News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Helvetica Now Variable by Santosh83 on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @01:33PM (#28212551)
Paying for products per se is not a problem. What always becomes a problem are stuff like unfair pricing, surge pricing, extortionate rates and fees backed up by monopoly/DRM/regulations, recurring subscriptions or ever increasing rates for the same product with no meaningful improvement and so on.

Fonts can be sold but pricing calculated per page view and device just strikes me as a bit too much. Why not just sell them at a flat rate? Unlike software fonts seldom change once bought so what is the basis for subscription fees instead of one-time sale?

Re:Helvetica Now Variable by kube-system on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @02:51PM (#28213425)
The price of a Ferrari also seems unreasonable to me. I drive a different car. I also use fonts other than Helvetica. I'm not entitled to either of them.
Re:Helvetica Now Variable by krapht on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @02:09PM (#28213002)
Why are so many formerly desktop applications sold individually per major version now sold as subscription services delivered online through the browser?

The answer is the same.

Re:Helvetica Now Variable by chipotle_coyote on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @12:51AM (#28217892)
I'm not sure the answer is the same.

A subscription provides ongoing revenue to the developer/publisher, but in the case of software, that revenue is (theoretically) being used to fund ongoing development of the product. Whether this is better for users than the traditional paid upgrade model is debatable, but there's undeniably value to the developer in a predictable revenue stream, and as long as the subscription price isn't totally out of whack compared to the old upgrade model I don't mind it. Assuming the developer is keeping up their end of the bargain, so to speak, and making regular releases of the software, then it's perfectly reasonable for you to keep paying for those releases.

But fonts are mostly a different matter. It's vanishingly rare for there to be more than tiny tweaks to a digital release of a typeface after its initial release. Unless I'm paying for someone else to host web fonts for me -- which Helvetica Now's web font license doesn't seem to entail -- this seems to be considerably more usurious. Print magazines weren't charged an annual cost for their typefaces based on their circulation; web fonts should really be no different.

Re:Helvetica Now Variable by LegitShady on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @02:41PM (#28213324)
greed and overreach? lack of alternatives? lock in?
Re:Helvetica Now Variable by ZeikJT on Thursday August 19, 2021 @02:49AM (#28231102)
Just the first, money.
Re:Helvetica Now Variable by rubyist5eva on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @02:22PM (#28213135)
If you don’t like terms don’t pay it. They wouldn’t do it it if it didn’t make money. If the terms are not appealing use a free font.