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Which was World of Warcraft, which I played intensively for a few months.
In the last month I hardly played (if at all), so I cancelled my subscription.
No way I'll ever "just have a go" at it 
Anyway, that's years ago! 
I prefer to just pay once and use whenever I like, no strings attached.
Or freeware whenever possible!
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That's why I don't MMO. I buy the game, I play it whenever I want.
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
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I also prefer to purchase outright. All subscription schemes are designed to earn the company more money, and unless they make it up in customer volume, that means it must cost their customers more money. After all, if the company stood to make more money by selling their software outright, then they'd do that instead of subscriptions.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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my view is different because of internet service. I live in a rural area and reliable internet is difficult to get. I receive my internet through a radio antenna to a hill on the edge of the valley and is directed to the service provider. All of the hard wire providers want an outrageous amount of money to bring in a hook up for reliable internet. This makes it extremely difficult to work from the cloud.
Rob Smith
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We live at least 10.000 km apart and yet we are in the same situation! Kudos to you!
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
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I resolved this with a single call to my friend in the Fed Gov.
He threatened me with exposing my cheating the IRS out of the extra peanuts I earn doing street performances on the side in Antarctic , so I rewired my antenna to transmit pulse-based active sensory packets encoded in small-form-factor calibration algorithm signal variances coupled with receiving high-energy centralized burst-casting. Works like a charm.
Then I put the software on on a disc, tied it to a helium balloon and sent it up rain was looming nearby.
Viola: Cloud Software.
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Hey, MS, Google! Why you're so greedy on paying trolls? Only 33 of 'em try to convince us that sitting on cloud hook is nice! 
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My development software I pay for outright. Its a business expense. I make my bread and butter from it. No problem.
My fun stuff is freeware. Why? Well it is a form of fun to create fun stuff, and any fun stuff I have created is free for all. It is where a developer can stretch themselves in areas that they would not normally develop commercially.
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Though I'd have to say most of my programs (if you just count each as one program instead of considering their relative "size") would be freeware / open source. I try to avoid subscriptions and pay per use like the plague and so does most companies I know. The reasons behind it:
- It usually works out at least twice as expensive (at least on some of the programs I've used - e.g. AutoDesk's CAD and BIM packages).
- Added to that cost is the extra admin involved to organize payments and proof of licensing. Recently a real-time rendering engine wanted a monthly sub, and the company wanting to purchase it outright - in the end they told me "Nope, can't do it - at worst we'd go for annual subs, but monthly is simply out of the question."
- Uncertainty of what happens at the transitions between subs periods (i.e. will I have dead days where I can't use the product?). I know this is (usually) not an issue, but I've seen lots of companies fearful of this (even while unjustified).
- Legal issues as versioning sometimes means a sub needs to be updated to latest. Again not all, but from my experience some legalese actually make you in contract breach if you still use an older version. E.g. AutoDesk requires you give them proof that you have removed all installations of the previous version when their new one comes out, while not so if purchased outright. Sometimes we need an old version of Revit since each year's version needs to upgrade the data files - which then becomes incompatible with their original versions (i.e. if any outside consultants aren't also on the absolute latest version, they'd be unable to open the files we send them), not to mention such upgrade of the data ALWAYS causes some things to break (I've never had the experience that such goes smoothly - not even once in the last 10 years).
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I agree with this with the exception that if I use a piece of software at actually needs to maintain servers (ie, cloud backup) I'm willing to pay a sub fee. I see that as only fair since the company behind it also has the expense of maintaining servers.
Jeremy Falcon
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Agreed! There's always some sort of exception isn't there?
My previous post definitely only relates to programs running on local resources, not cloud storage (i.e. like DropBox) or even cloud processing (i.e. like AutoDesk 360's rendering server). Those are more suited to subscriptions (for the storage) and per-use (for the processing, though that particular example does become extremely expensive if used thus).
The point is, I don't want to spend more on some one program than I'd otherwise have spent. Especially not if all that differs is the way I pay. Of course, this means you need to take the entire Economic Opportunity Cost into account together with the direct and indirect expenses. E.g. using that sample of ADesk 360 rendering, you buy "tokens" and then the rendering uses tokens (amount depending on resolution and filesize) - if your local resources are too slow and the cloud-based does it quicker then the pendulum starts swaying to the other side of the equation (seeing as time is also a cost), but also things like local renders can be stopped half-way through once you notice some adjustments need to be made (not so with the cloud based). Where that balance is depends on the situation as well as the person.
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I prefer to pay up-front: "service based" schemes always look like they will end up costing me more in the long run - and if you commit to a particular product it can get expensive to "swap horses" if they hike the price.
If you "own" the software you can at least continue to work with the version you paid for, even if a maintenance request comes in three or four years later. With service based, you stand a good chance of having to pay again, or refuse to support "older" products.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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What do you mean? 
