Thoughts on subscription-based software vs ownership?

[Booska]

The latest thing that has got software publishers excited is distributing their products via a monthly/yearly subscription plan rather than just selling the current version to the customer. Autodesk has started to do this with their products as well as Adobe, Marvelous Designer, Octane Render, Forest Pro, among many others. My first thought was surprise that it took them so long to figure out that instead of selling their current version once per customer, they could keep selling it over and over to them and make a lot more money. It would also generate a guaranteed monthly income for them. Seriously, why did it take them so long to figure this out??

While it's a great deal for the software publishers, it basically amounts to price gouging their customers. Instead of spending $3k-$4k for a seat of Max or Maya and only upgrading when you need to, you can now expect to spend many times that amount over the course of a career, and being forced to buy into new features that may or may not be useful to you.

On the other hand, the advantages are "free" upgrades. Or more specifically, seamless upgrades, since they are far from free. The publishers also claim that with the subscription model they will be able to implement features faster without having to wait for major releases. Maybe. But the pressure is on them to deliver SOMETHING of increased value to justify the exorbitant fees they are now demanding.

Grrrrrrrrr!!!

Does anyone else have any thoughts about the pros or cons of this business model?

[glorybound]

There are hard core users who want the new stuff the second it is available, and then there are the rest of us. I think most would use the same release until they can't anymore; Autodesk is making it so they can't anymore. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have upgraded over the past four years if I didn't have a subscription. If you only spend money, if it is going to make money, then why upgrade? Now, Adobe's Photoshop subscription makes sense. What, isn't it $20 a month? Also, Adobe CC stays current, I'm sure Autodesk will make us remove and reinstall each time, which if you have any kind of setup, that's going to cost, big time. Currently, I have one machine, and I'm not moving to MAX 16 because of the upgrade hassle.

[vlado]

I know that as a software developer I should probably be skipping with joy at this trend, but on a personal level it bothers me a bit. I'm already on subscription for some softwares that I use very occasionally, like LogMeIn, Adobe Premiere and others. It's not a lot of money but it adds up over the course of a year. It's ok-ish for two or three products, but if most of what I use goes subscription, including Windows, that might become a substantial sum. In most cases, I don't even need the latest versions of those products.

There's also something deeply satisfying in releasing a major new build, for V-Ray at least. We get to look back at the work we've done for the last year or 6 months and see it all come together. People can then look at it and take it or leave it.

Anyways, it's a strange new world coming. The way things are heading, it looks like eventually I'll have to rent everything - books, films, music, software while never actually owning anything. I'm sure I'll get used to that, but right now I can't say I like the prospect.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Booska]

Kind of like the Philip K. Dick novel Ubik where all the appliances in your house are coin operated, even the front door.

I think the prospect of a guaranteed monthly income is just too tempting for developers, software or otherwise, to ignore. But from the perspective of those who use these software titles, most of our careers rely on us doing the same kinds of procedures over and over. I worked in the video game industry for 13 years as a character designer, so everything I did on the computer (that I got paid to do anyway) involved modeling and texturing. No animation, no rendering, no particle systems, etc. So when entities like Autodesk come along and insist that whole companies upgrade to the latest version in spite of the fact that there may not be anything of much use for them, who is ultimately being served? It's obviously much more beneficial for the developer than for those who use it.

But from the perspective of developers... Programs like Maya and Max are very complex and require very talented and expensive people to develop them. Same with V-Ray. But these products are not iPhones, meaning they don't have a very large consumer base. I suspect that is one reason why they are so expensive in the first place. So for a company whose business model requires expensive, bleeding edge development and whose products are targeted only at a niche group of users, staying ahead of the financial curve can be a real challenge. So it's no wonder that they are setting their sights on these subscription plans. But we should realize that once they do, there will most likely be no going back to the ownership model.

Of course, we want the tech to be constantly improving. And even for those who won't benefit from most of the upgrades, there will occasionally be a few upgrades that will be of tremendous use. And some of those innovations could make their jobs much easier. But like you say, what happens when just about every bit of software we run is by subscription only? What will our monthly bills look like when they're all added up? I fear that in spite of the promise of more frequent innovations there will be fewer people using them simply because they won't be able to afford it. People will have to become very selective about which software titles they want to commit to long term, because that's how the relationship will be defined.

[Dave_Wortley]

Well said Vlado!

My worries are when we have another financial crash and the work dries up we'll be left with subscription charges to be able to operate at all! When the banking crash happened in 2008 we went for 6 months without any significant work and if we had to pay 6 months of subscription fees to keep staff in the office we would have needed to lay off most of the company.

Subscription is great as long as you feel like you're getting more, but from what I've seen so far it just looks like more hassle. We can't upgrade our pipeline that often, it's difficult enough to even slip in a VRay update mid-project, our IT manager accidentally upgraded one of our blades to Vray 3.2 and that one blade rendered slightly different in a dark area to all the others on a job, causing us a minor head-ache before we realised what he had done. And let's not get started with 3dsmax, every time they update something they break something else it seems, and due to the SDK breaking every 2 years we can't expect major features to be added that often with a subscription model.

