this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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What's an OS as a service model?
You pay a subscription for support, kind of like with RedHat or SUSE. Or with Office 365, if you want something more consumer-oriented.
There wouldn't be major releases of the OS, just continual improvements as long as you keep paying. So instead of paying $100-150 every 5 years or whatever, you'd pay $20-50 every year.
That sounds lame, what are the benefits of this?
For who?
For the user, generally smaller changes and staying up-to-date. It's why I use a rolling-release Linux distro (openSUSE Tumbleweed) instead of a release-based distro, I don't like big changes and I like staying up-to-date. I think Windows 10 users were excited to have something similar, where they get the same UX, but with improvements coming in a steady stream instead of periodic major releases.
For the company, a more steady income stream. That's part of why big, online games like Apex Legends are so popular for big gaming companies, getting a steady income stream is preferable to a bunch of money every game release with nothing between launches. In fact, my company is selling off part of the business because it's too variable (profitability is based on commodity prices) and focusing on the segments of the business that are more consistent. I've heard we'd rather have lower average profit margins than highly variable profit margins.
I get it now. It does sound reasonable. I just have an aversion to having to make repeated payments.
Same. But if I'm getting value from it, it may be preferable to making larger payments less frequently.
But if you remove the payment aspect from it (i.e. it's free either way), there are plenty of reasons to prefer a steady stream of updates to an infrequent dump of updates.
So then the steady stream vs dump comes down to cost, would you rather pay $120/year, or $10/month? Some may even prefer the $10/month to a modest discount (e.g. $100/year) if it means avoiding the larger, one-time payment.
Personally, I prefer one-time payments w/ discount and a steady stream of updates.
I totally agree with your last statement. Honestly, I usually pirate or buy keys so I'm not one of those people paying full price for software, but regular updates are preferable.