As Nick Bradbury mentions, FeedDemon is going the subscription route. Newsgator Outlook Edition, my aggregator of choice, already has. One of the big justifications for a subscription model seems to be the synchronization, which was already introduced in Newsgator Outlook Edition 2.5 and will be added in FeedDemon 1.6.
Here's the thing - The RSS synchronization is just one (small) piece of a bigger overall problem: I have information (e-mail, documents, subscriptions, whatever) that I want synchronized across machines and available remotely. As I've said before, Exchange solves the e-mail synchronization problem effectively. By simply using an Outlook-based aggregator, I get RSS synchronization for free. It also gives me remote access to both via RPC over HTTPS or Outlook Web Access. Ideally, all of my documents and other files would also be exposed by default through my Exchange mailbox.
As it stands, I don't use Newsgator Online for reading news. At best, I use it to add a subscription when I'm not at my primary home computer. Maybe I'll use FeedDemon and decide I like it better than using Outlook or Outlook Web Access. Maybe not. But as I've discussed in the past, Outlook and Exchange is a very compelling platform for me to consume information.
I don't see a lot of value in a separate service manages just a small part of the problem. If you are going to a subscription model, you have to offer something beyond the software itself; you have to offer a service. In this case, I'm not so sure that the service is compelling enough.
In other words, I the folks over at Newsgator would be wise to make their software also available independent of their service.
It's also worth reading Jeff's in-depth discussion of services vs. products:
With a few exceptions [1], services and content should be sold as subscriptions… they provide on-going value.
Standalone applications, on the other hand, are pretty much the same on day 365 as they were on day 1. As such, they should be sold as version specific, one-time-fee, licenses.
My sentiments exactly.
Update: I guess enough folks feel strongly about this - as NewsGator is reconsidering the subscription model for FeedDemon.
[W]e're going to change FeedDemon so that it does not stop working after your subscription runs out. You'll still be able to read your feeds and download new items. As many of you suggested, more than likely we'll disable features that rely on the subscription service.
Yes, Nick, this sounds good to me...