Teamviewer shift to Subscription Sucks!

[fastremotehelp.com]

I think teamviewer's annual pay plan is not going over too good with a lot of users. I just got their latest bait in my email.

View attachment 10141
I hope their annual plan crashes and burns a horrible death. Probably not but I do hope so.

Wow, that's a good indication of their desperation...but I can go you one better. I got a call today from Teamviewer, a German guy direct from Germany, trying to sell me on their subscription plan. He started off noting correctly that I had upgraded every single year up to Teamviewer 11, when they introduced the subscription model. He ACTED like he was listening to my perspective, but really, not so much. I explained I didn't like the subscription model at all, even though I had upgraded the lifetime license every year, giving TV the exact same amount of revenue. He finally offered his desperate last incentive, a one time payment for a five year subscription. Fortunately, I got another phone call and dumped his call, which is good because I didn't want him to hear me roaring with laughter.

 

[Jake D. McCann]

I know this thread is old, but as mentioned here already--still very relevant. So I begin:

Hey all. This thread is amazing. There's so many thoughts and different perspectives on this topic that it's been fun for me reading all of them.

I felt compelled to add my story for your review and to shed some light on something that I haven't seen mentioned here yet.

First let me preface this by saying that I'm a true entrepreneurial capitalist. I understand both the business as well as personal reasonings for these individual rants. I also agree with many points on both sides of the argument. Well done.

Here's what I cannot and will never get behind: if you choose to abstain from upgrading to a new version of TeamViewer for a couple releases(let's say you're happy with and 'own' version 10 and feel the feature-sets don't impress you for versions 11 and 12), when you go to upgrade to version 13 you are obligated to pay for EVERY previous version (that you never used because the company failed to impress)to bring you current. It cost me $3950(with discounts after I hollered) to jump from 10 to 13 for a 'lifetime' license.

Now that (I feel) is just plain wrong and I believe many will agree with me would qualify as 'greedy.' That practice is also currently not followed by most other organizations out there--regardless of the type of service entity.

We see the implications between those in favor of the SaaS recurring model and the perpetual (use it for 10 years)one-time purchase model, but this my friends is something different altogether.

I'll close by saying that 'Never' in the history of any software solution I'm aware of has one been 'forced' to cumulatively purchase previous roll-up or 'stacked' upgrades to become current--especially if those upgrades were never utilized by the client.
If you had purchased TeamViewer 6 and wanted to upgrade to 14, you're looking at an 8-year roll-up and all for the privilege of them earning your business because they finally impressed you with new feature-sets(Yayy! It's not just about button relocations and UI re-designs anymore!).

Can you imagine Microsoft Office 2003 users being forced to purchase Office 2007, Office 2010, Office 2013 and Office 2016 to upgrade to the latest release of what is now Office 2019?

Ridiculous! It is for this very reason that TeamViewer should re-re-evaluate their practices, as this paints a clear picture on just how important their dedication to their customer really is...not very

Thanks for listening! ;-)

--Jake (PC Projects)

 

[coffee]

I know this thread is old, but as mentioned here already--still very relevant. So I begin:

Hey all. This thread is amazing. There's so many thoughts and different perspectives on this topic that it's been fun for me reading all of them.

I felt compelled to add my story for your review and to shed some light on something that I haven't seen mentioned here yet.

First let me preface this by saying that I'm a true entrepreneurial capitalist. I understand both the business as well as personal reasonings for these individual rants. I also agree with many points on both sides of the argument. Well done.

Here's what I cannot and will never get behind: if you choose to abstain from upgrading to a new version of TeamViewer for a couple releases(let's say you're happy with and 'own' version 10 and feel the feature-sets don't impress you for versions 11 and 12), when you go to upgrade to version 13 you are obligated to pay for EVERY previous version (that you never used because the company failed to impress)to bring you current. It cost me $3950(with discounts after I hollered) to jump from 10 to 13 for a 'lifetime' license.

Now that (I feel) is just plain wrong and I believe many will agree with me would qualify as 'greedy.' That practice is also currently not followed by most other organizations out there--regardless of the type of service entity.

We see the implications between those in favor of the SaaS recurring model and the perpetual (use it for 10 years)one-time purchase model, but this my friends is something different altogether.

