Hey FSFE community,
I really like to hear your points of view on a thought I had.
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is set to require companies to keep providing updates for the lifetime of a product. That will mean an increased an continued effort (thus cost) by the vendor.
I expect that this will encourage the practice of subscription models. In this way the vendor has recurring income and has some control over the availability of a product or service. Regardless whether these are SaaS services, physical products products of installable software applications. Some functionality might be available without using services, but that would be so limited that it would hardly justify the purchase and so you are strongly compelled to get the subscription.
For sure the market will allow for different funding model to compete and it is ultimately up to users to decide. But take the Adobe Creative Suite as an example; there are now many artists that are bound to monthly payment to obtain access to access and modify their work. Or how about the fitness trackers that need a subscription model to access the data and analysis for which you bought it in the first place.
Personally I think the trend towards subscription models is a negative one as a user is required to keep paying for continued development and can not decide to be content with the existing version. Worse is that proprietary standard and access to data are used as leverage to compel users to sign up and keep the subscription.
What do you think? Is there are a trend towards subscription models? How does that affect user freedom? Does the planned CRA encourage the trend towards subscription models?
Looking forward to your thoughts, Nico
What do you think? Is there are a trend towards subscription models?
Clearly yes, as you described very well.
How does that affect user freedom? Does the planned CRA encourage the trend towards subscription models?
I do extremly dislike this kind of products and try to avoid them as much as possible. I do even invest extra time and often go without using such products. Sad as I like to follow and investigate on new concepts and developments.
Regards Ursin Solèr
Am 24. Oktober 2023 08:28:26 MESZ schrieb Nico Rikken nico.rikken@fsfe.org:
Hey FSFE community,
I really like to hear your points of view on a thought I had.
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is set to require companies to keep providing updates for the lifetime of a product. That will mean an increased an continued effort (thus cost) by the vendor.
I expect that this will encourage the practice of subscription models. In this way the vendor has recurring income and has some control over the availability of a product or service. Regardless whether these are SaaS services, physical products products of installable software applications. Some functionality might be available without using services, but that would be so limited that it would hardly justify the purchase and so you are strongly compelled to get the subscription.
For sure the market will allow for different funding model to compete and it is ultimately up to users to decide. But take the Adobe Creative Suite as an example; there are now many artists that are bound to monthly payment to obtain access to access and modify their work. Or how about the fitness trackers that need a subscription model to access the data and analysis for which you bought it in the first place.
Personally I think the trend towards subscription models is a negative one as a user is required to keep paying for continued development and can not decide to be content with the existing version. Worse is that proprietary standard and access to data are used as leverage to compel users to sign up and keep the subscription.
What do you think? Is there are a trend towards subscription models? How does that affect user freedom? Does the planned CRA encourage the trend towards subscription models?
Looking forward to your thoughts, Nico
Hi Nico,
Am Dienstag, 24. Oktober 2023, 08:28:26 CET schrieb Nico Rikken:
What do you think? Is there are a trend towards subscription models?
yes there is. :) Of course software vendors will have to maintain the software and a subscription model could match that cost curve. However with proprietary software, the problem is that your data is kept captive and if you had just wanted to use the software for a year (let us say for your studies) and then you need to subscribe forever just to fully access your thesis documents.
How does that affect user freedom?
A bit. Like you I believe it is a bad development if used for proprietary software. I can be a good one, if used for Free Software.
Like even if you have a long enduring licence for a proprietary product, you probably need to buy a new one if they move to a new major version or you to a new operating system or device.
So the key is using an open standard dataformat, for where there will be several applications that could handle your data in the future.
Does the planned CRA encourage the trend towards subscription models?
No, it will have other chilling effects on Free Software development and software development in general, I think, because the responsibility can still be shifted to the producer of components too easily (which usually is not the big comany that policy makers wanted to get to take responsibility).
Best Regards, Bernhard