The Subscription Model needs to be adjusted.

Tutorial Doctor · 2014-04-15T21:20:59

Issue: You used to be able to buy Adobe Photoshop for a one time fee, but now you have to pay a yearly subscription in order to be allowed to use it. This means residual income for Adobe, and a lot of upset former Photoshop users. This is one reason I never use one software, and am a big time of quality free and open source alternatives. Why use Microsoft Office when you have Open Office (aka Libre Office)? It seems a lot of companies are loving this subscription model, but I believe it is a business model that needs to be adjusted. I was originally going to say it needs to die, but that is a bit harsh (you can't keep people from being greedy). I think that a person should retain ownership of something they buy, and that something should be able to be paid in full, at which time the rights to the use of a product is transferred to the buyer. They typical model is that at the point of sale, the buyer obtains ownership of the product they buy and the seller looses ownership. This is fair. But now it seems that the seller wants to take your money, and still retain ownership of the product, so that they can take your money again. Solution: The Subscription model should go to a contract type model, where a person pays a subscription for a set number of years and thereafter retains ownership of the use of the product. The reason I continue to say "the use of the product" is because as far as software goes, the owner does not retain full ownership of all parts of the software they purchase (re-distribution rights and such). Application: Joe buys a 3 year contract subscription of Adobe Photoshop. It is a yearly cost of $600 (numbers may not be correct, but could even be set on a monthly basis). At the end of 3 years he would have paid $1,800 at which point he retains usage rights forever. Even if it were a monthly fee, the buyer should retain ownership of a product they buy. Does anyone see any issues with this, or a better way? Do you like subscription models? Do you think they are for desperate/greedy businesses? I can see a case where people pay for upgrades, but making residual income off of software which only has to be maintained (and sometimes, not even that) just seems greedy to me. Basically, it is more like you are renting software.

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Started by Tutorial Doctor April 04, 2014 06:44 PM

60 comments, last by JohnnyCode 10 years ago

Mouser9169

401

April 15, 2014 06:44 PM

No, I mean Rand is way more out there than Stallman. Not only will corporations not limit their excesses but individual followers of Rand have shown what will happen if more people subscribe to her ideology.

The problem with fair compensation is that there is no such thing. Especially in the arts, the creative careers, politics and so forth. And perhaps most of all in finance and capital based industries. Which includes executives and what not.

I knew what you meant. I just disagree with you.

You mention art - the best place to see the value of art is at an auction. Nothing sold at auction ever sells for more than it is worth. Executives work for their money. If there were people who could do as good a job as they do and were willing to do it for less money, the market would snatch those people up in a heartbeat.

As for RMS, he doesn't believe that creating software is something that should be compensated at all, hence the GPL and the 'Free' software philosophy that goes along with it. He's quick to give an example that he can't 'help' his neighbor with proprietary software, while the reality (at least until recently) was that he legally could. He just had to uninstall the software from his machine and let his neighbor install it on his. When his neighbor is done with it, reverse the process (similar to lending your neighbor your lawnmower - you can't mow your own lawn until you get the mower back). Of course he ignores how his model actively hurts the developer (somebody's neighbor) trying to make a living selling software, as well.

He's also very actively anti-proprietary software: He wants to hurt proprietary developers as much as he can (again, hence the 'viral' nature of the GPL and his calls for people to stop using the LGPL for libraries). It isn't enough for Free software to be an option - all software should conform to his ideals.

I could go on and on but to cut it short: the man is a communist at heart who lost touch with the 'real world' decades ago.

That's not to say he hasn't done good things, but he represents one 'extreme' of the software development spectrum.

"The multitudes see death as tragic. If this were true, so then would be birth"

- Pisha, Vampire the Maquerade: Bloodlines

JohnnyCode

1,084

April 15, 2014 09:20 PM

for anyone who does not know yet, this is a critical letter from Bill Gates before software was a subject to copyright and was "free to edit/use" comodity in coding community of that decade (the letter also shows reduced rethorical skills of Bill )

http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html

I understand we need to make a living, but there is no need to be too dogmatic about it and hate moding comunities apriori or such stuff

The Subscription Model needs to be adjusted.

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The Subscription Model needs to be adjusted.

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