<story><title>Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription Software</title><text>The software world today is increasingly SaaS, user-hostile and rent-extracting.&lt;p&gt;My most recent experience is Shutter Stock, a completely scam company that charges ridiculous amounts of money with no easy to unsubscribe.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.trustpilot.com&amp;#x2F;review&amp;#x2F;www.shutterstock.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.trustpilot.com&amp;#x2F;review&amp;#x2F;www.shutterstock.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;- Microsoft has used its dominant position to charge for MS Office in perpetuity, breaking features and now trying to trick people to use One Drive more (renaming files from an Office App is only a &amp;quot;feature&amp;quot; that works  for files saved remotely on One Drive)&lt;p&gt;- Apple&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;services&amp;quot; income is mostly from various apps that use predatory practices to maximise how much they can extract from users. For example, it makes sense for me, with a broken App Store search, to pay $4 for each download when I can get users to pay $5&amp;#x2F;month to use my app.&lt;p&gt;- Many other examples, with the whole industry going towards SaaS and HaaS&lt;p&gt;What has the world come to, where technology has been appropriated and we are left paying rents every month and companies are increasingly becoming user-hostile and predatory and monopolistic!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;This sort of began when we all got the impression that software should be free, or that we pay a low price once and get indefinite free upgrades.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blame the victim?&lt;p&gt;We din&amp;#x27;t get any impression, as we don&amp;#x27;t set the prices. The companies set those prices.&lt;p&gt;For example Adobe customers never got or set any impression that &amp;quot;software should be free&amp;#x2F;low price&amp;quot;. They paid 100s to 1000s of dollars for each update or package respectively, and they still got the mandatory subscription (and were some of the first users to be hit with one).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;How do you achieve super cheap products made by people making super high pay? Money doesn’t just materialize out of thin air to make that work.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t want &amp;quot;super cheap products&amp;quot;, we want reasonably priced products we own after we buy.</text></item><item><author>porcoda</author><text>This sort of began when we all got the impression that software should be free, or that we pay a low price once and get indefinite free upgrades.  Given that developers need to be paid, and resources cost money, there needs to be a way to rectify that gap between the consumer and maintainer.  At one point we did so by paying for an initial version of software, and then paying for updates.  Now that we don’t do that, but someone still needs a revenue stream to pay for the costs of maintaining and evolving software, the subscription model has emerged.  It’s really not that complicated.  Where it gets hostile is when you see a subscription model for something where the subscription doesn’t yield any evidence of effort from the provider.  For example, a subscription to software that never sees updates nor has infrastructure costs.  That’s just a money grab.&lt;p&gt;What confuses me is seeing this kind of question on the same forum where people often gripe about not being paid the 6 digit salary they expect to produce the software we use.  How do you achieve super cheap products made by people making super high pay?  Money doesn’t just materialize out of thin air to make that work.&lt;p&gt;PS: my comment comes off as advocating for the subscription model.  I personally hate it with a passion: I’d rather pay for upgrades&amp;#x2F;updates to code, and pay for resources metered by my usage.  My comment should be interpreted as understanding where the model comes from, not necessarily liking it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MobileVet</author><text>&amp;gt; We don&amp;#x27;t want &amp;quot;super cheap products&amp;quot;, we want reasonably priced products we own after we buy.&lt;p&gt;I am afraid the ‘we’ here isn’t nearly as large a demographic as you think it is.  If it was, we wouldn’t see the mass of advertising supported products we see.&lt;p&gt;Mainstream consumers do want free &amp;#x2F; cheap products, despite the many caveats associated with them and the market has adjusted to give them that.&lt;p&gt;The other follow up is, as a consumer, how do you determine what is a reasonable price for something.  You have no visibility into the COGS other than your own experiences which may or may not apply.&lt;p&gt;Similar to the OP, I am not advocating for high subscriptions with no value or horrible dark patterns around unsubscribing…</text></comment>
<story><title>Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription Software</title><text>The software world today is increasingly SaaS, user-hostile and rent-extracting.&lt;p&gt;My most recent experience is Shutter Stock, a completely scam company that charges ridiculous amounts of money with no easy to unsubscribe.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.trustpilot.com&amp;#x2F;review&amp;#x2F;www.shutterstock.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.trustpilot.com&amp;#x2F;review&amp;#x2F;www.shutterstock.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;- Microsoft has used its dominant position to charge for MS Office in perpetuity, breaking features and now trying to trick people to use One Drive more (renaming files from an Office App is only a &amp;quot;feature&amp;quot; that works  for files saved remotely on One Drive)&lt;p&gt;- Apple&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;services&amp;quot; income is mostly from various apps that use predatory practices to maximise how much they can extract from users. For example, it makes sense for me, with a broken App Store search, to pay $4 for each download when I can get users to pay $5&amp;#x2F;month to use my app.&lt;p&gt;- Many other examples, with the whole industry going towards SaaS and HaaS&lt;p&gt;What has the world come to, where technology has been appropriated and we are left paying rents every month and companies are increasingly becoming user-hostile and predatory and monopolistic!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;This sort of began when we all got the impression that software should be free, or that we pay a low price once and get indefinite free upgrades.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blame the victim?&lt;p&gt;We din&amp;#x27;t get any impression, as we don&amp;#x27;t set the prices. The companies set those prices.&lt;p&gt;For example Adobe customers never got or set any impression that &amp;quot;software should be free&amp;#x2F;low price&amp;quot;. They paid 100s to 1000s of dollars for each update or package respectively, and they still got the mandatory subscription (and were some of the first users to be hit with one).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;How do you achieve super cheap products made by people making super high pay? Money doesn’t just materialize out of thin air to make that work.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t want &amp;quot;super cheap products&amp;quot;, we want reasonably priced products we own after we buy.</text></item><item><author>porcoda</author><text>This sort of began when we all got the impression that software should be free, or that we pay a low price once and get indefinite free upgrades.  Given that developers need to be paid, and resources cost money, there needs to be a way to rectify that gap between the consumer and maintainer.  At one point we did so by paying for an initial version of software, and then paying for updates.  Now that we don’t do that, but someone still needs a revenue stream to pay for the costs of maintaining and evolving software, the subscription model has emerged.  It’s really not that complicated.  Where it gets hostile is when you see a subscription model for something where the subscription doesn’t yield any evidence of effort from the provider.  For example, a subscription to software that never sees updates nor has infrastructure costs.  That’s just a money grab.&lt;p&gt;What confuses me is seeing this kind of question on the same forum where people often gripe about not being paid the 6 digit salary they expect to produce the software we use.  How do you achieve super cheap products made by people making super high pay?  Money doesn’t just materialize out of thin air to make that work.&lt;p&gt;PS: my comment comes off as advocating for the subscription model.  I personally hate it with a passion: I’d rather pay for upgrades&amp;#x2F;updates to code, and pay for resources metered by my usage.  My comment should be interpreted as understanding where the model comes from, not necessarily liking it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Hnrobert42</author><text>This is not blaming the victim as there are no victims. OP’s is wrong that SaaS is rent sending. Software should not be free (in cost), yet always receive new features and updates. Indeed, the alternative is the ad-tech surveillance state.</text></comment>