alt Hacker NewsI remember an article in Byte magazine circa 1982 or so which talked about how the software business sucks because it goes like
(1) Raise capital and spend a year developing a product
(2) Release the product, make a certain amount of money, then revenue dries up
(3) Pay yourself a bit and feed the rest of the money into develop version 2.0
(4) A year later it is struggle to sell version 2.0 because you're not just competing with applications from other people you are competing with your old 1.0, your most satisfied customers might be the least likely to upgrade
And that assumes development for 2.0 goes according to plan! As a software developer who gets a paycheck my life is easier working on a subscription based project my life is easier because management is not facing a financial crisis because a project is running a few months late.
As a customer though I often like paying ahead and I've been through a few cycles like this with Plex. Like I see the lifetime offering from Plex and I have the money now and it looks like a good deal... Then two years later they come up with something that really alienates me (that FAST service) and I hate being pushed into something I want nothing to deal with. So I go to Jellyfin and it is a godawful mess that I never get working quite right, just watching a movie with family and friends becomes an exercise in humiliation.
And I'm thinking... I don't have the option of exit [1] because I can't cancel my Plex pass! If on the other hand I was paying for a monthly subscription they are motivated to care what I think [2]
Now funny I had this summer when I was trying to gentle a stray cat [3] in a room in the other house and wound up watching a lot of Tubi, came to the conclusion FAST wasn't so bad, switched back to Plex, got a monthly subscription, and I am highly satisfied.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty_Model
[2] I hate to be this way but when I have trouble w/ amazon I write to [email protected] and point out that it makes no sense to screw me for $20 because I have a say in at least $2M NPV of AWS cloud spending, when you consider a Prime subscription and how much an ordinary person could buy from AMZN in a lifetime, AMZN has a tremendous amount to lose from "exit"
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