Few years back, when Adobe announced that their software such as Lightroom and Photoshop will change from standalone license purchase to subscription model, there was uproar from the community on this. Everyone trashed Adobe for being money minded, some pledged that they will never pay for any subscription model, others made the switch and use other software instead. Competitor software companies that offer standalone license purchase were making good use of this opportunity to market their product, highlighting subscription is evil, luring consumer to jump ship and purchase their software.
Fast forward to present day. Recently there was another uproar on this software called Luminar by Skylum, where people complained that the developer releases new version too frequently (almost yearly basis) with minor upgrades. Their main complaint was that these “new version” has so little upgrade in it that the developer should have made it available to existing software owner as feature update, instead of packaging them and sell as new software version.
I can imagine and understand the frustration, because if that little upgrade is something useful to me, I would need to spend extra money to upgrade or purchase the new version instead of getting it free. This defeats the purpose of purchasing and using standalone licensed software. If users need to spend money frequently on standalone licensed software for feature upgrade, isn’t it the same as those who are paying monthly subscription for Adobe software?
I have a very different opinion on this topic. Although I do understand the frustration, but I felt that we as a consumer are probably asking too much. Consumers are expecting to pay low fees for standalone software, and yet they demand for regular updates and support for a few years down the road. Software developing companies do need on-going sales to survive, if they have decided not to follow the subscription route, they would need to earn additional income to sustain their business, be it asking for additional money for upgrades, selling complimentary product or services, increasing their price and so on.
Therefore, I could understand from business point of view why Skylum is doing this, and all I can say is that if the upgrades are useful, I would pay for it. If not, I’ll just wait out for the next release instead. I think we can draw similar comparison in the world of smartphones where models are refreshed yearly. Do I need to complain Apple for releasing iPhone 13 and made all other models obsolete? Do I need to upgrade my phone yearly just because a new one has been released?
A closer comparison in the software world would be Microsoft Office. The standalone version cost around USD 150, while subscription plan runs at around USD 70 per year. Microsoft do provide bug fixes, but in terms of feature update it is not frequent either, and every 2 years or so a new version will be released, and you will have to pay to upgrade. I hope you get the idea.
After pondering through, perhaps consumers are really expecting too much. Not saying that it is right or wrong to do so, but I do think that we need to be fair and consider both sides of the coin, otherwise this would be a never-ending spiral that doesn’t benefit anyone.
P/S: On the Luminar saga, there were complaints about customer support and other bugs that were not fixed, which I did not touch about in this discussion.
funny bunny photography 