Subscription Software

The general thought from most of the internet is that the very idea of subscription software is vile.

For some reason, I'm not in that same camp. I have a couple of different bits of software that I pay for as I go and I'm not at all pissed at it.

The two biggies I can think of are Adobe Creative Cloud and Jet Brain's suite of software. In both cases I get updates quickly. I'm also happy to pay for people to develop software that I get value out of.

Honestly, in the case of Creative Cloud I know I wouldn't have paid the huge price that it was being sold at when it wasn't a subscription. But I'm using more of the suite than I thought I would have before I got it. With IntelliJ from JetBrains, hell, I'm more than happy to give money to people that make my life so much easier at work and home.

I guess it's the idea that I don't mind paying money to people that make stuff I consider good. I want them to keep up the good work; if they don't get paid, I don't get the fruits of their labor.

I also like the way that most of this stuff winds up being tons of incremental updates instead of the annual big-bang release.

In any case... I guess this is another way I'm out of sync with the conventional wisdom.

I also know I'm in the minority, I suppose.