Your feedback resonates with me when I think about my experience with nearly every new software I come across. If it isn’t a monthly subscription (or the yearly option where I am ‘saving’ money) being shoved down my throat, more than likely I am being propositioned to pay for features that I simply don’t care about.
One example, Airtable, has paid plans. In order to get the feature I want, I need to upgrade to the second paid plan for $24 per month. I don’t care about the additional collaboration features. I don’t care about having 10gb or whatever for attachments. So tired of this pricing scheme.
One thing that bites me is that a lot of products are marketed at businesses rather than consumers. There are things I’d use for myself or my family, but the pricing is not conducive to that. Leankit is a great example. I’d love to use it, but it would be way too expensive to justify. Basecamp is the same way (didn’t used to be). The additional features that are used to justify the high price are things that only a business would need, and therefore not useful to me.
I get it, selling to businesses is where the money is at (and probably a lot less hassle than consumers). If I ran a SaaS company I’m sure I’d do the same thing. Still irks me that so many things are unavailable due to the high cost.
Unfortunately this is basic business economics. When you want to drive overall revenue, it's often cheaper to boost an existing customer and sell them more stuff rather than go try to find an additional new customer.
One example, Airtable, has paid plans. In order to get the feature I want, I need to upgrade to the second paid plan for $24 per month. I don’t care about the additional collaboration features. I don’t care about having 10gb or whatever for attachments. So tired of this pricing scheme.