Monthly subscriptions should be reserved solely for software that is adding new content extremely frequently e.g music, movies, games etc. Not for regular software. For regular software you should be able to buy a license that gives you one to three years of updates and then you have to upgrade to the next major version if you deem it worthy of the money. It’s essentially still a subscription but on a longer time frame.
People worry about growth but more people are being born every second who will eventually grow up to need software. And you don’t even have to wait that long because there’s still a lot of adults without computers who will eventually need software in the future when they become connected. The people crying about subscriptions being the only viable model are the people looking to get rich quick and are probably backed by some VC company that’s hounding them to increase users and profits. If your software is good, you’re in no rush to buy a yacht, and you have confidence that you’re still going to be around in 10 years time then you don’t need to mess about with subscriptions because you know you’re going to have revenue either through people recommending your product to others or reinvesting at each major version update.
I try to avoid subscriptions wherever possible, and will always purchase yearly if it’s an option. But I get that monthly allows people who can’t afford the up front cost to join in too. I really don’t think it’s the way to go though.
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Monthly subscriptions should be reserved solely for software that is adding new content extremely frequently e.g music, movies, games etc. Not for regular software. For regular software you should be able to buy a license that gives you one to three years of updates and then you have to upgrade to the next major version if you deem it worthy of the money. It’s essentially still a subscription but on a longer time frame.
People worry about growth but more people are being born every second who will eventually grow up to need software. And you don’t even have to wait that long because there’s still a lot of adults without computers who will eventually need software in the future when they become connected. The people crying about subscriptions being the only viable model are the people looking to get rich quick and are probably backed by some VC company that’s hounding them to increase users and profits. If your software is good, you’re in no rush to buy a yacht, and you have confidence that you’re still going to be around in 10 years time then you don’t need to mess about with subscriptions because you know you’re going to have revenue either through people recommending your product to others or reinvesting at each major version update.
I try to avoid subscriptions wherever possible, and will always purchase yearly if it’s an option. But I get that monthly allows people who can’t afford the up front cost to join in too. I really don’t think it’s the way to go though.
My only software subscriptions currently:
- Feedbin (yearly)
- Duolingo (yearly)
- Amazon (yearly)
- Zwift (monthly)
- Netflix (monthly)