<story><title>Majority of sites and apps use dark patterns in the marketing of subscriptions</title><url>https://icpen.org/news/1360</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cletus</author><text>I was so hopeful when subscriptions became a thing because it could technically solve one of the big problems with desktop software: updates.&lt;p&gt;Selling a version of software that you &amp;quot;own&amp;quot; creates a perverse incentive: charge as much as you can and as often as you can for &amp;quot;upgrades&amp;quot;. Back when Photoshop was sold this way, support for the raw formats of new cameras that came out was gated for absolutely no reason behind buying a newer version of Photoshop. Even bugfixes would eventually only be applied to the latest version or two.&lt;p&gt;And what constitutes a major version requiring a paid upgrade anyway? Well that&amp;#x27;s completely arbitrary but the company is incentivized to make that happen as often as possible.&lt;p&gt;Subscriptions technically mean the company can just keep updating the software. There&amp;#x27;s only one version to support, really. There&amp;#x27;s no incentive to gate features behind another paid update.&lt;p&gt;The gold standard for subscriptions is Jetbrains. Cancel anytime. When you do cancel, whatever version you had you got to keep, basically. You got warnings in your email that you would be charged in a few weeks if you didn&amp;#x27;t cancel. The prices were reasonable. Jetbrains quite literally did everything right.&lt;p&gt;Then there&amp;#x27;s Adobe. The subscription prices are pretty outrageous. No warning. Hard to cancel. Easy to get a recurring charge. Adobe, like many companies, seems to have decided that whatever the sticker price was for the standalone software, charge that every year in a subscription.&lt;p&gt;But before you start waxing lyrical about the halcyon days of software you &amp;quot;own&amp;quot;, you&amp;#x27;ve either forgotten or never experienced the shady things software compnaies did to maximize revenue then as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>redslazer</author><text>Jetbrains only “did it right” because there was huge community outcry about their move to pure subscription so they moved to the “if you subscribe for X amount of time you get to keep the last version you had when you stop subscribing”.&lt;p&gt;Props to them for listening to the community but question whether they should be the gold standard given it is still a compromise position.</text></comment>
<story><title>Majority of sites and apps use dark patterns in the marketing of subscriptions</title><url>https://icpen.org/news/1360</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cletus</author><text>I was so hopeful when subscriptions became a thing because it could technically solve one of the big problems with desktop software: updates.&lt;p&gt;Selling a version of software that you &amp;quot;own&amp;quot; creates a perverse incentive: charge as much as you can and as often as you can for &amp;quot;upgrades&amp;quot;. Back when Photoshop was sold this way, support for the raw formats of new cameras that came out was gated for absolutely no reason behind buying a newer version of Photoshop. Even bugfixes would eventually only be applied to the latest version or two.&lt;p&gt;And what constitutes a major version requiring a paid upgrade anyway? Well that&amp;#x27;s completely arbitrary but the company is incentivized to make that happen as often as possible.&lt;p&gt;Subscriptions technically mean the company can just keep updating the software. There&amp;#x27;s only one version to support, really. There&amp;#x27;s no incentive to gate features behind another paid update.&lt;p&gt;The gold standard for subscriptions is Jetbrains. Cancel anytime. When you do cancel, whatever version you had you got to keep, basically. You got warnings in your email that you would be charged in a few weeks if you didn&amp;#x27;t cancel. The prices were reasonable. Jetbrains quite literally did everything right.&lt;p&gt;Then there&amp;#x27;s Adobe. The subscription prices are pretty outrageous. No warning. Hard to cancel. Easy to get a recurring charge. Adobe, like many companies, seems to have decided that whatever the sticker price was for the standalone software, charge that every year in a subscription.&lt;p&gt;But before you start waxing lyrical about the halcyon days of software you &amp;quot;own&amp;quot;, you&amp;#x27;ve either forgotten or never experienced the shady things software compnaies did to maximize revenue then as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>squigz</author><text>&amp;gt; But before you start waxing lyrical about the halcyon days of software you &amp;quot;own&amp;quot;, you&amp;#x27;ve either forgotten or never experienced the shady things software compnaies did to maximize revenue then as well.&lt;p&gt;Just because there was shady shit back then doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it wasn&amp;#x27;t, in some ways, a better system.</text></comment>