Pay
me now and pay me later - and so on...
Every since Microsoft announced that they would be moving to the annuity model (that is, pay every month for a service, instead of purchase upgrades as needed) of software licensing, I have noticed a definite trend in merchandising. Maybe I only noticed it because of the Microsoft annoucement, but I believe it is there.
In the past organizations strived to produce the best product in their field in an effort to gain market dominence. Now it seems we have changed to a “lets just make it barely good enough to sell” mentality, based on the hope that by low price we will eliminate all of the competition. This is based on the theory that people are too dense to notice that something barely “good enough” may need to be replaced frequently. By now most of us own “cheap” ink jet printers, the supplies required may exceed the cost of the printer.
This probably began with the automobile industry. They came up with the “lease” agreement, where you pay for the automobile, but you never “own” it. (Whatever that means.) Suplemented with “service contracts” this arrangement has everything in favor of the vendor, with little or no benefit to the “lessee.”
In the recent past, a anti-virus vendor sold you a license to operate their software with the understanding that the virius definition files necessary to make it function would be available for an unspecified period of time. Now they are working toward the yearly “annuity model”, how convenient for them. It is arguable that the “virius” software had to come from somewhere, and it would be tempting to think of “viri” as smart marketing. That is, there was no market, and now due to “malicious” programming, there is a thriving market that seeks the “annuity” model.
And now we have “malware”, which is once again defended against via white knight programs, that are either “freeware”, or a version of “shareware” that seeks once again the “annuity model” of compensation.
Both anti-virus, and ad-ware applications are dependent on “definition files” which conveniently must come from the vendor. Hummmmm...
Without the “features” built into the operating system software (ie: Windows in it's aproximately 19 variations), none of these “viri” or “malware” could function. Remember the Microsoft “annuity” model?