alt Hacker NewsThis is the problem with subscription based software. In the days when people owned the software they used, a price increase like this would simply not be possible. People would be able to upgrade their own software on their own timeline.
Since Windows, despite its many faults, has a rock solid ABI (application binary interface), that piece of proprietary software from 2006 I use today still runs fine, as does that open source game from 2005 which I don’t need to figure out how to recompile.
So, yes, if these companies were able to buy the software instead of renting a SAAS (software as a service), they wouldn’t be subject to a huge bill to continue using what they have been using. And they would be able to still use that software for the foreseeable future.
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This argument is unfortunately flawed. If the customers had been handed the software on day 1, by day 100 it would be full of security bugs, would need to be re-written for the new version of Node.js (the old one having been deprecated and also full of security bugs). They'd have to find somewhere to run it and pay someone to keep an eye on that deployment for when it does something weird that affects service. Oh and they'd have to maintain mobile apps on Android and iOS as those platforms change and break things. They might need to buy cyber risk insurance too.
AI tools do show promise of being able to handle all these things in the future, but at least for the past few years these customers had an incredible bargain vs what it would have cost them to run and maintain the application even if they had the source code for free.
If they had used a desktop Win32 binary as you suggested, that would also have needed security updates, and it wouldn't have worked on phones or macbooks, and it would have needed a back end service (see above).
The majority of businesses still use buy-once invoicing software. Which they of course should. Paying a subscription for such a thing isn't very smart.