Like everyone else living in the United States of Shopping, we were bombarded with Black Friday offers for massive one-day only price reductions. But our deep discounts were not for sneakers, electronica, scented candles, and all the usual mall products, instead we were blessed with special promotional deals from the startups we’ve written about and whose services we’ve tried. To wit: 66% off a yearly subscription to Webydo, half off the ShoutEm yearly price, and a 40% discount when you upgrate premium service at OnePager.
It didn’t escape our notice that cloud-based app generators were the ones who were going out of their way with Black Friday-Cyber Monday discounts. And this perhaps points to the larger epistemological problem with discounted software running on virtual machines in outsourced data centers. There ain’t that much cost involved in delivering another subscription, so maybe you shouldn’t really signal how much profit there is in software rental bizness with whacky price cuts.
Here’s my suggestion: rather than discounting their own products for Thanksgiving, cloud software companies should just give us all a coupon or promotion code for a product from the real world. I’m hoping to see an email blast next year with the following come-on: “Upgrade your service with Apptastic, and get a pair of sneakers!”