this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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You're only partly right. You example services. Of course it is not possible to own services. Piracy is only applicable to products. The point of the Twitter guy is, that companies intentionally stop selling their software etc. as products to sell you the same thing as a service, so that you cannot own it.
Not only that. Remember when Sony said that you don't own the PS4 you bought for several hundred bucks but just purchased the right to use it as intended so you're not allowed to tinker with it and for example install another operating system or figure out how their security works.
That's what is meant by buying is not owning anymore.
I could go on about cars with subscriptions for heated seats that are already installed but not turned on etc.
It's true that SaaS does stop you from owning software... But what good does "owning" a piece of software do you if you can't get updates anyway? Back in the pre-internet era we got used to software existing as discrete versions but it hasn't been like that for a LONG time. As soon as patching became a regular occurrence, "ownership" became a service contract with a CD attached. Then the CD vanished, and it just became a service.
While I do dislike needless "as a service" stuff, that model does genuinely suit a lot of people. It's not a conjob; companies offer this stuff because a lot of customers want it. Most of the companies that are selling you SaaS stuff themselves use SaaS things in-house.
Yeah, it sucks to hear it, but this guy is right.
It's also (typically) modeled in such a way that your software is consistently updated to new versions on release. You get active hotfixes, patches and improvements as they are released.
Most people jump software versions in stages of about 2-3 years. You'll find a lot of SaaS packages will be priced as if you were instead purchasing the software at those stages.
All in all, if you have every intention of using the software regularly, it's priced well and typically makes for a much better user experience.
Indeed. And that's without considering that a lot of SaaS stuff on the consumer level lets you cancel at any time. Ok, you can get burned for 30 bucks if it turns out not to be all that useful, but the full packages are typically priced somewhere between eyewatering and "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?", and they always have been.
A perfect example here - GeForce Now costs like 20 per month, cancel whenever you like. A 4080 gpu costs way over a grand. It's up to you whether you prefer to own, rent or not bother at all, but it doesn't take a lot to convince me to spend 20 bucks, but it does take a lot to get me to stump up for a whole new PC.
I think you slightly missed the point too. I think he meant that even when you buy games for example (or any other software).You don't actually buy the game. You only buy a license to use that software.