Never really understood the hatred many have towards subscriptions. Many of them offer much better value vs outright purchase, particularly if you update every couple years. (…) I am very happy with my Microsoft subs these days as we get a tremendous value compared to what we used to spend on Office, Servers, and email hosting.
Two reasons:
1. There was a time, when developers of shareware applications could - and did - charge for their software just once. And it still must have had a sustainable business model. So I refuse to believe that they are „forced“ to go subscription.
Of course were paid upgrades a thing - but then, developers had to (and did)
justify the prices of paid upgrades by coming up with innovation, new or better functionality. Or, yes, necessary fixes to accommodate newer operating systems, when something broke. I don‘t have a problem to pay for such upgrades.
What I don‘t like is paying a monthly subscription just to retain functionality.
2. Microsoft Office for personal use actually seems great value for what you get and for how much they put into their product. Many other apps, on the other, seem relatively expensive. If, for instance, I‘m comparing the price of a password manager (1password) to Office - a full-featured office suite.
That said, I may give in and subscribe to
Highlights App. I’ve tried and looked into many PDF readers or annotation apps. But none seems to provide just the functionality I need for my studies as
easily accessible. And without much fuss I
don’t need.
Mentally, I’d factor this in as the costs of studying - rather than a subscription for an app I am just just personally.
