Ask HN: Would you pay for beautifully designed Linux software?
Have we gotten so used to free (as in price) software to the point that it's become inconceivable for us to buy native linux applications ?
Do you think this prevents developers from building good looking, easy to use applications on the platform ? I'm curious to know your thoughts
72 comments
[ 6.5 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadIt is hard to justify paying for something when you have to spend an appreciable amount of time getting it to work in your set up. Working well out of the box and consistently with updates is the first step.
Goood trolling. Pakistani fuck.
I would worry that the pool of other people paying for it would be so small that unless the application also worked on Windows or OSX, the development team would not be able to sustain itself. Thus, I wouldn't be willing to pay the more substantial cost: spending my time learning to use it and integrate it into my workflows.
(This is a big part of the reason I moved to OSX when I left uni.)
That being said, Apple also releases iOS updates to previous phones, even after they've been paid for.
If this doesn't seem strange to you, then perhaps the same thought process of buying a specific version of software with the expectation that it will work for several years is not unreasonable.
I see no need for a subscription model on every type of software. I pay you once, you ensure that it's written in a way that will continue to work for years to come. End of transaction, as far as I'm concerned.
Traditionally when you 'buy' it gives you access to upgrades and support for a period of time.
For me, that is much preferable, especially compared to a model like creative cloud, which only allows cancellations of the subscription once per year, with no refunds.
In buying sftware, in my experience, the real cost is in my time learing/mastering it. The ultimate example here is a text editor. If sublime was free as in speech I would still be paying to use it. As it is, I lost confidence that team could maintain it long term and have switched to Atom.
What good models are there for free speech consumer/individual developer software to actually make money?
As others have mentioned, the idea of it getting dumped when it turns out it isn't worth the effort, would put me off.
If the price was low enough, and the software simple enough, I might be willing to relax some of those conditions. For example, I have payed a couple of bucks for a simple pixel graphics editor, for which I was ok with the prospect that this is a toy I play with a little and then would likely drop.
It does not have to be good looking.
Just have to be a sane UX so that I can get it done.
That's just a consumer saying, not a dev one
In case you're wondering whether that would really happen, Android is evidence that it works. The underlying OS is irrelevant.
People would pay a lot for: 1. SQL ide 2. audio authoring 3. Sketch 4. Photoshop
Be warned though that the trend is for this kind of stuff to move to the web. Figma is a great example. Instead of trying to create a desktop client for Linux, they did some real complex stuff on WebAssembly and built a spectacular web client - https://www.figma.com/blog/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-... and https://www.figma.com/blog/how-we-built-the-figma-plugin-sys...
Figma is paid (and makes a lot of money)
I think the lack of a standard way of doing things hurt for-profit development rather than the resistance to pay. For example, it is hard enough to make an application work well with one DE and in Linux there is plenty.
That is why I believe web apps such as VSCode, Discord etc are the saviour for linux desktop. With that, creating a cross platform environment is rather easy.
"Beautifully designed" is not important to most users unless they get the source code and need to make changes or enhancements.
"Good looking" is nice, but hard to define depending on what kind of application it is, especially on Linux. What does it mean for a server daemon to be "good looking"? What does it mean for a command line tool to be "good looking"?
"Easy to use" is very important to most users, but is also rather subjective depending on individual user preferences and experience level. For example, I think vim and emacs are both "easy to use" because I have years of experience using both for various tasks. YMMV.
Most users value utility, "easy to use", and "good price" when it comes to paid software:
1) Utility is essential because if the sofware is not useful then what is it good for?
2) "Easy to use" is important, but subjective. Know your intended audience and design to meet their needs. Seek user feedback early and often to tailor your design to match the user's expected ideas of "easy to use".
3) "Good price" varies based on the user expectation and the value proposition that you offer. If the software is extremely useful (high utility) and easy enough to use, users will pay for it.
Ask yourself "What does my software offer that is worth paying for?"
Cross-platform electron apps would also apply, but generally I'd prefer more native applications, just for performance reasons.
I think Linux itself, and many applications on it, don’t look great because the developers behind those are highly technical and ideological people who can, and do, cater to other technical and ideological people. They seem to think of UI and UX as wasteful things over mere, and many a times complex, functionality (they probably also believe they’re good designers who don’t need help from UI/UX experts). Even larger projects don’t spend enough time or money to use better fonts, design better layouts, use nicer color schemes, design better user experiences, etc. (one glaring example of this is LibreOffice).
Stepping outside Linux while remaining on free software, Matrix is spending time and money on improving UX because the people behind it realize the importance of it. Within the Linux world, the attitude seems to be more of users being expected to qualify to use the system - “the users are capable and will figure it out” seems to be the background thinking.
Distributions like ElementaryOS have tried to charge (or accept, depending on how you see the website) money for more beautifully designed systems than you could get out of the box elsewhere. If larger companies take such an approach or even adopt some of the niceties from such distributions, the Linux world would be much better off.
Another theory is that the UI actually makes up a far larger share of development work than most assume, and that this is therefore the part where limited resources are most felt. A somewhat similar part that somewhat supports this theory is the install/update process.
Regarding ElementaryOS: there's nothing uglier than trying to steal a good design and just failing to even understand it.
> one glaring example of this is LibreOffice
Compared to MS Office? Excel yes, maybe PowerPoint. All other programs are inferior by now.
5 years ago I would have agreed MS Office to be far ahead in functionality and design. I use the 365 version and it is just terrible all around. And users fail even harder to create structured documents than 10 years ago. And helping them is far more difficult now because you just don't have the patience for ridiculous UI quirks of word processors anymore.
Google Docs is better than Word and it is extremely simple, but uses classical design philosophies. It still uses a sensible color palette and a good font. Not that I want to advocate Google too much right now...
I want software that I know, not that I lease. €5 per month means if I stop paying for reason x/y or z, I cannot use Office any more.
- does the job
- has no free equivalent that works
- saves me a lot more time/money than the cost of the product, or doesn't cost over 20€ (this is my personal threshold, for personal work. I would be fine paying more for something that I would use in professionnal work)
- has useful and innovating features (especially if something that has already been made hundreds of times like a music player)
- has a good UX
- has good documentation/support
- has a trial version
Let's take an example. Calibre is considered by most who use it a very handy tool. It is also considered by most who use it to be ... not very good to look at. I donate to Calibre because it is useful. Would I donate (or pay) for an app that wasn't quite as useful but was better to look at? Nope.