Comment by dspillett

Comment by dspillett a day ago

It is already implemented, otherwise they wouldn't be able to enable it once the subscription is active.

Why should the OP need to pay a subscription to enable a feature that is build into the camera, that is a standard feature on other cameras and imposes no ongoing costs to the manufacturer¹? This is an example of gouging, pure and simple.

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[1] unless they are forcing the user to use their hosted service for steaming the webcam output, in which case there is some bandwidth and perhaps other processing cost, but that is on them for having not just implemented a standard that enables local-only recording

golli a day ago

Also why does it have to be a subscription in the first place. If it is a non standard use that requires extra software you don't and you want to separate those costs from users that don't need it, then make it a one time payment at least.

Subscriptions make sense when you have ongoing costs like significant load on servers that are needed for the service provided. But not for some piece of software you write once and are more or less done with (minus some small patches)

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wat10000 a day ago

That’s the really egregious thing. I think a bunch of programmers should be able to see the merit in charging money for software. It’s a bit of a bitter pill in a product that we mentally categorize as “device” rather than “computer” but it’s at least somewhat sensible. Software costs money to make, that money has to come from customers, and getting it from the customers who use it makes sense.
But requiring a subscription is such a blatant “fuck you, we want more profit without doing any work, and you’re going to provide it.”

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brushfoot a day ago

> Why should the OP need to pay a subscription to enable a feature that is build into the camera

Getting video into your computer through USB is _not_ built into the camera. Else why is OP downloading an app to do it?

The app is part of the implementation, and it costs money. I have no problem with the manufacturer charging separately for that. The rest of us can use a video cable to get video into our computers.

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dspillett a day ago

You are entirely ignoring the subscription for what should, at most, be a one-off cost.
> The app is part of the implementation
Give other cameras can do it, there has a standard for it since 2003, and there are F/OSS implementations for others, maybe I'm asking the wrong question and instead should have asked “why should the OP pay a subscription for their bad choice of how to implement the feature?”.

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- brushfoot a day ago
  
  The company can charge whatever they want for this feature. Most people who can afford to use a good camera as their webcam will never use it, because they know the quality is worse and they'd rather use industry-standard HDMI.
  If I asked Sony for a power generator to charge my camera's battery, they could charge me a million a month if they'd like. Hopefully that would signal to me that there are better and more standard options.
  
  Reply View | 8 replies
  
  dspillett a day ago
  
  > The company can charge whatever they want for this feature.
  They can. But that doesn't mean everyone is forced to be happy about it, and doesn't mean it can't be talked about so other people who might not be happy about it can use the information to chose a different camera from a different manufacturer instead of discovering the issue post-purchase.
  > they'd rather use industry-standard HDMI
  Or the industry standards for video-over-USB, that this manufacturer chose not to implement because they couldn't easily gouge a subscription out of it.
  
  Reply View | 6 replies
  
  nohillside a day ago
  
  Indeed, we should be glad they don‘t charge us for each picture we take …
  
  Reply View | 0 replies