[HN Gopher] ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license
___________________________________________________________________
ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license
Author : KingOfCoders
Score : 264 points
Date : 2023-04-12 11:52 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.amazingcto.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.amazingcto.com)
| SillyUsername wrote:
| Fastmail.fm also pulled this one, although I got a good 10 years
| out of it plus 3 years free subscription after it was announced.
| Whichever way you look at it, that's plenty of time to move, or
| indicator of a good business model that means the company will
| remain in business and I won't lose my mail (and as long as they
| don't jack prices when it runs out).
| causi wrote:
| Yep. Happened to me with AVS Video Converter and Cerberus phone
| security.
| dangerboysteve wrote:
| The OP writes, "ManyCam is a software that does several things, I
| needed it to be able to use a webcam in two applications at the
| same time.". I believe the free and open source OBS studio does
| this. I understand this is not the main point of the article.
| i-use-nixos-btw wrote:
| Yeah, this is where I'm completely lost. You don't need to do
| much use a webcam in two applications at the same time. If you
| want some additional features VLC can handle it easily. If you
| want the bells and whistles then OBS. All FOSS.
|
| So I don't understand the value add - is it used for more than
| is being described, or if there's legitimately a piece of
| software that does something so trivial yet people are actually
| paying for it.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| The problem with such betrayal is, that companies names are all
| but smoke and mirrors by now. The reputational damage should be
| tracking with the leading employees. One customer betrayal
| travels along with the manager who caused it, to whatever company
| s/he touches. No matter how the company is named, no matter how
| much branding, one linked in api roll call later you know what
| you got.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Sounds like cancel culture on steroids.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| We once used a large SaaS company with very bad service and
| very bad customer support. They changed their name and we joked
| they only did it so people googling them would not find the old
| stuff.
| fader wrote:
| It's not without precedent. Comcast's response to being the
| most hated brand in the US for multiple years running was to
| keep everything exactly the same but rebrand their consumer
| division as Xfinity.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| This is a great idea! A while back I had an idea to maybe
| scrape Linkedin(or download one of their numerous dumps) to
| help "track" executive movement from company to company and set
| alerts if I use products from the new company so I can have a
| heads up before they inevitably turn to shit. Alternatively, I
| was also looking to expand this to when companies get bought
| out by those vulture capital "management" firms as they will
| start to squeeze costs. The Hackers of the 90s dreamed about
| software being an equalizing force between the powerful and the
| powerless...well this is one area that can definitely help(at
| least in the short term).
|
| Your idea sounds like something that independent journalism can
| pick up or some non profit organization that exposes these
| kinds of things. Of course I'm sure someone will go after them
| sooner or later.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Can't wait for the social credit score determining people's
| career prospects!
| freeone3000 wrote:
| People must be held accountable for their actions; if it
| cannot be through self-governance, their reputation must
| meet needs.
| ihateyouall123 wrote:
| What exactly does "being held accountable" mean? I hear
| this a lot and this statement seems empty
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| In this instance, it appears to mean making it possible
| to purchasers to be aware of past business decisions made
| by people in positions of authority at companies that
| they are considering doing business with so that they can
| make an informed decision.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Take them to court. File a grievance. But opening
| individuals to ruin by internet trolls for lulz, or worse
| making everyone's life dictated by collaborative
| filtering - there's no good to come of it. Human lives
| aren't like product reviews. Scarlet lettering people
| isn't a good idea - maybe it works for some, but there
| will be a lot of innocent people destroyed along the way.
| Or, people who made unethical decisions at some point in
| their life and realized their mistake and have reformed.
| A society of perpetual punishment isn't a humane society,
| especially without any review or recourse just anonymous
| voting.
| Zak wrote:
| There's often a big gap between things that constitute a
| crime, tort, or breach of contract and things that would
| make me disinclined to do business with a person. I'd
| like to know if the founder of a startup has a bait-and-
| switch habit before I decide to rely on their product,
| for example.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The court system has decided that individuals aren't
| liable for their actions taken on behalf of a company,
| but the company is. But a company is merely a temporary
| arrangement of people! It can be dissolved and reformed
| any number of times with any number of names with only
| marginal annoyance. The corporation is the end of
| responsibility.
| brvsft wrote:
| Making unethical business decisions that negatively impact
| customers is a bit different from jaywalking.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| We have courts of law that determine fact, and if the
| behavior isn't criminal, we have civil courts as well.
| For professionals we have ethics boards and censuring
| processes. But do we really want to set up a system where
| people vote people out of their careers with no review or
| process? How do you prevent this from being abused? Or
| worse expanding beyond the original remit to more facets
| of life? There's a reason we have reasoned institutions
| handle these sorts of things rather than the lynch mob.
| How long until internet trolls use these tools to take
| down people that go against their politics, or ruin
| random people for lulz?
| mthoms wrote:
| I didn't have such a draconian interpretation of the
| idea. I don't know where you got "lynch mob", "ruin[ing]
| random people" and "social credit score" from it to be
| honest. Quite a dramatic take.
|
| Individuals and companies knowing _more_ information
| about the professional history of the people they 're
| doing business with is _always_ better.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Well, the system could be entirely individualized. Not
| like an ad blocker where you download a list of neer-do-
| well urls curated by unknown people.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Oh no, accountability!
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| The direction that it's coming from matters
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| This, forcing exposure of personal skin in the corporate game,
| would fix an untold number of issues.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| This would be fine in a world that where it's generally
| considered OK to fail. Unfortunately, this is not the world
| we live in, given the wide publicity reach that would be
| required for your idea to be effective.
|
| (Similarly, in a much better world a politician who had
| changed their mind or did not have an informed opinion would
| need to say that out loud; but when I teach--smart, motivated
| young adults!--I have to make them unlearn so much fear of
| being wrong and shame of not understanding things that I
| can't see admitting ignorance working out in real-world
| politics.)
|
| In narrower circles, this could probably work. Amazon is
| already forced to pay newly-hired programmers above market
| rate, I hear,--would a former Amazon executive need to?
| papruapap wrote:
| In big enough companies is already hard to know who owns what
| even when you are working there, I cant image how to track this
| from outside.
| carapace wrote:
| You're not trying to trace ownership, you want to track the
| people who make the stupid/unethical decisions.
| knodi123 wrote:
| What's that, you say? Individuals choosing whether to behave
| ethically because a shoddy reputation can have horrible impacts
| on their future career? I can't even _imagine_ a world like
| that! *faints*
| Pxtl wrote:
| It's crazy how many people in this thread just accept this as
| normal and fine. Is the rule of law completely dead?
