I don’t see any of these things as being a problem because all these concerns
have already been addressed.
If your app goes poof you’ll most likely still have your files. In the case of
music software it’s in the software publisher’s best interest to provide the
ability to read and write in many formats so you can interoperate with other
competing tools. Could they go all proprietary and need some super secret
format like you propose, sure but then I propose nobody will buy or rent it
because it won’t work with anyone else. Maybe if a market leader like Avid
madea move like this it might stick but even there I think there’s enough
alternate gear out there that people want to work with that the ability to
import and export will always exist.
Same with storage, if you want to discontinue your relationship with a
cloud storage provider you can download and copy that data to local storage and
move it as needed. You may also be able to migrate from one to another
directly depending on the tools available.
As for the acces and software issues. I think it may go the apple
route where if you owe money on your account you have access to your data as it
stood before your account went negative but you don’t get the updates and can’t
stream etc. You still get your music and apps and things you’ve prepaid for.
The access issue doesn’t bother me. Sure you might have short term issues in
access but then you might lose power for a few hours or your water might end up
with lead in it if you live in Michigan (the poor people of Flint) or your car
might break down. As the T-Shirt says, sh*t happens. Depends on how much you
value your services. If you really need Internet you might have a cellular
backup on your router or maybe more than one connection. Other services are
monopolies like water so you’re screwed. Access or loss of access though
doesn’t concern me because that’s a fact of life in all utilities.
On 6/9/16, 5:28 PM, "'Chris Blouch' via MacVisionaries"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>I was going to say the same thing, but my fingers were to tired for all
>that, so I'll just say I agree.
>
>Here is the downside scenario. Say somebody puts out a nice app such as
>an audio cleaner. I rent the app and use it to clean all my cassette and
>LP record transfers to remove hiss and pops. Great! But what if I stop
>paying/don't renew. A couple scenarios, in order of badness:
>
>1. The app goes poof and I can't clean anymore audio, but I still have
>all my existing cleaned audio.
>2. The app goes poof, I still have cleaned audio files but it's in
>"super scrub deluxe" format which I can't play unless I jump through
>some terminal hacks to install rogue software from some site in Russia.
>3. The app goes poof and takes my files with it, either deleting them or
>they were on some cloud service that I now do not have access to.
>
>In the old setup I pay once and can keep using app and my files forever,
>or at least until some OS upgrade breaks it.
>
>Couple other variations are possible. Back in the day they used to call
>it Technology Lock-in and you were trapped in the Apple or Microsoft
>(VMS? CMP?) ecosphere. Mac was a little better because its small market
>share required it to play chameleon to work with the other platform. So
>what happens if my app provider does the same lock-in? My audio scrubber
>works fine but they haven't updated it in months. Do I keep on paying
>just to have it around?
>
>As the developer I'd be happy because people would have to keep paying
>me for the privileged of using my novel app, which I've copyrighted,
>trademarked and patented like crazy.
>
>CB
>
>On 6/9/16 4:11 PM, Sabahattin Gucukoglu wrote:
>> Oops! This post is long. Sorry about that. :)
>>
>> Great little discussion.
>>
>> DF posted a followup, called “App Store Subscription Uncertainty”:
>> http://daringfireball.net/2016/06/app_store_subscription_uncertainty
>>
>> The linked Apple guidelines make it pretty clear that this is about actual,
>> material, subscribe-worthy things, like services or new content. As you can
>> see from the piece, this is making developers—who, as Donna rightly points
>> out, are itching for the perfect back-rub—rather uncomfortable.
>>
>> Here’s my position: it may be isolationist in the view of the trust others
>> put in to it, but the cloud is ultimately a dependency. It’s not as
>> obviously brittle as the mainframe, but yes, it means you need access to the
>> cloud, and if it fails for any reason, as it can (the recent news about the
>> Sydney AWS failure is a perfect illustration of this), then you’re SOL.
>> This could be anything from a service outage to a change of business
>> relationships to a falling out with the vendor; it means you seed control of
>> your software to some outside party. I’m just not happy with that
>> arrangement. I have an Office sub for personal use, but I’m more interested
>> in the 1 TB of storage than the software.
>>
>> Now, as people are saying here, both Microsoft and Adobe are making money
>> hand over fist by getting people to pay more long-term, just like mobile
>> phone contracts. This works, until you lose access to the software you’re
>> perfectly fine with using, and or just don’t see any need of upgrades that
>> are worth paying for. My hope is that Apple pretty clearly makes this
>> subscription model a choice, and provides the enforcement necessary to stop
>> the market dissolving into an exclusively subscriber arena. I’m just not
>> interested in that, and for the reasons mostly already put forward here. If
>> everybody gets the idea that you’ll pay a little here, a little there to
>> keep their updates coming in, when the practical consequence of that is lots
>> of subscriptions that are mostly paid out on a habitual rather than
>> beneficial basis, then we’re going to have developers raking it in for doing
>> little work and no incentive structure to do better. The correct solution,
>> one that doesn’t make quite so much money for Apple, but the right solution
>> nevertheless, is to provide proper support for trials and major release
>> upgrades; then people would get what they actually paid for. Subscriptions
>> just aren’t the instrument for that, and the cynic in me says that Apple are
>> well aware of that. It also helps that we don’t yet know what happens,
>> exactly, if you “run out” of your subscription and don’t pay for the next
>> instalment; if you lose everything, as I’m pretty sure you will, then the
>> subscription ultimately amounts to a racket for any software with no
>> incremental component.
>>
>> Finally, I’d like to draw one positive out of all this: the incentive for
>> quality. Notice here that Apple will surrender some of those precious
>> margins for sticky apps. Maybe, just maybe, better, deeper, quality apps
>> will come out of this. Let’s face it, the marketplace is constrained by the
>> impulse-buy price structures. As CB and others say, it could mean a lot if
>> the cost of software over many years, with genuine upgrade pricing that
>> worked in this new subscription model, and paid for by willing purchasers on
>> an ongoing basis, could actually be accommodated. I don’t think Adobe or
>> Microsoft qualify; they’re only making it work because they are the top in
>> their respective markets. But apps with plenty of forward progress
>> potential with new features appearing on a regular basis that are above and
>> beyond mere feature enhancements or bug fixes could make it work. For those
>> vitally important apps, I’d happily pay a little per year to cover the cost
>> of ongoing development, especially if it means Apple will let them claw back
>> more of their earnings.
>>
>> There’s nothing to add concerning ads: it’s just going to be a slide to the
>> bottom, paid for by the parasites at the top, as usual. Wish Apple would
>> get its own bottom in order and have a search function that worked. But at
>> least it’s limited to the US, for now.
>>
>> And I didn’t see any mention concerning the Mac App Store. That’s just the
>> same, as always, and I don’t suppose it’ll change. I could be wrong
>> though—in some ways I hope I am. It’d mean actual progress on that poor,
>> beleaguered place.
>>
>> Message ends. :)
>>
>
>--
>¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>
>
>--
>The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries
>list.
>
>If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if
>you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or
>moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself.
>
>Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara
>Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected]
>
>The archives for this list can be searched at:
>http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
>---
>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>"MacVisionaries" group.
>To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>email to [email protected].
>To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
>Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries.
>For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries
list.
If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you
feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or
moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself.
Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara Quinn
- you can reach Cara at [email protected]
The archives for this list can be searched at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"MacVisionaries" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
