First one is going to be so-called free
software- free, as in you don't pay, but
that they pay for with selling your data.
The typical examples
of this would be Gmail.
You don't actually pay for Gmail with
money outta your pocket, at least
most people don't on the typical plan.
And so how are they paying for those
servers and those developers and the
infrastructure and their whole company?
Well, of course they are using
your data for various purposes.
They're able to train AI models.
They're able to create targeted
ads and build up huge databases
on users that they're able to sell
to advertisers for targeted ads.
Welcome to the Sovereign Computing
Show, presented by ATL BitLab.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and this is a
podcast where we teach you how to
take back control of your devices.
Sovereign Computing means you own your
technology, not the other way around.
This episode is sponsored by ATL BitLab.
ATL BitLab is Atlanta's
freedom tech hacker space.
We have co working desks,
conference rooms, event space,
maker tools, and tons of coffee.
There is a very active
community here in the lab.
Every Wednesday night is
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We also have meetups for cyber security,
artificial intelligence, decentralized
identity, product design, and more.
We offer day passes and nomad passes
for people who need to use the lab only
occasionally, as well as memberships
for people who plan to use the lab
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One of the best things about
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Surrounding yourself with a
community helps you learn faster
and helps you build better.
Your creativity becomes amplified
when you work in this space,
that's what I think at least.
If you're interested in becoming
a member or supporting this space,
please visit us at atlbitlab.
com.
That's A T L B I T L A B dot com.
Alright, on to our show.
Welcome to the Sovereign Computing Show.
I'm Jordan Bravo and I'm here today
recording in the heart of Atlanta
at a TL Bitlab with Steven De Alarm.
What's up?
today we've got a great show for you.
We're going to talk about a
couple of current events in
privacy and digital sovereignty.
I'm gonna update everybody on
my latest in the ongoing saga
of how to acquire private.
SIM cards and data for mobile devices.
And finally, we're gonna get into our main
topic, which is software business models.
First, we wanna remind you that you
can support the show by boosting in on
Fountain FM or other podcasting 2.0 apps.
You can also email the show.
Our email address is
sovereign@atlbitlab.com.
I do want to.
I apologize for my voice today.
I'm getting over a sickness, so a
little stuffed up, but hopefully it
doesn't come out too bad on the audio.
I think before we dive into the news
articles, I want to give an update on
the i ongoing saga of private sim cards.
So, uh, I've noticed that there's, the
current situation is there's sort of
alema where you can have two of the three.
features but not all three at once.
And that seems to be, you can
have it private, fast, convenient.
Pick two.
my current setup is that I have private
and I have fast with Mint Mobile.
The, the inconvenient part is that
I have to, you can only buy three
months at a time of a mint card in
person with cash, so that's private.
It's fast.
It is, I'm currently getting about 913
megabits per second, which is awesome.
That's like, it's almost a gigabit.
I think my, my mobile speed the other
day when I tested it was faster than my
home wifi speed, which is impressive.
but it is not convenient.
I don't want to have to go in person every
three months just to re-up my SIM card.
So, I tried something else.
I tried an at and t prepaid sim.
And the cool thing about that is
you can also buy it in person.
You can buy it with cash.
but they have other plans where you could
buy, for example, 12 months at a time.
Now, I didn't know if this was
gonna work, so I bought a single
month at a time and I tested it out.
So we have, private because I didn't
have to use any methods of paying for it.
That docks my identity.
We have convenient because if I can
get 12 months at a time, this will be.
Acceptable to me.
but then what about the fast part?
Well, that's where this fell down.
I tested it out and it was
three, three megabits per second.
That's rough.
Yeah, just so remember I just
said that my Mint mobile was
913, so that's 300 x difference.
Now, maybe I don't live near an at t
tower and I live right near T-Mobile
Tower, which is what Mint uses.
But something is way off there.
So I haven't given up on
the at and t card yet.
I'm going to actually contact them
and see if I can troubleshoot it.
You know, maybe I'm missing something,
maybe there's a setting I need to tweak.
but I will report back and keep everyone
updated as to the, the best options.
Oh, I also confirmed that, US mobile
like Mint Mobile, they are not accepting
vanilla Visa cards on their website.
So, The problem there is not being
able to pay for it in an anonymous way.
but, but that's it.
That's the end of the,
the sim updates for today.
Steven, did you have any thoughts on that?
No, not really.
that's, uh, pretty astounding with
the at and t, so, but I feel like that
it's gotta be something weird going on.
