this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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WTF?! Subscription based bullshit is cancer
It makes sense from the business’s perspective - they want a reliable way to keep funding development.
A flat fee made sense in the days when they “finished” software and then sold physical media in stores. They did the work. They’re done. They set a price and sold it in stores.
But now we’re in this weird hybrid scenario that I hate. I expect security updates for something I “bought” (especially if it’s something connected to the internet), and I understand developers need to get paid to do that. But at the same time, I just want the software I bought. I don’t really want to keep paying over and over because the developer wants to keep adding in features that weren’t there when I bought it.
So buy Unraid and keep it off the Internet. That's the solution here. Like you said. Devs need to be paid.
I'm not so sure that's what this is...at least at this time. The lower tiers according to the article are still a perpetual license but the support/updates will be an optional extra after 1 year. Current customers won't be effected and they have a tier that completely avoids this.
I'm not thrilled by it, but in comparison Fusion360 went from 70 a month to 85 a month without any real reason and this doesn't seem like the same can of bullshit.
It's not a subscription... Yet. The nice thing is that you can just decide not to pay and you won't lose access or anything. You just won't get active development either.
Which I want to say sounds fair - but a lot of companies start with this premise and then it gets handed over to some MBA who decides the most long-term loyal customers are not being squeezed enough. Even just this week I recommended unraid to someone. Now though...
If they're not offering security updates then it's a subscription.
I'd say that's up for debate. Subscription to me is that it's required to continue using the product. We all know if you stop paying for Netflix you don't get to stream anymore.
This is more akin to if Netflix said "If you stop paying us you can continue watching what is currently in our catalog, but you won't be able to watch anything new that comes out until you resubscribe".
This is more akin to "If you stop paying us, it's a matter of time until your network gets hacked through some known vulnerability that was published a year ago."
They haven't said that necessarily and I'd like more explanation. Generally when companies go eol for things like this security patches are always included, but new features aren't included. But I haven't seen anything saying that, so yes that would be my worry
Yeah I just deployed an unraid server for someone so this isn't fantastic news...but alternatives exist if/when shit happens.
Yeah I'll be keeping a very weathered eye out on it from here on. We'll see what changes, my average that I see is 4 years from the announcement like this to a full on subscription model. Hopefully enough time for the community to start making an open sourced distro...