app that has a service backing it or are providing support and updates, fine. Try to sell it as a subscription. If you are selling an app that runs entirely on my device? Version it. If you want me to pay for your overhead of continued development, create a new version that has something I would want to pay for.

[vladms]

I think that for the physical store example the overhead is already included in the object price, and probably a significant part of it.

> If you want me to pay for your overhead of continued development

My recollection with the status of 20-30 years ago is that people would sell you buggy applications for huge amounts of money and then you would be on your own. Doing good applications, without bugs, supported on multiple platforms and multiple use-cases is very expensive and takes time. Not sure what was your experience with pay once and just use the app, maybe it was better...

The benefit of subscriptions is that everybody has more flexibility. The developers can work continuously on the application. The customers can already use it for less than a one time (very large price) and see if it fits their needs and can change their mind if things don't go in the right direction.

[Grombobulous]

The problem is that you’re not really making the right analogy. For one thing, the hardware store isn’t staying in business because you bought a rake once that you’ll never buy again. They’re making money on the contractors coming in and repeatedly buying things like paint and drywall. They’re making money on you buying light bulbs, dish soap, and mulch every year for the rest of your life.

When you really think about all the things a hardware store sells, not a lot of it lasts forever.

As a customer I’m totally all for buy-once and FOSS software. But I recognize that it’s not always the economic reality.

There’s plenty of buy-once iOS software out there. I’m definitely not saying that developers can’t do it, merely that I don’t blame the ones who go subscription-based, and that a lot of customers don’t realize the ongoing costs associated with publishing an iOS app.

[dghlsakjg]

The hardware store isn’t a perfect analogy, but my grandpas hammer has yet to reach EOL. Hardware stores are FULL of profitable items that you only buy once, or are you replacing your toilets on a monthly basis? Pick a different store if it bothers you that the hardware store also sells consumables. Hell, pick a hardware vertical like tools or plumbing fixtures that only sell once. Specialty hardware stores exist for those things, and their business does not rely on consumables. Plenty of businesses that exist to sell you a product or service once and count on no repeat business. The jeweler I bought my wife’s engagement ring from is not expecting me to buy another. He’s quite successful still despite having to cover the overhead of running a workshop and storefront.

I’m not blaming the ones who go subscription based. I endorsed it as a model when it makes sense (when you are providing an ongoing connected service inherent to the product, eg.). Developing the next version of your software doesn’t qualify as a service in my mind.

I’m complaining about software that goes subscription based completely unnecessarily. Adobe is the perfect example. There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to just buy photoshop. That worked fine for decades. I don’t need a subscription to MS Word, either. What new development has happened in text editing since autosave was added a few decades ago?

I can still play my original copy of Half Life, and valve is doing fantastic selling software instead of subscriptions. Arguably they are one of the biggest and most loved by consumers for that.