| MrGilbert wrote:
| Happy Scale, a weight tracking app I really enjoy, had the
| opposite example: I bought a full license for some bucks some
| years ago, and later they decided to switch to a subscription
| based model to ensure funding.
|
| Instead of going the "hey, here is a new version of the app, you
| need to subscribe now", they explicitly included a thank-you note
| directed at everyone that bought the "Premium In-App Purchase" at
| the beginning, stating that nothing will change for existing
| Premium Users, that invested in the app right from the start.
|
| I definitely share the tone of the article, and cannot understand
| the reasoning behind such a decision. The fact that I read
| "MandyCam" instead of "ManyCam" at first, and was wondering what
| that kind of article is doing here, is just the anecdotal cherry
| on top.
| zoltrix303 wrote:
| I had the same experience with Remarkable Tablet. Since i got
| the tablet as a early adopter, they gave me unlimited cloud
| connectivity to the tablet.
|
| I don't understand why someone buying a high end e-reader like
| this one should be charged for basic cloud connectivity, so I'm
| really happy to have it for free.
| flrngbl wrote:
| Ultimate Guitar did something similar. The premium account that
| I bought almost a decade ago got transformed into a free and
| unlimited premium subscription when they changed their business
| model some years ago.
|
| Overall that worked out pretty well for me, because the new
| model includes a ton more than what I paid for initially.
| elbigbad wrote:
| BrainFM (or Brain.FM) (which I really like for focus work time,
| and sleeping), did this. In 2016 I spent a lot for a one time
| purchase lifetime unlimited and years later they moved to
| monthly subscription and continue to honor the lifetime
| purchase I made. Very happy about this and still use it
| regularly.
| MoSattler wrote:
| I mean as far as apps go - happy scale has been top-notch, in
| terms of value delivered AND business practices. Been a happy
| subscriber for years.
| jclardy wrote:
| Thats what I did/will be doing with my old expense tracking
| app, Amounts. It was a paid app only, some 8 years ago before
| subscription apps were a thing. 3 years later I moved to free +
| a singular IAP unlock, existing users were grandfathered in.
| Now I am doing a complete rewrite of the app for fun on the
| side, and moving it to a subscription. All existing paid users
| will have the full subscription unlocked. I also built in a
| smooth data migration process so they retain all their existing
| data and functionality. I'd estimate I have about 50 or so long
| term users from app store install stats, as I didn't have any
| analytics in the old app.
|
| Sadly, for larger companies loyalty to the customer base
| doesn't make financial sense, when you can make $$$ from new
| users, and your old users just cost you money to support.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Overcast (Marco Arment's podcast app for iOS) did something
| similar.
|
| Originally it was an ad-free freemium app. A one-time IAP
| unlocked premium features (PS2.99).
|
| Then all features we made free for all users. (People who
| already paid were no worse off.)
|
| Then ads were added, even for people who had paid the one-off
| PS2.99 early on. The only way to get rid of them is to pay an
| annual subscription fee.
|
| The amounts are small, and the app is great. It's not easy to
| keep everyone happy and build a sustainable business at the
| same time.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Not saying it's right but the reasoning is easy to understand:
| offering updates forever for someone who's never going to give
| you any more money is profoundly unappealing from a business
| perspective
| pridkett wrote:
| Blink Shell for iOS did something similar. I was very pleased -
| especially as I don't use the app super often, but it's really
| handy when I need it for 30 seconds here and there.
|
| Now, because I have the "Blink Classic Plan", I won't get every
| new feature they introduce, but I won't lose access for my
| original use case, which is great.
|
| Definitely a nice touch from companies looking to build a
| community.
| freedude wrote:
| "Coming back to customers. Do you invest in extracting short term
| money from customers? Or do you invest in long term relations. In
| the case of ManyCam they could have sold me add-ons that feel
| like they are worth it. By honoring the lifetime license the
| likelihood of me buying from them increases. It is the same as
| from the detour. In the beginning it's about getting traction,
| then about getting money. And then the key to growth is
| retention. If you want to grow your customer base, the first
| thing is to prevent customers leaving. If you fill water in a
| bucket with a hole - something I've seen in to many startups on
| how they use marketing without product market fit - then after
| some time the bucket is empty when you stop pouring. So don't
| make your customers run away."
|
| When I was in high school I had an opportunity to learn customer
| service from one of the greatest businessmen that lived. My
| grandpa, the produce farmer and peach orchardist. He owned and
| operated the largest peach orchard in Oregon at the time and had
| customers that had been returning to his orchard for a lifetime.
|
| Why, would they keep coming back?
|
| Because he made a produced a final product that was so sweet and
| juicy the flavors would explode in your mouth and the juice would
| run down you arm and drip off your elbow.
|
| Because they wanted to support a family man that was dedicated to
| providing a good living for his family, who also worked for him.
|
| Because they wanted to get out of the city and see, for the
| briefest of moments, what is was like in the fresh air and
| sunshine of the Oregon countryside.
|
| Because they wanted the opportunity to harvest the food they were
| going to eat and choose what they wanted for themselves.
|
| and many other reasons... He would talk with customers he would
| see only once or twice a year and discuss the topics of the day
| in a down to earth way that only a farmer can express. And they
| would keep coming back...
|
| Don't run off your customers. They are a business' most valuable
| asset.
|
| If you want to know more about customer service and how it used
| to be, read Les Schwab's book, "Pride in Performance: Keep It
| Going".
| Jiro wrote:
| >Because they wanted to support a family man that was dedicated
| to providing a good living for his family, who also worked for
| him.
|
| If you want to give someone money based on whether they deserve
| it, rather than in a market transaction based on the value of
| the goods they are selling, I'm pretty sure there are better
| charities around than "pick the nearest produce farmer".
| emodendroket wrote:
| My general belief is that anyone with a subscription service who
| offers a "lifetime license" will probably eventually welsh, so I
| never spend my money on them. Doesn't excuse it but this is an
| example.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Concur. Same thing as cable/phone companies saying "Your rate
| will never go up if you subscribe now." That ALWAYS proves
| false.
| no1groyp wrote:
| Vuescan sucks too.
| jollyllama wrote:
| So there was a change in ownership that precipitated this. I can
| understand the author was wronged. But what if things were done
| slightly differently, i.e. the owner of ManyCam EOL'd the
| product, sold his business, and a "new" equivalent product were
| released? Technically, the agreement wouldn't be violated in the
| same way, but the effect would be the same. Would the author be
| just as upset, or would this be more understandable?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I think it would still be irritating, but significantly less
| so. When a company buys another out and continues using a piece
| of software's name, they're doing so because that brand has
| built up some level of awareness and goodwill with the market.
