I only need Rhino a couple of days, sometimes weeks per year. That’s why I am still using version 3.0 with Flamingo 1.1. I simply cannot justify the price for an upgrade.
How much would I like to pay, I was asked by @brian. Well, as little as possible, of course. Ideal would be a graded (?) hire purchase plan: In the beginning price per hour is high, then after usage for say a 100 hours it drops, until finally one gets a full license. That would give a high incentive to using Rhino and paying for it (as opposed to pirating it).
Concerning a rough price estimate, and not graded yet: Let’s say, for people using Rhino for more than one year intensively, it should still make sense to purchase a full license. That is 52 weeks of 8 hours per work day usage, so 52 × 5 × 8 = 2080 hours, or approximately 2000. With a purchase price of roughly 1000 USD, that leads to:
1000 / 2000 = 50 cents / hour
The basis for the subscription could be an Internet wide Zoo, hosted by McNeel.
Yeah, but the upgrade is only half of that. So what your suggesting is you can’t afford the upgrade price, but would be willing to pay full price over an extended time?
It’s an interesting idea. It isn’t one that I would personally use, but I would think it would have the potential of perhaps curbing some piracy. Looking at gaming and internet cafes, they seem to be in the $3 to $10 per hour range. I would think that people who need it would be willing to pay a comparable rate to an internet cafe.
[quote=“donl517, post:2, topic:481, full:true”]
Yeah, but the upgrade is only half of that.[/quote]
I made a calculation for a potentially more common use case than mine. I also didn’t factor in my (rare) use of Flamingo.
So what your suggesting is you can’t afford the upgrade price, but
would be willing to pay full price over an extended time?
Possibly. But consider that I don’t use Rhino full time. That’s why, for years, I have refrained from upgrading.
By the way, I am a regular user of Amazon Web Services, not only for Internet hosting, but also for desktop use. When I need a lot of computing power, I boot up a Windows Server 2012 machine and remote into that. Files are shared by Dropbox.
That’s steep. Internet cafes may get away with it because I presume many customers only use them for an hour or so. Mostly they seem empty these days, though - a thing of the past.
That being said, if there is a graded pricing model, then starting with a high price is a possibility. The advantage of graded pricing is comfort, ideally resulting in impulse buying: Users don’t have to think what is best for them. There is only one price plan, eventually leading from renting to purchase. Of course, up front purchasing should be cheaper, as a thank you.
I have seen hire purchase plans for musical instruments in Germany, and these plans were or are still popular.
Please correct me if the term graded pricing does not exist. I was trying to translate the German “Staffelpreis”.
AutoCAD 360 Pro costs 4.99 USD / month or 49.99 USD / year. Of course, it’s not comparable to Rhino.
Photoshop costs 29.99 USD / month (Single-app plan — month to month). Previous users get 50% off.
Hourly subscription is still preferable in my opinion, like on AWS. I may work on a project for two weeks intensively, then five weeks later need to apply a small tweak that only takes an hour.
You may wonder if there is a market, i.e. if there are more people like me. I strongly believe so, yes. In the past few years a lot has changed. Nowadays, there are service companies and fab labs offering for example laser cutting (even metal) or 3D printing to the ordinary hobbyist. I have introduced people to Rhino, and they loved it for purpose of what is called personal digital fabrication. Guess what they did when the trial ran out? (no, I didn’t give away my license number)
It feels strange that one can rent high tech tools, but not the software to design for them.
Ideal would be a graded (?) hire purchase plan: In the beginning price per hour is high, then after usage for say a 100 hours it drops, until finally one gets a full license. That would give a high incentive to using Rhino and paying for it (as opposed to pirating it).