So, yeah, give him a call.
Figure it out.
Alright, we have a couple of
interesting news items today.
the first one is an article from the
verge, although this source isn't
too important, we will of course
include these links in the show notes.
and the, the headline is, Google has just
two weeks to begin cracking open Android.
It admits in emergency filing.
And so, EPIC Games for those of you aren't
aware, epic is a large video game company.
They make a lot of popular games for
various systems, but they earlier,
I believe it was last year, sometime
in the past 24 months or so, they
sued both Apple and Google for their
onerous place and app store policies.
all apps that go through Apple, for
example, the app store, they have
to give 30% of any money that they
make through that app to Apple.
And um, they also prevent.
they prevent the apps from having any
kind of external billing or linking out.
so Epic sued Apple and it also sued
Google for these similar, problems where
in addition to not letting people use
external billing, they also don't allow
any external app stores, especially Apple,
I think is more locked down than that.
Google itself, because
Android is more open.
You can use alternative app
stores and side load applications.
However, if you go into Google
Place store itself, if you're going
through like the Google Blessed path
of getting apps, you cannot put any
alternative app stores in there.
And of course, Google,
curates that list of apps.
So there's a limited, You, you
have to follow their various
guidelines, which include a lot of
what I would consider censorship.
So anyway, getting back to this article,
what happened was Epic won its lawsuit.
And so in a court order, Google has been
ordered to make several changes that
are gonna open up Android and make it
a little bit easier for apps to bill
in their own way, not go through, the
Google Play Store and pay the Google tax.
if you scroll down, Steven, there is
a bulleted list of some of the things
that Google is going to have to do.
so I'm gonna read them off here.
There's, they're gonna stop
Google from forcing app developers
to use Google Play billing.
They're going to let Android developers
tell users about other ways to pay
from within the the Play Store.
They're gonna let Android developers
link to ways to download their
apps outside of the Play Store.
They're gonna let developers
set their own prices.
They'll stop sharing money or perks
with phone makers, carriers and app
developers in exchange for Google
Play exclusivity or pre-installation.
So, um, basically these are
kind of like shady deals that
tighten Google's monopoly on it.
And then the last one they give is they
will have to work with Epic specifically
to resolve any disputes as Google builds
a system to let rival app stores in.
So the implications of
these are kind of cool.
We will see what happens.
I, my, my instinctive reaction
is that Google is going to.
Use every dirty trick in the
book to follow the letter of
the law, but not the spirit.
Uh, we already saw Apple pulled
something similar in the European
Union where they were ordered to let,
like side loading of apps and stuff.
I think they, they sort of skirted
that by having some kind of loophole.
But Google, it says here in the,
in the article that Google has
a certain amount of time to, to.
Enable, enact these changes.
And it says it was 14 days in the, in the
article, but you know how these things go.
It, they could always apply or,
uh, appeal and get a, uh, what do
you call it, A continuation or a
delay, an emergency stay, exactly.
What's that word?
I'm gonna keep an eye on this.
This is promising, but
we'll see what happens.
Yeah.
Surprised, the idea that a company
could, you know, a company Google Size
could do something in only 14 days.
Yeah.
That, that's pretty quick.
I would guess that the, that 14 day
deadline is a very narrowly scoped
action that they'll have to take.
Maybe just kind of showing
that they're, they're getting
started, something like that.
I see.
That's, that's just my
guess on the matter.
That's, that's how it usually rolls
with these giant corporations.
I. Uh, any other thoughts on this one?
Nope.
But I do want to take this
opportunity to open my seltzer
water, which can be cut out or can
be left in if we think it's funny.
All right.
That'll make it easier for our editor.
Alright, let's take a
look at the next article.
This one is really quick.
There's not a whole lot of analysis on it.
It is simply that the
Linux desktop market share.
Is gaining over, uh, 6% of
the entire desktop market.
So I remember, I've been following this
number since about 2020, and I remember
it was around two and a half percent.
And now let, let's put
things in perspective.
The Linux server market
share is 95 plus percent.
Uh, almost every server
out there is running Linux.
however, when it comes to the desktop
market, it's a totally different story.
Linux as a desktop, and by desktop
of course, I mean laptop, any,
just running the Linux operating
system on whatever machine.
They, again, 2022 and a half percent,
and it's been rising steadily,
but also kind of in a up curve.
So we we're seeing
that, that accelerating.
I think some of the things that
have led to this in recent.
Months and years have been
the release of Steam Os.