| That awareness and goodwill is directly the result of its
| existing, satisfied customers. Alienating those satisfied
| customers while still cashing in on the reputation they built
| for you violates not only a basic sense of fairness, but
| probably in this case contractual obligations.
|
| On the other hand, if you strip the existing software for
| parts, and put out something substantially different under new
| branding, at least you're giving something up.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Yes, the branding was the thing I was not accounting for.
| rarkins wrote:
| Visicom really pumped the ManyCam lifetime upsells. I found 15
| emails over an 18 month period in 2020-2021 with them pitching
| lifetime (which I eventually bought). An example email text they
| used is:
|
| > Upgrade now to ManyCam Studio Lifetime for only $39 and get
| access to all the future versions and updates, forever!
|
| What they presented to the user was unequivocal. In a just world,
| the company who sold ManyCam (Visicom Media) should not be able
| to get away with this.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The fact they were pumping these for only $39 kind of suggests
| the reason they never should have made such a commitment in the
| first place.
| mh- wrote:
| They eventually went down to $20 (from $199!), which is when
| I pulled the trigger, according to the email receipt I just
| found. January 2021.
|
| I archived the email's "view in browser" link here:
| https://archive.is/y23DN
| mannykannot wrote:
| I wonder, was there was ever a time when buying the
| lifetime license turned out to be a better deal than a
| fixed-term one?
| mh- wrote:
| Their fixed-term ones are $100/year currently. so, yes.
| rarkins wrote:
| This seems relevant:
| https://contracts.justia.com/companies/peerstream-inc-2967/c...
| rarkins wrote:
| From https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/PALTALK-
| INC-11131...
|
| > On June 30, 2022, we entered into a License Agreement with
| Visicom (the "License Agreement"), pursuant to which we agreed
| to distribute, at the discretion and direction of Visicom, a
| specified number of ManyCam software updates to certain license
| holders to whom Visicom has previously granted a "lifetime"
| license to ManyCam software. As consideration for distributing
| the software updates, Visicom paid us an initial upfront
| nonrefundable payment of $65,000. The License Agreement
| provides that Visicom may purchase additional licenses at
| prices specified therein. Other than providing a one-time,
| limited license to Visicom for the distribution of ManyCam
| software updates pursuant to the terms of the License
| Agreement, we do not have any obligation to provide support or
| service to the licensee end users.
| mannykannot wrote:
| That pumping might have been seen as a warning that the company
| either does not intend to support the product much longer, or
| has doubts that it will be able to do so. And while I agree
| with your final sentence, unless Visicom was careless, the
| actual license agreement, which supersedes the promotional
| claim, will have permitted what happened and so essentially
| revoked the offer. Caveat emptor!
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Not in a large number of countries in the world.
| sph wrote:
| They are usually called _" Lifetime for now, but there is no law
| that forbids us from changing the terms later down the line"_
| license, but it's shortened to just Lifetime license for
| convenience.
|
| Don't trust any lifetime agreement. And conversely, anyone that
| sells lifetime licenses to me sounds really naive and that they
| have no idea what they're doing. It's not a sign of a mature
| business.
| [deleted]
| trevvr wrote:
| I feel complete sympathy. I have a "perpetual" license for
| Minitab 15. Can I install it in a VM? Yes. Can I activate it?
| Nope? Can it be used without activation? Nope! So it's useless
| and has been now for years.
|
| Minitab's solution was to offer me a 10% discount on a new pay by
| month license.
|
| No thanks, I'm off to pandas and for quick investigations I'm
| using Wizard for OSX which is absolutely blow your socks off
| amazing the first time you slice and dice a record set and do
| comparative analysis with them looking over your shoulder.
| https://www.wizardmac.com
| jawns wrote:
| I treat all lifetime guarantees and lifetime licenses the way I
| treat employee stock options, as predicated on the company
| continuing to perform well. And my priors for that assumption
| lead me to be fairly skeptical and build in a certain amount of
| risk. Then I weigh that risk against the potential upside and the
| cost to buy.
|
| This seems like an exercise a CTO should have down pat.
| great_reversal wrote:
| Nearly a decade ago, transitapp.com had a premium app that costed
| $2.99 to buy. Most users opted for free options, but I saw the
| value in the app and bought it. The company later switched to a
| free model, and then more recently a subscription model. I tried
| getting customer service to honour the lifetime license, but they
| only offered 1 year of subscription for their Royal plan.
|
| I've had other lifetime licenses that have been honoured even
| after those companies shifted to subscriptions. I always feel bad
| using the Transit app because of that experience. Wouldn't
| recommend.
| sowbug wrote:
| A "lifetime" purchase is really the lifetime of the product or
| its manufacturer, whichever dies first. I've never heard of this
| company, but it died when it got bought.
|
| I'm not saying this as a lawyer or having scrutinized the license
| terms. It's more of a life lesson. Before you fork over your one-
| time fee, ask yourself: are they offering a great deal because
| they're a great company with a great product and a great business
| model? Or are they trying to hoover up money because they're on
| life support and the bills are coming due?
|
| Side note: one company seems to have gotten this balance right.
| There's a music product called FL Studio that sells lifetime
| licenses. I've had mine for over 20 years, and it's still
| updated. The license was expensive (good to keep the company
| going), they sell DLC (good incentive to keep the product fresh),
| and the product itself is inherently a platform around which a
| strong community has formed (good because the company knows their
| product effort translates directly into word-of-mouth
| advertising).
| Havoc wrote:
| The part that blows my mind is they found someone willing to
| click send on a "life-time is now two years" mail.
|
| I personally couldn't stomach that & I'm definitely no paragon of
| virtue.
| [deleted]
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| One of my clients has admin staff that would click send on
| "decapitate a random person in the world" if the boss tells
| them to.
| porkbeer wrote:
| Maybe dont work for demonstrably unethical clients.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| The client business isn't unethical. Their admin staff are
| human robots though: zero abstract thinking or self-
| direction.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Corporations are AIs that use humans for computation.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Indeed. A corporation could pass the Turing test, but we
| might consider it psychopathic or at minimum sociopathic.
| [deleted]
| retrobox wrote:
| I had a lifetime license with a forum software company that
| switched to a subscription model. I questioned the fairness, but
| they claimed the new product was built on an entirely new
| foundation different, the forum utilises that foundation, and
| that's why the lifetime license no longer applies. Since then,
| I've been skeptical of lifetime licenses. Business model pivots
| often leave early adopters with a negative impression due to poor
| handling of the switch
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I just want to state outright that OP was wronged, and I side
| with them.
