Great move by them to introduce a license requirement for 250+ seats but not waste resources enforcing it (as far as I can tell). Those who will pay, will pay. Those who won’t, will switch tools no matter how painful. They stayed relevant by keeping all their users, even those technically breaking the license, but also collected some cash.
I have a product that has zero reduction in functionality if your license or trial runs out, just constantly nags you when you do useful things with it. Eventually, the workers at the company insist on the company buying it. Sometimes takes 6 months hah.
This works incredibly well on me. I often use free or open source versions of tools and just ignore the nagging prompts about licenses. Then over time, if I like it enough that I eventually end up getting a license for it. I think the ability for me to see the value in something first before committing helps a lot. The free version sort of builds a reservoir of good will that eventually pushes me over to just paying for a license.
Agreed. The friction i have towards buying things i like is very low. As an Apple user i mistakenly convince myself that paying helps get better products[1], and so i don't mind buying products i like. However i have a ton of friction buying products when i don't know that they'll solve my problem. I judge them harshly on that first-buy.
And while easy to cancel subscriptions theoretically let you try and get out, the reality is often that something else comes up, maybe you'll try it next month, you're still not sure, you forget about it, and before you know it you've paid quite a bit.
Yea i don't like subscriptions either. For me though i look at it as a long term purchase and i don't like that.
I don't mind licenses like JetBrains though. Ie purchase a year of updates, but it'll keep working regardless. Subscribe to Own also seems decent.. not sure i've used one though.
I'm curious if there are any podcasts/blogs/books which give "pricing ideas/strategies" based on a "risky" premise like this: keep it very simple and don't worry about theft, because enterprise customers won't steal, and the math works out.
Here's an excerpt of their pricing terms:
Do I need a paid subscription to use the images on Docker Hub for commercial use?
Images on Docker Hub can be used for commercial use, as long as Docker Desktop is properly licensed. Paid subscriptions are needed for commercial use of Docker Desktop at organizations with more than $10 million annual revenue OR more than 250 employees.
Companies can also get in trouble for not buying it, you could have an employee turn into a whistleblower for a lawsuit, to which they would get a % of.
I still don't know how that dude makes money. People use my software multiple times a day, so the nag is quite annoying. I need WinRar once in a few months, maybe.
Though if my memory servers me right one time I bought it for a staff of the site which has.. quite dubious legal position by hosting the abandonware. Of course it was technically a breach of contract because there were multiple people who could use it, it was still one legal license more.
