Just few years ago this would've shipped as a standalone desktop software that would've cost a one-time fee in low hundreds at most, but more likely under a $100. This is after all a vector editor with specialized clip art library.
This BioRender thing apparently costs over 400 per year at its cheapest. I realize that this obviously means that there's a demand even at these terms, but that's just... disconcerting to see for some reason. It's one of the cases when conversion from an installable product to an online service is done merely to justify recurrent monthly charges rather than for any actual user benefits.
SECURE, TEAM BASED COLLABORATION
Store illustrations in our secure web-based application, forever
Share illustrations with your lab, team or organization
Add or remove team members as needed
Secure, web-based portal that auto-saves your work as you go
my first thought was literally: I don't want this; that's what files are for. I don't want yet another collaboration platform, on which I have to manage users. I don't want yet another piece of data locked in to a random vendor of uncertain expected lifetime. These features are better handled by Dropbox/Box/other file syncing services.
This is not to deny that they did a nice and important job with these icons. They did. But they're also part of an annoying trend of "take what should be desktop software, move it on-line, slap on some 'collaboration' feature, enjoy recurring pricing and taking users' data hostage".
I tend to whine a lot about SaaSS and user control, but even ignoring that, I wish we could remove the platform part from SaaS(S). There's no user benefit from each vendor doing their own half-assed reimplementation of a shared file system. There's only increased account management headache, and loss of data ownership.
I think that online subscriptions come with a different set of expectations- I dont expect offline software to ever really get constant updates, work on any computer, and so on. Not have trouble transfering licenses when upgrading and so on. I think that I'm fine with this sort of shift in general as long as companies are actually delivering on those expectations, but I would def be miffed if i was paying monthly and the company stopped developing new icons/updating features etc.
Fair points, however part of the service is 3-7 day turnaround time on custom illustrations at no extra cost. Also the Student rate is 15$/month and you can sign up for one month, close your subscriptions and your figures and custom commissioned illustrations are still available to you. My lab just started using BioRender and so far so good.
A lot of software that should reasonably be desktop is now web only. I wanted to download a copy of http://8bitworkshop.com so my son could try it at home where we don't have internet, but there is no download button. I could download the source code and run it locally via NPM, but that requires an internet connection to install properly.
I get why companies are doing this, they want easier cross platform, easier deployability of updates, easier to find devs who know the toolchain, easier to make it work on mobile. Everything's easier with the web, I guess. But is it worth it?
> one of the cases when conversion from an installable product to an online service is done merely to justify recurrent monthly charges rather than for any actual user benefits
My impression is that that's pretty much all of the cases. Sometimes there happen to be benefits for the users, but that's mostly by coincidence.
For people in these fields, $400 is a drop in the ocean. The value one can gain from using it professionally could easily offset yearly subscription costs.
I wish you talked about the product itself instead of complaining about SaaS models vs desktop software models. But FWIW you're mistaken about the pricing. There exists a similar tool in the chemistry space called ChemDraw. It's desktop software to visualize chemistry. And the cheapest version costs over $1,500 [1]. The more expensive version costs nearly $5,000.
Great product! But I almost quit your signup process. Forcing me to answer survey questions about my field and give my company name before I can see what your software can do makes me not want to sign up.
This makes me feel sad. Biology textbooks are full of these kinds of diagrams, and my impression from dealing with people who came up through normal biology training is that they are a hindrance to learning to think about biological systems in two ways:
1. They give the impression of a mechanical system like you might make out of an erector set as opposed to the chaotic, roiling mass that is the interior of a cell.
2. They prevent students from learning to think in terms of relations among observed quantities without overspecifying them.
Agreed, but I think the real problem is that the medium for communicating science is still basically a static PDF. Even if you use fancy microscopy to capture some of this roiling biology, the best you can do is link to a video file in the supplementary section of your paper, which few people will visit. Or to summarize the information in a bar graph.
This is so disappointing in this day and age where everyone at least has a computer, if not an iPad, capable of displaying video and animations in line with text.
And it would be great if BioRender would apply the principles laid out in "Stop Drawing Dead Fish" by Bret Victor: https://vimeo.com/64895205
On the other hand, biology is so complicated that you have to simplify things down to abstractions that let you communicate and reason about causal stories, and that's what these sorts of figures are good for.
I'm soooo happy to read this. I am very interested int eh dynamics of social networks and spend a lot of time abusing software from the bioinformatics fields to try and model behaviors in online ecosystems. In the process I've gotten quite interested in cell biology and the whole field seems like such a weird mix of hard data and hieroglyphic stories.
Levels of abstraction. I agree that there should be more exposure to the roiling dynamics of it all. From the high-fidelity simulations I've seen, you should think of a large macromolecule more as a tumbleweed or raft of seaweed that is being bombarded by water than as something made out of rigid pieces.
This is amazing - I wish I had this a few weeks ago when I was making a presentation. Does anyone know if images made when on a paid plan would be usable for commercial/publication purposes forever? Or is is only licensed for as long as you have a subscription? I tried to find that on the website but I might just have been missing something obvious, or maybe theres some usual legal standard about how this sort of IP licensing is done by default?
It’s in their TOS. The answer is more or less forever:
“Standard Commercial License: A BioRender Standard Commercial License is provided to all paid industry accounts allows you to use our Asset(s) anywhere in the world, and the license never expires.
You may use the Asset(s) in websites, print, presentations, publications, social media sites, marketing and advertising material, broadcasts, and for internal communication. However, you may not share or distribute the Asset(s) in any way that would let others use the Asset(s) without licensing it themselves.”
