Re: Market pressures for more reliable software

[Al Christians <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com>]

"James A. Robertson" wrote:
> 
> The problem occurs once your software reaches a 'mature' state - then
> few are buying new licenses (there's no need), and few buy support (it's
> mature and doesn't need it).  This is what is starting to happen with MS
> Office, and is also something that has hit the development tools sector.
> 
> The answer that seems to work is a subscription model, which you can
> find large numbers of people railing against.
> 
> The base problem is that over time, people in fact won't pay for support
> - especially once the product gets to a state where it doesn't need a
> lot of it.
> 

The answer you propound is evidently the answer to the question "How
do I get a perpetual income from a single project?"  Good software 
may be usable in perpetuity,  but if the market is competitive,  the
price will compensate the seller only for what is sold and  will not 
saddle the buyer with additional costs (short-term or long-term) for 
what is neither wanted nor needed.  Reliable software ought to be 
produced in  a comparatively short time and last a comparatively long 
time.  The justification for market economies is that they produce a 
bounty for consumers (buyers).  Producers are supposed to be smart 
enough to deal with that.

Where I live there is some of the back end of the game development 
business.  That market has adapted to the economics of software as 
a permanent good. They produce a game and move on.  Embedded software
ought to work the same way.  I might not buy an appliance if I knew
there was a permanent development group somewhere continually turning 
out bug fixes for the appliance's embedded software.  If consumers
prefer to pay once and use forever, it's market failure if they can't
find a way to get what they want.


Al