August 1, 2002

Intuit's Cost of 'free' service

InfoWorld: IF INTUIT STARTED making television sets, how long do you suppose it would be before the remote control became a service you had to pay for by the month?

Those who have followed our chronicles of how the QuickBooks payroll tax calculation became a subscription service may find the story of a reader we'll call Ms. Billings rather familiar. A QuickBooks 2001 user, Ms. Billings recently downloaded a free update to the program when a pop-up window informed her it was available. She quickly regretted it. (full story)

My spin:Ed Foster gives readers an inside look, focusing on Intuit, at how users must read the fine print - and how sometimes even reading the fine print will not help. Software vendors (and every other company) are looking for ways to inrease their revenues, users are looking for ways to save money - their's got to be a middle roead somewhere.

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