Quote: Now I have a whole bunch of phones from people who bought the program 8 years ago and I do not have time to develop the program, I feel like a slave who was paid 50 euros 8 years ago and I have to meet expectations.
The 'Pay once, free updates forever' model simply
don't work. It can't, on the long term, for this kind of software in this 'niche' market. At first, it can attract some people, and create a good user-base, but in the long term the user-base tend to stagnates and the incomes are lowering year after year. New users (paying customers) are not enough to generate suffisent income for the developer to live (yes, surprisingly, everyone has to pay bills, even developers...
) ... That's why he had to change the licensing model. Existing customers saying that the developer is 'greedy' are even greedier by not understanding this, and expecting new features for free forever...
But I agree that, perhaps, the author should have clarified things from the beginning:
-
'Update' should be always free, but it contains only bug fixes or minor enhancements. (
in software versioning : from v1.0 to v1.1 , or v1.2 , and so on ..)
-
'Upgrade' should be paid, as it often correspond to significant changes in the soft : new big features, complete redesign, etc... (
in soft versioning : from v1.0 to v2.0, or from v2.5 to v3.0 , and so on ...)
If Microsoft does this with their Windows programs? I understand you are a one person business. I also know some small software companies. You get your updates and say a six months helpdesk. But if you want an extension for that you can buy an extra subscription for the helpdesk facilaties.
rgds Wim
As you said, there's no point comparing Windows and StyleMagic/MidiWorks (SM/MW).
Windows is a Platform, SM/MW is a software.
A platforms give the developer the tools needed to create software, it is an ecosystem.
A software brings functionalities to solve specific problems for users of an ecosystem.
Microsoft is the first winner when they announced that, starting from Windows 10, they would give upgrades for free forever, because maintaining old versions of Windows is a nightmare and cost a lot of $$$ (
An O.S. in itself only gives basic functionalities to users, but it is a very complicated piece of software: thousand of engineers, hundreds of millions of lines of code, and so on...). If everyone in the world had the same Windows version, it would cost far less for Microsoft to create patches to correct bugs and security holes... Even today, Windows 7/8.x users can upgrade for free to Windows 10, if their hardware permits so ...
In fact, Google did it from day 1 with Android: they open-sourced a big part of the O.S. to allow third-party to create an Android-compatible customized OS. and they gave the O.S. -
not really for free, but at a ridiculous cost compared to the building cost - to Smartphone manufacturers.
For google, creating and maintaining Android cost
a lot of $$$ , they loose money on this, but they earn
much more money by getting a fee on each sold app on they app store ! When you control the Platform, you are the master of the game. Giving the platform for free is a way to alienate the developers and customers
(
there's no such thing as a free lunch, remember ?)
For a professional single-person developer shop, it simply isn't possible to
upgrade a soft for free forever. Because the costs of development are increasing with each version (
because when you add a new feature you have to be very careful not to break existing features) whereas income are at best stagnating or at worst declining ...
Of course, some software are really 'free' to use and are regularly updated/upgraded by their creators, but those developers needs to find alternative solutions to have income (remember: developer, too, have to pay their bills !) such as consulting, or 'premium' paid versions...
And sometimes, very good free software are created by hobbyist developers, just for fun
Most of the time, when its a hobby, you don't count your time, so you don't expect to be paid for what you've done...
But even for that kind of software, there are numerous examples of free software that became paying software at a certain time, either because to developer sold its product to a commercial company, or because the developer wanted to be full-time committed to its software... Sounds very sensible to me !
Beside this, a lot of people tend to misunderstand Software Development. They are willing to pay good money for 'real things' (
ie: new keyboard, new car, smartphone and so on...) because they can touch them, but with software -
since it is not tangible - they tend to believe it should be cheap or free forever... as if is created from thin air at no cost...
Creating software is *hard* and it cost -
at least a lot of time - , and getting the knowledge on how to create (
good) software takes time. (
time=money, you get the thing ? )
What we take for granted is often not so easy to (re)create from scratch by a single developer. And because a feature exists in a software for a long time doesn't mean it is easy to do or replicate in another soft...
I can't count the number of customers that asks me to create software that can 'read the users mind'... Often they give me the same example: Google search can 'predict' (autocomplete and autocorrect) the searched topic -
and for free - ! And they tell me that, because Google offers this kind of feature for free it should be pretty basic and cheap to recreate... My answer is always the same: "Easy to use -
and as basic as it seems - doesn't means 'easy to create'. Google is a multi billions-dollar company, they have hundreds of thousands powerful servers around the world, and thousands of very qualified engineers to build the software that makes all the 'magic' happens. You don't expect your local Garage owner to be able to build a Space Shuttle from scratch just because SpaceX did it
".
So, yes, everything has a cost, and developers are not different than you, they need money to live and grow their product.
"If a product is free,
you are the product"
Benoit