Subscription Model

[Travel Buddha]

I get the attraction of a subscription model from the company's perspective. It gives predictability to cash flows and makes the company that much more marketable for outside investment or buyout. I don't begrudge Camerabits for the decision. But, as someone who first started using PM 20 years ago as a student, and have been a loyal paying customer for more than 15 years, there are two things that make this rub me the wrong way.

1. The decision to make the Mac Universal release the transition point. If this was done at the release of PM7 where a whole bunch of new features were added, it would make sense. All this release does is optimize the program for Apple processors. By choosing to transition now, you're essentially charging users more for a program that simply does what's advertised.

2. The lack of an upgrade option (as was previously available) for legacy users. I think it would be totally reasonable for CameraBits to say. "For $99 legacy users can upgrade to the new perpetual license, with 1 year of updates included." I'd jump on that in a heartbeat, and I doubt I'd be alone. That would acknowledge the decades of support the userbase has happily given the company for producing a great product, while also transitioning to the new business model. After the year is up, we can choose whether to move to the subscription, buy another perpetual license, or stop paying.

Speaking for myself, I'm definitely not moving to the new subscription model, and paying full freight for a new perpetual license, when I already bought one, is a non-starter.

[elianoimperato]

I get the attraction of a subscription model from the company's perspective. It gives predictability to cash flows and makes the company that much more marketable for outside investment or buyout. I don't begrudge Camerabits for the decision. But, as someone who first started using PM 20 years ago as a student, and have been a loyal paying customer for more than 15 years, there are two things that make this rub me the wrong way.

1. The decision to make the Mac Universal release the transition point. If this was done at the release of PM7 where a whole bunch of new features were added, it would make sense. All this release does is optimize the program for Apple processors. By choosing to transition now, you're essentially charging users more for a program that simply does what's advertised.

2. The lack of an upgrade option (as was previously available) for legacy users. I think it would be totally reasonable for CameraBits to say. "For $99 legacy users can upgrade to the new perpetual license, with 1 year of updates included." I'd jump on that in a heartbeat, and I doubt I'd be alone. That would acknowledge the decades of support the userbase has happily given the company for producing a great product, while also transitioning to the new business model. After the year is up, we can choose whether to move to the subscription, buy another perpetual license, or stop paying.

Speaking for myself, I'm definitely not moving to the new subscription model, and paying full freight for a new perpetual license, when I already bought one, is a non-starter.

I totally agree with you. Unfortunately we're white flies and Camera Bits business will continue also without us 

[rhomberg]

100% agree with both previous posts, well said. I didn't even think about the fact that now also upgrade pricing is gone.

Transitions to subscriptions have been handled well or even very well and thoughtful by some developers where every user was left happy. They learned a lot from others. I feel like no one can be considered "happy" here. At best people swallow the bitter pill, resign and say PM is essential for their workflow. So, I am still on the lookout for whatever new amazing development is to come now that PM has to justify a subscription model by additional means other than the developer's wish for a steady income stream. 😊

[ulrik]

What would make you upgrade?

We need a two pronged strategy:

1. Try to let them know that we like the programme but we are more likely to give them money if they change their approach.
2. Come with the features we need and which would make it worth for us to upgrade.

For me to update and pay quite a substantial amount more, I need to earn more money. And thats speed (software, option to do all in one window, custom shortcuts, easy to change FTP, automatisation and constant crop.....) and improve quality of photos via editing (extremely quick editing  with a possiblity to auto adjust on all photos).......

[DanY]

My two cents: Seems I'm not the only one who is unhappy with the pricing for the subscription and the "upgrade" price for previous perpetual license holders like myself. Camera Bits needs to add a lot more value to users for them to stay. Besides if a company like Affinity can do perpetual licenses with the current version lasting years before an upgrade, I don't see why Camera Bits can't. Affinity adds so much value and keeps geting updated. Their tutorials and learning resources are top notch and easy to access. They also earn additional income from plugins. Sure Photo Mechanic may not do plugins, but I think the company owner reading my post should get my drift. I'm still on the last real perpetual version of the software. Its been a couple years since the company strayed. I check in every few months to see if the number of improvements is worth it for a new license. So far still not.

What would make you upgrade?

We need a two pronged strategy:

1. Try to let them know that we like the programme but we are more likely to give them money if they change their approach.
2. Come with the features we need and which would make it worth for us to upgrade.

For me to update and pay quite a substantial amount more, I need to earn more money. And thats speed (software, option to do all in one window, custom shortcuts, easy to change FTP, automatisation and constant crop.....) and improve quality of photos via editing (extremely quick editing  with a possiblity to auto adjust on all photos).......

