The issue with Hosting is why I don't use Foundry. I think they would be well served to offer people an option to use it as a hosted service for a monthly fee. I know there's options like Forge that handle the hosting for you, but then you have to pay the 50$ for Foundry + the monthly fee. Which I think is too much.
The 50€ is for the software and future updates. To be clear: we're talking about hundreds of hours of work from Atropos here, so I don't think 50€ one-time fee is too much.
Or you decide that you'd like someone else to do the work for you and use a service like forge, which is still cheaper than Roll20 Pro.
Servers cost money, developing software costs time and by extension money. Get over it, not everything can be available for a coffee 2 go per month.
Unless you reach an audience of several thousand people you can't offer such cheap prices and maintain the required infrastructure.
I understand that things cost money. But I don't see why I should "get over it" if I think 50 up front plus a 5$+ monthly fee afterwards is too much. There's no law that because something "costs money" to make I have to think that the price they are charging for it is one I'm personally willing to pay.
And my point was just that they'd probably make more money in the long run by providing a monthly subscription option without the need to buy the license.
The issue with Hosting is why I don't use Foundry. I think they would be well served to offer people an option to use it as a hosted service for a monthly fee. I know there's options like Forge that handle the hosting for you, but then you have to pay the 50$ for Foundry + the monthly fee. Which I think is too much.
The 50€ is for the software and future updates. To be clear: we're talking about hundreds of hours of work from Atropos here, so I don't think 50€ one-time fee is too much.
Or you decide that you'd like someone else to do the work for you and use a service like forge, which is still cheaper than Roll20 Pro.
Servers cost money, developing software costs time and by extension money. Get over it, not everything can be available for a coffee 2 go per month.
Unless you reach an audience of several thousand people you can't offer such cheap prices and maintain the required infrastructure.
I understand that things cost money. But I don't see why I should "get over it" if I think 50 up front plus a 5$+ monthly fee afterwards is too much. There's no law that because something "costs money" to make I have to think that the price they are charging for it is one I'm personally willing to pay.
And my point was just that they'd probably make more money in the long run by providing a monthly subscription option without the need to buy the license.
It's not too much and they wouldn't earn more with a "pure subscription".
And your posts give off the typical vibe of "software ain't worth sh** and it should all be available for free and exactly how I want it" that's more than common in internet discussions these days. Open Source is to blame for that one... nobody'd expect their gardener to work for free, so why is expected from developers?
To put this into perspective: Foundry VTT started Nov 2018. That's 2 years of work. Or 200k $ if you're working the same time for a company. At 4k sold licenses Atropos will be at the break even point where he didn't lose money to this project. His Patreon has 1.7k supporters, and the number of licenses is probably higher, but more than twice that amount? I at least doubt it, given the target audience is "DMs who play online, use a VTT software for it, are willing to move from an existing VTT software and have players with semi-modern computers capable of running Foundry". That's a niche inside a minority in a niche hobby.
The same goes for Forge where the target audience is even thinner by "and who don't have time to read through a manual and set the software up themselves". At the same time their subscription also has to cover the running costs for the server they provide you with, which is at least one of the four dollars they want.
Well I'm sold to at least trying it out. I think I will be getting it and playing around with Foundry this weekend. Prior I've only used roll20 and EpicTable for online play. Some of my play will be in-person with a large horizontal TV as a play top so no networking to do for now. I've googled that Foundry will support this. I'm hoping it will be simple enough to set up how I've done it before - one computer, a monitor for DM view, a flat TV on the table as a second monitor with player view?
And your post gives off the typical vibe of "I know everything about you and I'm going to attack you personally based off of a single post you made".
But to your point about there not being a community big enough to justify it. Roll20 has 5 million users as of March 2020 according to their blog, and I think many people would agree that it has major issues. Now the vast majority of those are likely free users, but even if 5% pay a monthly subscription that's 250,000 people. So the argument that well there just isn't enough of a market there I don't think holds true. Especially if they offered the same ease of use that Roll20 does for new people they could make a lot more in the long run as it would be easier to draw people in rather than just replying "well if you are too lazy to learn how to set up an AWS server then maybe you should take your money elsewhere".