Of course Steam is a video game company
and they have, created their own
gaming console called the Steam Deck.
And the Steam Deck runs Steam Os.
And Steam Os is just a brand of
Linux that they sort of customize.
It is, it is a built on the base of
Arch Linux, but that alone, because
the gaming market is huge, has.
Given this total Linux
desktop share a nice bump.
I wonder if I could play Doom the dark
Ages on steam MOS When did that come out?
Like, I don't know, a month or so ago?
I guess it's possible.
Yeah.
there's been a lot of work.
I, I'm not a huge gamer nowadays, but I
do follow a lot of the Linux gaming stuff
and, uh, steam has done a lot of work.
Their developers have spent a
lot of time adapting games that
are made for Windows, for Linux.
They have something called, called
Proton, which is unrelated to the,
the privacy company, but they, it's
a compatibility layer for Linux.
Hmm.
That basically, it, it's not an
emulator because emulation always
takes a, a massive performance hit.
But, uh, this compatibility layer
is, is some way of translating
it without that huge performance
hit so you can get near native.
Performance on a lot of games.
But yeah, I was kind of wondering if Steam
os might have something to do with it.
I remember hearing about the steam deck,
like ideas for it like 10 years ago.
Um, I just haven't been following it.
so, but yeah, that seems like
that would certainly add to
the, the share of these things.
Quick aside, the steam deck's really cool.
I don't have one, but I've
messed around with one.
My friend has it.
And when you boot it up by default
it's in sort of console mode.
And, you know, big graphical buttons as
you would expect, but you can switch to
regular desktop mode and it's exactly
like running steam or it's exactly
like running Linux on your handheld.
Oh.
Um, and, and you can even boot Steam
os on a typical desktop or laptop
computer because it's just Linux.
Huh.
That's pretty cool.
Cool.
Yeah.
I wonder what, I wonder if there's
anything else that could contribute
to the rise other than the Steam os.
I think there's been a little bit of.
Increased awareness, uh, or demand for
privacy respecting operating systems.
You know, in the past few, uh, months
and years I've seen, for example, um,
PewDiePie, the famous YouTuber, who I
am not a fan of, but it came up on my
radar because he suddenly made, started
making videos about how he was fed up with
windows and he was fed up with Androids.
So he switched to Linux, he switched
to Graphos, and you know, this guy has
hundreds of millions of subscribers.
and I've, I've seen more and more of
these videos lately of, non-tech, uh,
non uh, privacy obsessed people who
are just, who have a big audience and
they're switching to, Linux from Windows
and Graphos, for example, from regular
Android, just for the privacy, just
for the sovereign computing mindset of
I want this technology to do what I am
expecting it to do and nothing else.
And.
Not be spying on me and
treating me like a baby.
That's pretty cool.
I remember like, 15 years ago there was
like this trend of tiny little laptops
that would run a buntu, and it was, I
remember it was like the coolest thing
ever because it would be this like, laptop
that was like smaller form factor than
you're used to, I guess like the same
size that like Chromebooks and stuff are,
but this was before the Chromebook and.
They were like, I don't, I can't remember
if it was Dell or another company, but
they started shipping with Ubuntu and it
just seemed like the coolest thing ever
that was like, oh shit, like Lennox is
on like a laptop you can buy at a store.
And I just thought that like, it was
kind of like Bitcoin and El Salvador is
like, oh man, this is gonna take over.
Everyone's gonna be using Linux
in a few years because, and the
laptops were super cheap and.
The, the funny thing is though, I, I
don't think they were well received in
the marketplace, and I remember this
like horrible news expose of like some
journalist, like interviewing this lady
who had bought one of these laptops, not
realizing that it didn't have windows on
it and how like they wouldn't give her a
refund and she had no idea how to use it.
And they were interviewing
this guy from like.
A local computer repair shop,
some friendly nerd who kindly
volunteered his time to like help
her like side load windows into
the machine or something like that.
And it was like this horrible expose
about like these tech companies
trying to switch people to Lennox
and you know, You know, the, the, the
common person being taken advantage
of by laptop manufacturers and Linux.
And it was just a really
interesting framing.
It's so weird how these narratives
take hold, but no, that was not
the year of the Linux desktop the
way that we thought it would be.
Yeah, maybe this year.
That's, that's the joke, right?
Maybe this year, maybe next year.
Uh, I did notice one thing at
the bottom of this article.
It says it's got some reasons, some
possible reasons why, uh, Linux.
