
Ask HN: What are your thoughts on annual subscriptions for desktop software? - aosaigh
More and more desktop applications are adopting the annual subscription model (1password, Adobe products, Git Tower come to mind). Do you think that this is a money grab from companies, or a more sustainable software model for desktop developers?<p>I&#x27;m inclined to think that professional-level applications need ongoing maintenance and are never &quot;done&quot;, so in certain circumstances it makes sense to pay an annual fee to get access to updates.
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Piskvorrr
I like what Jetbrains did: "after you pay a yearly subscription, the version
that was current at that point will never expire for you." This means you can
just pay once and keep using that version forever, without further ado or
mucking about with licensing servers - but you do get some discounts for
renewing the subscription and using the _current_ version.

OTOH, "now you pay forever or we pull the plug" is toxic: I do have some
rather niche programs for which I have legitimately purchased licenses (and
would even like to renew them) - but noooo: the maker went out of business,
therefore their tools stopped working. What sort of backwards world is that?