Well I mean, strictly speaking, if you think $50 is too much to pay as a one-time charge for then setting up your own server deal, or the $5/mo or whatever it is would be too much on top of the initial $50, then quite literally, you should take your money elsewhere. You should never willingly pay for something you don't think is worth it.
I have been known to withhold very small amounts of money for something that I think is not worth it, including on the order of 50 cents or $1.00. It's never the amount, but the principle of the thing. It's not that I "can't afford" a $4.99 comic book - it's that the 15 minutes of crap reading that the comic provides is not worth the $4.99 price to me, and so I withhold my money from them. I take my money elsewhere.
So yes, if you think Foundry's pricing is not worth it, you should absolutely take your money elsewhere. I see no issues with that statement.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well I'm sold to at least trying it out. I think I will be getting it and playing around with Foundry this weekend. Prior I've only used roll20 and EpicTable for online play. Some of my play will be in-person with a large horizontal TV as a play top so no networking to do for now. I've googled that Foundry will support this. I'm hoping it will be simple enough to set up how I've done it before - one computer, a monitor for DM view, a flat TV on the table as a second monitor with player view?
My DM is so far pretty impressed. None of us really like roll20, especially the DM. He's much happier with what he's getting at the present, although to be fair we haven't played a live game with it yet. The first one will be next weekend and we'll see how it goes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Foundry looks great and seems to be the best one out there for DnD. I’m learning the ropes of it right now. I will probably use it for my irl vtt tv. You can really create immersive maps with it an there are tools like zoom lock, specifically built to this purpose.
Ok fiddled with Foundry after purchasing it. I'm done with roll20 now. :) Yes I had to watch a (excellent) youtube series to get me going. But, it's awesome and I've only delved into it for a day.
And it looks like it will be very simple to do local play - Hook my computer to a TV as a second monitor (easily done with windows). Run the main DM screen on my monitor which faces only me. Create a player tab in a browser, drag that to my 2nd monitor, the TV. Done.
Ok fiddled with Foundry after purchasing it. I'm done with roll20 now. :) Yes I had to watch a (excellent) youtube series to get me going. But, it's awesome and I've only delved into it for a day.
And it looks like it will be very simple to do local play - Hook my computer to a TV as a second monitor (easily done with windows). Run the main DM screen on my monitor which faces only me. Create a player tab in a browser, drag that to my 2nd monitor, the TV. Done.
I dig that idea with the TV facing only you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Wow, I had no idea about Foundry. Thanks for posting this: I'll go check it out. I've been trying to use roll20, but it's a lot of work unless I want to buy everything I have on dndbeyond again, but even then I'm not sure it's as easy as what you laid out.
If DDB ever made or bought out a VTT to integrate, you can bet the Foundry integration modules will get a cease and desist even before the DDB option is functional.
That or they'll just insert a line of code or two that breaks the integration.
If it's screen scraping text and images via a browser extension, I'm not sure there is much that the dnd beyond team can do about that without completely ruining the dndbeyond user experience.
The issue with Hosting is why I don't use Foundry. I think they would be well served to offer people an option to use it as a hosted service for a monthly fee. I know there's options like Forge that handle the hosting for you, but then you have to pay the 50$ for Foundry + the monthly fee. Which I think is too much.
The 50€ is for the software and future updates. To be clear: we're talking about hundreds of hours of work from Atropos here, so I don't think 50€ one-time fee is too much.
Or you decide that you'd like someone else to do the work for you and use a service like forge, which is still cheaper than Roll20 Pro.
Servers cost money, developing software costs time and by extension money. Get over it, not everything can be available for a coffee 2 go per month.
Unless you reach an audience of several thousand people you can't offer such cheap prices and maintain the required infrastructure.
I understand that things cost money. But I don't see why I should "get over it" if I think 50 up front plus a 5$+ monthly fee afterwards is too much. There's no law that because something "costs money" to make I have to think that the price they are charging for it is one I'm personally willing to pay.
