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Vivi Chellappa wrote: what justifies per-user pricing?
If a school purchases text books, they need to pay for each copy that they buy, even though the content of each book is the same.
What's the difference with software?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I don't agree with the per employee of your company bit...but per user of the software seems like a good way to account for the constant upkeep of the software. What else would be a fair way to do it? If I want to use some software for my small business of 4 people, I should have to pay the same as a huge corporation of thousands? Per user is at least proportional.
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Vivi Chellappa wrote: In the past (and even now), there was/is an annual maintenance contract with the software vendor that paid for upgrades and bug fixes.
Not sure you mean by "past" but no that is not true.
Big iron applications, far as I know had contracts. The contract covered the iron and the software. For big iron 3rd party software (like Oracle) I suspect there were contracts also.
For personal computers when you bought Lotus 1-2-3, it was yours. After a bit software of some sorts offered an upgrade which meant you paid less if you had the prior version. Some companies did that. That was true regardless of whether it was personal use, small business or large business. The only 'contracts' associated with that was that if you bought enough copies you could negotiate a lower price. There was no service at all.
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Kschuler wrote: when you bought software, you installed it and it never changed after that point.
Well in over 50 years in this industry I never worked on any software like that. The frequency of updates may not have been as often as now, but it still happened quite regularly.
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Well obviously so am I. 50 years ago the internet was still quite a long way off.
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45 years ago, in the UK, we used JANet (Joint Academic Network) to update software and that ultimately became part of the internet so it wasn't so far off 50 years ago. I can't remember when ARPANet was set up...
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Back in the 60s I worked for Shell-Mex and BP. We had two computer centres, one in Manchester (Wythenshawe) and one in Hemel Hempstead. Once a week we needed to exchange data between the two. So each centre loaded all the data onto 3/4 inch magnetic tapes, boxed them up and popped them into a taxi. The two taxis then made their way to a rendezvous point in Birmingham where they exchanged boxes. The new tapes were then delivered to their destinations. Our centre in Wythenshawe had earlier (i.e. less advanced) systems than Hemel, so if they forgot and wrote their tapes in "high density" we could not read them. Happy days!
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So big iron.
Presumably the companies had a full service contract with the iron company and quite likely only ran software from those companies as well.
Did the employees of your company run those updates or did the employees of the iron company run the updates?
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This was in the days before magnetic drums and disks, and main memory was 16K of magnetic cores. Every morning we would reload the OS from the master magnetic tape, before starting the commercial programs. When the manufacturer created an update they would just send us a new tape. All input data came from punched paper tape or cards, and was processed in batches. One of the joys of the night shift was getting all the invoices printed, decollated and cut, ready for delivery. We could then repair to the canteen and play cards until the end of the shift.
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Around 1980 I first heard the saying, "A truckload of magnetic tape tape has a tremendous bandwidth". Later, I learned that the saying is several years older.
I'd like to do a real, up to date calculation based on, say 128 TB SD cards. What is the weight of an SD card? (I don't have a scale handling those ranges!) How much can you load into a truck? 20 tons? 40 tons?
I guess that a container ship of SD cards would beat the combined capacity of all the Trans-Atlantic optic fibers.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Except now every time I turn on my TV I have to install an update... literally. And to top if off, my TV shows me ads. All for updates I never wanted for crap I don't use... just to watch TV.
Jeremy Falcon
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Vivi Chellappa wrote: What justifies differential pricing based on number of users?
I don't agree with differential pricing when it comes to greed. But, I think scaling pricing is great if it's done ethically. It gives smaller companies a chance to play ball. But, only if done ethically and not out of greed. Dunno about this situation in particular.
I will say though that greed based pricing differences have been around for a while now. Hotels, Airlines, etc. will charge you more if you buy a ticket from an affluent area, for instance. So, the greed part is nothing new it's just being expressed through software now that the tech giants have fully embraced the dark side.
Jeremy Falcon
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has nothing to do with greed. $$ is $$.
You don't have to buy it.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Yeah ok... charging an exorbitant amount for something has nothing to do with greed. Not sure you know what that word means. 
Jeremy Falcon
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charlieg wrote: Smarty pants
Guilty.
charlieg wrote: My point is that it's a free market. Don't like the price? Don't buy it
Right, but that has nothing to do with greed, which was what I was talking about. If anything is more do with supply and demand. Which are indirectly based on fear and greed but that aren't directly the same thing.
charlieg wrote: When companies do this, they are circling the wagons because their cheese is about to be moved.
I'm not sure what that metaphor means. I assume it means they're getting desparate and if so, would lend credence to my original point you seem to be trying to discredit. 
Side note, it's in poor taste for unsolicited book recommendations. It's presumptuous and assumes I know little of the subject. I can promise you, nothing could be further from the truth.
charlieg wrote: But if the OP is upset, they need to take it up with senior leadership.
This has nothing to do with greed being the driving factor behind a lot of new pricing models.
Jeremy Falcon
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Vivi Chellappa wrote: What makes software different from common household goods such as TV, automobiles, etc?
I'd say you're not giving enough weight to the distinction between tangibles and intangibles. Tangibles have limited lifetimes; automobiles, TVs, microwave ovens, smart phones, groceries, etc., eventually need replacing, often because some folks like to have the latest 'thing'. There's an on-going market for new widgets.
The sales model for tangibles is not sustainable for software over time. Once most people who need a particular software app have it, it gets harder to sell them upgrades especially as the product matures, and the market for new purchases is never as big as the initial sales. I don't know that this justifies the model nearly every software company has adopted over the last decade, but I'm pretty sure that's the reason behind it.
