I think it’s simple that people aren’t using CSS frameworks because the AI creates CSS on its own.

> I always thought it was a critically bad business decision from their end to keep giving me additional new stuff for free. It seemed to me that it should have been a subscription.

Maybe. One data point isn't all that useful, but I never would have bought it if it weren't for the model he chose. I will never, ever do a subscription for something like that.

Right, but you can do a one-off purchase to get the product as it existed at the time. Instead they offered all future improvements in the price.

This is not sustainable once your customer growth dies down, as it eventually did.

Not entirely true. They had one product at first. I think it was UI kit. The full app templates that came later were a separate product and they charged again. However, you’re right insofar as they added more templates to the later product for free.

Their customer growth wasn't exactly dying down tho, it was massively disrupted. That is a key distinction that should be noted.

I guess this is what makes marketing so tricky; I myself would’ve bought a $10/mo subscription so much sooner given the chance, which by now - and happily, incidentally - would’ve brought in way more dosh than my one-off payment.

> It seemed to me that it should have been a subscription.

The one time fee should have been for personal licenses, and a annual subscription for businesses.

I like the approach of paying for major upgrades.. So you get free updates on your current version for as long as you want, but when the next major update comes out, you either stick with your current version at no cost (and ideally still get maintenance and security patches) but if you want the next major version, there's an upgrade cost.

That feels fair to me.

He goes into detail the motivation/decision to do lifetime pricing vs subscription pricing here: https://hackersincorporated.com/episodes/lifetime-pricing-is...

The idea is that subscription businesses have churn, and if you can capture the lifetime value of a customer with your one time price, there isn't any difference (other than people feeling grateful when you add new content for "free").

That’s an excellent point, thanks for linking.

My takeaway from this thread is: his theory’s great until you discover that your customers are wiling pay *so* much more.

On a more positive note, I’ve been blown away by the (largely, one conspicuous troll-like annoyance aside) positive thoughts in the comments. Maybe it’s not too late?

It is true, I paid the lifetime fee for the premium tailwind offering, and they probably could have gotten double that from me with an annual subscription instead.

Some are willing - many take the code they want and bounce after a month

i bought Tailwind UI years ago and have barely used it outside of like a couple of abandoned side projects. I bought it knowing that is going to happen because it is a one-time payment, and the idea of supporting the project/Adam is prob a bigger factor that the product.

I definitely wont even consider it if its a subscription.

Selling UI components is a hard sell to begin with - i think they made the right decision with a one-time point payment at that higher price point. If it were a subscription, i probably would've cancelled it within 2 or 3 months.