this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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I know I'm in the minority but I am also a software developer, and I think subscriptions are a much healthier payment model for everyone. The issue IMO is not recurring payments but the total cost of ownership.
"Digitial goods" is very rarely just a thing that you produce once and then it's done. The OS is regularly updated which causes incompatibilities, app stores introduce new demands, and there's a constant stream of security vulnerabilities in your dependencies that need to be patched. Failing to adress any of these things breaks the social contract and causes rage among your users ("I PAID FOR THIS, WHY ISN'T IT WORKING/WHY AREN'T YOU FIXING BUGS/etc"). Even movies and music need to be maintained because new media formats are introduced, streaming services have to be kept responsive and up to date etc.
A subscription models the cost distribution over time much better, and it does benefit the users because it means the company can keep updating their shit even if new sales drop, instead of going bankrupt.
I don't think this stops with just digital goods. Manufactured products (and the environment) would also benefit from a subscription model because it means there's no incentive for planned obsolescence. It's an incentive for keeping the stuff we already built working for a long time, instead of constantly producing new crap and throwing the old in a landfill.
But, the caveat is that this shift must not result in higher total cost of ownership for the end users over time. In fact, it should reduce the cost because repairing and updating is cheaper than building new stuff. The way many companies are pricing subscriptions today, they are being too greedy.
I completely agree with you in principle for people who want their software updated, but there is some software that is standalone and doesn't depend upon changing codecs/APIs etc. Something like myfitnesspal or a thermomix shouldn't be a subscription, there is no major updates to how someone tracks their exercise uses a hot blender that justifies it beyond users being locked in.
In the example of thermomix, you've already paid top dollar for the hardware, getting locked out of functionality you've paid for stings.
I won't dispute that both of these likely abuse the subscription model for their benefit. But they definitely have a social responsibility (and in many cases a legal responsibility) to keep updating the software in these products and the network infrastructure that go with them. The internet of things is one of the most vulnerable attack vectors we have. It has been exploited many times not just to attack individuals, but to create massive bot nets that can target corporations or even countries. The onus is on the manufacturer to continuously keep that at bay. You know what they say - the "S" in "IOT" stands for security.
I agree that IOT things need to be secure. Is it really too much to ask that apps/devices are made secure from the ground up?
To stay on the thermomix, all the subcription is is a connection to their servers to give access to their live step by step recipes. Surely that's just a secure end-to-end encrypted connection? I'm not a developer but it doesn't sound like buyers should be expected to pay the manufacturer to maintain beyond buying a thermomix/upgrading to new versions of the hardware when they want to access any new features.
In a way, yes. They can and should definitely be made with security in mind from the ground up. But they will never be totally secure, and a necessary part of what constitutes a "secure product" is to continuously and quickly patch security issues as they become known.
I would bet it's still a bit more than that. But even if it's just a secure end-to-end encrypted connection, here is the list of vulnerabilities fixed in OpenSSL (which is probably what they use for secure encrypted connections). It's five so far in 2024. Then there's some OS kernel below that which can have security issues as well. The Thermomix probably also has user authorization components and payment methods, plus various personal information that has to be protected under GDPR.
Hmmm.. okay it sounds like the subscription model does actually make some sense for devices that need to maintain an internet connection/IoT applications. Thanks for taking the time to enlighten me.
I mean, it would be zero cost if it was a fucking normal device. Someone had the idea that a juice squeezer or a toaster should be online... for... what, exactly? Remove the online (or even better, remove the software), you completely remove the cost that you want impugn on the user with "subscriptions".
No argument there. But apparently there's a market for it.