The problem is mostly tax being across all vendors.

Sure, you can do it, but then it's $5/seat for thing A, $3/seat for thing B, $4/seat for thing C, and you can end up paying $50/seat for all the random software associated.

Yeah, for high value employees that's nothing. But for a warehouse worker to login and checkoff a compliance form once a month? It's not worth it, give them a shared login.

And then once shared logins happen, it'll just become habit for a bunch of small stuff that snowballs.

So that's why the first thing I look at for software is that if it has a per-seat cost, I'm going elsewhere because I want all my staff, not just the high-value staff, to be able to access and get what they need done.

> SSO is a fairly decent "are you a business or an individual" lever.

Arguably, a "are you a business rich enough to afford better security concepts" lever. So the smaller companies are left stranded :(

I understand your point, but at the same time I'd rather go for other levers. Maybe charging extra for SSO on support plans, while making SSO features themselves freely available (without support)?

[Ed.: I see you reworded your post a bit:]

> I agree. We do have plans to support free "social SSO" in the future with certain providers.

I guess that could cover most realistic small-business use cases. Or rather, if you can afford a "complicated" SSO solution, you can actually afford a SSO surcharge on services too. Sounds like a better lever?

FWIW - all of the prices listed on sso.tax look to me like reasonable amounts for anything that can call itself a business in the western Europe or the US.

One can view it as the SSO-enabled offering being a product, and the SSO-less option being a demo. Which, let’s be fair, it really is.

So, would you advocate the removal of the SSO-less trial discount ?

The issue isn't so much that one single separate service is priced in a certain way. When you add up dozens and dozens of services for various split needs for the business, and each one of them has a $/user/month thing and then to build decent security into it all, you double or triple that amount per service. It adds up, very quickly.

For the good of the Internet, the security of the global entirety of things, it is very very wise if everyone makes an attempt to make the defaults sane and secure, including things like this. It surely is a differentiator between "individual" and "business", but it shouldn't have to be. I agree wholehartedly with the sso.tax site that it's just one way for business to attempt to make revenue out of a basic need that any modern company would have.

Make the profit of real value added services for enterprises, automation, integrations, support, advanced features that gives insights or saves money or whatever; but don't be sneaky with the security aspect, is basically what I'm saying.

Compare it with streaming services. No one can argue against Netflix being particularly expensive. Anyone can afford it. It's just one latte per month. But when you not only want to consume what is on Netflix, you have to get another service, and another, and another, and another. Very very soon the aggregated cost starts to be very noticeable for a lot of people. And piracy makes a comeback.

If your users are paid the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 and working 40 hours a week, every user is already costing the business $1160/user/month.

And I very much doubt the typical ZeroTier user is earning minimum wage.

ZeroTier's SSO costs $5/user/month.

Why do so many people in tech expect to earn $$$$$$ themselves, yet expect their peers to work for nothing?

once again: simply treat “with SSO” as the primary product offering(s) and prioritize which services you can afford.

Yes, I would advocate the removal of the SSO-less trial discount. Rationale: most of these "trials" are otherwise fully capable and lend themselves very well to becoming long-term ways of doing things. "Nothing is more definitive than the temporary."

Or, to view it from a different angle - SSO is not a/the feature that should be removed to make it the "trial".

And from yet another angle: you could consider removing (or not offering) SSO similar to selling a car without seat belts (ignoring aspects of legality). It's not a problem until it is. But if you want the seat belts to be effective, you need to always have and use them from minute zero.

> western Europe or the US.

Why would we care about anyone not in the richest countries. It's not like they need security by default to not become another botnet and DDoS Europe or US businesses.

I would like to see you justify paying sso.tax to business owner in countries where sysadmin is payed less than those services ask in a month

> As I always say: people will pay $10 every day for a latte and a donut at Starbucks but you have to twist their arms to get them to pay much less than that for software they get tons of value from.

I guess there's a lesson or two in market positioning and distribution in there somewhere.

See also: SimSWE 4: Wants, needs, and chasm-crossing, https://apenwarr.ca/log/20211024 (2021).

> people will pay $10 every day for a latte and a donut at Starbucks

I know you are using this for effect, but I literally do not know anyone who goes to Starbucks anywhere close to daily.

I live next to a Starbucks, and see tons of familiar faces everyday.

$10/mo is infinity dollars — I’m not committing to that, especially because the cost to leaving is high.

$10 for lunch, even regularly, is still a one time expense.

It’s capx vs. opex