Not explicitly but in their FAQ: "...upgrade to one of our subscription plans in order to attain publication/commercial rights for your BioRender images." Presumably that means permanent licensing of some kind is included if you pay for the right plan, but need more info.
if i still worked in the lab, i'd be all over this product, even if it's pricey.
everyone has had to sit through powerpoint presentations with terrible clip art where a well-meaning colleague tries to explain their new hypothesis and is constantly stymied by not having fruitful visual aids. and let me tell you from experience, you feel just as bad when you're the one making the presentation.
Nice! Are there any open source or cheaper alternatives to these? At $39 a month, this is more expensive than Microsoft Office! For students, that is almost impossible to cough up for intermittent usage.
If you are looking for something free that is specifically for pathways, I worked on a project called PathWhiz (http://smpdb.ca/pathwhiz) that might fit the bill. It also has the advantage of structuring the data into BioPax/SBML.
Does anyone else get the feeling that there is a tacit assumption that clip art is frowned upon when making figures? Coming from a neuroscience background, most papers I have seen have diagrams specifically designed for said paper.
I'm all for this being relatively expensive if it gives them the wherewithal to invest in transitioning to these diagrams being semantic and eventually drive simulation models.
The pricing seems a little bit low to me. Considering the target customer and the quality of the competition, I suspect you could charge more.
That being said, I could see how this may be deliberate and you have ambitions of addition upsell or consulting revenue.
Just point this out because it's a personal weakness of mine to not price my offerings high enough, even when it's obviously underpriced to outside observers.
[+] [-] huhtenberg|6 years ago|reply
Just few years ago this would've shipped as a standalone desktop software that would've cost a one-time fee in low hundreds at most, but more likely under a $100. This is after all a vector editor with specialized clip art library.
This BioRender thing apparently costs over 400 per year at its cheapest. I realize that this obviously means that there's a demand even at these terms, but that's just... disconcerting to see for some reason. It's one of the cases when conversion from an installable product to an online service is done merely to justify recurrent monthly charges rather than for any actual user benefits.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|6 years ago|reply
This is not to deny that they did a nice and important job with these icons. They did. But they're also part of an annoying trend of "take what should be desktop software, move it on-line, slap on some 'collaboration' feature, enjoy recurring pricing and taking users' data hostage".
I tend to whine a lot about SaaSS and user control, but even ignoring that, I wish we could remove the platform part from SaaS(S). There's no user benefit from each vendor doing their own half-assed reimplementation of a shared file system. There's only increased account management headache, and loss of data ownership.
[+] [-] vikramkr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liamhawkins|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] berdon|6 years ago|reply
It is a clip art application with a monthly subscription cost. It seems like a pretty on-the-mark comment.
[+] [-] sdegutis|6 years ago|reply
I get why companies are doing this, they want easier cross platform, easier deployability of updates, easier to find devs who know the toolchain, easier to make it work on mobile. Everything's easier with the web, I guess. But is it worth it?
[+] [-] gjm11|6 years ago|reply
My impression is that that's pretty much all of the cases. Sometimes there happen to be benefits for the users, but that's mostly by coincidence.
[+] [-] cosmodisk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andy_ppp|6 years ago|reply
The lock-in is pretty standard business practice now.
It's a specialised piece of software for biologists and doctors, I'm sure every industry has overpriced software.
[+] [-] tathougies|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sethbannon|6 years ago|reply
1: http://www.academac.co.il/cambridge.html
[+] [-] plufz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] writimov|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madhadron|6 years ago|reply
1. They give the impression of a mechanical system like you might make out of an erector set as opposed to the chaotic, roiling mass that is the interior of a cell.
2. They prevent students from learning to think in terms of relations among observed quantities without overspecifying them.
[+] [-] pazimzadeh|6 years ago|reply
This is so disappointing in this day and age where everyone at least has a computer, if not an iPad, capable of displaying video and animations in line with text.
And it would be great if BioRender would apply the principles laid out in "Stop Drawing Dead Fish" by Bret Victor: https://vimeo.com/64895205
[+] [-] aheilbut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JabavuAdams|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JabavuAdams|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vikramkr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d-sc|6 years ago|reply
“Standard Commercial License: A BioRender Standard Commercial License is provided to all paid industry accounts allows you to use our Asset(s) anywhere in the world, and the license never expires.
You may use the Asset(s) in websites, print, presentations, publications, social media sites, marketing and advertising material, broadcasts, and for internal communication. However, you may not share or distribute the Asset(s) in any way that would let others use the Asset(s) without licensing it themselves.”
[+] [-] lamename|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twic|6 years ago|reply
https://biorender.com/icon/cell-structures/cytoskeleton-and-...
[+] [-] Q6T46nT668w6i3m|6 years ago|reply
https://biorender.com/icon/cell-structures/cytoskeleton-and-...
[+] [-] cryoshon|6 years ago|reply
everyone has had to sit through powerpoint presentations with terrible clip art where a well-meaning colleague tries to explain their new hypothesis and is constantly stymied by not having fruitful visual aids. and let me tell you from experience, you feel just as bad when you're the one making the presentation.
[+] [-] msaharia|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cknoxrun|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gonogo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JabavuAdams|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aheilbut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ReedJessen|6 years ago|reply
The pricing seems a little bit low to me. Considering the target customer and the quality of the competition, I suspect you could charge more.
That being said, I could see how this may be deliberate and you have ambitions of addition upsell or consulting revenue.
Just point this out because it's a personal weakness of mine to not price my offerings high enough, even when it's obviously underpriced to outside observers.
[+] [-] itsa|6 years ago|reply