I avoid saas precisely because of the subscription model. Occasionally, I need to make a flowchart, but I don't need to make flowcharts every month. I used to be able to pay for a flowchart software once, and then use it occasionally. Now it seems that, to get quality flowchart software, I have to pay monthly for something I don't use monthly. So instead, I find some free flowchart software which may or may not be limited in some way that I just deal with, and no one gets my money. Or maybe I find something with a buy-me-a-coffee link, but they would still get more from me if I could just buy a perpetual license for a reasonable price.
Of course, the flowchart is just one example. The same can be said for a lot of utility software I only need occasionally.
Yes. I have some audio waveform generation software I use only once in a long while. I paid about $50 for it almost 5 years ago. If it were SaaS, I'd have paid a lot more than that over the last 5 years.
A long time ago I worked out an agreement with a local gym. To avoid a membership that I would only need for a few months (I was living in a hotel temporarily with no access to my own equipment), I paid $10 each time I showed up. This could be a useful model for rarely-used software.
It's a bit frustrating having to "subscribe" and cancel almost everything. I barely signup to anything and I still forget that I'm subscribed to things.
Companies are fully aware that many, many people forget about charges on their card and leech off those for extended periods.
Sure but it's also super cheap. That's the benefit. That's the tradeoff.
And it's as easy as setting a calendar reminder.
I do wish you could pay a month without auto renewal turned on, but it's also not a big deal. You can also often just cancel auto-renew immediately after paying, so no need even for a calendar reminder.
Because the friction of signing up, going through any onboarding process and then canceling a month later (assuming cancelling isn't major hassle) is a pain in the ass that I don't want to have to deal with.
I don't think you realize that people willingly pay for convenience.
Some companies saw this issue by providing a read only client. The users can open files that they created but are not able to modify them without a subscription.
By the way, if you are on Apple ecosystem, I recently tried the newly included Apple tool, Freeform, and found it to be surprisingly capable.
Funny, your scenario to me seems like SAAS is an improvement.
If I only use flowchart software 2x/yr, I can just pay those two individual months and nothing else. Six times over three years is way cheaper than buying it outright ever would have been. Plus after three years I'd be needing something that the newer version introduced anyways.
So in your scenario SAAS saves a bunch of money and keeps your features and OS compatibility up to date.
You just have to remember to cancel it once you're done each month, but that's easy enough with a calendar reminder.
This way you get to save a lot of money over buying it outright.
Of course, the flowchart is just one example. The same can be said for a lot of utility software I only need occasionally.