Usage is rising.
And this I had not considered, but
it says that Linux has become the
default operating system for AI and
machine learning workloads due to the
prevalence of leading AI open source
frameworks such as TensorFlow Pie
Torch, and hugging face transformers
and open AI's, new open weight models.
So I had not considered that 'cause
I do not do AI or machine learning
development, but that makes sense.
Yeah, that's cool.
All right.
Anything else you wanted
to add on this topic?
Oh, not really.
Alright, let's get into
our main topic for today.
We're going to talk about software
business models, because our last episode
we talked about how we choose software and
one of the things we teased was we looked
at what is their business model and.
This is important because this
can determine a lot about the
software that you're using.
for one, it can determine is this company
gonna be around in a for the long term,
or is it just gonna be a flash in the pan?
And, you know, gone soon, you're
gonna have to find a replacement.
Uh, another reason you might
want to think about the software
business model is, is this, what
is this company doing with my data?
and some of the other things that
we talked about last time, but I'll
reiterate them, their considerations
such as, if I needed to leave and go
to a different software, different
company, can I easily export my data?
Is it in a portable format
that's usable elsewhere?
So all of these things are affected
by the software business model.
They're, and, and what the mo
the business model is for a given
company is gonna incentivize
how they develop their software.
You know, where, what their areas
of focus are on, how upfront they
are and transparent they are with
their users, that kind of thing.
And particularly open source
business models are of interest
here because open source and free
as in, uh, doesn't cost any money.
And open source as in free as in
freedom, are two different things.
And I firmly believe in
paying for good software.
Because I want a company that is
providing value to me to continue
providing value and to do a good job
and stick around and be successful
because, um, I, I want companies that
have a good, uh, ethical business
model to flourish and be rewarded.
And so if I am using a, a piece of
software and I find it valuable,
then I would prefer to pay for it.
So, uh, but the freedom I'm
looking for in software is the.
open source in general.
Now, we, we mentioned last time,
there's a caveat there, right?
Open source does not equal good software.
Just because something's open source
doesn't mean it's great or even good.
but that is, that is one thing
to one aspect to look at.
And so for me, there's a
couple of business models,
particularly in open source, that
I consider to be very ethical.
And if I see a company doing
this or, or this is their
business model, I'm gonna be.
Uh, I'm gonna have more confidence that
this company has my best interest in mind.
So first, let's talk about a couple of
business models that are not attractive
to, um, in my opinion, the best,
the best, uh, interests of the user.
The first one is going to be
so-called free software free, as
in you don't pay, but that they
pay for with selling your data.
The typical examples
of this would be Gmail.
Uh,
you don't actually pay for Gmail with
money outta your pocket, at least
most people don't on the typical plan.
And so how are they paying for those
servers and those developers and the
infrastructure and their whole company?
Well, of course they are using
your data for various purposes.
They're able to train AI models.
they're able to.
Create targeted ads and build up huge
databases on users that they're able to
sell to advertisers for targeted ads.
I'll stop here for a second.
Steven, do you have anything you wanted
to add on that or maybe other business
models that spring to mind in terms
of ones that you wanna shy away from?
I think that would be the primary one.
Yeah.
and I'll go ahead and point out that
it's like, this is something I struggle
with in my mind as I think about
how to make products and stuff like
scalable and, you know, accessible
to more users because like, you know,
you could, you could argue that like,
you know, the, these kinds of business
practices made technology more available
to a lot of people, like a lot of.
You know, like the growth of email and
instant messaging and all this, it's
like the kind of infrastructure that
goes behind making those services really
reliable and instantly responsive.
And all of that is, you know, and, and,
and that you can get all this for free.
Anybody on the planet can get this
for free really is because of that
data intensive business model.
And that's kind of the, the dark side
of that that I tend to grapple with.
and you know, I've, I've heard people make
the argument that like, well, you know, if
you use these data collecting services in
the right way, then, you know, you can use
it in a way to where, you know, they can't
really identify you personally and you're
just kind of like, tears in the reign.
so it doesn't really matter.
but, you know, yeah, it's, that's one
like kind of counter argument to that.
But yes, I don't like it.
It makes me uncomfortable.
I'm a much more fan of a direct
business model, like proton or
something where I know that I'm paying
for the product directly rather than
paying for it through hidden means.
Yeah.
So I, I have an example of what I would
consider ethical business model, and
that is for a company called Tail Scale.
Tail Scale is a. Company
that makes a mesh.
VPN.
