While some businesses abuse SaaS pricing (e.g., MS office for very basic uses, acrobat pro for basic uses, etc.), I think the SaaS pricing model has aligned the interests of developers and consumers (esp. smaller devs and smaller consumers) in a way that has allowed a wider market to have access to a wider range of affordable software and ongoing support/updates than would be possible under the previous system.
There are definitely folks, often a small niche, who really just need an old version of a piece of software for one or two small functions, and maybe those folks should be built in to the SaaS pricing model somehow, but overall I think that the merits of SaaS pricing almost always outweigh the demerits by quite a bit.
As commonly practiced, if you stop subscribing, you lose all access to the software (or get bumped down to the functionality of some free version). This moves a large portion of the risk of developing a new version from the developers to the customers. If the customers don't like the new version, it's not easy for them to switch; and as commonly practiced, they often can't continue using the old version.
I do agree that the JetBrains model aligns both developer and consumer interests. JetBrains carries the risk of developing the new version. If customers don't like it, they can unsubscribe and continue using their existing software.
Disclosure: I work for Microsoft.
365 gives you $70/yr for latest version per computer.
Or, the real win, $100/year for up to 5 people. That's $20/year/person, which is cheaper than buying Office Home and Student for each person and upgrading periodically.
Fwiw, I personally have no issue with the price.
That said, I know people who do, and I have pointed them to Libre Office.
Folks who complained, but who would probably like to know about a free version (I didn’t know there was one):
- retirees on very limited income
- unemployed people
- folks of limited means who only use any of these tools 1-5 times a year, but really need the specific MS tools those 1-5 times
I will point these people to the free web app option moving forward.
I realize that the free version won’t get a lot of marketing since it produces no revenue, but it may be prudent to have an evangelist hang out in online communities of old people, caregivers, and unemployed people and keep them informed. It would help the MS image.
I realize that such a person might exist, but the relatively large number of people who complain to me about Office pricing makes me think that the word is not being spread efficiently.
Which makes for a reasonable SAAS model given changing nature of tax system.
There’s plenty of US based SAAS companies that sell to the EU without charging any tax, and vice versa.
Of course, this doesn’t scale well. But if your turnover in those regions where you haven’t implemented proper tax rules is less than 6 figures a year, and you have no presence there, you’ll probably get away with it.
You have to upgrade eventually, though. In theory, the SaaS product could be priced the same as the shrink-wrapped version, just divided by 60 months. I suspect it's more expensive, though.
All things being equal, if I ran IT, I'd rather have the SaaS model because I'll always have the latest version and not have to deal with the drama of upgrades every 5 years. I'd also prefer it as the vendor because I don't need to support multiple versions of the software long-term.
Same can be said for software. Now it’s all SaaS where you have to pay monthly and choose from different pricing tiers or ala carte feature options to ‘win’ in a business sense.