And my point was just that they'd probably make more money in the long run by providing a monthly subscription option without the need to buy the license.
It's not too much and they wouldn't earn more with a "pure subscription".
And your posts give off the typical vibe of "software ain't worth sh** and it should all be available for free and exactly how I want it" that's more than common in internet discussions these days. Open Source is to blame for that one... nobody'd expect their gardener to work for free, so why is expected from developers?
To put this into perspective: Foundry VTT started Nov 2018. That's 2 years of work. Or 200k $ if you're working the same time for a company. At 4k sold licenses Atropos will be at the break even point where he didn't lose money to this project. His Patreon has 1.7k supporters, and the number of licenses is probably higher, but more than twice that amount? I at least doubt it, given the target audience is "DMs who play online, use a VTT software for it, are willing to move from an existing VTT software and have players with semi-modern computers capable of running Foundry". That's a niche inside a minority in a niche hobby.
The same goes for Forge where the target audience is even thinner by "and who don't have time to read through a manual and set the software up themselves". At the same time their subscription also has to cover the running costs for the server they provide you with, which is at least one of the four dollars they want.
I think 100k a year is vastly understating how much money a mid level developer makes in the software development sector, though I guess it depends on the country. I think he's losing money on this to be honest.
I'm a sys admin who used to work at a software company with developers. Two of those developers I worked with are in my D&D group, so I have an idea of what they make. They're both well over 150k a year. They started off at the company I was with straight out of school, at around ~75k, but that was years ago.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
A subscription service doesn't make more money, especially if you have a free tier.
Hosting costs money, and it ain't cheap. CPU time from Digital Ocean and AWS adds up to prohibitive costs over time, and there's one aspect of having a hosting service to consider: maintenance. I got to pay people to keep the server running, and servers inevitably run into problems. Also, it slows the pace of development down as now I have to deal with support, backward compatibility issues and giving updates to a crowd. It's a business, and that means overheads like salary, office upkeep etc. etc.
Yes, and as it scales the maintenance demands increase. Growing quickly does not automatically = more money, especially if you didn't build your software and infrastructure with this in mind from the start.
As for what developers make, it's extremely variable. It pays a lot better in the US, but even here there is huge variation depending on where you live. 100k salary in San Fransisco is equivalent to something like a 30k salary in North Carolina due to cost of living. Most of the tech hubs correspond with areas with the highest cost of living so although it seems like a lot, the money doesn't go as far as it might elsewhere.
excellent point. I make 6 figures in the DC area and it's pretty meh.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Self hosting isn't difficult to do , I didn't even have to set up port forwarding for my connection. One issue with foundry is that you need a higher spec machine than roll 20
If you are willing for $50 one time, there should be people around that can help you get setup hosting it yourself. (myself, or Foundry has a discord that is pretty responsive)
I have tried it on a Ryzen 3 3200G and an Intel 4790k so you want a quad core, 3000 GHz, with 8 GB RAM and a couple GB free for assests.
I have not had performance issues in Foundry except when I had auto-imported some large areas from dungeon draft with round walls. The import script generated like 1,000 tiny wall segments to make up the curves and it was driving my CPU temp through the roof doing all those computations. I didn't notice it had done that at first (I just tested, saw that the walls looked good from PC view, and left it at that), but every time we went onto that map my fan kicked into overdrive and my computer started choking. Once I tracked it down and cut out 900+o of the 1,000 walls by making much sharper turns for the curves, it got better.
Also, it's a good idea to drop the FPS down to 30 or even a little lower. Who the heck needs 60 FPS to look at a map? Token movement happens like 1 square a second, not dozens of FPS.
The issue with Hosting is why I don't use Foundry. I think they would be well served to offer people an option to use it as a hosted service for a monthly fee. I know there's options like Forge that handle the hosting for you, but then you have to pay the 50$ for Foundry + the monthly fee. Which I think is too much.