This is a product that is different from
the typical like proton, VPN Moad or IVPN.
It's not, a competitor to this because
it's used for different purposes.
It's a mesh VPN that puts all of
your devices on a single network.
So if you are a self hoster or
um, running servers or any kind of
stuff like that, it's really useful.
but anyway, what, what they,
what the product is, is not.
Actually the most important part
of this topic, but I want to talk
about is their business model.
And that is it is free
for up to 100 devices.
No limitations, no throttling, but if you
want to go beyond that a hundred devices,
then you need to have a paid account.
And a hundred devices is a lot.
You know, how many people, just casual
users, have more than a hundred devices?
Very few.
So what their business model is actually
targeted for is enterprise users.
And so, they, they wrote a great blog
article on this, but their idea is
that they subsidize this free plan
with their enterprise plans and they
find that it, that it's worth it
because all of their users try it out.
They tend, tend to be technical
people working at companies as.
Software developers, cis admins,
DevOps people, they, they use
the software on their own home
labs or on their own systems.
They fall in love with it.
They see how great it is,
there's no strings attached.
And then they go to work, they go to
their companies that they work at and
they say, Hey, we should use tail scale.
And so by simply landing a small
fraction of those free users, businesses,
they're able to be fairly profitable.
From what I can tell.
They're doing quite well, so.
I feel like this is, oh, and on
top of that, their, their entire
stack is open sourced and they are
even, uh, friendly to self-hosting.
So if you wanna self-host, instead
of using their managed coordinator
server, they've even contributed,
they've had their developers
contribute to that open source code
base, which I think is really cool.
Yeah.
So if we call the first one,
maybe, uh, data subsidized,
subsidized by the user's data.
And then, the next one
we call that freemium.
I think free is great too.
Like if you can just, you know,
provide something, a piece of software
for free in a more limited context
and just to figure out what kind of
level of usage you actually think
your, your market is at, uh, where
your, your best customers are at.
so that's always great.
There is sometimes a hazard in,
in the market, I think of when
a company does both of those.
They do data subsidized premium, which
was like, you know, you can use it for
free up until a certain point and we
will harvest your data and, you know,
maybe try to track you and sell your data
and all this kind of stuff and, but you
can pay us for premium level service.
And then sometimes you get to the point
where if it's, you know, for, if you're a
business signing up and it's a business.
level agreement.
There may be some clause in the
contract where they're not selling
your data 'cause it might be like
proprietary business information.
but you know, and also if you're
just a regular user, you might
be on a, a freemium pan where you
pay for the premium version and
they're still selling your data.
So it, it's a complicated thing.
So I think data subsidized, yeah, bad,
freemium good, but when it's like truly
pure freemium, like tail scale where.
It really is just a situation where
they found that, you know, people
who use it for free on the free and
end up converting into enterprise
customers later on down the line.
Yeah.
And I would say if your business
model, if your freemium business
model cannot be supported without
data collection, then it is not a
good business model for your product.
Yeah.
another example of a company that uses a.
Well, actually, let me pivot for a second.
Let's talk about a slightly
different business model, which
is, I would call, maybe you have a
better word for this, but I would
call it managed hosting, let's say.
Mm-hmm.
So for example, element, who
is the reference implementation
for Matrix or Next Cloud?
These are pieces of open source
software completely free to use.
you can self-host them on your own.
You can use them on your own, but.
A lot of people don't want to, don't have
the time or skill to self-host it on their
own, to set up their own infrastructure to
support all of the users that they have.
So you can pay for managed hosting, and
so a company will write the software
and even though they make it completely
available, if to anybody as open source
and and freely licensed, they provide
a hosting service where they themselves
will provide managed hosting so that the.
Paying customer doesn't have to do any
of that work to set up the infrastructure
and can continue to run it, update
it, patch it, all of that stuff.
And typically the, you'll see pricing
for these will be on a per user, per
month basis, or maybe per user per year.
and I, I find that this is a very
ethical business model as well
because they're, they're doing a lot
of the development work for quote,
unquote free, but then they are
paying for these ongoing costs of.
keeping the software updated,
developing new features, and paying
for their infrastructure by, um,
direct payments by the users.
And as you add more users, you
are justifiably paying more money
because it takes more resources and,
they're able to sort of subsidize
the development with these payments.
Yeah, I mean, I think the managed
service is always a great business model.
Yeah, it gives you the freedom to not
do it, not use their service if you
don't want to, but it's still open
source and you have a easy button.
