Hello, now when I open RWC a yellowish link labelled “Updates have expired, Renew my Mac” is appearing. I bought this a year ago, before I actually became aware that buying it is paid subscription. I am not happy with that. Due to them not stating clearly that RWC is a yearly subscription, I think it would have been proper of them to leave me alone :-) I really hope Isiah is finished soon, so I don’t have to pay for another subscription. The updates I paid for seem rather negligent in the extension and function of RWC. A rather expensive subscription in this sense.
But you are still able to use RWC?
Yes, I have updated a website today, and it works fine.
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Also, seen in the light of the updates being very minor and not bringing any extension of functions or other enhancement of RWC, it is not worth updating according to my opinion. I should actually just have kept my version 8 instead of updating it last year. But really, it was not mentioned clearly at that point that it was a subscription I bought. Or at least it skipped my awareness :-) can be, after all I am an old man by now :-)
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But… but… how can you say that? There’s this new badge! And uhm… a yellow expiration notification (as you’ve noticed). 😂
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So, you are not willing to pay for updates, yet feel the updates received so far are not very good?
How do you propose software companies fund the ongoing development of their apps if you are not willing to pay for it?
I’m not having a go at you, or supporting RW, I’m just curious how you think businesses can continue to operate without cashflow.
I guess the RWC “subscription like updates” will fund the development of RW Elements.
You can decide for yourself if you would like to pay the yearly “update fee” or just wait until RWC breaks (e.g. with a new macOS) and order a new year of updates at that point in time.
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Hi @Kent,
You can ignore that.
RW isn’t a straight subscription model thankfully. The app won’t stop working now that your sub has expired. The only thing you won’t be getting is updates. If you can live without updates, there’s no need to worry.
Cheers,
Erwin
It’s just like the business we’re in, or any business actually: perception trumps reality.
People need to see actual improvements or new features. Fixes of bugs that weren’t noticed before, people care a lot less about. They need some form of justification for spending the money.
When I say people, I mean people in general — even those who are aware of biases like this — you, me included.
Switching from a pay-once to subscription/maintenance model is hard. If Netflix wouldn’t add new content, they would see a massive drop of subscribers even though they haven’t watched 80% of the current content.
And then there’s ownership vs. usage: our whole western society is based on ownership — that’s capitalism: private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
Stack that with the notion that humans aren’t really altruistic unless it suits them ( a contradictio in terminis in optima forma) — “It’s not my problem how a company pays their bills, I have mine to pay.”
Adding it all up means: why would I spend x amount per month, when I used to do a one time payment, and now I don’t perceive any actual benefits?
To answer that question requires to switch our rational, capitalistic, ego-centered hat for the opposite. In short, it requires marketing talent (on a personal level we call it empathy).
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@TemplateRepo You know in this case, to argue about willingness to pay for updates is hardly valid. For example Affinity, there I pay once and get updates until they release a new version with fairly many new features, and I happily pay for those updates. I have also happily paid for RW updates in the past when they released new versions. In the case of RWC, perhaps it is not many that remember that initially, it appeared that it was a one-time payment for an upgrade to a newer improved version, only a few days later it became apparent that it was a subscription model. At least to me, it did. Actually, I also remember others that were confused if it was a one-time payment or a subscription! To make things even worse, it was not really an update, it was basically RW 8 with some rather useless small addition, like the banner thing, which I would never dream of using. And since then the updates have mainly been correcting bugs, and not only is it only bugs, they state that they have done major updates with many new features, but those features are really just minor ones, that no decent software firm would boast about, what not to say ask money for. So it was just a means to extract money from us users for whatever purpose the money would go to. One could suspect they have been used on RW Elements… I won’t write what I think this is…
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Go ahead. Make my day.
As I recall if you bought RWC the first 10 days (or maybe it was just 10 hours) it was offered, it was a flat upgrade purchase and not a subscription.
Did anybody buy that?
2-How much is it to update/keep your subscription?
Not necessarily. When the iOS app Launch Center Pro moved to a subscription model or a lifetime license for $35, I immediately bought the lifetime license because I wanted to support the developer, who I think has since abandoned LCP. It hasn’t been updated for a couple of years, though still a great app and my most-used app.
My favorite writing app Ulysses moved to a subscription model – right after I bought an update – but I could buy a lifetime subscription for just $35/year for forever, which I bit the bullet and did – despite updating for about the same price just a few months before. My subscription includes both Mac OS and iOS versions, and they work flawlessly via iCloud.
If RapidWeaver worked flawlessly, I might consider it, but flawless would have to include respect for @Isaiah and the community of Stacks developers as well as Stacks users, but Realmac hasn’t shown that with us.
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Yes exactly,I thought that is what I got, but not. I also do not remember if it was 10 hours or 10 days, it might have to be 10 hours I think. You can understand my eagerness to support the developers 😁
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With the current Summer Sale it’s 60% off. But I recall seeing the same price before so probably also on Autumn, Winter or Spring Sale/Black Plague Day/Manic and Blue Monday/When-pigs-fly Season/When-hell-freezes-over-day Month/and in the Year of the Cat (a.k.a. Al Stewart discount).
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That alone almost makes me want to sell my soul and buy into RW Classic.
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Having witnessed what happened with Adobe when they went over to a subscription model, I am deeply cynical about the ‘will fund development’ claims. Now that Adobe has captive customers, their development has largely dried up. RW is not that bad (at least, yet) because the price isn’t too bad. Let’s just hope it remains that way. The old, non-subscription model seems right to me. If you give customers some reason to update, they will, but if you don’t they won’t. Bug fixes don’t warrant a subscription; by definition, they are fixing things which weren’t right in the first place.
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Exactly!
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@peterdanckwerts Hi Peter,
My experience of the Adobe CC subscription is completely different from yours. Adobe are constantly updating all their apps with enhancements and interface improvements (as well as maintenance fixes).
Recently, they have been adding beta AI tools to Illustrator, Photoshop and Lightroom which when mature will be fantastic time savers for a lot of mundane image editing and illustration processes.
And at around £50 per month for the full suite of 20 creative apps - 2 “seats” including iPad versions - it’s a no-brainer for both professional and budding creatives imo. My son has shown an interest and has full access using my 2nd seat. I don’t charge him obviously, but one could share with a friend and split the monthly cost.
No comparison with RW who I agree are taking the piss with their subscription model.
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I think it depends on whether you see a lot of fripperies to be as important as basic feature support. It took Adobe at least 10 years after they introduced the subscription model before they supported endnotes in InDesign. Their support for XML in InDesign is still pathetic because they’re trying to avoid it cannibalising their sales of FrameMaker. I haven’t seen anything much in the way of basic improvements in InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator for years. And how many people need 20 Adobe apps? I’ve replaced Photoshop and Illustrator with Affinity Photo and Designer – they’re not perfect but they’re improving a thousand times faster than the Adobe apps, at a fraction of the cost. I’m now only subscribing to InDesign and I would dearly like to add Acrobat Pro, but just those two would cost me nearly £40 a month and I can’t afford it. I’m so fed up with Adobe that I’m seriously thinking of moving from InDesign to a combination of XML and LaTeX, the latter being nearly 50-year-old technology.
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Hey, @peterdanckwerts , have you tried Affinity’s Publisher app? What do you think of it as opposed to Adobe’s InDesign?