plateau.eyes wrote:
John Pollard,
I find your answers here and previously on the Quicken Community forum to be
extremely helpful and accurate.
I would very much like to know your opinion on the proposed data file
locking on subscription lapse. Do you find this concerning?
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Thanks for the vote of confidence.
If I ignore everything else, I can safely say I would prefer that there be
no restriction on access to my Quicken data if I do not upgrade.
The trouble I see is that "everything else" is too important to ignore.
I start by asking myself how much I want Quicken to remain a viable product.
While I can't put my wish into objective terms that would give others a
number to compare to, for example; I can say that Quicken is valuable enough
to me that I am prepared to accept what some consider to be unacceptable, in
order to keep the product viable. If Quicken went out of business because
they failed to implement this new subscription feature, I would be a very
unhappy camper. [They may go out of business anyway, but they should not do
so without trying every approach to avoid it.]
Quicken is the only personal financial product I know of that gives me the
capabilities I want.
[For users whose needs are very limited, there may be several other products
that would be acceptable to them - I have no argument that would favor
Quicken in that situation. But I don't believe that gives those users any
legitimate ammunition to complain about Quicken's efforts to remain viable:
if a person can use another product, they are fortunate but they should not
want to interfere with those who can not.]
To some extent, the issue will boil down to whether the described
"subscription" model is necessary and sufficient to keep Quicken in
business. I don't believe any user has the information necessary to
determine that - and I think even Quicken is making some guesses on the
matter - but Quicken is clearly in a better position to know what it takes
than any user.
Those users who claim the subscription model is a scam or an attempt to earn
undeserved profits appear to be hoping that their claims, for which they
have no evidence, will influence Quicken and other users away from the
subscription model. My position is that I don't know whether the
subscription model Quicken eventually implements will help: I suspect only
time will tell. I have no information that would allow me to second guess
Quicken; and I'm surely not going to try to tell other users how they should
think or what they should do: choosing to use the subscription model is an
individual decision; the same product, or service, will have a different
perceived value for different individuals.
A lot of what I have read from users on this subject has been a rush to
judgement. If you want to read some of that, you can check out this Quicken
Community discussion:
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/quicken-inc-should-reverse-its-decision-to-change-to-a-subscription-that-makes-the-users-data-read-only-if-they
[Note the link at the bottom of that discussion which will display the
hidden comments.]
In my opinion, Eric Dunn's comments in that discussion make sense. When all
users eligible for support are on the same version, Quicken will be able to
provide better support, and to free up more resources to apply to fixing
problems and introducing new features.
As it stands now, subscription model users will have complete "access" to
their data even if they do not upgrade. As Eric Dunn says, " ... even after
the subscription ends, users will have full access to all of their Quicken
data, including the ability to edit,run/print reports, and export". At this
point, I believe users should be asking Quicken for details about the
meaning of "edit" and "export" in that sentence. [I believe the question
about "export" has already been asked in the Quicken Community, and that
Quicken is looking to provide an explanation. Since the Canadian
subscription model is somewhat of an experiment, I suspect that the final
features/limitations for the U.S. subscription version have not yet been
determined.]
Many users have falsely represented the new subscription model as a large
across-the-board price increase. Some of those users have failed to consider
that the only prices known at this point are for the Canadian versions of
Quicken. First; those prices are in Canadian dollars, they'd need to be
converted to U.S. dollars for comparison. Second; there are only two
Canadian versions, the equivalent of the U.S. Deluxe and Home & Business
versions (while there are some five or six U.S. versions), so again, direct
price comparisons may not make much sense.
What Quicken has said about pricing is that users who were upgrading every
year will be paying less under the subscription model, and those who were
upgrading every three years will be paying slightly more under the
subscription model. I know of no one who has verifiable information which
refutes that.
At the end of the day - if there are no new bombshell restrictions in a
U.S.subscription version of Quicken, I will continue with my current
practice, which is to purchase every new version. I start using a new
version either when my current version expires, or sometimes when a newer
version has some feature I really want (and/or fixes a problem that I
really dislike about my current version). I purchase every version because:
I want to know how it works and to be able to investigate claims made by
others about how it does, or does not, work; and I want to support Quicken
... I want Quicken to continue to be around; it is by far my most valuable
software product (and I consider it well worth its current price, and
estimated future price).