Comment by bberenberg
2 days ago
I think all of the boilerplate projects you can find.
Are ONCE projects getting updates? We will find a year or two?
Your model is a subscription, we just don’t get to know when you decide to have a new major version and plan pricing / spend as a result.
ONCE projects do get occasional updates. I don’t use boilerplate projects much, so I can’t speak to them.
My model isn’t a subscription. Think about it like buying rice. You might buy it every week, but that doesn’t mean you’re “subscribed” to rice.
Even if I release a new major version, you’re free not to update. And if it’s a major version, it’s fair to expect it to be paid. After all, major updates usually bring significant improvements. For example, if you played the original DOOM, you had to pay for DOOM 2 too, even though they run on the same engine.
There are so many people buying rice that's not hard for rice producers to forecast how many thousands of tons of rice they have to grow each year. And not many people look at how much they spend for rice year long. For the single box, yes, they do notice. So it's not a subscription but it looks like it is, at least from the point of view of the seller.
Yes but I don't rely on rice I bought a year ago or DOOM as a core component of my business. Trying to work around a business model (subscription saas) requires that you understand what people are buying, and often, especially with you vendors, that is a financial alignment between the two.
If you bought DaVinci Resolve several years ago, you're still able to update to 20.<whatever> and use the same licence key.
Granted they're not interested in taking 225 quid off you for a software licence, they're interested in taking 22 grand off Netflix for a complete edit desk.
That's a fair point. In my case, though, I'm a solo dev without a hardware ecosystem, so major versions help sustain development without forcing subscriptions. What do you think about models like that for indie projects?