Subj : Re: Old computer
To   : tassiebob
From : Adept
Date : Wed Jul 13 2022 20:11:57

 ta> Of course if I'm paying periodically to use the product then it's fair
 ta> enough for the vendor to discontinue the product - with appropriate
 ta> notice - at the end of the period.  Sadly this seems to be the in thing
 ta> these days, and I hate it.

Ugh. I'm with you on that.

I still use Eudora as an e-mail client, and that's so old that it's owned by
the Computer History Museum.

But with some hacks to make the security reasonable (stunnel is a
requirement, these days) and the knowledge that having "Eudora" as the listed
client ups messages on spam lists, it _still works_. And I can still
periodically backup my e-mail by copying off a bunch of text files that, if
everything broke but the text files, I could write my own parser.

Do I trust that Gmail or Office365 will exist in 20 years? Or that I'll be
able to use things without paying for them? Not really, no.

Will Eudora still work? Probably. Unless technology marches on a bit too far.

But, having said that, I purchase every DLC for Age of Empires II, because I
want them to continue supporting it. Well, and I like the DLC. But even if it
were terrible DLC...

But I'd draw the line at a monthly fee, because it changes the incentives too
much.

And I think Jetbrains hits a nice happy medium. I keep my subscription to
their IDEs up to date, but if I didn't, I'd still have a license for older
versions.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)

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