|
| That being said; I dislike both full subscription (i.e. breaks on
| expiration) _and_ lifetime licenses. Subscriptions are too
| expensive for software that rarely gets major investment and
| lifetime licenses are dishonest (e.g. company cannot work for
| free, so their funded is based on unlimited growth, which isn 't
| realistic for most).
|
| My current favorite business model is the "You're buying the
| current version and [years] of updates." Then typically you'll
| get some discount to renew your "[years] more of updates." This
| incentivizes them to deliver value, or you'll just stick with
| whatever version you purchased. Your software keeps working no
| matter what ("lifetime"). One example of someone who does this
| well is Jetbrains, but there are several companies.
|
| Obviously subscription is the only option if they're delivering
| most of the value via a web-service of some kind (e.g. ChatGPT
| Plus).
| notwhereyouare wrote:
| that's how the audible ripper I use works. I buy 1 version and
| get updates for a year and then i'm stuck at that specific
| version
| Avamander wrote:
| Jetbrains/IntelliJ does the same. It's great.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| And one of my favorite pieces of software, Sublime Text.
| rchaud wrote:
| Sublime Text is like the modern equivalent of the WinZip
| 60-day trial.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Perhaps the biggest reason for me for the lifetime license (I
| also have a Leanpub one) is to have less invoices [0] - the
| reason I also prefer 12month subscription options. One thing I
| hate about being a freelancer is grabbing all invoices for my
| accountant.
|
| [0] Also everyone please name the invoice file
| YYMMDD-<company>-<no>.pdf ;-) and send them via email, don't
| make me log in
| JohnFen wrote:
| Personally, I avoid all those invoices by refusing to
| "subscribe" to software. If I can't just buy it, I don't.
| microtherion wrote:
| > My current favorite business model is the "You're buying the
| current version and [years] of updates." Then typically you'll
| get some discount to renew your "[years] more of updates."
|
| Band in a Box has managed to make this model work for them for
| several decades now. Each version you buy does not expire, but
| only gets updates for about a year, and entitles you to an
| upgrade discount (slightly higher if you buy the next years'
| version, a little bit lower if you wait longer). The annual
| updates have both some new features and some new content, so
| there is always a bit of an incentive to upgrade, but no
| extreme pressure.
|
| Neither the software nor the business model are perfect, but
| both are reasonable enough to retain a loyal customer base.
| toastal wrote:
| Can I pay to get extra years of software updates on Android
| yet? The 2-year support thing is awful.
| xeromal wrote:
| That's more of a manufacturer choice. The pixel and top-tier
| samsung lines both get 6 years of security updates
| mindslight wrote:
| Six years of updates is also too short, in my book. PCs
| regularly last for over a decade.
| Zak wrote:
| This is weird compared to desktop operating systems though.
| Windows 11 compatibility restrictions aside, most PCs don't
| require that their OS be customized for their specific
| hardware. At most, they need a few drivers sourced
| separately to be fully functional.
|
| In a sane world, I could just install AOSP on any phone
| without a customization step, and download drivers from the
| manufacturer's website if it has any weird hardware.
| dsr_ wrote:
| So, in a sense, yes: pay by buying the right phone at the
| beginning, but it's not available otherwise.
| blagie wrote:
| The problem is it's not clearly advertised. Apple has had
| the longest support life historically, but I most
| recently bought an Android, since Apple does not commit
| to any particular timeline forward-looking.
|
| Most of the other vendors also don't clearly indicate how
| long a new device will be supported for.
| philistine wrote:
| Security updates is carrying a lot of weight here. People
| are probably expecting feature updates, which is still not
| a guarantee.
| xeromal wrote:
| I believe feature updates are for 3 years or 2
| generations.
| toastal wrote:
| It's kinda bad since the phones suiting my needs are
| still in the two-year category.
| rchaud wrote:
| Security updates are ultimately what matters and those are
| usually a lot longer than Android firmware updates. My 2016
| Galaxy S7 got a security update in 2021.
|
| Most of Android's own software updates are little more than
| window dressing these days.
| asddubs wrote:
| that's a different situation though, because that's hardware
| which is coupled to software. Often exclusively, too (meaning
| you could install alternate operating systems, even if there
| were any).
| Aissen wrote:
| It might soon become 5 years by law, at least in the EU.
| https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-
| sa...
| weinzierl wrote:
| > My current favorite business model is the "You're buying the
| current version and [years] of updates." Then typically you'll
| get some discount to renew your "[years] more of updates."
|
| Fully agree, I think this fair for the customer as well as the
| supplier.
|
| I know enterprise customers demand guarantees for [years] of
| updates, but I think in the B2C world _" You're buying the
| current version and updates as long as we provide them."_ is
| also a fair alternative. A good example for this kind of
| offering is the Reaper DAW.
|
| This model is not as good for the customer as your version but
| as an indy developer I'd rather not promise [years] of support
| even if it is highly likely that I will provide it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > This model is not as good for the customer as your version
|
| I don't know. I think that model is better for the customer.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I honestly don't mind the "buy current version" as long as the
| company doesn't prevent you downloading the version you have
| the license to.
|
| IE years ago I got a vmware workstation license, I bought it at
| v15, got a v16 update, and I still have access to v16 which
| works perfectly fine for my use cases.
| dceddia wrote:
| From the developer side I feel like this type of license makes
| the most sense to me too.
|
| After selling a desktop app with a license like that for a
| little while though, I've also unfortunately realized that not
| everyone understands it. I had a number of customers referring
| to it as a "subscription" (which it wasn't, because it didn't
| auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever)
| or "lifetime" (which it wasn't, because the updates were a paid
| option after a year).
|
| Plus it's hard to adequately explain how it works in few words.
|
| For better or worse I think the majority of people understand 2
| buckets: "subscription" and "lifetime". So I went back to
| selling a lifetime license, with a caveat that any new features
| that incur ongoing costs might need to be an optional add-on
| subscription/pay-as-you-go/etc plan to cover those costs.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| The easy way to explain it is to have obviously versioned
| releases. These could infrequent Like yearly, through to
| fairly frequent like monthly. (Out of cycle hotfix releases
| should probably just be treated as free for anybody with a
| license to the relevant base release.)
|
| Then you are selling Lifetime licenses to a specific version
| (like 2023.04), which incudes free cost licenses to any
| versions released in the next X months. Advertised as
| "Lifetime license to 2023.04, and free updates for X months"
| (or X years, etc as applicable).
