Is anyone else offended by the new licensing model?

Marshall Mooney May 14, 2020

I understand that companies must evolve their licensing and even business models over time.  We see that everywhere in technology.  Microsoft, for example, will let you use an Azure product for a year or more for cheap then change the pricing to be unattainable except by Bill Gates himself.  If you asked me a few weeks ago if I thought Atlassian was a greedy company, I would have said, "No".  Their products are fairly priced.  I mean there is the fact that their product suite generally provides value to multiple areas of a company that only use portions of the product or one plugin or another yet you have to pay for every system user for every plugin, but I get it.  They have now, however, gone a little too far.  We use Portfolio.  I was notified this week that Portfolio is now going to be called Advanced Roadmaps and will require I upgrade to Premium to keep using it.  You might say, "But you don't have to keep paying for the Portfolio plugin."  That's true, but our cost will still significantly increase.  We were planning to look for another tool instead of upgrading.  That situation is irritating because I just want Portfolio and not all the Premium stuff, but I have to pay for it all for everyone.  I get it, though, and that's not enough to make me start this discussion.  The thing that put me over the edge was when I wanted to "Inpect Permissions" on a Confluence article.  That's not a Premium feature.... right?  That's just core functionality that is used to administer the core product.  WRONG!  I was presented a message telling me that inspecting permissions is now considered a premium feature.  If I want to simply administer the system in the same way I have administered the system for years, I now must pay double for every one of my users.  This is simply greed.  This is the result of a board meeting in which the topic of discussion was how to make people have to upgrade to premium.  I must ask.... Are you only offering the base license to get people in the door who don't know better?  After all, once they have a complex system with a bunch of users, they will eventually be faced with the task of figuring out why someone can or can't interact with content in some way.  Then you've got them.  They will be forced to open their wallet.  Shame on you.

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Marshall Mooney May 14, 2020

Thanks for my "First Topic Created" badge.  I'm shocked badges aren't a premium feature.

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