Convenience would be paying for a font and then using it on my web site, just the way I do with photos, icons, and other such resources.
Convenience is not jumping through hoops to integrate with an external service of unknown reliability, understanding non-trivial legal agreements with an industry infamous for trying to screw its legitimate customers, and paying more in a single year for font-as-a-service than I pay for permanent use of a font today just so I can legally use the font on a web site in plain text form instead of via images.
Incidentally, I notice that have mentioned elsewhere in this discussion that image replacement technologies are likely to violate the licensing terms of fonts. As far as I'm aware, there haven't been any significant test cases yet in this area in any major western jurisdictions, and the legalities are far from clear, because the font foundries can only protect their rights up to the extent that copyright law grants them. Copyright law incorporates concepts such as fair use (or your local equivalent). Moreover, in some jurisdictions, the design of a font is not subject to copyright at all, only the specific description (the font files being treated as software for this purpose). Even if the font foundries would like to limit your right to buy a font, put it on a server, and have the server generate renderings of specific text in that font, it's not entirely clear what their legal basis for doing so might be in unfavourable jurisdictions, including the US.
Not really.
Convenience would be paying for a font and then using it on my web site, just the way I do with photos, icons, and other such resources.
Convenience is not jumping through hoops to integrate with an external service of unknown reliability, understanding non-trivial legal agreements with an industry infamous for trying to screw its legitimate customers, and paying more in a single year for font-as-a-service than I pay for permanent use of a font today just so I can legally use the font on a web site in plain text form instead of via images.
Incidentally, I notice that have mentioned elsewhere in this discussion that image replacement technologies are likely to violate the licensing terms of fonts. As far as I'm aware, there haven't been any significant test cases yet in this area in any major western jurisdictions, and the legalities are far from clear, because the font foundries can only protect their rights up to the extent that copyright law grants them. Copyright law incorporates concepts such as fair use (or your local equivalent). Moreover, in some jurisdictions, the design of a font is not subject to copyright at all, only the specific description (the font files being treated as software for this purpose). Even if the font foundries would like to limit your right to buy a font, put it on a server, and have the server generate renderings of specific text in that font, it's not entirely clear what their legal basis for doing so might be in unfavourable jurisdictions, including the US.