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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Because no one wants to pay for products they like.

We don't want to pay for software? Look at the Appstore! Good products for reasonable prices are worth the money. Affinity offers a good product for a reasonable price. Adobe offers a better product but the subscription model is hated by many. For me Affinity products are good enough. Let's hope the current versions keep on working on Apple Silicon and Windows 11/12/etc. The current 2 version is good enough for me and for the next ten years. If I really need AI tools for image editing, I'll take a one month subscription to some tool.

> We don't want to pay for software? Look at the Appstore! Good products for reasonable prices are worth the money

Such a strange statement in 2024, we all know almost no developers can afford to live off charging a fair price $20+ for software on there because people wont buy it, or charging the price people will actually pay on there which is $0.

Only way to make money on the App Store is to hammer in ads, sell data, exploit or trick people into subscriptions.

I look at app stores and see a lot of "free to play" products. So many users have gotten so accustomed to not paying upfront for products (which historically could be substantial amounts) that the option is often no longer available.

Affinity targets professional users who would purchase Adobe products otherwise. Professional users are more willing to pay for products. Affinity was doing pretty well in the Mac App Store (though they moved to free download + in-app purchase or purchase through their website).

Well, everyone of their clients was paying for a license. Affinity was not free/fremium.

Affinity has a $100 one-time payment, and you can use it in perpetuity. Adobe's customers are paying $60+ per month. So there was a lot of unrealized market value. No shit they wanted to cash out on it.

And yet, they released a new version and I and every Affinity user I know bought it. Don't forget that a lot of people moved from Adobe to Affinity apps because Adobe rammed subscriptions down their throats. There is a lot of loyalty towards Affinity because they are not Adobe, if they become a mini-Adobe, that loyalty will be burned to the ground. And at that point, why not just use Adobe products? They'll lose playing Adobe's game, Adobe has infinite funds in comparison and can pull an Office 365 on Canva.

we all were happily paying for upgrades.

I don't mind paying for software, but I don't want to rent it - which is effectively what subscriptions are.

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