The 50€ is for the software and future updates. To be clear: we're talking about hundreds of hours of work from Atropos here, so I don't think 50€ one-time fee is too much.
Or you decide that you'd like someone else to do the work for you and use a service like forge, which is still cheaper than Roll20 Pro.
Servers cost money, developing software costs time and by extension money. Get over it, not everything can be available for a coffee 2 go per month.
Unless you reach an audience of several thousand people you can't offer such cheap prices and maintain the required infrastructure.
I understand that things cost money. But I don't see why I should "get over it" if I think 50 up front plus a 5$+ monthly fee afterwards is too much. There's no law that because something "costs money" to make I have to think that the price they are charging for it is one I'm personally willing to pay.
And my point was just that they'd probably make more money in the long run by providing a monthly subscription option without the need to buy the license.
It's not $5 monthly. It's $50. You should get over it because there's no alternative. It's not software you need. You can keep doing what you're doing now. There's no need to be a Karen and think you deserve special treatment.
Also, hosting it yourself is free. How is that no a major draw for some people? I can have images with very large file size, FLAC audio, and use any content I want and not worry. I've been using it since March. I love it and so easy to use, I have absolutely no IT/program experience and it's so easy to use. How long has Roll20 been around? I think for $50, a piece of software that is very easy to learn, useful, and frankly, just better in terms of tech is worth it.
You have no idea how much Foundry would make if it went to a subscription model. I know I wouldn't have bought it. Astropos made it specifically because he didn't want to force people into a subscription model.
The most recent 5E game I joined is run on Foundry, and I love it. Our DM has several mods installed so I don't know what "vanilla" Foundry VTT looks like, but it's a great platform. I don't know how easy it is to work for a DM compared to other platforms, but it's my favorite to use as a player by far. A couple of our players seem to have issues with the responsiveness of it but I don't know how much of it is their own computer or Internet connection, since they have problems with Discord too. If I ever win the lottery, I swear one of the first thing I'll do is buy computer upgrades for my D&D groups :)
EDIT - Forgot to mention two of my favorite features. One, the Roll dialogue box. For attacks/saves/checks it has easy options for rolling with adv/disadv, for damage rolls you can just click Critical or Normal damage, and for all rolls its easy to add a situational modifier(the extra 1d6 from Hunter's Mark, Sneak Attack, Rage bonus, Bless etc) on the fly with minimal effort. The only thing I wish it had was the ability to do separate rolls for multiple damage types. The other is that when a roll is made into the chat, you can click on the result and choose to apply it to your character as Healing, Normal Damage, Half Damage(if you have resistance), or Double Damage(if you have vulnerability). Like many features of the platform, it may not be super-advanced from a technical perspective, but it's incredibly convenient and easy to use.
I understand that things cost money. But I don't see why I should "get over it" if I think 50 up front plus a 5$+ monthly fee afterwards is too much. There's no law that because something "costs money" to make I have to think that the price they are charging for it is one I'm personally willing to pay.
And my point was just that they'd probably make more money in the long run by providing a monthly subscription option without the need to buy the license.
It's not too much and they wouldn't earn more with a "pure subscription".
And your posts give off the typical vibe of "software ain't worth sh** and it should all be available for free and exactly how I want it" that's more than common in internet discussions these days. Open Source is to blame for that one... nobody'd expect their gardener to work for free, so why is expected from developers?
To put this into perspective: Foundry VTT started Nov 2018. That's 2 years of work. Or 200k $ if you're working the same time for a company. At 4k sold licenses Atropos will be at the break even point where he didn't lose money to this project. His Patreon has 1.7k supporters, and the number of licenses is probably higher, but more than twice that amount? I at least doubt it, given the target audience is "DMs who play online, use a VTT software for it, are willing to move from an existing VTT software and have players with semi-modern computers capable of running Foundry". That's a niche inside a minority in a niche hobby.
The same goes for Forge where the target audience is even thinner by "and who don't have time to read through a manual and set the software up themselves". At the same time their subscription also has to cover the running costs for the server they provide you with, which is at least one of the four dollars they want.