So yeah, I'm a fan of that model.
What is your opinion on paying a one-time
fee versus an ongoing subscription?
For example, would you rather pay a
large sum upfront for a piece of software
and never have to pay again, or would
you prefer a smaller ongoing fee?
Hmm, that's a good question.
I don't know.
I remember back in the day, I think
back to being in college and, you know,
like, you know, needing a bunch of
Adobe tools for graphic design school
and like looking at the price of that
software and it was like $2,000 for like
a suite of just a couple applications.
It was very, very expensive.
And later on Adobe switched to the
Creative Cloud model, which is pretty,
I think it's still $50 a month.
It might have increased since then, but
they've kept it at a very flat rate.
And it's like, there's
pros and cons to it.
It's like it, if you were somebody
who's like in college or just starting
off, just paying 50 bucks a month is
much more accessible product for you.
that you can actually use.
So I think the subscription models can
actually make software and services
much more accessible to people.
But when you think about it, it's
like, like the older software there,
there was this mindset shift in the
design industry because, you know,
like an agency would be used to buying
a license for $2,000 and it would be
like, well, we can use this forever.
And there was this kind of sense
that like the longer we rock this
version of Adobe Creative Suite,
the more bang we're getting for our
buck, the more value we're getting.
so and, and it really is true.
I mean like if you're just like, say a
solo designer and you make that $2,000
investment or maybe three or 4K, if
you're doing all the video stuff too,
then it actually does pay off over time.
If you're just like working in isolation.
And I think you do lose that a little bit
with subscription based software services.
You lose that ability to just
make an investment and it
pays off over the long term.
Now, one thing I found working at an
agency that, and this was a mindset
shift, but I think it did actually
make sense, is when you're in a team
environment and you're like, one person
is on Adobe CS three, and then another
person's on Adobe CS four and the other
person's on Adobe CS five, it's like.
Well, do we really all want to be on
different versions of the software
just so we can maximize the value from
our, like, you know, you know this like
two or three K investment and then it
starts to be like lost productivity.
'cause everyone's on different
versions of the software.
And so in some regards, the subscription
model can actually be very user friendly.
If you're in an environment where it's
like critical that everyone be on the most
current version of the software, because
that's the thing is if you have a pay
one subscription model, the, the company,
it's very, it's very difficult for the
cash flow of the business making the
software if it's a pay once model because.
You might make the piece of software
and then that, that person is just like
a, a solo user might be just using that
piece of software for like a decade.
And you might, you know, like, well,
you need to make security updates.
You need to make bug fixes.
You might want to add new features.
And it's more difficult to be able to
subsidize that kind of development when
you're not getting consistent cash flow.
And that's the thing with like software
companies, when you have a pay once
model, you just have these bursts of
cash flow when the product hits the
market, and then it all kind of trickles.
Down after that point.
So I can really see both sides of it.
And I think it actually, you could argue
that it hurts the users too, where it's
like, like I said, you have that situation
where you have a company, everyone's on
different versions of the software and
you know, they may not be getting the
most current features and the most current
bug fixes, and so it's complicated.
Having said that, there's
also a dark side to the.
You know, subscription based model as
well, where, because the subscription
model has been so normalized, I think
it really has created an economy of
just shitty software as a service
companies like I, I, I'm not, I don't
want to be some eternal shell for Adobe
'cause they definitely have failed
to innovate in many, many key areas.
But just using them as an example.
I think overall Creative Cloud has been
like a large success just in terms of you
have a team, you keep them all on the same
feature set, you get bug fixes and you
subsidize Adobe to keep putting out bug
fixes and product, you know, updates and
all that, everyone in your team can yet.
So I think that has been a
model of like subscription stuff
being mostly consumer friendly.
Though I'd love to hear please
boost then if anyone disagrees and
just strongly contrary, I'd love
to hear what you think about that.
They're, they definitely have a bad
side of their company, but they like,
largely, I think that worked, but then
you also have a lot of like subscription
models where it's just like, Hey, you
know, we hacked together some simple
tool on a website and we're charging
you $15 per user until the end of time.
And it's just like a product that
arguably doesn't add that much value.
Like, like something where it's like
this solved a problem for somebody.
And so they went to this website, signed
up for this service, started using it
for $25 a month, because in that moment
they needed to solve a problem and.
$25 a month was totally worth it.
But then when they need to start
sharing their work with their coworkers
or their friends or whatever, then
it starts turning into $25 a month,
$25 a month per person, and then
that starts to get like super, super
cost prohibitive, and that's where it
can become very consumer unfriendly.
