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Comment by vbezhenar | Hacker News Reader

If I'm buying a lifetime thing, it's an investition. I spent money and got thing that will never get old. As time goes on, I'm getting more things and I need to spend less.

If I'm buying a subscription, it's an obligation. I'll have to spend money from now until I die or I'll get reduced QoL.

Even if today I have spare $200/month, that might not be the case tomorrow. Maybe I'll get fired. Maybe government turn my cash into paper. Maybe I'll have to pay everything I have to doctors to save my live or health. I'll still have bought songs, but I'll no longer have access to the streaming service.

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Lifetime thing is a rather large statement, especially with software though isn't it? Most of the pre-subscription model compares were never lifetime purchases. Software that needed paid purchase update every 3-5 years to get OS support / features. No software I used in 1995 will run on my current computers. Even 2005 or 2010 is dubious in some cases.

Content constantly changed delivery mechanisms and people had to buy new media/devices every 5-10 years VHS/Betamax -> Laserdisc -> DVD -> Bluray / HD-DVD -> Bluray 4K Vinyl -> 8 track -> Cassette -> CD

For many things there are cheap/free alternatives or you can opt for the fixed cost up front version.

Paper books/eBooks/CDs/DVDs/MP3s can still be purchased outright. Streaming services have ad supported free tiers. You can go to the library, turn on the radio or tune into over the air TV signal. You can buy an old version of photoshop/lightroom put it on an old computer, and don't expect updates. Etc.

> No software I used in 1995 will run on my current computers.

Then I'm sorry you didn't play SimCity 2000 (-:

> Lifetime thing is a rather large statement, especially with software though isn't it? Most of the pre-subscription model compares were never lifetime purchases. Software that needed paid purchase update every 3-5 years to get OS support / features.

For sufficiently valuable software, people will hold back on an older OS to keep using the software.

A lot of high-end film scanners will come with the 68k or PowerPC mac that’s used to run the software, because the alternative would be spending $20-30k for a new one. And industrial systems run on similar models.

> No software I used in 1995 will run on my current computers.

I'd be surprised if many SaaS products from today will still be available in 28 years time.

I'd assume that many 32bit programs from Win95 era still work natively on Windows 11, and for the rest (including 16bit and DOS programs) you can use compatibility layers (e.g. Wine) and emulators.

When Saas software dies, your files die.

When Boxed software dies, you run it on your emulator and your files can be read.

> Content constantly changed delivery mechanisms and people had to buy new media/devices every 5-10 years VHS/Betamax -> Laserdisc -> DVD -> Bluray / HD-DVD -> Bluray 4K Vinyl -> 8 track -> Cassette -> CD

You can still find VHS players. You can't get data from SaaS app that died yesterday

> No software I used in 1995 will run on my current computers.

I don't think you have tried too much to run it.

> Lifetime thing is a rather large statement, especially with software though isn't it? Most of the pre-subscription model compares were never lifetime purchases.

You should hang around more in retro-gaming and retro-computing communities. They invest a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears to get to run some old software on modern devices, or preserve old computing/games devices that is able to run this software.

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