I can see the users revolting against this and going towards open-source software instead, those companies brave enough to fight the subscription model will see loyalty from users and hopefully more will adopt the rent-to-own model that some companies are starting to develop so at least you don't have to pay a huge sum up-front and you get to keep the software afterwards. And like you say Vlado, sometimes you need a bit of software but only use it once or twice a year, and you don't really need to be on the latest and greatest version. A 'rent as you use' but get to keep once you've matched the retail cost would be an awesome solution and it would reward the software companies who actually make software which the users actually want/need to use.

We do need scalable solutions, being able to rent for a few months at a time licenses for max/vray/photoshop/zbrush, but with everyone having their own licensing system this is a major headache to deal with.

I've always applauded Chaosgroup for pushing forwards with updates and releasing service packs with incredible new features, if the new software is innovative enough and they can see returns for their expenditure on an upgrade then the companies will pay for the latest version effectively matching the returns on a subscription model.

[Paul Roberts]

Hi!

This is an interesting debate about the future of software licensing and at iToosoft we are largely in agreement with Vlado.

I notice that Forest Pack is mentioned in the original post as an example of software that uses a subscription model so I just wanted to jump in and clarify how our licensing works. Firstly we don't offer a SaaS license, when you buy a license of Forest Pack or RailClone, that version is yours to use forever. Moreover, with every license we offer a years maintenance that entitles you to all updates and access to our premium support within that period. After this expires, if you would like to upgrade to the most recent versions you should stay on the maintenance plan, however there are no penalties for allowing it to lapse. If you want to skip some versions, it's no problem and you can jump back on at any time and download the most recent software paying only for another year of maintenance. Software downloaded during this period is also yours to keep forever. No matter how long you're off the upgrade plan, the cost to update for another year is fixed at a flat rate. We think this represents the fairest way to offer upgrades and provide support to our users.

I hope that helps clarify the our licensing, but please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Cheers,

Paul

[flino2004]

With autodesk you have or at least I paid full price and then subscription base.... For Adobe that same thing..., I paid full price and now $50 a month. Sketchup full price and 105 a year.
subscription is like renting software and it should be $0 upfront and $X per month.

I'm still don't think that it was right for those like myself who bought a license of RT for nothing and Chaos included it inside Vray and we didn't get anything in return.... but this is another discussion.

[samuel_bubat]

I call it "industry controlled inverse neo communism" In communism a government controlled everything and the basic idea was, everything belongs to everyone.
Nowadays huge companies control nearly every aspect of our live and the trend is, noone owns anything. Renault introduced a car with a DRM locked Battery.
You pay per month and if you don´t pay in theory they can shut down your car.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...drm-cars.shtml
Brave new world. I´m just waiting until the first food stores come up with a pay per month pricing model.

Regarding Vray and VrayRT. Yeah it´s always annoying when things like this happen. But hey it could be worse and you were one of the guys who bought Maya for 16000eur

[peterguthrie]

itoosoft's way of doing things is by far the fairest all round IMO. I wish others would do the same.

[soulburn3d]

For me its less about the monthly fees stacking up and more about losing the ability to use the software unless you keep paying. That is completely unacceptable to me. There are so many scenarios where the developer having this level of control is unacceptable.

- If you miss a payment, you can't use the software anymore.
- If the developer goes bankrupt or discontinues the software, you lose the ability to open up and use any of your old files.
- When the software updates, you can't easily use older versions, which can mess up a project.

I truly hope vray never goes in this direction. Offering a rental option is fine, but always allow an option to buy. I believe very strongly in owning things when I can, hell, I challenged the president of adobe to rent his house instead of buying it to prove he believes his own business model is whats best for the customer Doubt that will happen

If vray keeps up its current level of development, I promise that everytime there's a paid upgrade, I will buy it. Simple as that. You show me you're adding features I need, I will pay you for your services. That's the kind of business model that makes the most sense to me.

- Neil

[glorybound]

You can still buy, I think, but you need a maintenance subscription.

[soulburn3d]

For the moment you can still buy with a Maintenance subscription (that's what I have), but I doubt it'll be too long before they phase it out in favor of the desktop subscription. When that happens, I will stick with the last copy of max I can buy for possibly the rest of my career.

- Neil

[glorybound]

Autodesk must be betting on that you are not the norm; that would be their demise.

For the moment you can still buy with a Maintenance subscription (that's what I have), but I doubt it'll be too long before they phase it out in favor of the desktop subscription. When that happens, I will stick with the last copy of max I can buy for possibly the rest of my career.

- Neil

[soulburn3d]

Yup, I am not the norm. But if more people were like me, they'd not make that decision. They are doing this because they can, the only people who can change their mind is the users. Not by complaining in chat rooms, but by them seeing sales decrease. And that saddens me, because the people on the max team are good people who are just as trapped by the decisions of the big corporate folk. I don't want my friends getting hurt, but a lack of profits directly attributable to their switch to rental only is the only thing that will change the top folk's minds.

- Neil

[flino2004]

I almost want to move to Cinema 4D but after so many years, money in assets, etc .... I'm trap.