> But you do realize that the subscription model is exactly the thing that removes the incentive to do that, right?

Can you name a single case where this has happened with subscription software, though? The big named examples in the article (as far as I could stand to read it, at least) are Adobe Creative Cloud and Microsoft Office 365.

Here's the What's New page for Photoshop CC 2017, along with links to the changes in various bugfix releases that have occurred since release:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new.html

You can find the release notes for the past few releases of Photoshop:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/photoshop-releasenotes.htm...

They aren't sitting on their laurels. And Office hasn't stagnated, either. If the subscription model removes the incentive to do that, why are they still doing that? You get new features in Office 365 sooner than you do on shrinkwrap Office releases. Adobe products have been subscription only for over four years now. The incentive seems to be in place.

>> But you do realize that the subscription model is exactly the thing that removes the incentive to do that, right?

> Can you name a single case where this has happened with subscription software, though?

Every single one of them. It's just a matter of logic that that incentive is removed. There might be other incentives that still keep them innovating or whatever (like, say, competition, if it's reasonably possible to migrate away), but that one just logically isn't.

You said the incentive to do so, not an incentive to do so. If, as it turns out, there are many different competing incentives, the easiest way to find out what affect switching to subscriptions has on the addition of features to software is to look at software that has switched to subscription. If you do look at it, your concern has little to no practical impact; subscription software gets new features all the time.

Which still doesn't tell you which features are missing because of the missing incentive, or how much more you then have to pay to get the new features (which is a different way to say: which features you wouldn't get if you were to pay the same price as otherwise).

Yes, of course, essentially nothing is monocausal, but that doesn't mean my point was fundamentally wrong: The subscription model (and by that I don't mean the setup where you have a contract for regular updates that you could just cancel and keep using the version you have now) removes the old version you already have as a competitor to the new version that you could pay for. That is most likely not going to be to the advantage of the customer, whichever form that disadvantage may take.

No, it isn't. It is not a matter of logic that the incentive is removed. One could logically say that if the company wanted people to continue subscribing, they would have to keep up with the bugfixes and patches.

Only if you ignore migration costs and assume that alternatives exist in the first place.

With the model where you can just keep using the old version without any further payments, you as the customer have at least two options two choose from: keep using the old version (doesn't cost anything), or buy the new version (you have to pay). Those two options effectively compete for marketshare, and as such, the latter option has to convince you with something that you consider valuable enough for you to pay the higher price. There might be further options in the marketplace, but that's not guaranteed, and also, migrating to a different solution usually has costs associated with it (learning the new software, lower productivity in the beginning, downtime, paying for the export/conversion/import of the data, ...), while the migration costs between versions of the same software tend to minimal, in particular lower than migrating to a different product altogether.

Now, with the subcription model, the first option is removed from the market. You only can buy the new version, or pay the migration costs of switching to a new product. Which is also not lost on the company selling you the software: If their market research people are any good, they'll set prices such that it's a bit cheaper than the competition plus migration costs, effectively turning a large part of your potential migration costs into their profit.

Look at the upgrades they are offering on that page. No one would pay for that as a stand alone upgrade. For the last 5 years they've been adding gimmicks.

A real update would be better live editing. When they launched lightroom I was hopefull some of that workflow would make it to Photoshop. Nope. When they bought speedgrade I thought "amazing, I hope they make a print version." Nope.

The same is true for Illustrator, inDesign and Acrobat Pro.

Microsoft took away your previous version rights and broke Access for many older databases. They launched an O365 server side Access Service that was shut down.

There are other examples as well. Do you own Visio or Project and use Citrix? You can't use it unless you convert to a subscription.

Most of the office apps changes have been around supporting other office components. Stuff like federated login and not crashing. :)

Buzzkill dude.

Can you provide your reasoning? I assume that the subscriptions continue to fund software developers working on the product.

I think parent's point is about how the company is drawing in cashflow. If the customer owns perpetually a copy of the software, the only reason they'll buy a new copy is if the new one is substantially better than the old: hence, the only way the company makes cash next year is if they've been improving their product.

With the subscription model, the company is still going to make that income regardless if they have a new product. As long as no other competitor has developed a competing product, there's no reason to innovate. (and there's lots of ways to deal with competitors besides innovating)

On the other hand, this removes a big incentive for "featuritis". A developer can sit back and only add features that really matter to the product or fix minor but annoying bugs, rather than pushing unnecessary flashy changes dictated by a sales cycle.

I'm not particularly happy about moving to what is effectively a rent society, but I think this is one of the few silver linings of the subscription model.

I am employed by one of the companies discussed, and while I was on the fence about subscriptions originally, I've come to change my opinion. While not ideal for a subset of users who might use only one or two applications, it is less expensive for the majority of users. It's also lowered the barrier of entry significantly, which has invited a lot of new users, reduced piracy, and encouraged use and exploration of applications they might have avoided in the past.

From the development side of the business, the more frequent release cycle has allowed the product teams to be much more responsive. Under the old model, with major updates every 18-24 months, I might receive a feature request which is implemented in a few weeks, but which the user doesn't have access to for a year or more. This was hugely frustrating as we want to make features and products our customers want to use, and to have it ready and waiting for so long was not a great experience for anyone. Now, we can have that feature in users hands in weeks or months.

I don't understand this idea that there will be reduced incentive to release updates under a subscription or membership model. If anything, frequency and responsiveness feels more important than before, and I don't know of anyone here who feels differently.

edit: I was more on the fence about subscriptions than unsupportive. It was a drastic change that required either gradual transition or a rip-off-the-bandaid approach.

This is what I thought would be the natural outcome. I'm glad to hear it's working out for you!

Spot-on.

It's almost impossible to keep mature products going without a subscription model. Mature products eventually only need:

a) support and b) compatibility/stability/performance updates.

But, these types of updates can be very expensive to develop and are very difficult to market as a new release (works with XXXX now isn't a very compelling proposition for upgrades).

It's kind of the same problem that open source software faces after it matures. Nobody wants to just sit and do support/incremental changes on old software, at least not for free.

It is true what they say, there is a silver lining in everything.

I have a different view. Perhaps because I used to publish my own shareware. Today's current Patreon model is pretty close to how shareware used to work (for me).

Buying a license today is investing in future development. I wouldn't pay to use software that's not actively being maintained. Nor would I expect my customers to either.

Which is exactly not the case that's being discussed here?

What is discussed here is the case where you lose the right to use the software if you don't continue to pay, completely independently from what that money is used for, which is why it removes one important incentive to improve the software.

And if your skillset and your data is locked up in some software, it's questionable whether you really would stop paying, and thus stop using the software that you depend on.

GP wrote:

"...only reason they'll buy a new copy is if the new one is substantially better than the old..."

The obvious, intuitive cause & effect isn't always the case.

I bought software to encourage future development, vs wait for new release then decide to upgrade. Push vs pull.

1. Why you bought it is irrelevant to the question of what their incentives are.

2. That people are willing to effectively pay in advance for a future release without any guarantees what they will get for it is irrelevant to the question of whether you have the lever to shut off that cash flow if they continue to not deliver any updates of value to you, while still using the existing version.

In other words: You are simply missing the point.

There is a reason to improve the product because if they don't they will lose subscribers.

What does change is there isn't the incentive to pile in dubious features to justify charging for an upgrade every other year.