Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
YNAB moving to a subscription model
Deozaan:
I have a whole year for NANY... maybe I'll give a try at a basic version of this...-wraith808 (January 07, 2016, 03:04 PM)
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I thought I read about it here, but looking through this thread, I can't find any reference to it. Some folks are already trying to organize an open source YNAB 4 replacement called Budget First.
You can join the discussion in the Google Group here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/budget-first
Or you can follow the GitHub repo here:
https://github.com/BudgetFirst/BudgetFirst
dr_andus:
One thing I don't quite understand though is that if YNAB4 is working fine and might work fine for years to come, why are so many die-hard YNAB4 fans (like Macdrifter I linked to or the above open source developers) looking for alternatives already?
40hz:
I am never upgrading to mYNAB.
from: https://www.youneedabudget.com/privacy-policy
We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:
To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
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-wraith808 (January 07, 2016, 08:14 AM)
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I don't see a problem with this. I mean, that's assuming that you're OK with having your data stored on their servers in the first place (which I'm not). But how can they transfer ownership without also transferring the data they have on you? There'd be nothing worth buying if they couldn't also get the customers along with the product.
Imagine if your bank merged with another bank and you were suddenly without a bank account because they didn't include a similar clause about disclosing your personal information in the event of a merger.
-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:32 PM)
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This is the heart of the problem. It came up already in several bankruptcy cases, and with a few companies that were selling off their assets in order to not have to declare bankruptcy.
What happens when you have a privacy policy that repeatedly assured your customers - or even guaranteed it (in those very words) that their data would never be sold or shared? Many people - and virtually every court - would interpret that as either a contract or an implied contract and therefore enforceable under law. So no worries come what may, right?
The answer is: not necessarily - and definitely not in the case of a liquidation or bankruptcy settlement. Sometimes the only asset a company has that creditors are interested in is the company's customer data. And courts have ruled that the interests of stakeholders and creditors trump the privacy rights of customers when a business is looking to settle debts or other financial obligations. And that applies regardless of whatever policy or contract the company had with its customers. In the case of bankruptcy, it was easy. Whatever deal you had with the company died with the company under current legal theory, and is therefor moot. In the case of a company doing a sell off, it's a little more nuanced. But basically the courts have sided with the people who have a financial stake in the equation over the people who were just customers. Privacy dies on the altar of commerce. Or so it would seem.
Most companies no longer make such promises. Not that it matters, because it doesn't seem to be all that enforceable. But either way, companies are now rewording things so that should something like that come up, it won't take up too much of their attorney's time to get such complaints dismissed.
It used to be said (when speaking of "free" services) that if you weren't the customer (i.e. paying money for it) you were the product.
Now it seems that if you deal with a business there's a very good likelihood you're going to end up being a product whether or not you're paying for what you're getting from them.
There are some people who would consider that emerging reality a form of progress. Such people are called asshats. :-\
40hz:
One thing I don't quite understand though is that if YNAB4 is working fine and might work fine for years to come, why are so many die-hard YNAB4 fans (like Macdrifter I linked to or the above open source developers) looking for alternatives already?
-dr_andus (January 07, 2016, 05:15 PM)
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It's called "getting ahead of the problem," I think. The "problem" being YNAB has overstepped what many of their existing customers think is acceptable behavior on their part. These people are now looking for alternatives outside of what YNAB is plannoing to do. Most of them also assume (and I'm inclined to agree with them) that YNAB has got something in the works (probably a sellout to some other entity) that they're not talking about. And whatever it is, their present user base suspects it probably isn't going to be too happy seeing it come to pass when it does.
From a technical standpoint, YNAB runs on Air. AndAir is a dead-end technology that's just waiting to tombstone. The minute a major update to Air breaks YNAB, your options will be to "upgrade" to whatever web-based product YNAB is currently planning to offer - or to find another desktop alternative. As of right now, there's nothing (AFAIK) that does exactly what YNAB software does in quite the way it does it. It is a pretty sweet app in it's present form. Sorta like so many other apps that started of clean and focused and then got wrecked thanks to feature bloat, being repositioned as an online service, or both.
wraith808:
This is the bit about AIR. While this is true, I believe the YNAB installer comes with all the AIR dependencies. So I don't see why you couldn't also run the included version of AIR for as long as you could run YNAB.
-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:44 PM)
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AndAir is a dead-end technology that's just waiting to tombstone. The minute a major update to Air breaks YNAB, your options will be to "upgrade" to whatever web-based product YNAB is currently planning to offer - or to find another desktop alternative.
-40hz (January 07, 2016, 08:06 PM)
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I think 40 answered your question. And with MS deleting files that don't follow their standards, I think that day might be sooner than later.I have a whole year for NANY... maybe I'll give a try at a basic version of this...-wraith808 (January 07, 2016, 03:04 PM)
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I thought I read about it here, but looking through this thread, I can't find any reference to it. Some folks are already trying to organize an open source YNAB 4 replacement called Budget First.
You can join the discussion in the Google Group here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/budget-first
Or you can follow the GitHub repo here:
https://github.com/BudgetFirst/BudgetFirst
-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:50 PM)
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Yeah, I saw that. I also saw that it's not very organized yet. Which was the reason that I was thinking about trying a simple one myself. They don't even know what languages they are using nor what assets they have.
I don't see a problem with this. I mean, that's assuming that you're OK with having your data stored on their servers in the first place (which I'm not). But how can they transfer ownership without also transferring the data they have on you? There'd be nothing worth buying if they couldn't also get the customers along with the product.
Imagine if your bank merged with another bank and you were suddenly without a bank account because they didn't include a similar clause about disclosing your personal information in the event of a merger.
-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:32 PM)
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In general, they have to renegotiate to get your business... whether that's just a we're doing this, do you want to continue to use your account, rather than it being automatic. My bank just merged with another bank. And we had to OK our accounts being a part of the merger.
However, what I'm concerned most about is the first part. They use the aggregates of your data. Which means it's not as encrypted in state as they say it is. At least, it's not encrypted to them and they make no bones about it.
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