As a consumer of software there are three MAJOR problems with the subscription model:
1) If it's for a piece of software I use on an ongoing basis the cost often rapidly eclipses what I'd have paid for standalone software, and it never stops rising.
2) There's usually some awkwardly contrived cloud tie-in, purely to enforce subscriptions, which breaks the software if your internet connection or the supplier's servers are down. This adds a completely unnecessary external dependency.
3) You're entirely at the vendor's mercy if they decide to change the software. At the very least, you're subjected to constant small breakages of your workflow, and at worst they change some major feature that you depend on and put you out of business for days or weeks until you find a workaround.
Edit: Also 4) The aforementioned awkward cloud tie-in often brings with it some gnarly privacy issues, with your sensitive files and private data being leeched off to the vendor's servers FoR YoUR ConVeNIeNcE.
I've found JetBrains and .. tele.. ? (screenflow) to both be decent compromises. Well... I guess screenflow isn't a rental - I upgraded through version 6 - I may upgrade to 9 now, as there's enough 'new' stuff (and I have a newer laptop) to make it worthwhile. I appreciated it not being a subscription, precisely because nothing changed for me - I kept using the same software for a few years, knowing I was missing out on some bug fixes (but also knowing I could upgrade to get them reasonably cheap - it was a choice on my part).
The JetBrains model is good because I'm able to keep using a version without paying for upgrades (but I have kept up anyway as the annual fee is so cheap for what I get).
The points you've made are why I don't typically get software that is truly 'rental only' or hits your other points. That said, I've not run in to too many in the past few years that are affected by those issues any more. Are there some in particular you're thinking of that have those problems?
Do JetBrains products still work if the company would go out of business or decided to undo the perpetual license? (I haven't upgraded my license since they switched to the subscription model.) [1]
[1] It would probably be difficult contractually, but such things happen. See e.g. TextDrive hosting lifetime accounts.
Your perpetual license only works on a historical version. It doesn't work with any updates. The incentive is for them to continue building products that make you want to upgrade. The perpetual license key works in a disconnected network so it doesn't matter if JetBrains went out of business. You just need to make sure you have a local copy backed up.
The "JetBrains model" is how all software used to work. You... buy the software. And then maybe you get free updates until the next major release. If you buy the next major release then that's another "12 month subscription".
All great reasons. I would like to add, also, that I wonder how many subs developers think people in flyover country (not the 500K/year SV country) can actually afford each and every month?
80/20 rule, probably. Most of their revenue is coming from a handful of places, and and increasing the money coming out of other parts of the market might not be worth it.
Easy to support a couple hundred whoppers who pay big money on the coasts -- and who also have the time and money to really learn the tool. Expand that out to 100,000 customers with lower costs and greater support needs and it doesn't make sense.
When you're talking mobile apps and microtransactions and we call these people "whales" then this is a bad thing. In a professional setting is it suddenly OK to treat your customers like this?
> If it's for a piece of software I use on an ongoing basis the cost often rapidly eclipses what I'd have paid for standalone software, and it never stops rising
High quality software has always required a recurring payment model. It's not viable to sell standalone versions to a new set of customers each year. In the past this was informal with upgrade versions every year. You could theoretically choose not to upgrade but software developers would have all kinds of tricks to "encourage you" such as not providing forwards compatible file formats.
What the subscription model does is align customers with the realities of software development. Yes the cost of software never stops rising but neither do the maintenance costs.
No it hasn't. The only thing that makes you think so is the unrelenting churn of modern web development. Back in the day if you bought a particular toolchain you could keep developing with it for as long as you wanted and the only thing that could force you to upgrade is the need for more features. In the past you'd get nice-to-haves at every upgrade but if you didn't opt for it you would be perfectly able to continue developing your current condebase using your current, paid-for tools.
macOS indeed requires additional effort. But regardless of that customers tend to get annoyed and stop giving you money if you don't ever fix their bug reports.
You fix the bugs in paid updates, and users decide whether the bug fixes are worth the cost.
It's a good balance—if you spend extra time on worthwhile changes, the users need to pay for that time. The users can also decide to stick with what they have if they don't think your changes were worthwhile, which may be a perfectly reasonable path.
I think you should look into the subscription model that Jetbrains has for their IDEs. It has none of the issues you described other than, inevitably, the recurring cost.
JetBrains products might be unusual in that the IDE is all about integrating lots of constantly changing external tools and therefore needs constant updates, so it's well-suited for a subscription model.
And for many people an IDE is something they can spend 5-10 hours a day in.
I own a fair chunk of the Omni apps, but even doing the diagrams for my thesis I didn’t spent anywhere near that much time in Omnigraffle. The incremental cost of all of the subscriptions every month, in perpetuity makes the marginal choice to get another one (eg 1Password) tricky.
1) If it's for a piece of software I use on an ongoing basis the cost often rapidly eclipses what I'd have paid for standalone software, and it never stops rising.
2) There's usually some awkwardly contrived cloud tie-in, purely to enforce subscriptions, which breaks the software if your internet connection or the supplier's servers are down. This adds a completely unnecessary external dependency.
3) You're entirely at the vendor's mercy if they decide to change the software. At the very least, you're subjected to constant small breakages of your workflow, and at worst they change some major feature that you depend on and put you out of business for days or weeks until you find a workaround.
Edit: Also 4) The aforementioned awkward cloud tie-in often brings with it some gnarly privacy issues, with your sensitive files and private data being leeched off to the vendor's servers FoR YoUR ConVeNIeNcE.