Well I'm sold to at least trying it out. I think I will be getting it and playing around with Foundry this weekend. Prior I've only used roll20 and EpicTable for online play. Some of my play will be in-person with a large horizontal TV as a play top so no networking to do for now. I've googled that Foundry will support this. I'm hoping it will be simple enough to set up how I've done it before - one computer, a monitor for DM view, a flat TV on the table as a second monitor with player view?
And your post gives off the typical vibe of "I know everything about you and I'm going to attack you personally based off of a single post you made".
But to your point about there not being a community big enough to justify it. Roll20 has 5 million users as of March 2020 according to their blog, and I think many people would agree that it has major issues. Now the vast majority of those are likely free users, but even if 5% pay a monthly subscription that's 250,000 people. So the argument that well there just isn't enough of a market there I don't think holds true. Especially if they offered the same ease of use that Roll20 does for new people they could make a lot more in the long run as it would be easier to draw people in rather than just replying "well if you are too lazy to learn how to set up an AWS server then maybe you should take your money elsewhere".
Well I mean, strictly speaking, if you think $50 is too much to pay as a one-time charge for then setting up your own server deal, or the $5/mo or whatever it is would be too much on top of the initial $50, then quite literally, you should take your money elsewhere. You should never willingly pay for something you don't think is worth it.
I have been known to withhold very small amounts of money for something that I think is not worth it, including on the order of 50 cents or $1.00. It's never the amount, but the principle of the thing. It's not that I "can't afford" a $4.99 comic book - it's that the 15 minutes of crap reading that the comic provides is not worth the $4.99 price to me, and so I withhold my money from them. I take my money elsewhere.
So yes, if you think Foundry's pricing is not worth it, you should absolutely take your money elsewhere. I see no issues with that statement.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
My DM is so far pretty impressed. None of us really like roll20, especially the DM. He's much happier with what he's getting at the present, although to be fair we haven't played a live game with it yet. The first one will be next weekend and we'll see how it goes.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
One huge plus in favor of Foundry is that the UI is quite well done. I find it very intuitive.
A couple of my players do not thought, so it will vary from person to person.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Foundry looks great and seems to be the best one out there for DnD. I’m learning the ropes of it right now. I will probably use it for my irl vtt tv. You can really create immersive maps with it an there are tools like zoom lock, specifically built to this purpose.
Ok fiddled with Foundry after purchasing it. I'm done with roll20 now. :) Yes I had to watch a (excellent) youtube series to get me going. But, it's awesome and I've only delved into it for a day.
And it looks like it will be very simple to do local play - Hook my computer to a TV as a second monitor (easily done with windows). Run the main DM screen on my monitor which faces only me. Create a player tab in a browser, drag that to my 2nd monitor, the TV. Done.
I dig that idea with the TV facing only you.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Wow, I had no idea about Foundry. Thanks for posting this: I'll go check it out. I've been trying to use roll20, but it's a lot of work unless I want to buy everything I have on dndbeyond again, but even then I'm not sure it's as easy as what you laid out.
If it's screen scraping text and images via a browser extension, I'm not sure there is much that the dnd beyond team can do about that without completely ruining the dndbeyond user experience.
I think 100k a year is vastly understating how much money a mid level developer makes in the software development sector, though I guess it depends on the country. I think he's losing money on this to be honest.
I'm a sys admin who used to work at a software company with developers. Two of those developers I worked with are in my D&D group, so I have an idea of what they make. They're both well over 150k a year. They started off at the company I was with straight out of school, at around ~75k, but that was years ago.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
A subscription service doesn't make more money, especially if you have a free tier.
Hosting costs money, and it ain't cheap. CPU time from Digital Ocean and AWS adds up to prohibitive costs over time, and there's one aspect of having a hosting service to consider: maintenance. I got to pay people to keep the server running, and servers inevitably run into problems. Also, it slows the pace of development down as now I have to deal with support, backward compatibility issues and giving updates to a crowd. It's a business, and that means overheads like salary, office upkeep etc. etc.
