I've been looking for various software applications, nothing large, just utilities mostly.  I'd like to find a utility which will allow me to synch a smartphone with Google calendar.  I tend to run my entire business out of my pockets, which leaves me well encumbered with tiny bits of wrinkled paper which I'm sure may contain things important.  I also need to organize paperwork around the studio, track deliveries of artwork/photos, and do general workflow organization.  I found several solutions but noticed an unpleasant trend toward subscription based sales.

The subscription model is not new, it's served the corporate world long and well, but I don't recall seeing it all that much in consumer software.  But the rise of Software as Service has brought the subscription model to the masses. Here's how it works.  I want to use software package A.  Instead of buying the software and installing it on my computer, I buy a subscription to the software, and use it from the manufacturers computer by connecting to it with a Web browser.  The subscription expires, and I no longer have access to the software, or data.

This seems fair to me, I don't mind forking over a few bucks since I don't have to maintain an installation of the software myself, and most services really aren't that expensive.  Typepad, for instance, is only something like $5 per month.  What's not so fair is when I have to install and maintain the software on my computer or server, yet still have to buy a subscription.  There's no longer any service involved, yet I still have to pay as if there is.  And I object.

Many of the companies engaging in this practice will be caught with their hands in the cookie jar, I'm sure.  You can only drink so much from the same well, and users are already discovering what many of us have know all along.  There is an Open Source equivalent of darn near every consumer commercial software application, or software as service application, available in the market today, and it works perfectly well, thank you.