Mine is 100% ChatGPT at the moment
SaaS = Software as a Service (e.g. MullvadVPN)
Mullvad is the only one, though it’s in large part due to me not being in a situation where I have any important software needs in my personal life, meaning I can get away with just free options and cracked versions whenever I need something.
I really want to switch to Mullvad but it’s difficult for me to justify 5€ a month when other VPN services regularly have specials offering US$2 a month if I prepay 2 years
If you just want to change your IP, there is no reason to use Mullvad. If you care about your privacy Mullvad is great. You can pay in xmr or even in cash by mail.
I don’t think a VPN counts as SaaS, it’s something that costs the company money constantly to run, SaaS is more like the Adobe apps, which are not a service at all and it doesn’t cost them money for me to not uninstall it.
At that rate it just sounds like you’re trying to categorically redefine SaaS to just be the crappy ones, while excluding anything with a reason to be a service
Just because a service is hosted in the cloud does not mean it is SaaS. The service has to replace a software solution, or be replaceable with a software.
A VPN client is software. A VPN server is software. I can run a VPN client or a VPN server on my own hardware.
But any VPN server I install is going to use my own network connection. Not an anonymizing proxy. No piece of software I could run can replace the anonymizing service that a VPN provider offers. The anonymization feature of a commercial VPN provider is not SaaS.
Gmail (especially as part of the Google Apps suite allowing Google to handle the email for your own domain) could be considered SaaS. I could install my own email servers to handle email traffic in and out of my domain(s), but I’d rather pay for the convenience of not having to maintain my own email server software. Gmail, then, is a good example of SaaS.
I think digital service would be a more appropriate term here as some of that you mentioned is not SaaS.
With that said, I do have a few subscriptions myself:
- VPN
- VPS (this is IaaS, actually…)
- shared cloud hosting (PaaS)
- domain name registrations
How is mullvad (or any commercial VPN) considered SaaS? They are providing networking services: relaying your traffic through a pathway other than your direct ISP.
I think of SaaS as something more like Google Docs: a cloud-based suite that replaces a locally installed office suite. Microsoft Office 2021 is software; Office 365 is SaaS.
Alternatively, a locally-installed application that operates without the use of the provider’s resources, but still requires an ongoing subscription for continued use. The software isn’t owned by the user, it is just a service the user continues to purchase.
I’ve got several subscription-based services that operate “in the cloud”. Webhosting, VoIP trunk provider, VPN, a half dozen apps on my phone. The only one I would consider SaaS, though, is a weather app that seems to pull its data directly from the National Weather Service.
Hot air balloon pilot. I am not paying for weather; I am paying for a convenient packaging of specific weather factors not commonly reported by mainstream sources.
For example, a map of the wind forecast at 100’ AGL. Any commercial source can give me wind forecast at the surface. Aviation specific apps can give me forecasts at 3000, 6000, 9000 feet. But a forecast map of winds at the treetop level is rather difficult to come by.
The data is available from NWS, but it’s commonly provided as a vertical wind profile for a specific location, rather than a map of winds at a particular altitude. This app seems to compile vertical wind profile forecasts for many locations into a single map.
That particular map (and several other weather charts) is a premium feature of a commercial weather app for Android. I found it useful, so I subscribed.
I work in IT, and different definitions of what SaaS means are starting to wreak real havoc on the architecture as a whole.
We are better served just quitting the acronyms and taking the time to talk about a more detailed description of what the service actually adds in terms of value.
Amazon Prime is a subscription for shipping, video streaming, gaming benefits and more. Since software is not the primary goal, but a means of delivery for these other services, I will not consider Amazon Prime SaaS.
Monarch Money
Mint is going away and I need a polished mostly automatic way of tracking my income, spending and investments. Sure there are cheaper or subscription free ways of doing it but I really need something that just connects to all my accounts and helps me visualize things. I’m willing to pay for the service and I get to leave Intuit behind.
Midjourney
I use it to make concept art for characters, places and things in my tabletop game. I’m looking to drop midjourney and do this all locally though but haven’t gotten around to setting that up yet. In the meantime it’s still pretty cheap and easy to use.