I'll close by saying that 'Never' in the history of any software solution I'm aware of has one been 'forced' to cumulatively purchase previous roll-up or 'stacked' upgrades to become current--especially if those upgrades were never utilized by the client.
If you had purchased TeamViewer 6 and wanted to upgrade to 14, you're looking at an 8-year roll-up and all for the privilege of them earning your business because they finally impressed you with new feature-sets(Yayy! It's not just about button relocations and UI re-designs anymore!).

Can you imagine Microsoft Office 2003 users being forced to purchase Office 2007, Office 2010, Office 2013 and Office 2016 to upgrade to the latest release of what is now Office 2019?

Ridiculous! It is for this very reason that TeamViewer should re-re-evaluate their practices, as this paints a clear picture on just how important their dedication to their customer really is...not very

Thanks for listening! ;-)

--Jake (PC Projects)

Im sorry, But this does not make any sense. Perhaps I am misunderstanding something but why would you pay for past upgrades just to get current - 3950.00 ???

Seems to me that you could have just downloaded the current version, Try it out and pay the first year subscription? If they really did force you to pay that much then something else should have been considered.

We should pool our resources and create new software. I understand some server hardware will be needed also. Perhaps we can approach the open source community and get the ball rolling and then find a way to donate the equipment needed to support the central server setup that would provide the benefits that TV does already. We could charge just enough to cover costs on a yearly basis. I would be very interested in discussing such a project and what it would realistically take to make it happen. Either that or pay the blood money to TV.

 

[Markverhyden]

What's the big deal? They make a decision on how they want to run their business. It's not like they are the only solution of that type or you have a statutory requirement to use it. They've made it very clear they're only interested in the subscription model. To be honest I wasn't aware that they still offered lifetime licenses.

I find VPN to be a far better method for remote access. Can't use TV to hit a router, switch or many other networked devices. Of course VPN does have it's limitations so I have Splashtop which works fine for the other times.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I put TightVNC on every device, and each customer has their own password on it, except servers. Then I use GPOs to enable RDP for the domain admins group, AND I have my RMM solution in place.

You'd be rather surprised to know how many times one or two of those wouldn't work when the 3rd would. The hardest access means is VPN to the network, RDP to a server, VNC from there to a station.

 

[Jake D. McCann]

Wow, that's a good indication of their desperation...but I can go you one better. I got a call today from Teamviewer, a German guy direct from Germany, trying to sell me on their subscription plan. He started off noting correctly that I had upgraded every single year up to Teamviewer 11, when they introduced the subscription model. He ACTED like he was listening to my perspective, but really, not so much. I explained I didn't like the subscription model at all, even though I had upgraded the lifetime license every year, giving TV the exact same amount of revenue. He finally offered his desperate last incentive, a one time payment for a five year subscription. Fortunately, I got another phone call and dumped his call, which is good because I didn't want him to hear me roaring with laughter.

Im sorry, But this does not make any sense. Perhaps I am misunderstanding something but why would you pay for past upgrades just to get current - 3950.00 ???

Seems to me that you could have just downloaded the current version, Try it out and pay the first year subscription? If they really did force you to pay that much then something else should have been considered.

We should pool our resources and create new software. I understand some server hardware will be needed also. Perhaps we can approach the open source community and get the ball rolling and then find a way to donate the equipment needed to support the central server setup that would provide the benefits that TV does already. We could charge just enough to cover costs on a yearly basis. I would be very interested in discussing such a project and what it would realistically take to make it happen. Either that or pay the blood money to TV.

I was upset about it too but we were so invested in TeamViewer already and had to have the new features of 13. It doesn't make sense. That's my entire point, but they do it. So I'm urging others to be careful and to know what will happen if they lapse.

The way it works is you can convert over to the subscription at any time and receive current features but when you drop that subscription you automatically revert back to whatever version you would own according to the Perpetual license model. In my case that would have been version 10.

It really all depends on whether or not you want to rent your software or own the particular version. Like with any other software platform I was under the assumption as are many others that I could just simply by the Perpetual license model for version 10 and wait until I thought it necessary to update to 13 or 14 when the features I really wanted became available. I had originally thought that all I would need to do is just simply purchase version 13 as I have purchased version 10. I would have even expected some sort of an upgrade discount which would be less then the corporate version 13 license for new user. Instead I came to the realization that if a brand new user of TeamViewer once corporate 13 they would pay less than I would because I decided to abstain from upgrading for 3 years in a row. That is wrong and a terrible practice on TeamViewers part. Also, I do agree with several of the other posters that had indicated that TeamViewer is Simply the Best. They have some of the best encryption and the best compression and there aren't really any viable Alternatives that can get you connected to a system as quickly as TeamViewer. I tried ten other platforms and they all suffered. TeamViewer knows this and that's why they gouge you in this manner.