And then once you just normalize paying
monthly fees for everything, we do kind of
have this environment of just tons of bad.
LAME software as a service
that's way overpriced.
So, I don't know, I could
see both sides of it.
I, I understand from a business
perspective why businesses want to do it,
and it, it gives you stable cash flow.
It incentivizes you, it can incentivize
you to keep cranking out, improvements
to the product, but you know, it, it can
also go terribly wrong and just, you know.
Lead to a lot of crappy
products that are overpriced.
So I, I don't know.
it just really depends on
the company and the product.
I'm gonna pause this
for a moment to cough.
Okay.
So, first of all, I want to.
Refer people to a YouTube video.
Really cool.
It's by a designer who,
who wrote this video.
It's like a love letter or like a, I'm
breaking up with you, Adobe kind of
video and how he switched to Linux and
he's replaced it with other software.
But, it's really cool.
It's like very stylistic and fun to watch.
I highly recommend it.
We should get 'em on the pod sometime.
We should do that.
so I'll put that in the show notes.
I, I recommend checking it out,
but, in regards to the, pay upfront
model versus ongoing subscription,
I think it's really important that
companies make it explicit what you
are getting when you pay for software.
So, for example, you pay a a certain
amount and it covers a certain
period of time, and during that
period of time, you could be expected
to get security updates or full
feature updates or whatever, right?
Like.
They're not just, it's not sort of
nebulous and unknown of what you're
getting in return for your money.
some examples of this
are Red Hat and Ubuntu.
When you pay for a, a license to
either of those, you are getting
support and software updates
for, a certain amount of time.
I can't remember off the top of my head.
It might be like five years
or something like that.
But basically you are guaranteed
to get security patches.
or excuse me, feature patches including,
uh, new features for a certain amount
of time, and then security patches for
an even more extended time after that.
So like, maybe it's five years
and 10 years respectively.
I don't know off the top of my head.
But, the idea is that you are paying this
amount of money and you are gonna get this
kind of support over this period of time.
And I think that's really
important because you.
A, you know, how the company is making
their money and what kind of, work they're
expected to do in exchange for that.
And, and B, you can be expected
to know when you need to upgrade
and what that's gonna cost you.
when you were talking about the, the
subscription fee on websites, these.
proliferated SaaS software as a
service sites that just, you know,
everybody's expected to be signing
up for $5 here, $10 there, $15 there
for dozens and dozens of services.
It, it reminds me that I want to talk
about something called dark patterns,
or also known as deceptive patterns.
And these are, they are tricks used
by apps and websites that make you
do things that you didn't mean to do.
Like buying or signing up for something.
For example, trick wording,
sneaking obstruction.
These are terms that we'll talk about,
but you, you are all familiar with this,
and even if you don't know this, this
term, deceptive patterns or dark patterns.
This would be things like, I go to
sign up for a site and it's like $2
a month, and then in tiny, tiny light
print at the very bottom it says.
For the first month, and then
after that they start billing you
reoccurring at $20 a month, right?
I think most of us have
experienced something like that.
You, you sign up for something that's
$2 a month and then suddenly you
notice a few months later they've
been hitting you for 10 times that
amount for the past few months.
This is a incredibly
deceptive trick and should be.
Looked, watched out for, what are,
what are some other dark patterns
that you've experienced, Steven?
Well, I'll tell you one.
I'll call 'em out by name.
The company is called ClassPass.
I tried them out recently.
and, it's like a thing where you can, it's
it like any city you're in, you can kind
of like book classes, like gym classes,
fitness classes, these kinds of things.
So I was trying out, so I was doing a
bit of traveling and so wanted to be
able to use some of that stuff remotely.
So I tried it out, bought some credits.
It, it was cool.
I mean, the service was fine and useful,
but I just wasn't using it as much.
Got a dedicated gym I go to now,
so was decided to cancel it.
Oh my God.
Canceling this thing was,
I was like losing my mind.
So, you know, they give you the whole
screen, you know, you, you try to
cancel the membership and it's like.
But wait, do you really want to cancel?
You're gonna lose out on
all these great perks.
And then down at the bottom of the page,
a lot of times you may be familiar,
like, in design you'll have like a
primary button and a secondary button.
Here I'll just do like UI
design, primary secondary button.
Lemme see if I can pull up an example
for those watching on the video.
It's like visual hierarchy.
