News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription... by toyg on Friday January 21, 2022 @08:17AM (#30023055)
Almost no software these days is "made and sold once" because of network support - even the most "local" apps will have stuff like saving settings or document to remote servers, talking to network peers, receiving updates when new OS versions are released, and so on. Anything sold on Apple platforms, for example, nowadays has to be updated at least once a year just to keep up.
Re:Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription... by coldtea on Friday January 21, 2022 @08:57AM (#30023505)
A lot of the "network support" is unwanted BS nobody asked for, that could be sold separately (or be open to other providers to offer). Like the BS "Adobe Cloud" they give you when you subscribe to the CSuite.

>Anything sold on Apple platforms, for example, nowadays has to be updated at least once a year just to keep up.

Factually wrong.

Re:Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription... by AlexandrB on Friday January 21, 2022 @10:25AM (#30024756)
Can confirm. I still use Sparrow for email on MacOS. Yes that Sparrow - the one bought by Google and discontinued a decade ago.

I think the need to update software constantly is sometimes a self fulfilling prophecy with SaaS. Features that need constant maintenance get added because: "Why not? We have a continuous income stream."

Edit:

Another example: I use Transmit on iOS. It hasn't been updated since 2017[1] because of lack of sales. Still works great on the latest iOS/iPhone.

[1] https://panic.com/blog/the-future-of-transmit-ios/

Re:Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription... by monkey_monkey on Friday January 21, 2022 @08:35AM (#30023246)
> Anything sold on Apple platforms, for example, nowadays has to be updated at least once a year just to keep up.

Incorrect.

Re:Tell HN: A Conversation Needs to Be Had over Subscription... by ericd on Friday January 21, 2022 @09:13AM (#30023697)
Minimal maintenance doesn’t take the same size team as making new features.