[cweill]

Having been on both sides as a customer and foundee, I love subscriptions.

Every business needs a business model. Subscribers is a very clear one. I'm untrusting of any service that's free and doesn't rely on ad-revenue, because they have incentive to make money in other shady ways like selling your data to third-parties who will use it against your best interests.

Subscriptions are a nice business model because they are predictable costs/revenue to both customers and the business.

What I don't like are subscriptions that don't grandfather you into higher pricing, and pay-as-you-go plans, because it's so easy to forget about then and their rules and get charged a nasty bill later.

As a customer IMO subscriptions are the lesser of all the evils, and the best alternative to ads, eg YouTube Premium.

[falcolas]

Here's the problem with that - there's not enough room for every company and their subscription model. So where you have a chance to get money from someone with a one time purchase, you're going to have to fight to get another piece of their subscription budget.

And more and more - you're not going get that piece.

Customers only have so much money and so much time. Expecting them to make a long term commitment is going to be a worse and worse business model in the coming years.

[Oxidation]

And it's the time almost more than anything else. A subscription means I need a login to some subscription portal. I need to monitor the subscription and the payments. When I want to cancel it, quite possibly that will take some time and need me to call. There's a non zero chance it'll slip though the cracks and end up costing me four figures.

You know what? I didn't really want your software enough to get into any kind of ongoing relationship here, I'll make do without it. I don't have the energy for dozens of services.

It does work a little better for business as I don't need to personally deal with the admin, but even then on a financial basis, per-user-per-month costs still add up very fast.