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Comment by mohanmcgeek | Hacker News Reader

Curious, how would this solo dev convince anyone to _download and install_ something on their machine?

The fact that you are even asking this makes me feel so old :-)

Anyway, you'd be surprised. Once you venture outside the HN echo chamber there are large numbers of people who really prefer that their data stay on their own PC. Also, many are concerned about the same problem that this topic is about: having interfaces change without warning is a huge problem for most people.

Convincing them is largely about providing an upgrade path if they need it and not having forced upgrades.

> Once you venture outside the HN echo chamber there are large numbers of people who really prefer that their data stay on their own PC.

AFAICT, that's backward: people with that preference are over-, not under-, represented on HN.

You're right. I really didn't say that well. What I was trying to get at is that there's a preference for webapps vs. PC apps on HN. Which is strangely at odds with the privacy obsession you find here.

No, I think parent is right. One gets the impression that HN only meets two kinds of computer user: their parents who just use a web browser[0] and tech company or large enterprise employees. There are a lot of people out there relying on highly specialized VB 6 applications to run their business or engage with their entirely-too-serious hobbies.

[0] anyone who just uses a web browser arguably doesn't even count as a 'desktop computer user'.

Not sure why you got the impression that I haven't used software in the 2000s.

My understanding right now is that if you have a software that people need to install and your competitors have an in browser offering, your customers overwhelmingly choose the in browser offering.

This has been my experience even though I hate the subscription model as much as everybody else in this thread

Indie game studios have managed it. They're a response to the current era of bloated AAA titles that discourage single-player modes and nickel and dime the user with frequent microtransactions to keep the recurring revenue coming.

Speaking for myself, I have replaced Adobe CC with Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo. A one-time fee for software I can use forever, as opposed to paying forever regardless of whether I use it or not.

I also have Dreamweaver and Flash-type animation tools (Bootstrap Studio and Tumult Hype) that are also one-time fee apps.

You aren't the only one. A lot of people and smaller shops have abandoned Adobe for this reason. A single, upfront cost is just a more justifiable expense than an upfront cost with a monthly subscription, not to mention, losing access to your work if you miss a payment.

Mark it as "pay once use forever" instead of the infinite cost sink of a subscription model.

And more and more, "it will never change, no new features" can be a selling point.

Change the model to "pay the subscription fee otherwise we will alter it"

And pray we don't alter [the deal] any further

Sure, unfortunately as a solo developer unless your app is a unicorn or you make several of these apps, pay once use forever doesn't pay your bills a year from now.

> or you make several of these apps

Yes, this.

Investing all your energy into features none of your users want for an existing app is a waste of energy for you and an annoyance for the users.

And maintaining the backend of a SaaS can mean more operations busywork for you, compared to a standalone application.

Build something new people actually want.

I'm afraid desktop apps mean a lot of annoying bug/crash reports from users with idiosyncratic local configs (e.g. antivirus software, or they modified some windows registry key a long time ago, because a YouTube video told them to do so, and now don't even remember it etc.).

They would publish it in a trusted App Store.

Do desktop users use these app stores? I'm yet to install a single app from the Mac app Store

Give them a choice between a web app, a desktop app (which can be on Steam or the Windows Store too), or mobile apps.

My anecdotal evidence says yes. My wife was confused on how to "install an app" for something that wasn't in the Mac app store. She had been used to the iPhone/iPad model for so long that she had forgotten how it was on her Windows PC 10 years ago: if not in app store -> google company/go to company website, download the installer, install program.

I feel like general computer skills have decayed quite a bit in the general public, especially with people who don't work with computers 8 hours/day. See this recent article: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... The advent of the smartphone/tablet overtaking PC use for general/casual use, e.g. emails, photos, social media, online banking/billpay has really reduced the general public's skill level with desktop operating systems. Probably similar overlap with the subset of people who always dumped every file to the desktop directory instead of organizing files in specific directories.

Do you not do this?

No unless you're counting browser, ide and everything CLI I install using brew

Interesting. I have the Adobe Suite, Ableton, a zillion audio plug-ins, ProTools, and the Unreal editor, not to mention DropBox, Outlook, Teams, Slack, Bear, excel … This is just from memory without looking at my apps folder.