What justifies differential pricing based on number of users? If you're buying wine for an evening, are you buying one bottle for you and your partner, or for a party of 50? You gots mo' people, you needs mo' wine. That's where the gap between tangibles and intangibles is negligible.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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The biggest difference between Products (TV, Automobile, Washing Machine) and software is that software is not sold. Software is licensed. You do not own it. You own the right to use it under the terms of the licensing agreement. If you do not agree with the terms of the license you are free to negotiate with the software owner or go find a different software solution with licensing terms that are more to your liking (like open source alternatives).
The problem that software owners/vendors have is that software is easy to install and run on most computing equipment. Need an extra word processor for a new employee, just install the one you have on that employee's new PC. That is why most software installs try to phone home to the mother company to validate that the software license for it is not already bound to a different PC. Need more flexibility in the international nature of your multi country corporation. Then get an Enterprise License and you are free to use software as much as you want. Of course, you are going to pay an order of magnitude more for the license than a single user license. Have a small office with a tiny server and you don't want to pay for "big iron" prices. Then there are small server (per core) pricing.
You can compare hard good products with software products only when they can "pop into existence" by simply installing a copy of them in another location. Need a 2nd TV, just install a copy of your TV in the new room, or friend's house.
But I do agree that Oracle is the example of hardnosed licensing. It's the reason why almost everyone that is doing any serious development with Java software products is using OpenJDK development. If you are an enterprise and using Oracle as a database then you are stuck. You are already paying an arm and leg for licensing and support.
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Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote: The biggest difference between Products (TV, Automobile, Washing Machine) and software is that software is not sold. Software is licensed.
But not that simple.
Car leasing.
Backhoe rental.
Not to mention of course 'software' these days is also confused with 'service'. You can have Microsoft Office as a product or a service.
If I go to a bar, buy a beer and watch a sports match am I getting a service or a product?
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All of the software on my current PC is bought as a product, or downloaded free of charge/service. I do pay a monthly fee for my internet connection, but that comes with no software at my PC.
One common way to pay for internet (and broadcasting) services is to let the ads persuade you to buy more of the stuff advertised - part of what you pay (sometimes, a significant part) goes to run the service. I don't want to be persuaded to buy lots of things I don't need. The stuff I need, I buy, ads or not.
One problem: When I buy a product, a significant part of the price goes for producing internet services and TV shows that I could care less about. I don't want my money to be spend on that garbage! (some of it, at least) But the is no way to opt out, as long as I need the stuff I buy and cannot / will not stop buying it just to keep my money out of those production budgets. I really liked it when we had to pay a license to watch TV, one with no commercials. I could opt out, and I did: I never owned a TV set.
I am forced to pay for a lot of services and series that I don't want; it happens nearly every time I pull my card or open my billfold. Therefore, I have a clean conscience when I use an ad blocker, so that I do not spend even more money on services and series that I do not want. In the old days of paper newspapers, they often had advertising inserts, printed separately so you could take them out and throw in the wastepaper basket without looking at them. That's what I did. The paper equivalent to today's ad blocker. Criticizing me for using an ad blocker is like criticizing me for throwing the ad insert into the wastepaper basket in the old days.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Interesting. Not sure I get the connections between software licensing and the examples you provided.
Car Leasing: You agree to pay for the depreciation of the car over the length of time or mileage (usage) for the period of the lease. You agree to be responsible for damage to the vehicle and must purchase insurance to protect against damage that occurs while the vehicle is in your possession but the title to the vehicle remains with the company doing the leasing.
Backhoe rental: again the title to the Backhoe remains with the rental company but you agree to the rental terms that provide a certain amount of income to the owner of the Backhoe. The Backhoe remains on the books of the owning company and they get to take depreciation and wear and tear costs against their income generated by the asset.
As to the Bar: If you can go into the bar and watch the game without purchasing a beer then it is a free charity event, if you must purchase at least one beer to remain and watch the game, then the cost of the beer is the entry cost of the service that is being provided. Beer plus game plus the ambiance of the pub.
Sorry, but I am confused. Not the first time though.
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Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote: Not sure I get the connections between software licensing and the examples you provided.
You said...
"Software is licensed. You do not own it."
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A few decades ago, I would agree with you. But if you, we, us read the fine print, we don't own the s/w any more. It's not a tangible item, but wait, more to follow.
What Oracle is doing is not new. They tried this crap 20 years ago and promptly got deleted from our system. I was in the office when my VP looked at the Oracle rep, looked at me, told me spin up mysql or postgres, up to you, looked back at the oracle rep, told him, you're fired, get the f'k out of the building.
That said, Oracle or any company or YOU are entitled to demand whatever they want. You don't have to buy it. But you are dealing at the corporate level, so Oracle is counting on the fact that the pain of moving from their product is worse than paying their new charges. Broadcomm bought VMWare and it's a cluster fluck.
Oracle is doing nothing wrong. Might piss you off, anger you, but their product is their product. Want to really get upset? Look t the cost of a bottle of Coke. It's $18/gallon. Don't even get me started on "bottled" water.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Vivi Chellappa wrote: What makes software different from common household goods such as TV, automobiles, etc?
Nothing, the rest of those industries just hasn't caught up yet. If you read about about The Great Reset, or whatever it's called, one of the key components is that nobody owns anything -- they rent stuff. 
"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy" - World Economic Forum, 2016.[^]
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My point is that it's a free market. Don't like the price? Don't buy it. Of course we can get into illegal cornering of markets and price fixing, etc. Did you design a system that wedded you to the evil prince? Fix it. 