So like here on the screen
right here, we have like.
An example image that's like the
primary button is like, you know,
maybe the primary button is like
dark blue and filled in, and then the
secondary button is like a blue outline.
Or maybe you have a button that
has like an negative connotation
or something like that.
And it might be like, surrounded in a red
outline to be like, okay, the big, the big
blue, solid blue button is the good button
and the, the bad action is the red button.
So what they do is they flip it
in the user's mind, knowing that
intuitively you want to cancel it.
So, but your mind also intuitively
wants to tap on the big blue button.
So they make the big blue glut and
say, nevermind, I'd like to keep
my membership, and they make the
red button cancel my membership.
Then they show you another
screen that's the same thing.
It's like, are you really,
really sure you want to cancel?
What about these perks?
Da, da, da, and they do the same thing.
The big blue button.
The primary button is keep it,
and the negative button is cancel.
Then they show you the same screen
a third time with the same trick,
with the primary button to keep it
and the negative button to cancel it.
Then they show you the screen
a fourth time and they flip
the order of the buttons.
They're like, okay, we understand you
really want to cancel, and they change.
The they SWP swap the order of the
buttons so that the cancel button
is now the primary button and the
negative button is the keep button.
And they do that because once you learn
that the cancel button is red, you have to
tap through the screen so many times that
you're gonna accidentally do the keep one.
And there was like three or four other
steps I had to go through after that.
So it was the worst cancellation.
But that is an example of a dark pattern.
You're just trying to cancel your service.
And I actually thought the product
was good and I would've, I would've
actually vouched very well for ClassPass.
I mean, I thought the product itself
was as advertised and was good, but
now, now I'm here, uh, trashing them
on the pod because they put a dark
pattern in their cancellation flow.
That is shameful.
That is just terrible.
I'm looking here at the
types of deceptive patterns.
We'll, we'll list this, we'll,
we'll put the link in the
show notes, but there's, um.
Maybe 15 of them listed here.
And just as you were talking, I
think I, I pointed out maybe four
of them that they committed that
they, uh, uh, violated of these.
So, for example, nagging, the user
tries to do something, but they are
persistently interrupted by requests
to do something else that may not be
in their best interests, obstruction.
The user is faced with barriers or
hurdles, making it hard for them to
complete their task or access information.
Hard to cancel.
The user finds it easy to sign up
or subscribe, but when they want
to cancel, they find it very hard.
So there's a whole bunch of these,
but I, I would like to ask the, the
listeners, take a look at this list
right here and Boost in and Telus.
Have you experienced any of these?
Are there any companies that you want
to publicly shame or maybe just, you
know, anonymously shame and vent about.
The dark patterns that,
that you've experienced.
Maybe you, when you were signing up,
maybe you were tricked into signing up.
Maybe you were billed for something
that you weren't expecting.
Maybe it was hard to cancel,
like Steven was just describing.
So let us know and, uh, watch out.
For companies like this, these are
highly unethical and, to me it's a. It's
a red flag on the company as a whole.
You know, Steven, you mentioned that,
that you thought ClassPass had a decent
product, but if a company is doing
these kinds of practices, I think
you might wanna steer clear of 'em.
Yeah, exactly.
And uh, that's the thing.
Once you have a company, they're
incentivized to grow and, Y Yeah.
Not everybody does it ethically.
I see you've pulled up the hull of shame.
So this, this, this website that we're
referring to, deceptive patterns has
a hull of shame and they go through
and, and check out some of them.
We're not gonna read 'em here today, but,
they've got a, a series of companies,
a lot of 'em, you'll recognize all the
big ones, but it's, it's pretty great.
Well, bringing it back to our
main topic and, and how this
fits into the bigger picture, you
wanna look out for dark patterns.
Obviously avoid companies that,
that do these, keep an eye
out for the business model.
You know, if you are not paying,
how are they making money?
You want to, you wanna be asking
yourself that when you're choosing
your software, and then if you
determine how they're making money.
Is it something you're comfortable with?
Is it ethical?
Is it respecting your
data and your privacy?
again, if you ever had to
leave, would it be easy or would
they make it really difficult?
So this is kind of a, an addendum
episode to our previous topic
about how to choose software.
but I think there's enough here that I
wanted to give it its own episode and
get into the real nitty gritty of, of
these different software business models.
Alright everybody.
Thanks a lot.
We'll see you next time.
All right.
Catch you later.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you want to learn more about
anything that we discussed, you can
look for links in the show notes
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