Every now and then, I stumble upon some really great software. Often, some of the best software will be a paid option. (If said software is free instead, you should consider why the developer has made this software available for free.1)
I personally donāt have any issue paying for software, but itās also worth mentioning that Iām not a big fan of subscription models for software licensing. For services, I think it makes sense. For regular apps with no online functionality, not so much. Iām not surprised that weāre seeing some applications move to a subscription model, though: it means getting a steady stream of revenue, assuming your customers keep paying for their subscriptions.
What really surprises me, however, is how little other people seem to be willing to pay for software. Iāve seen both friends as well as professionals in my industry dismiss paid software because the pricing was too high to their liking, even software that has no associated subscription cost. Iāll come back to this later, but for now, Iād like to talk about one of my personal favourite software purchases of the last year or so: REAPER.
REAPER, an excellent case study in affordable pricing
Since the beginning of this year, Iāve been doing some audio editing ā mostly on voice recordings ā and one of the things I really needed for this was a (cross-platform) DAW2. So in February of this year, I purchased a copy of REAPER. I want to specifically mention this particular piece of software here, because on the official website, it mentions that the cost of the software is ānot so muchā , which is quite amusing.
Itās a powerful piece of software, and itās actually affordable if youāre just an individual looking for an affordable DAW. In this particular space, thereās many options available, including very expensive options such as Pro Tools and Logic Pro X. Some of these are paid upfront, some require an active subscription. Some ship with a media library, and others donāt. But they are generally priced at 200+ euros, or even higher prices.3
For my needs, I didnāt need anything too crazy, just a basic, cross-platform DAW, one I could tailor towards editing of voice recordings. So, this was a no-brainer.
It also helps that they offer different licenses for different target audiences. If you are using REAPER for personal use, a license only costs 60 dollars. Thatās much cheaper than the alternatives. (Thatās the one I got.) REAPER also seems to receive very frequent updates, so I am very pleased with my purchase. There are also no machine limits, so I have the program installed on my laptop and my desktop.
Pricing is not easy
Pricing is hard for the developers of a software product. I understand that. As a consumer, I still believe that the ideal piece of software is the one you buy only once, and receives minor updates; ideally, as long as possible. I donāt mind āupgradingā (at a fee) to a newer version if itās a major feature update.4
Creating such a product is hard to do, and may prove to be unsustainable for smaller businesses. (In order for this model to be sustainable, you need to be able to charge very high prices, and have substantial software updates that people want to buy/upgrade, even if they already own the software. I assume this model is less reliable in generating recurring revenue than the subscription model.)
If your software is a tied to a service, like Dropbox, it makes sense that you require your users to pay a subscription fee ā you can explain that to the consumer: their monthly or yearly payment is required to keep the service up (in this case, cloud hosting of files).
If itās ājustā software without online components, itās more difficult to convince your customers to pay a subscription fee, unless you have frequent updates with added functionality; hence making it an interesting value proposition.
For me personally, I strongly dislike software that requires an active subscription for you to even be able to use the software. I think paying a subscription fee to keep receiving updates is okay, as long as the software you bought doesnāt stop working.
Why people donāt want to pay for software
Software used to be fairly expensive. As weāve seen applications turn into mobile apps, weāve also seen a serious decrease in the general pricing of software. It all began with the App Store: remember when most apps were 99 cent, paid upfront apps, anyone?
This has had a serious influence on peopleās perception of how expensive software should be, with many apps being available free upfront and experimenting with other monetisation options. Weāve seen this bleed into other platforms as well, where developers on traditional platforms (desktop, laptop) have decreased the pricing of their apps.
Brief thoughts on open source
Also, I believe that the availability of open source software has decreased the need for paid software as we prefer to use software without a cost to use it. Note that this software is not free to build, of course.
I see fellow developers and devs on Twitter praise the likes of Visual Studio Code and such, but of course we should not forget that some complex tools have no good open source replacements. Itās also worth pointing out that some open source software is absolutely unmissable in the modern day, so itās not like Iām discounting open source ā itās just that itās hard to do well if youāre not a big company.
Making your software available via open source has other issues, of course: maintainability is an issue ā can you keep maintaining a piece of software for years? This can cause trouble if you hand your project over to an untrustworthy maintainer. Iāve also seen many cases of open source developers being treated quite unfairly, simply because they had the guts to open source their code: now theyāre being harassed by people who want to see fixes and new features for code they may have written in their spare time. Itās quite crazy.
So yes, big companies seem to be benefitting the most by open sourcing their stuff, because they actually have the workforce to keep maintaining their projects.
(Anyway, all of this is just some food for thought. Iāve been brewing on these points for some time now, so I figured Iād just publish this. I donāt really have a smart conclusion to make here, sorry about that. I might post a list of some great software here at some later time.)
Are they trying to get you to buy a professional version? Do they want to sell hardware? Or do they mishandle your personal data? Whatās their reasoning behind making the software available for free? ā©
Previously, I had been using Audacity. Thatās a wonderful free option, but itās not a great audio editor if you need to do something more complex than making a few cuts. I really like how REAPER uses your source files and has a sane project file format, unlike some other options, including Audacity. Just try syncing an Audacity project via Dropbox: it doesnāt handle all those small individual files well. ā©
Apple actually provides an affordable DAW, GarageBand, on macOS and iOS. Itās useful, but unfortunately most useful for music creation, and less suited for vocal editing. Logic Pro X seems to be a better choice, but that is much more expensive. Adobe also has their audio editing software, but itās a part of their Cloud subscription. ā©
The rationale against this, is that you may have to start pushing minor features into a major version update release of the software to make the upgrade more substantial, thus essentially delaying new features. ā©