|
| You can also choose to sell paid upgrade licenses which are
| identical to the main offering, except less expensive, and
| require the purchaser to own a license to some older version.
| The discount could potentially even scale depending on how
| old the old version is, but that usually makes more sense
| when no new releases were provided for free.
| whatsakandr wrote:
| Perhaps the support period should be sold as a "warranty
| period". People understand limited warranty periods on cars
| and dishwashers, so it's a known model.
| mthoms wrote:
| >you could keep using the last version forever
|
| Note that this isn't what Jetbrains does. You only have a
| perpetual license to the version released when the
| subscription _started_. Thus, you 'll have to downgrade and
| say good-bye to any features and fixes released over the term
| of your subscription.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Not quite: once you've paid for a version for twelve
| consecutive months you get a perpetual license to that
| version. If you unsubscribe you keep your perpetual
| licenses.
| mthoms wrote:
| Sorry, but you're wrong. This misconception is very
| common.
|
| https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-
| gb/articles/207240845-What...
|
| See here in particular
|
| https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/article_attachments/203511
| 589...
| iudqnolq wrote:
| From your first link:
|
| > If paying on a monthly basis, as soon as you pay for 12
| consecutive months, you will receive this perpetual
| fallback license providing you with access to the exact
| product version for when your 12 consecutive months
| subscription started. _You will receive perpetual
| fallback licenses for every version you've paid 12
| consecutive months for._ (emphasis added)
|
| What did I get wrong?
| mthoms wrote:
| From your quote:
|
| >access to the exact product version for when your 12
| consecutive months subscription _started_.
|
| (my emphasis)
|
| As for the rest of the quote from Jetbrains:
|
| >You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every
| version you've paid 12 consecutive months for.
|
| In a one year subscription, the only version you will
| have paid 12 consecutive months for is the version that
| existed at the beginning of the 12 months. If a new
| version was released with only three months left in your
| subscription. Then it's _impossible_ to have "paid 12
| consecutive months for" it when your subscription is up.
|
| Here's a screenshot[0] I just took of my account. The
| subscription started about 6 weeks ago when 2022.3 was
| the latest version. Thus, as shown in the screenshot it's
| the version I have perpetual license to. Even though
| 2023.1 was just released two weeks ago (roughly three
| weeks into my subscription) [1].
|
| It's all worded terribly (probably intentionally so) so I
| don't fault anyone for getting the wrong interpretation.
| The whole thing gives me a bad impression even I though I
| love JB otherwise.
|
| [0] https://imgur.com/a/SSLPijk [1]
| https://blog.jetbrains.com/webstorm/tag/webstorm-2023-1/
| JohnFen wrote:
| > because it didn't auto-renew and you could keep using the
| last version forever
|
| Surely that's just a regular sale, not a "lifetime license".
| I mean, technically, it's a nonrevocable perpetual license,
| but that's what has traditionally been considered a "sale" in
| software. Saying "lifetime license" implies something else
| entirely.
| detaro wrote:
| Not really, because a "sale" would traditionally be for a
| specific version (or a version and patches for that version
| at best).
| JohnFen wrote:
| Perhaps I misunderstood the OP, but isn't that exactly
| what he was doing? That's how I interpreted "it didn't
| auto-renew and you could keep using the last version
| forever".
| asddubs wrote:
| I think the easiest way to communicate it is to just
| regularly increment your version number and then have people
| be able to buy version X. Like Photoshop, and really most
| software used to be sold.
| clnq wrote:
| Games still do it correctly. If you buy Spacewars you'll
| get patches and updates for a while, but you won't get
| Spacewars 2.
|
| Unfortunately, it is evident that the pay-once monetization
| model has been corrupted too. Many AAA game companies sell
| pre-orders and otherwise bet on people buying their games
| mostly on marketing and promises. Over the last decade in
| the AAA industry, marketing has steadily pushed out quality
| game production as means to make money. The games are hyped
| beyond what publishers know will be delivered, and in some
| cases, far beyond what's possible to deliver within the
| release schedule.
|
| Now it's common for AAA publishers to mostly show "pre-
| alpha" footage (often this is a lie and at least beta
| footage is shown) or "not in-engine" cinematics before
| release. Demos are a thing of the past and gameplay from
| reviewers is embargoed until just before release. Sometimes
| embargo terms don't allow showing bugs.
|
| So, overall, everything related to monetization of software
| seems to be corrupted by psychological manipulation and
| greed. And not just in games or sold software packages,
| also with SaaS subscriptions and social media. It's not
| impossible that more and more consumers will give up
| dealing with this nonsense in the future. We already see
| large numbers of people choosing not to engage in social
| media due to the emotional manipulation and echo chambering
| to squeeze out more advertising revenue out of them. And
| because I am in the games industry, I see signs of players
| simply abandoning AAA games for these manipulative
| practices and returning to indies. Time will come for SaaS
| and manipulative software licenses.
|
| If consumer trust is further tarnished, the future will
| either involve returning to where we've been -- clear and
| simple one time software fees and clear trial/demo periods,
| or it will involve something more insidious than what we
| have. In either case, the pricing models we have now are
| starting to tire consumers out.
| account42 wrote:
| Games (at least AAA) have been moving towards live
| services where there is an ongoing reliance on the
| operator at least for multiplayer games. While often the
| main payment is still upfront there are typically ongoing
| revenue streams like batttle passes and other
| microtransactions. Thankfully this model has not yet been
| accepted for single player games.
| clnq wrote:
| For live services, the game has to be a success. ROI for
| pre-release marketing is more guaranteed and cheaper.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| Right! Has it really been that long since this was the
| status quo?!
|
| There was a time when it was expected that you bought a
| copy of Widgetmaker 2, and you could use it for as long as
| you liked, there might be some patches, there might not,
| but you own (or something close to it) the software and can
| use it whenever you want.
|
| When Widgetmaker 3 comes out, it's a new product with new
| features, and you'd have to buy it separately if you want
| the new goodies. Simple. It worked well enough to build
| behemoths like 1990's Microsoft.
|
| There are some companies that claim to offer this, but are
| very sneaky in their approach (NitroPDF is one I'm familiar
| with), they will offer a one-off purchase, but after a
| release or two, will no longer provide downloads for your
| version's installer, and in some cases won't activate it if
| you reinstall using your own copy of the installation
| media.
|
| Bring back the days of installing your software, typing in
| your product key, then using it for as long as you wish.
