[HenryMulligan]

> software you don't want users to have anymore

This is exactly why some don't want software essential to their business or personal life to be dependent on the whims of somebody and their server.

[ajkjk]

Well, fine, but from the developer's point of view dealing with obsolete versions is a nightmare. It's bearable if the software is offline only, but most isn't.

[lost_tourist]

Then don't support obsolete versions?

[devjab]

For businesses the two are rarely mutually exclusive depending. It’s obviously a little different for your personal life, because you’re going to have to spend resources to “self-host” but for a business those resources aren’t going to be too different from buying “classic” software.

What we often do is to buy development, rather than buying a SaaS product. With the right setup, and this is easy to do with OSS as well, you can buy the development as needed from any of the software houses which specialise in this. You can then run things yourself, or buy the maintenance as well. This lets you control what happens with the software on the server and the server itself, and it’s frankly often a cheaper option than buying a SaaS solution for things that are vital to your business. At least in the long run. That being said, even with SaaS solutions you’re rarely at the “whims” or somebody and their server in enterprise SaaS solutions. I think Figma might be the only service we use where we’re at the “whims” of change that we aren’t able to control, and we do use quite a lot of SaaS software for things that are “less” important to us.

As a private user you’re right though. You won’t be able to do those things. But the flip side is that you’re probably not going to find a lot of non web-solutions that don’t sort of work similar. Even with something like an e-mail client, you’re going to see updates, and you’re not going to be able to influence them anymore with a local program than you are with a web-based program. I guess you can continue to use an old version of something, but what then you’re using unsupported software, and eventually, you risk that it might not even run on your Operating System without massive amounts of efforts. Like, I have X-Com: Enemy Unknown on 3 floppy disks, even if I had something that could read floppy disks, I’m not sure how I’d even install it on windows 11 or my Mac.

[auggierose]

That has as a prerequisite that the software is available as OSS. Compare Figma with OSS. Why would anyone in their right mind not go the Figma way, if they actually have to offer something valuable?

[progmetaldev]

I agree with what you're saying, but I meant more if the developers opened up an API a bit too much. They can close that up and make their client software more stable.

[Sebb767]

You can easily package your webapp with an integrated server or electron, if you don't want to provide a server. Or simply put it on the source code platform of your choice and let users figure out hosting on their own.

Plus, you get all of that for (basically) free, at the same time with hardly any extra effort! The web really is the most versatile of platforms.