The trouble with people,
is that they want to hear only what they want to hear.
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If I (me, myself) did it, you should pay.
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Because I am student, most commercial software are available for free. However, recently I leaned more toward freeware.
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Our company has MSDN subscription so I don't worry about MS products. But most other things I use freeware/open source software. A lot of the open source software is better than a similar product that you have to pay for.
I did have my company buy me a connector for Salesforce because I got thrown into Salesforce development somehow (I do mostly C#). Unless I paid more I could not upgrade to the new API version of the software. I said screw that and wrote my own class library to talk to their REST API. It cost my company more money for me to write that because of my time but I can keep it updated. No use buying software that will be out of date in a year. Thought it would be a quick and cheap purchase and save me time. It didn't.
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So, mostly I can create a new program for my use if the cost is too high. I don't like paying a fortune just to send my emails to 100 clients.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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When calculating costs for software development, you should not forget the "opportunity cost" of not being able to use that time for anything else. Assuming that your time is worth anything, good luck writing even a minimal word-processor for less than the cost of MS Office.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Depends on skills of developer. A skilled developer never wastes his time, just the way he doesn't waste CPU clock ticks; clock... Time... So much similarities. However, if you are a young developer then you need to focus on learning programming instead of enjoying your beer. No offense, Sir! ![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif) Enjoy.
I can develop an application in only one night, or maybe until morning. Word-processor? Just create a WPF application, use RichTextBox[^], add a few more extensions, spell check etc. You're done. If that is too hard, I don't know what is easy. Most of the functions are already developed, provided as open-source projects. I can count most of them here for you, if you want.
Anyways, as a developer, it is my job to handle time consumption.  To multi-task so that my family can get most out of me, so that I can still enjoy the favorite movie while thinking about what to do next!
Anyways, I am going to purchase Microsoft Office 2016 when it releases.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Having written a WYSIWYG word processor in the "bad old days" of DOS, I can say that there is a lot more to writing one than creating a RichTextBox window.
Even assuming that you have all of the components necessary to create a modern word processor, integration of all these components into a working whole is non-trivial. I still believe that writing your own word processor is a losing proposition.
Of course, if you are writing a word processor in order to improve your programming skills - go for it!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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What you mean to say is, "Do not re-invent a wheel" and I do agree to what you say. We should not, I mean we can use the same thing, or purchase the wheel. It would help the developer of the product. After all he invented something to earn his living.
And as an answer, yes I am still a beginner and I have to learn programming yet. That is why, I try to create something on my own to learn the down-sides of programming and frameworks.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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- I try to use free/libre open-source software when possible. There is usually good community support, and I can fix bugs and contribute. I use GIMP, Inkscape, LibreOffice, Scribus, Thunderbird, Fiddler, ... a really long list, actually.
- If I need a specific piece of expensive software to complete one or two billable hours on a project, I may "borrow" a copy.
- The "rental" model is certainly becoming popular. This is partly due the frequent release schedule that companies are adopting. Personally, Office 2003, Windows XP, and Photoshop CS1 do everything I need but there is a lot of pressure to have the latest release. For those that need the latest, rental makes sense.
- For rapidly evolving expensive software, like Unity, rental makes a lot of sense.
- I still like the outright purchase model, especially if I comes with a period of free updates. Foxit PhantomPDF is my PDF editor tool of choice, but I'm on the previous version. It's relatively bug-free and I use it everyday and it works fine. Same with ShareMouse, a screen/monitor sharing software I use that I use an old version of, because it just works.
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I agree with the mixture approach, especially when the purchase price of the software is five to ten times the cost of the computer it's used on. I will utilize the freeware until I am forced to pay for features that are not available in the freeware versions.
Rental seems like a viable alternative until you come to the next subscription period and don't have the funds to pay the subscription. That is why I prefer the full purchase with pay-for-upgrades option.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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I use freeware whenever I need some relatively basic actions done.
For specific, complicated, expert and sofisticated actions I pay for software which means I use Photoshop for my job and freeware for anything else.
Photoshop is the only paying software that I use on my machine despites its bugs. For the rest I use Linux and freewares.
When I pay I want outright purchase. This is an issue with the cloud which I avoid carefully.
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Agreed.
I like the deal where...
- You pay for the package up front, with an eternal user license
- You join the support club with an annual fee
Typically, the first year should be included with the initial purchase price.
This model has (from my observations) shown itself to produce the highest quality application, with the best technical support. In my favorite case, I have received tech support from the president of the company; who actually wrote the original code, and who hired the people after him.
While that's not the norm, it is helpful.
A part of that support club is user support forums which can be compared to freeware support; so you get a good dose of both worlds.
Two-way street advantage: this also helps to assure that an expert will be on the other side when you need him there.
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