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Comment by xtracto | Hacker News Reader

I think I am one of those. I generally don't like "subscription model" products. I am OK paying whatever price one time to buy something, but having to keep paying recurrently for some service incites locking to me, as the moment I decide I don't want to pay anymore I end up empty handed.

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Yeah, I feel like paying a subscription to keep using software just feels like a rip off, even if it's actually a fair price, and am much less inclined to sign up for it.

I’m asking out of curiosity, as someone who is thinking about implementing a subscription model, do you not like it even though you know the product you’re using has recurring costs for usage (e.g. charges for API/DB calls), or are you only against subscription models when the cost of usage is minimal to none (e.g. MS Office, Adobe CS)?

Both Office and Adobe CS now have hosted features (file sharing) too so they are moving more in that direction.

I have no problem paying for recurring usage costs. For example I have a paid vps and paid email. But in my mind I'm paying precisely for the compute, storage, and network infrastructure behind them, not paying, e.g. to run linux. And I'm happy to pay for someone else to manage that infrastructure because the setup is nontrivial, I dont need to own the infra, etc.

Contrast this with Office 365, or even more niche pay per use or per month products, that are not better in any way that matters to me because they are hosted elsewhere. With these products I feel like someone wants me to pay a recurring fee just to run their code. Some of it is psychological, but I feel like I'm getting ripped off, that someone is trying to find a way to get me to keep paying for something (which they are).

Spotify and Netflix have found a good balance of offering a subscription, but providing such a large catalog that the value vs. actually owning all the content is clear. Most SaaS feels more like having to pay monthly just to own a single DVD.

But TLDR for me is I dont want to pay recurringly for the privilege of executing your code, I will pay recurringly for needed* infra, support, etc that goes along with it.

*not just tacked on to make it SaaS or to deploy it as SaaS

So if a SaaS offered a prepaid consumption plan alongside a monthly subscription you'd be more likely to buy?

Like $19/month unlimited use or $50 for x amount of usage (api calls, transactions, assets, etc.)? Then you decide if you want to reup when you've used up your credits?

Usually both of those costs are added to the product specifically to have an excuse to charge a subscription, which gets especially galling when 99% of users have no real use for it.

But the most hilarious/sad model has to be Elastic's "you need to pay us based on how bloated our garbage is, regardless of whether we're actually involved in hosting it".

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