 

[MDD1963]

Imagine if someone had stuck with WS2008 for a while (yes, too long, but, they made that choice!) to maximize the dollar spent, and, when finally wanting to get a new server with the latest WS2019, MS or Dell told them the OS fee would need to cover the cost of prior Server OSs WS2012, 2012R2, WS2016, so WS Server Standard would cost about $2100 per 16 cores...because they'd missed a few OS versions!!

Paying for unused /missed previous major release 'upgrades' is so far beyond ridiculous...I'd use ANY other solution, from Ammyy, AnyDesk, AeroAdmin, Chrome RDP, Cloudberry Remote Assistant, IMPCRemote, Iperius Remote, No Machine, RemotePC, Supremo, Ultraviewer, UltraVNC, before I'd ever agree to pay ...$3950!

Food for thought: does a newly installed WIn10 ISO on HyperV get a new indistinguishable/seemingly new Teamviewer computer ID for each VM created within 2 minutes? (I'll find out soon enough)

Edit: for Win10VM2 (of course one could just as easily spin up a Linux VM with TV), I varied the drive size a few GB to be witty, but, different computer ID numbers assigned; seems it would be difficult to discern commercial use/personal use without unique MB/CPU-based hardware info to track...

 

[Choppie]

I would think by now some group would have started building out an open source replacement for TeamViewer! I remember Timbuktu many years ago, and it worked just fine. I own the premium version of TeamViwer 6, they'll never get another cent from me based purely on their increasingly arrogant, greedy business profile... I feel its just a matter of MORE time until enough tallanted programmers begin an open source project, let me coin a few names while I'm at it; OpenConnect, GnuConnect, OpenRemote, OpenControl, LibreConnect, FOSSconnect,

 

[Diggs]

I thought there were. I just never tried them. Monitoring would be an issue. A quick search -

https://fosspost.org/lists/open-source-remote-desktop

https://alternativeto.net/software/teamviewer/?license=opensource

 

[coffee]

I just got done looking over Guacamole. Seems its more geared for remote desktop behind the firewall. Not like TV. Most of the Remote Support software I see requires changes to the firewall or forwarding of ports and such. Not what I want to do with over 100 clients.

What we really need is something like TV but with these points:

1. Instead of TV servers keeping track of the connections and such, The software installs on your server and it does all that work. Since your only supporting your own services for remote support it shouldnt be too heavy on the server.

2. Decent file transfer. I have run into a lot of versions that have issues with file transfers. Mostly on Linux servers and desktops.

3. Of course branding.

Ok. Well I guess thats it for my needs.

I really cannot believe there isnt more serious competition for TV. I would be really happy to donate some server space and cores/memory if someone is into programing and wanted to work on a decent Open Source or lower cost alternative.

TV has kinda taken over and they know it. Thats why they are trying to get everyone to bend over and "Take one for their team". The cost is totally out of control. Six hundred a year is a joke. I do have the lifetime for ver. 9 but I cannot get TV9 to work on the latest linux versions. Therefore, I am kinda scrambling to find an alternative before its too late. I do a lot of linux servers and one of these days an update will bork TV9 and I will be in some hot water.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Choppie, it's called VNC

 

[nerd2u]

A lot of restaurants and retail use vnc for support.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[coffee]

A lot of restaurants and retail use vnc for support.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

VNC has been around for quite a while but its somewhat slow depending on the encryption method and you have to do some fancy port forwarding and opening to have it work. That was one of my points in my last post.

 

[Sky-Knight]

A lot of restaurants and retail use vnc for support.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

I use it daily myself, but if you want to replace something like TeamViewer, you need this: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vnc-reflector/

And a cloud hosted web server somewhere.

So no, you don't have to forward a single port, you just need properly configured endpoints and a working reflector.

If you want it to just work...you buy stuff. I'm seriously enjoying Screenconnect.