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.

A corporations primary fiduciary responsibility is to its shareholders. Never forget that.

So long as the subscription model keeps making money, there's no reason to change it. If you don't want to 'rent' software - buy it. If Adobe looks at their ledger and sees a ton of people still opting to buy Creative Suite 6 (still available for purchase), they'll change their business model.

What's interesting is that while some previously 'standalone' software is now moving to the subscription model, the original 'subscription model' software: MMO's are moving to FTP microtransaction models. Maybe that will be the next step for software like Photoshop: the 'basic' software is free, and you pay to 'unlock' the features you want to use.

As for Open Office, the last time I tried it (it may have been Libre Office - honestly not sure at this point), the software couldn't even handle .rtf files properly. For Open Source software to really take off, it needs to be _at least_ as good as, and preferably better than its proprietary alternatives. Constantly playing catch-up just won't cut it long term. At least not for 'serious' users of the software: this is where stuff like gcc and notepad++ shine.

The other side of this coin is that, outside of gaming, computers got 'good enough' for 90+% of people about ten years ago. Microsoft Office 2000 does everything I could every want from an Office Suite. Hell, my old Pagemaker could do anything I want for Desktop Publishing (wish I still had all those fonts that came with it...).

I am glad you mentioned "features."

One issue with the way Adobe Products have progressed is that they are throwing in all of these features to make things easier. I remember when filters were not so popular. Now, if you want a certain affect you almost have to use a combination of filters that only Adobe Photoshop offers. If you want to do it in Gimp....

So I know that some people are spoiled by the features of Adobe, but for basic "truly artistic" tasks, Gimp serves the purpose very well. It is the same with Open Office (minus bugs and such, which I haven't really seen, though I don't use the .rtf file type).

Another thing about the responsibility of corporations. Should not their primary responsibility be towards its clientele who provide the profit anyhow? Make enough mad and you end up like Microsoft's Xbox One.

The whole "of the people, by the people, for the people" has surely lost its way, unless you make "the people" a select group who has power over "the rest of the people."

Did they ask the clientele if they would like a subscription model, or did they ask the shareholders?

And yes, a business is a government.

By definition it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government

Historically, most political systems originated as socioeconomic ideologies; experience with those movements in power, and the strong ties they may have to particular forms of government, can cause them to be considered as forms of government in themselves.

A for-profit business of any kind has one job: make money. When those businesses have shareholders that translates to doing whatever makes the shareholders happy -- e.g. make them money. Its actually illegal for a company to not act in the best interest of their shareholders. The shareholders can even get together and sue the company if they become really unhappy, although usually shareholder pressure will shake up management long before that is the only solution.

Therefore, a corporation treats its customers only as well as they need to to support the bottom line, and that falls somewhere between the minimum that said customers will accept and the maximum that said shareholders will allow.

This may not be "right", but it is how the rules of the system are set up and enforced.

Now, for a little history lesson, the rules that broadly govern a corporation's behavior make far more sense if you go back the what a corporation originally was. When they were first created, a corporation was a short-lived entity formed directly by the investors with only one specific purpose; not an immortal, multinational conglomerate traded and speculated piecemeal on an open market. For example, as originally used, a corporation might be formed to build a new bridge, and the articles of incorporation would define under what conditions its purpose would be complete and how its assets would then be dissolved and dispersed among shareholders. Later additions to the law changed what a corporation was meant to be, and when they did the original rules seemed fine for the general investor -- the problem, really, was that no one stopped to reconsider the rules in light of this now-immortal entity interacting with the rest of society in general. Things have generally continued in that same pro-corporate direction ever since, most recently with the Citizen's United decision.

This is why whenever I hear someone complaining that capitalism is what's to blame for our troubles, I kindly remind them that capitalism in its pure form (but not the oft-cited libertarian utopia of completely unregulated markets) is not the problem--corporatism is the problem. They can be forgiven for making the mistake though, given how utterly dominating corporations are in shaping our business laws, economic policy, regulation and taxation.

The business model is to make $$$ for the share holder .

If subscription based models make more $$$, they will inevitably switch to that.

I still use Photoshop 2005 - so no issues on my end, however if one wishes to use "open source" alternatives they do have to understand that they are not the same standard as their corporate counterparts .

Open Office is buggy as heck, and is unable to handle a lot of the file types MS Office does - it also uses outdated file structures from the 90's .

Gimp lacks a lot of the tools Photoshop does.

Issue:
Why use Microsoft Office when you have Open Office (aka Libre Office)?

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.

Might want to check your numbers. Adobe CS6 (Which you can still buy outright, but there won't be a CS7 or any real upgrades) costs around $600, or you can get Adobe Photoshop CC, with its continuous updates AND Adobe Lightroom 5, for $10 a month. (Normally $20) And it is on just a one year contract. You can pay a little more and reserve the right to pull out of the contract on a month by month basis. So you think that paying 3 times the current value of software over the course of time that it would become obsolete is superior to just subscribing to it and getting all the updates?

I pay for a full CC subscription. Costs me about as much as my cell phone does, and I think I spend about that much a month on coffee. That gives me access to tonnes of awesome and powerful software that I'm still learning to use, and I'm doing this all for myself. From a business stand point CC makes far more sense. It is a regular expense of running the business, and doesn't require planning to save up for the next upgrade. (It also unlocks far more tools than what just buying a single title outright would have given you, allowing a business to stay flexible and expand their offerings by having ready access to more tools.)

As for why use a paid software such as Microsoft Office over Open Office? Features, polish, and stability. Excel is generally far smoother in operation than Calc, especially as your datasets grows. As a writer I have worked for years with both Open Office and MS Office, and Microsoft's tools just work better and I can get more done in less time.

The time and investment in the code base simply isn't there in many (most) open source projects. They become fractured, development goes off in different directions, and there is no strong cohesion in most projects. Just look at Libre Office and Open Office.

And personally if I am going to be forming my business around tools, I rather not invest my time and training efforts into a product being developed by someone who might get bored and decide they rather make a tool for a field that is completely unrelated to my industry.

I keep paying Adobe, and they will keep updating my tools with useful new things.