cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/3882090
Reader would work for like 90% of people, but no, everyone needs Standard or Pro because reasons.
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Fuck Subscriptions
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Naming and shaming all "recurring spending models" where a one-time fee (or none at all) would be appropriate and logical.
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I'm all for an individual person deciding to give MS and Adobe the bird and learning to adopt OSS. If that's what you want to do, feel free friendo and live your fucksubscriptions life.
But OP is posting a situation where a user is asking an IT admin for paid adobe acrobat and.....what, the user has no idea why they need it? That doesn't make any goddamn sense.
If reader gives them everything they need, then you briefly show them what they missed and move on. If there is something they need in paid to do their job, ya fucking pay for it because it's a goddamn $90 sub for a $60-80k employee. It pays for itself in time.
And everyone suggesting that an IT admin should force his users to use OSS have no idea how enterprise IT works. To do that, the business would need to retrain their employees and then handle all the incessant support requests that come in every day because they don't understand the software. Let's not also forget that new job postings would have to ask for familiarity with OSS, which could limit their incoming talent pool.
Plus, lets not forget the main reason businesses prefer to pay for software - support, or what I like to call the "someone to yell at" factor. These companies also tend to have full documentation and training videos that aren't made by volunteer 1st year students trying to get experience and YouTube influencers. So even if an employee has a training problem, IT can probably point to a support website instead of wasting hours on retraining.
And then the human factor. The employee you scoffed at will NEVER put the effort in to learn thw software becausd they now have a bias since you forced it on them. Which means you get to hear the bitching every time you respond to a support ticket. And every support ticket means lost productivity, which means lost money, which means any savings you earned are eaten away little by little, until your boss comes by and asks "what the fuck is wrong with you?"
I'm all for fucksubscriptions on an individual level. I love and use OSS software personally. But in a business environment, it just doesn't make as much financial sense as you think.
I've worked at companies that have a mix of foss and commercial stuff. Not every company is an enterprise business with thousands of people.
In fact, an enterprise with thousands of people would probably not have this problem, because they'd have a better deal from Adobe where they wouldn't need to care if someone has an extra licence.
Yea I know it's not always simple, but it's a problem that subscriptions have started in the business world and have trickled down to end-users as well. You can't even buy a single licence for Office anymore, it's subscription or nothing. In this environment, it's worth thinking about alternatives on all levels, because eventually you may end up paying way more. Not just in money either.
I was with you at first, but 365 is so so much better than letting people keep using excel2012 a decade later without security patches. Convincing CEO of a 14 person business that they absolutely need to use a modern office edition is impossible - to say nothing of the unaffiliated user. 365 guarantees that patching is up to date.
FOSS Office versions do the same, but if you're gonna pay I'd much rather you have a subscription than set it and forget it.