Personally, I think this approach of asking for donations is the right move for a non-profit. Subscription fatigue is real and is becoming a major problem. I am now at the point where I will go without software I would absolutely pay for one time, but because it is a subscription I refuse.
I'm sure when all is said and done, there just are not enough people like me to make a difference, but I sure hope things swing the other way. Subscriptions for everything and tips for everything are two cultural things that need to die in a fire. They are ways of squeezing more out of people, especially by taking advantage of human tendencies. It's gross and at this point I think it is unethical. Maybe not all implementations, but there are plenty that are.
You could use the time value of money formula to convert between one-time prices and subscriptions. just multiply annual price by 30 to get forever price.
So my $6 per month VPS would be about $2,000 upfront.
And a $500 game console would be a $1.50 monthly subscription. (Obviously glossing over tons of differences in say, a PS2 and a Stadia subscription)
It feels easier to ask customers for $1 per month than $360 up front... Especially since I don't know if my service will be up forever
If pricing were consistent, I would fully agree with you. However, it is not. People will charge what they think the market can bear. When you're asking for it all up front, you can't charge a huge amount because nobody would pay it. When you mask the request by dividing it up into small chunks, people don't realize how much they are actually paying. In many cases now with automatic billing, people may not even realize they're still paying. The whole subscription thing is an exploitation of human psychology.
If pricing is too expensive the next month, then just cancel. It’s that simple. Monthly subscriptions simply give more freedom both for the user and the builder.
I don’t think a perpetuity is correct in this case. Software depreciates rapidly without updates and the norm was to charge the one-time price for each major version, which was always somewhat analogous to a subscription assuming you wanted up-to-date software.
This kind of thinking is why sites like this one, get into financial strain. Why do you expect to get value for free? Would you be the same kind of user who complains about ads, or a highly priced one time fee? I’m glad more products are subscription based since it filters out users who are not serious.
I'm sure when all is said and done, there just are not enough people like me to make a difference, but I sure hope things swing the other way. Subscriptions for everything and tips for everything are two cultural things that need to die in a fire. They are ways of squeezing more out of people, especially by taking advantage of human tendencies. It's gross and at this point I think it is unethical. Maybe not all implementations, but there are plenty that are.