| JohnFen wrote:
| One of the reasons why I buy less software than ever
| before is because so much software isn't sold like that
| anymore.
| dceddia wrote:
| Yeah, that's another way to go, and I considered doing
| that. The main thing I didn't like about that strategy was
| how I'd be sitting on lots of unused code between major
| releases. All the new features sitting on my SSD for months
| aren't helping any customers :/
| jjnoakes wrote:
| Why can't you release features whenever you like under
| this model?
| ghaff wrote:
| You can. But you also sort of want to hold anything
| really significant back for the next major rev.
| dceddia wrote:
| I was thinking if the model is: buy Version 1 for $99...
| then next year, Version 2 is out with lots of new
| features for the upgrade price of $79 -- well, then
| nothing really _stops_ you from releasing new features
| under Version 1, but at some point you kinda have to hold
| something back for Version 2, or there won 't be any
| reason to upgrade. So it shifts the incentives toward
| holding back big new features, and away from incremental
| updates.
| account42 wrote:
| That really depends what timeframes you need to be
| working with. Adding new features to version n for free
| still incentivizes users of version < n to pay for the
| upgrade.
| shagie wrote:
| And if you need some money and have a few features,
| release version 3 - even if it doesn't feel like enough
| to really cut a new version for.
|
| Your cash flow for the software now becomes a big bang
| with then drawing on it until you run out and need some
| more.
|
| Subscriptions offer a more measured approach. "I have
| 10,000 people with subscriptions of $10/month - each
| month I'll bring in $100k which is then used for these
| expenses."
|
| There's no push to release a build because AWS changed
| their pricing or that you want to hire a new developer.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > All the new features sitting on my SSD for months
| aren't helping any customers
|
| But they can be used to build anticipation for the future
| release.
|
| One of the many downsides of "continuous release" is that
| it's changed the mindset about software in customer's
| minds. It used to be that a new release was a highly
| anticipated event. Now, when people think about updates
| at all, it's usually with dread.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yeah, calling it a lifetime license to CoolSoft 7 or to
| CoolSoft 2023 is the easiest way out. It brings some
| seasonality however, since the duration of updates is now
| couple to when in the update cycle you purchase.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Heh, the DLC business model from games comes to mind.
| dceddia wrote:
| That would be a choice, wouldn't it! The thought crossed my
| mind but somehow I see people not being happy with having
| to pay $X to unlock every little feature, heh.
|
| "Tell 'em what's behind tab number 3, Johnny! Johnny: More
| gated features!"
|
| There's probably a tipping point somewhere.
| 3np wrote:
| It might work, depending on your cadence. If a user is
| interested in getting a particular feature NOW, they pay
| for it specifically and then get the rest of the new
| stuff when they buy the next version upgrade.
| withinboredom wrote:
| You're assuming a customer will never churn. Customers churn,
| and if I can get you to pay me a "lifetime" purchase that is
| more than I'd expect; then I come out ahead. There is a ceiling
| with subscription purchases (provable with simple math: new
| customers * churn percentage * subscription cost = new money
| ceiling) but no theoretical ceiling with one-off purchases --
| it's only limited by your marketing reach and funnel.
| krisoft wrote:
| I see your point, and I largely agree with you.
|
| One trickynes is with the "This incentivizes them to deliver
| value" part. The problem is that if the software just "works"
| and there are no compelling new features the user will quite
| rationally stop buying new updates. Which incentivises the
| developer to make sure that either the software never really
| "just works" or that they hype up new features to create FOMO.
| They will probably do both.
|
| I guess they could also let go a portion of their developers
| and keep a skeleton crew around to maintain the product at
| current But that is not a realistic prospect for many reasons.
|
| People talked about this regarding Photoshop. They said the new
| features are cool, but far from necessary, which made users
| stick with "old" but perfectly fine versions. The rumour was
| that that forced Adobe to change to a subscription model. But
| of course I don't have any first hand knowledge so it might be
| false.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Perhaps a good case study here is/will be Affinity. They
| produce graphics software competing directly with Photoshop,
| Illustrator and InDesign, and their core differentiator is
| that they don't do subscriptions - you pay up front, and get
| a regular, perpetual license in return. Few months ago, they
| released version 2 of their software suite. There are some
| new features and a host of UI and performance improvements,
| but otherwise, the software is substantially the same as
| version 1. It would be interesting to learn what their
| current breakdown of {new users, users who upgraded to v2,
| users who stuck to v1} is.
|
| Myself, I upgraded only Affinity Photo to v2, because I
| wanted to play with non-destructive workflow that's enabled
| by some of the new features. I studied their product page
| extensively, and couldn't find anything else particularly
| compelling, at least not for my limited (and non-
| professional) use cases. v1 is still a fine product.
|
| (OK, I admit, 50% of the reason I upgraded, and 100% of the
| reason I bought the whole v1 suite in the first place, is
| because it's nice to do business with someone who isn't
| abusing their customers with subscriptions for a change.)
| PinguTS wrote:
| I am a happy Affinity user myself. I just have version 1
| for the simple fact, that version 2 doesn't run on any of
| my computers. My main is a MacPro 3,1 with Catalina.
|
| My wife, has a MacBook Pro M1. She brought version 2.
|
| New we have the problem, that version 1 cannot work with
| the files of version 2.
| pdpi wrote:
| If you use Affinity Photo for photo work, what do you use
| for library management? It's basically the only thing
| keeping me on Lightroom.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| One of these days I need to give Capture One or Photo
| Mechanic a try. Dark Table is a good try but just not
| very user friendly I've found.
| rchaud wrote:
| I'm an Affinity user too (Aff Publisher + Designer). I'm
| very happy with the one-time purchase. I felt a bit bad
| about not upgrading to V2, as I _want_ to support the
| company. But GIMP works perfectly fine for me so I have not
| shelled out for Affinity Photo.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > The rumour was that that forced Adobe to change to a
| subscription model.
|
| But of course it didn't do any such thing. Adobe could have
| produced software that people wanted to buy, instead.
| emodendroket wrote:
| There are always going to be people not paying that much
| attention. A subscription model makes revenue a lot more
| predictable, so the appeal is easy to see for anything you
| need for work and therefore might consent to a subscription
| for.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Which incentivises the developer to make sure that either
| the software never really "just works" or that they hype up
| new features to create FOMO.
|
| Nowadays, there's also the security scare. If you don't
| immediately update to the latest and greatest release,
| hackers will invade your system, destroy your data, and eat
| all the food on your fridge.
| dahart wrote:
| > lifetime licenses are dishonest (e.g. company cannot work for
| free, so their funded is based on unlimited growth, which isn't
| realistic for most).