[Sharonel]

For me, At least, After upgrading I cancelled my recurring renewal. In a year, I'll see what were the updates within the year (I don't see, currently, any reason to keep a subscription to be honest, With the new feature lifecycle) and make my decision. The break even of PM between perpetual and yearly subscription is 1.5 Years. Between PM+ perpetual and Yearly it's 2 years and above. I suspect that as I see currently, PM doesn't show features or fixes that justify yearly updates (Or subscription), So perpetual per 2.5-3 years looks attractive, Unless PM will get thier SH*** together and start giving more value than just OS compatibility. The only question is Mac OS, And the time that the MAC doesn't work with the new OSs. this is an upgrade point as well.
In the past, PM5, PM6 - I paid $150 for the initial version and 90 or $99 for the upgrade. Other times.

[jrp]

Well they don't currently even give guarantee OS compatibility, just encourage you to delay upgrading on the grounds that new releases always have bugs.  I have always liked the app for its comprehensiveness (even though they could have provided better links to IPSC) but now there has been little by way of improved performance / features since we went subscription.

AI will soon, if it is not already, be capable of managing your keywords and metadata, so we are left with a fast copy function which, on MacOS, just uses a built-in MacOS app, ditto.  I'd say that keywording has another 5 years, beyond which AI will obviate the need for it.

I have just given cameratbits another year's rental, but next year is not a given, I regret to say.

[dennis]

I am not sure to understand your complain :

you are happy of what you have already, your version is still working (some other compagnies have disabled the old version of their software when launching a subscription like DXO dont allow you to reinstall your old license), you say, you dont need new features... so why would you want to subcribe to anything?

In addition, there is also a perpetual license. Yes is far more expensive than before, because... the price was low before. And if you want you can decide to change software if the sun is brighter elsewere.

Personnaly I have bought 2 software in my workflow recently :
Photomechanics perpetual license for 330 $ et many Retouch4me plugin for more than 600$.

They are expansive but they make my workflow so much easier and faster, that in my case it's totally worth it.

Photomechanics is a niche software, but the one it's the target need it so badly, than price... is not a real concern in my opinion. The cheap price before, has perhaps attract other customers, who are not the target. For example if you dont shoot 100 000 pictures a years, you are not really the target in my opinion.

In october alone, photomechanics makes me gain around 1 weeks of culling and allow me to deliver my clients way faster, so much my first client asked why the delivery was so fast... and he decided to pay me my photomechanics perpetual license.

Another refexion : when Adobe ent full subscription, the first 2 years, there was not a lot of new features. Now we have a lot new things each year,  so maybe time will tell.

For the ARM version... well all compagnies have not the same size and all software are not using the low layers of OS the same. Photomechanics is VERY fast compare to any other software and that speed is obtained (if I guess correctly) by using very low level file handling functions. Apple, since the ARM version has totally changeg, the way the file system is managed with a lot of security in mind, but that implied totally rethinling the way you access files. Thats also why an ipâdOS version seems almost impossible. For other softwares, which were using normal tools, a simple recompîlation has almost done all the job.

Oh, so there is a subscription model live now? I didn't hear a thing and got no notification or update whatsoever. I can't wait to see what amazing things are new and a must have to switch immediately! Many other software companies handle the transition gracefully and valuing existing customers. I am excited to read up on the camerabits website as soon as possible about all their thoughtful offerings and great deals! They sure must value their loyal customers highly.

Thank you for explaining this so plainly grumly6. Photo Mechanic is an essential niche for a lot of professional photographers and they recognize it's value for their bottom line which is to save time, which is money. Photographers who aren't professionals should maybe find other software that suits their needs and wallet.

Camera Bits has made Photo Mechanic available as a perpetual license long after other companies switched to a subscription model. It had to happen - sorry. I wish I could not have a subscription license for all the software I pay for.  The slanderous claims made in this thread about how we purposefully delayed features or support for new macOS versions, or even intentionally broke the software to force an upgrade are ludicrous. The people who make these slanderous claims have no idea about our "software stack" for Photo Mechanic; they just think they know about how software is developed.  They should know if it was so easy there would be other choices and then they can stop complaining on this support forum hosted by Camera Bits.

I want to add that Camera Bits isn't a large corporation.  We have a dozen employees.  The amount of revenue we generate for our niche product pays for our staff.  We don't have a market cap of $140B.  The combination of COVID and the switch to subscription licensing (which we knew would be painful) almost killed my company.  Stop harassing me personally OK (as some people love to do)!  Find some other software.  Tell me how to refund you from your Paypal account and move on.

In case you think we are sleeping, if you care about authenticity, we will not disappoint you regarding C2PA.  This has been a big focus of our efforts (including a pending patent).  Not sexy but important unless you like fake AI generated photos.

And speaking of "AI", I should point out I wrote some of the first commercial software at SAIC to to train "neural networks" back in 1987 (I studied under Rumelhart at UCSD).  I understand the limitations of artificial intelligence, and the ignorance of those who think it is what they absolutely need to have.  All I can say is that integrating AI features into Photo Mechanic isn't as easy as you may think.  Photo Mechanic is a complex piece of software that has matured for 27 years.  AI is a toddler and it will be adopted as we see fit.

--dennis