Subscriptions make much more sense if they are actually providing a continual service, such as MMOs or newsgroups. They stop making sense when you have to pay retail for the software, then also must subscribe for it to work. Companies that do that are having it both ways by selling you the product and then still charging you rent on it.
The only software that needs to be updated regularly is stuff that needs to be secure; locally running self-contained games and other software do not. So, I absolutely should be able to buy once and then be entitled to updates for at least some period of time, then be able to opt into renewals or not based on my needs.
You can’t sell me a hammer, charge me every time I swing it, and take a percentage of the profits of the thing I built with it, but that is exactly what many software companies are being allowed to do. The fact that the product is not tangible makes that fact less obvious, but still just as true. Getting paid forever for work you did once is a societal ill.
I think we are both primarily referring to things that are pretending to be both, “software as a service” (SaaS). They are renting us things with no option to buy and no depreciation, using artificial software mechanisms to enforce it.
The major industry players have also completed a regulatory capture, controlling legal policy to protect the practice that nearly every human but them believes should be outlawed.
phone apps too, buy once update forever doesn’t make sense, just like subscriptions don’t make sense at the other end of the spectrum
Subscriptions make much more sense if they are actually providing a continual service, such as MMOs or newsgroups. They stop making sense when you have to pay retail for the software, then also must subscribe for it to work. Companies that do that are having it both ways by selling you the product and then still charging you rent on it.
The only software that needs to be updated regularly is stuff that needs to be secure; locally running self-contained games and other software do not. So, I absolutely should be able to buy once and then be entitled to updates for at least some period of time, then be able to opt into renewals or not based on my needs.
You can’t sell me a hammer, charge me every time I swing it, and take a percentage of the profits of the thing I built with it, but that is exactly what many software companies are being allowed to do. The fact that the product is not tangible makes that fact less obvious, but still just as true. Getting paid forever for work you did once is a societal ill.
Your last paragraph is what I was talking about, software, not services.
I think we are both primarily referring to things that are pretending to be both, “software as a service” (SaaS). They are renting us things with no option to buy and no depreciation, using artificial software mechanisms to enforce it.
The major industry players have also completed a regulatory capture, controlling legal policy to protect the practice that nearly every human but them believes should be outlawed.