Ironically, I find myself now using Basecamp as a client of another development firm I’m working with offshore. I still struggle with some of its features - like I wish I could prioritize bugs, enhancements, etc. and discuss them (the task functionality is quite bare)… but it’s not too bad an application.

I still don’t find myself wanting to shell out the bucks for my own clients, though.

I am always leary of SAS applications. We were burned by Netsuite and got taken to the cleaners in order to get our data. The concept is awesome, but the risk is putting your life into the web app and then they jack the prices up at their free will.

We use Netsuite for CRM and accounting starting back in 2001 for about $29 per month. By 2005, we were having to pay over $600 a month for the same program. They claimed their offering was better and justified the price. Sure. We still used the same features 4 years later as we did when we signed up.

Some may argue that the cult of 37Signals would never allow them to do this. Someday Bezos is going to want something in return for his equity. They are going to have to sell or have a liquidity event to make the money men whole. Next thing you know is that things are in someone else’s hands.

We all know there is no free (or in this case cheap) lunch.