Yes, and as it scales the maintenance demands increase. Growing quickly does not automatically = more money, especially if you didn't build your software and infrastructure with this in mind from the start.
As for what developers make, it's extremely variable. It pays a lot better in the US, but even here there is huge variation depending on where you live. 100k salary in San Fransisco is equivalent to something like a 30k salary in North Carolina due to cost of living. Most of the tech hubs correspond with areas with the highest cost of living so although it seems like a lot, the money doesn't go as far as it might elsewhere.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
excellent point. I make 6 figures in the DC area and it's pretty meh.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Self hosting isn't difficult to do , I didn't even have to set up port forwarding for my connection. One issue with foundry is that you need a higher spec machine than roll 20
If you are willing for $50 one time, there should be people around that can help you get setup hosting it yourself. (myself, or Foundry has a discord that is pretty responsive)
I have tried it on a Ryzen 3 3200G and an Intel 4790k so you want a quad core, 3000 GHz, with 8 GB RAM and a couple GB free for assests.
Site Info: Wizard's ToS | Fan Content Policy | Forum Rules | Physical Books | Content Not Working | Contact Support
How To: Homebrew Rules | Create Homebrew | Snippet Codes | Tool Tips (Custom) | Rollables (Generator)
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Feats | Spells | Magic Items
Other: Beyond20 | Page References | Other Guides | Entitlements | Dice Randomization | Images Fix | FAQ
I have not had performance issues in Foundry except when I had auto-imported some large areas from dungeon draft with round walls. The import script generated like 1,000 tiny wall segments to make up the curves and it was driving my CPU temp through the roof doing all those computations. I didn't notice it had done that at first (I just tested, saw that the walls looked good from PC view, and left it at that), but every time we went onto that map my fan kicked into overdrive and my computer started choking. Once I tracked it down and cut out 900+o of the 1,000 walls by making much sharper turns for the curves, it got better.
Also, it's a good idea to drop the FPS down to 30 or even a little lower. Who the heck needs 60 FPS to look at a map? Token movement happens like 1 square a second, not dozens of FPS.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
It's not $5 monthly. It's $50. You should get over it because there's no alternative. It's not software you need. You can keep doing what you're doing now. There's no need to be a Karen and think you deserve special treatment.
Also, hosting it yourself is free. How is that no a major draw for some people? I can have images with very large file size, FLAC audio, and use any content I want and not worry. I've been using it since March. I love it and so easy to use, I have absolutely no IT/program experience and it's so easy to use. How long has Roll20 been around? I think for $50, a piece of software that is very easy to learn, useful, and frankly, just better in terms of tech is worth it.
You have no idea how much Foundry would make if it went to a subscription model. I know I wouldn't have bought it. Astropos made it specifically because he didn't want to force people into a subscription model.
The most recent 5E game I joined is run on Foundry, and I love it. Our DM has several mods installed so I don't know what "vanilla" Foundry VTT looks like, but it's a great platform. I don't know how easy it is to work for a DM compared to other platforms, but it's my favorite to use as a player by far. A couple of our players seem to have issues with the responsiveness of it but I don't know how much of it is their own computer or Internet connection, since they have problems with Discord too. If I ever win the lottery, I swear one of the first thing I'll do is buy computer upgrades for my D&D groups :)
EDIT - Forgot to mention two of my favorite features. One, the Roll dialogue box. For attacks/saves/checks it has easy options for rolling with adv/disadv, for damage rolls you can just click Critical or Normal damage, and for all rolls its easy to add a situational modifier(the extra 1d6 from Hunter's Mark, Sneak Attack, Rage bonus, Bless etc) on the fly with minimal effort. The only thing I wish it had was the ability to do separate rolls for multiple damage types. The other is that when a roll is made into the chat, you can click on the result and choose to apply it to your character as Healing, Normal Damage, Half Damage(if you have resistance), or Double Damage(if you have vulnerability). Like many features of the platform, it may not be super-advanced from a technical perspective, but it's incredibly convenient and easy to use.