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Hot Take:

Subscription based products are exactly why we don't see major break-throughs in software anymore.

*** I am warning you, don't mention AI in the comments, I am gonna fucking lose it. ***

Tell me one thing, If you spent thousands to create a product that you now have a good subscriber base on, why would you invest money into making another? Why wouldn't you just consider improving the product at hand and selling it to more people to create additional profit?

In the 90s we used to get any software on CDs/DVDs and you actually got to own it. Meaning that the company can only take money from you ONCE and never again (almost). This also meant that the companies knew that soon they'd have to come up with something else that will make them money, thus them creating new software every couple or so years, some even creating ground-breaking software.

But then, there is thing called MONOPOLY.

We will never get another music app than Spotify or Apple music, because they are just too far ahead. They're built on subscription model.

You can probably think of more examples of great companies building great products and moving them to subscription model and therefore never creating another software, because frankly, why take the risk to lose money when you can gain more money by improving the product at hand?

We will never get the same frequency of good games coming to market from established companies like RockStar. Why should they bothered to make GTA 6 when they can sell millions of worth of Shark Cards every month and rake in the profits?

Subscriptions have totally killed off software creativity and motivation for devs/companies to create great software.

Comments
  • 8
  • 7
    @lungdart

    Lungdart more like LungFART. you just farted out of your mouth. Do us all a favor and keep it shut.
  • 1
    @SidTheITGuy *ppffftttttttttt*
  • 3
    You kind of contradicted yourself saying nobody will create a music app when Spotify and Apple music are so far ahead, meaning they've nearly perfected their product to the point where the question is really why would someone else make a competitor rather than why would they make an improved product.

    You have a point about games, I think we see what you say with AAA shops either making the same game over and over or selling stuff for their existing game ad nauseum. It's been rare for me to be interested in non indie games for a while now.
  • 3
    @spongessuck alternatives to Spotify and Apple exist. Cause both suck.

    :-)

    I think the main reason is because it's nowadays not about having fun anymore.

    If we're entirely real, OpenSource is dying.

    LKML / Linux kernel mailing list and it's hard to spot "youngsters". Most are 50 plus with a lot of stress and health problems.

    Linux reduction of LTS is proof of it.

    The BSL license debacles another one.

    OpenSource is mainly based around the idea that something gets created and supported for free because it's fun and useful.

    Fun cause otherwise you don't do it anymore.

    I think that's where the biggest problem lies: It's just not fun anymore.

    Games aren't fun anymore. It's hard to find a non gacha / non shop based system.

    Larian and a few others still provide incredible games... but countless others were lost. Daedalic is an good example. Edna breaks out... now that was a good game. Then more and more dying till all was dried out and they released that abysmal LOTR game.

    That was sad. Extremely sad.

    I could go on, for example the complete pile of waste that Cyberpunk was on release date... but I guess it's clear what I want to say: Most games are not made with fun in mind (or joy while programming them), nor are they meant to being fun.

    This lack of joy and creativity can be seen everywhere imho.
  • 5
    Well some people want to make groundbreaking t3d maps but y'all accuse them of being bots and spamming
  • 2
    Why do we always have to be longing for something new? We're always wanting more, better, newer. It's like we're trying to fill this insatiable void with more meaningless "content"; we're never ever satisfied with what we have.
    To some extent, this mentality has been a good motivator for innovation. But nowadays nothing surprises me anymore even though it should despite all the work and creativity involved. Except for Al
  • 2
    To be honest I think the biggest problem is the data silos. Products create a walled garden by holding your data hostage. If you want to move away from Spotify e.g. you lose all your playlists etc. This goes for a lot of big monopolies on the market. I think an important step to make here is to give users control of their data back, or rather for the consumes to demand control over their own data.
  • 0
    The difference between passion & profit-focused.

    If I'm more passionate about developing a software because I love doing it or I want to help others, I really won't want to string people up to my software and asking for their money every month/year.

    These developers now see software development as a job, but they need salaries so they ask users to subscribe. They could easily go look for a phucking 9-5 job and get on a salary list.
    But they won't do that because they believe there's more money in software dev...

    We can only rant about it but I really hope some devs who read this can take it into consideration...

    oh, I forgot, no one will put them on salary
  • 0
    @Nanos if open source dies...

    Then there is no future imho.

    OpenSource programs already plea for donations. It's just that most enterprises are deaf on both ears, cause why donate :)

    I remember having that discussion for example regarding the Proxmox EP licenses... in the end upper management didn't pay for the most basic license ever.

    Due to the massive restructuring - and upper management maybe having a clue, but not caring - I just started "shuffling costs".

    As in taking the license costs that we saved by retiring old software and adding proxmox license costs in as new and mandatory, still saving bucks but paying what's needed.

    *shrugs* It's bloody idiotic that one has to go such roundabout ways to give sth back when we waste an exponential amount of that small sum on totally useless shit.
  • 0
    @Nanos as long as there is no force behind the donations, I don't think so.

    Take the BSL desaster.

    OpenTofu literally happened over night.

    I think it were 15 (!!!) full time employees who founded that thing.

    More or less because the cost of Terraform would be too much for the employers. Like literally

    Or the pissing contest between ElasticSearch Amazon and how OpenSearch came to be.

    It was "pay for AWS licenses.". Amazon then forked and said fuck off.

    These weren't a "we love OpenSource moment".

    These were "our employers made the math and it's way cheaper to provide some workforce then to pay annual costs forever".
  • 2
    @Nanos Don't try to pick a fight that you can't handle, old man. Nobody's asking for your opinion.
  • 0
    Problem with music apps imo is just that the established ones have rights to such a large number of artists and songs that it's hard to start competing.
  • 0
    @jestdotty that model is also less logical when the product sold is essentially a continuous service, which for example is the case with every streaming service (such as music streaming services)
  • 2
    @Tonnoman that's because the people making movies are trying to use the subscription model with "licensing". Nobody ever owns anything anymore we are to rent

    90s you could outright buy stuff. The unfortunate bit is if you make people rent at the top then people have to rent all the way down the stack

    I mean there's also the Netflix vs Disney battle at hand. Disney pulled its licenses from Netflix (or otherwise asked for insane amounts of money for them, which is an even better business strategy for reasons) because they wanted to do Disney+. This caused Netflix to do originals since the people who would license them movies/shows before are now their competitors.

    Monopoly games. What are you going to do? Disney owns everything. You have no choice but to compete with them, or get gouged by them because there's no alternatives.

    Edit: my bad you were talking about music. That industry is even more shady... they 100% do it way worse, and no one reports cuz illegal... scary stuff
  • 0
    @jestdotty yeah don't get me wrong, subscription model is fucked... but it also makes sense business wise for a continuous service.
  • 2
    Mobile games nowadays are made with sole purpose to suck our wallets dry. You might spend 100 dollars and you would never win against the guy who spend 100.000 dollars. I am not giving them any cent.
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