I'm trying very hard to adjust my routines to stay clear of subscription software. Any application i use that switches to a subscription model gets replaced with something else.
I routinely buy new versions as they're released, but at least i can decide to skip a version if i don't feel the features quite make up for the price.
I was using Tower 2 for years, and have been using the beta for a while, and love it. However, I'm really in two minds about the way they've chosen to implement their payment model change...
On the one hand, I'm a proponent of subscription pricing, as it keeps the company in business and gives them a more consistent and dependable revenue stream, all of which are positive things. On the other hand, the pricing for this seems REALLY high -- they're charging close to what their perpetual license used to cost, but now on a yearly basis! (it used to be $79, while the new Basic yearly license is $69).
I'm happy to pay for a product I use and enjoy, but I don't think you can have it both ways... either you significantly reduce the cost but charge yearly, or you keep the cost high and charge it once. I feel like Adobe did this really well despite the large amount of grumbling that the move produced -- their products used to be too expensive to buy for many people, and they introduced a subscription model that isn't exactly cheap but is definitely within the realm of reason, which allowed people to actually afford their products.
I'll have to think about whether Tower is worth this much money yearly (basically, whether I'd be willing to buy it again every year). It might be time to look into alternatives... when I first started using Tower it was head and shoulders above the competition, but I've been hearing good things about how much SourceTree has improved in the past few years.
I won't be upgrading anytime soon. This is disappointing as one of the features I really liked was it was a single pay for the current version. The next version would be an upgrade and personally I would pay for that.
There are alternatives like GitLens built into VS Code that will be getting a second look from my self.
My original submission title was different with the word “ouch?” at the end.
I love Tower, but darn it I need to be MORE efficient and save money on overheads. Too many subscriptions, Jetbrains is being ditched next year, and I’ll stick with Tower 2 until it stops working. Sigh. I thought software companies had economies of scale by coding once and selling a squillion times. Apparently this is not the case. A git GUI is really not worth this much to me every year, given my existing skills on the command line. Maybe this is for companies and not individuals.
I'm getting quite tired already of subscription pricing. Over time, we pay extreme amounts of money for updates and new features that used to be free of charge.
I think you’re looking at it wrong, but I’m still just as annoyed.
We’re giving the developer money for a bucket of features. It should be okay if a new feature comes along that I have to pay for it (upgrade cost). By paying when I did I was signaling that the old features were worth the price, expecting it to be free forever and include new features after that seems a bit unreasonable.
However, I get quite upset when I don’t have the option any longer to stay with my old bucket of features because they want to put me on the monthly fee treadmill.
IntelliJ gets this better than most. You have to pay every year, the year you stop paying is the year you’re frozen at. Fallback perpetual licensing I think is the term they used.
I love Tower for Mac, I’m happy with my current bucket of features and don’t wish to hop in the recurring revenue treadmill. I’ll be quite disappointed if they make it hard for me to stay on my current version.
I'll be using SourceTree full time now (https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/)
I'm trying very hard to adjust my routines to stay clear of subscription software. Any application i use that switches to a subscription model gets replaced with something else.
I routinely buy new versions as they're released, but at least i can decide to skip a version if i don't feel the features quite make up for the price.