|
| I don't really know what you mean by "dishonest", that seems
| like a slightly hyperbolic word here. If someone pays for a
| lifetime license the company isn't working for free nor
| necessarily assuming unlimited growth, they just have to
| understand and correctly price the average value of their
| contract, and there are many established successful businesses
| doing exactly already. And it's common to price the lifetime
| license below the predicted average total costs, because money
| in the bank today is more valuable than later (it's an
| investment, and the money can be used as such.) If there's
| something I really know I'm going to use for years, and I can
| get a discount by paying up front, I'm totally in favor of
| doing so when it'll cost me less and support the company as
| well.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't think I agree with the "dishonest" label, but
| lifetime licenses are a bit scammy even when they're offered
| earnestly.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| Could you elaborate? My Plex lifetime license has been very
| valuable to me and has already saved me money.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Because it's not clear what "lifetime" means. In practice
| what it means is "until the company is sold" or
| restructured or whatever.
|
| But the implication is that it's for your lifetime.
|
| How does your lifetime license save you money over just
| engaging in a straight-up purchase?
| yebyen wrote:
| FWIW, I regret not buying a lifetime Plex license. I am
| still paying every year.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'd say it's dishonest in the sense that a company knows the
| probabilities are such that they can't actually ever truly
| support a lifetime license, so it's a lie from the start.
|
| At the end of the day, companies usually go out of business
| or else sell themselves to another company within a certain
| number of years. And a new company (like in this case) may
| change their mind about lifetime licenses, because it's a
| totally different set of owners with different priorities.
| "Everybody" knows this, but company management knows it even
| more than consumers, hence the dishonesty.
|
| As a rule of thumb for consumers, anything supposedly
| perpeutal or "lifetime" for consumers in the business world
| is probably not even going to last 10 years. It's effectively
| _always_ a lie.
| chung8123 wrote:
| You definitely could support a lifetime license if some of
| the money is invested and used to pay for the upkeep of
| each license. It is about pricing the model correctly.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| I agree. The only time a lifetime license will actually be
| honored as such is of the company's product fails and it's
| no longer around as a company, so it allows you to continue
| using the current version as is.
|
| When companies that have offered lifetime licenses don't
| fail, they inevitably kill the lifetime part of the license
| by pulling different tricks like, creating a cloud version
| which now becomes their future version, while the desktop
| version is no longer maintained, or rebranding the same app
| as a new app where actual development continues while the
| old app gets minimal updates at most, or not updating the
| app with the lifetime license so it works on modern OSes
| and platforms.
|
| If you're lucky, you may have snagged a lifetime license
| the company offered early in its life, which it then
| stopped offering once it started getting successful, so it
| continues letting you use the lifetime license because the
| owners of such licenses are few enough that any marginal
| revenue they may earn by pulling the above tricks is not
| worth the reputational damage.
| dahart wrote:
| Ugh, please don't make it worse and escalate to "lie".
| You're blaming the wrong source, and have it backwards IMO.
| The previous owners weren't lying, the new owners are the
| ones to blame for breaking a pre-existing contract with the
| company. Breaking this contract might not be legal, and in
| that sense they may be only the ones lying.
| crazygringo wrote:
| If the previous owners were truly committed to upholding
| the lifetime license, they would have never sold the
| company without an ironclad legally enforceable guarantee
| the new owners would uphold the lifetime license as well.
|
| They clearly didn't. They either didn't care, or it would
| have decreased the sale price of the company (or the
| ability to sell it at all) and they preferred the money.
|
| So I _absolutely_ hold the original owners equally
| responsible. They made the promise and they created the
| conditions for it to be broken. Which was an _entirely
| predictable_ outcome, which is why calling it a "lie"
| doesn't seem inappropriate.
| aflag wrote:
| To be fair, lifetime may refer to the life of the company
| and not the customer :P
| dahart wrote:
| Why do you believe the contract with the customer isn't
| legally enforceable? The new owners may just be choosing
| to break the law because they believe nobody will attempt
| to sue them over fifty bucks or whatever.
|
| I guess you can decide to blame whoever you want, but the
| legal responsibility for upholding a contract lies with
| the _company_ , and a change of ownership doesn't change
| that from a legal perspective. It also doesn't change or
| help anything to make wild assumptions about what the
| previous owners cared about. You simply cannot control
| what a new owner does with your company once you sell it,
| that's what selling it means.
|
| Using words like "lying" when people may have had every
| intention to meet the contract is just an exaggeratory
| drain on having reasonable conversation.
| Veserv wrote:
| It is absolutely lying. The original owners could have
| put in a voluntary, irrevocable, liquidated damages
| clause that is sufficiently punitive that no subsequent
| owner of the company would think to violate it. As they
| intend to honor the "lifetime license" for a lifetime and
| totally do not intend to renege for that duration there
| is no harm in enforcing that clause with force of law.
| dahart wrote:
| You didn't even consider the question I asked. Why are
| you making the assumption that sale of a lifetime license
| isn't currently enforceable by law? The article only
| complained and didn't attempt to challenge their license.
| Your idea only works if someone is willing to challenge
| the company. If the new owners of a company are choosing
| to break the contracts or the law, why would you expect
| another contract to help?
|
| There are a million and one promises companies have made
| to customers and other companies by the time they are
| acquired. Installing clauses like you suggest for all of
| them is wildly unrealistic, would be very expensive in
| billable lawyer hours, may delay or subvert the sale, and
| above all may be unnecessary/unhelpful/confusing if the
| existing customer contract is already legally binding.
| Veserv wrote:
| I did, in fact, consider the question you asked. The
| terms are enforceable by law, but the ability to enforce
| is so limp-wristed and ineffectual as to provide
| effectively no recourse with respect to getting the
| specific terms of the contract executed which is what
| unsophisticated consumers morally deserve in contracts of
| adhesion (or a immediate full refund).
|
| That companies find it inconvenient for their pocketbook
| and deal flow to actually bind themselves in a effective
| way to the terms of their promises to the legally
| unsophisticated public is ethically repugnant. If they do
| no want to do so then they can just not promise or imply
| such terms, nothing is forcing them to make promises that
| they have no intention to be bound by.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't think it's that anyone is lying as much as the
| concept of "lifetime licenses" is itself a lie. There is
| no such thing, as proven by all the various ways that
| such licenses have been voided.
| dahart wrote:
| > There is no such thing
|
| Sure there is, there's an entire thread here of people
| mentioning their faves.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35538466
|
| It's not proof or even true to claim that some examples
| mean all lifetime licenses will be voided. Like most
| things in life, it's a distribution where some people
| behave well and some people don't.
|
| It's valid to worry about whether a lifetime license will
| survive the future, whether you think any specific
| company is lying to you, and it's worth estimating the
| risks of your purchase. But it's not valid to conclude
| that the whole concept of this kind of license is a lie
| just because it doesn't always work out.
| JohnFen wrote:
| The very fact that it's possible for it to not work out
| makes it a deceptive term because it's not a "lifetime
| license".
|
| If you actually buy software, there is no possibility
| that the company can take it away from you.
| dahart wrote:
| > The very fact that it's possible for it to not work out
| makes it a deceptive term because it's not a "lifetime
| license".
|
| Naw, by that logic any sale of any kind is "deceptive".
| You're conflating sometimes with always. The existence of
| dishonest people doesn't make you a dishonest person,
| right?
| moi2388 wrote:
| Right. Sell it and somehow you have no responsibility.
| dahart wrote:
| That's a bit of a straw man, why are we adding even more
| exaggeration?
|
| The company has the responsibility to honor its contracts
| before and after a sale, legally.
|
| The relationship sounds more complicated for the article
| at the top, but since this sub thread detoured into
| abstract generalizations, and we're now talking about
| responsibility categorically, a change of ownership of a
| company is transparent to the company's legal
| responsibilities to its customers and contracts.
|
| And yes, that's what a sale legally means for the
| previous owner, generally speaking. They are transferring
| all control, profits, obligations, and debts to the new
| owner. It would be bad if that weren't the case, because
| then company owners could weasel out of the company
| obligations by blaming someone else who no longer has any
| control.
| ihateyouall123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I'm of the advice that lifetime licenses are only
| sustainable if they're sold as a way to attract early
| users, as a way to reward their faith into a product that
| had chances to fail and see their money gone forever. It
| shouldn't be a type of license that keeps getting sold once
| the product has matured and has some brand recognition in
| order to make it sustainable.
|
| If the product can run standalone on the client's computer,
| make it a license for that specific major version, and sell
| the upgrade to the next major versions for a fraction of
| the price. Those who wants the latest features can buy the
| upgrade and sustain the business, and those who are happy
| with the current version can keep using their version
| without feeling wronged.
| ejb999 wrote:
| +1 for naming jetbrains - I have always liked their way of
| doing business, including the substantial discount to renew
| each year - even in years when I don't use their tools much, I
| renew.
|
| Also specifically like how they remind me _many times_ , and
| many months in advance that they are going to charge my credit
| card on my renewal date - unlike the scumbag companies that
| never want to draw attention to your upcoming renewal, so you
| don't have a chance to think about not renewing - and then they
| make it difficult to get a refund. Jetbrains has earned my
| loyalty - other companies could learn something from them.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Yeah JetBrains is great as long as you keep paying. Stop
| paying and you downgrade to [year-1].[current-release]. That
| was my experience.
|
| What I thought I was buying was stop paying after a year and
| keep the current version.
| BXlnt2EachOther wrote:
| when JetBrains raised their prices, last October I think,
| they gave several months notice, made it clear that it was
| going to happen on their product pages, and let people lock
| in the current rate for a few years by prepaying.
|
| Seemed a customer-friendly way of handling a subscription
| price increase.
| corndoge wrote:
| The key for getting a refund is to not deal with the company
| at all but rather initiate a credit card chargeback.
| innocenat wrote:
| In many countries, chargeback require proof that you did
| not receive the service. Which make chargeback nearly
| impossible outside of outright scam.
| Shish2k wrote:
| Cineworld (the main cinema chain round here) mentions in
| their membership small print that if the credit card
| transaction fails for whatever reason, they will send debt
| collectors to hunt you down...
| eps wrote:
| Chargebacks can be challenged and challanges can be won by
| the merchants, in which case _you_ will end up with an
| attempted fraud on your bank record.
| corndoge wrote:
| I'm not going to expend effort arguing with this, I just
| want anyone reading it to know that it's completely
| untrue
| matsemann wrote:
| JetBrains actually ended up with this model after a lot of
| pushback when they tried changing their model a few years
| ago. But it's good that they listened, and now are even
| touted as the go-to best-practice.
| mthoms wrote:
| They still require you to downgrade if you let your
| subscription expire.
|
| Users have a perpetual license to the version released when
| the subscription _started_ and not when it _ended_. Thus,
| if you let your subscription expire, you need to
| _downgrade_ the software you already have installed on your
| system.
|
| On the surface, it's not _that_ big of a deal. But there 's
| no guarantee that your downgrade will occur gracefully. It
| could break existing projects which is kinda scary.
|
| Still, you're right that they did walk back some of their
| initially proposed changed after customers complained. All
| in all, I like Jetbrains and am happy to support them.
| mattl wrote:
| It seems like you get all the versions you've paid for.
|
| "You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every
| version you've paid 12 consecutive months for."
|
| https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-
| gb/articles/207240845-What...
| mthoms wrote:
| Yes, you do receive a perpetual fallback license. But
| it's for the version that was out when you started your
| subscription.
|
| https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/article_attachments/203511
| 589...
| JohnFen wrote:
| JetBrains has one of the less obnoxious licensing models,
| but it still prevents me from considering giving them any
| money.
| FpUser wrote:
| +1 from me as well for jetbrains. I simply refuse to pay
| subscription for software. If it does not have perpetual
| license of the version I am buying and one year of upgrades
| then it is not on my computer.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Yeah JetBrains is great as long as you keep paying. Stop
| paying and you downgrade to [year-1].[current-release]. That
| was my experience.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| A perpetual license does not have to come with perpetual
| updates, it just has to keep working as-is. Seems completely
| reasonable, want the new version or updates then buy them.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The problem with that is security bugs.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Traditionally, security updates had always been free.
| There's no reason why that can't be the case again.
|
| The problem is that the industry has largely decided to
| combine security and feature updates into an inseparable
| whole, which I think is a bad thing both from the
| customer's point of view and from a security point of view.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > That being said; I dislike both full subscription (i.e.
| breaks on expiration) and lifetime licenses. Subscriptions are
| too expensive for software that rarely gets major investment
| and lifetime licenses are dishonest (e.g. company cannot work
| for free, so their funded is based on unlimited growth, which
| isn't realistic for most).
|
| There's two "lifetime" models, as you noted:
|
| 1. the good old way, provide someone an installer and a license
| key valid for this version and optionally older versions and N
| years of patches. Adobe used to do this with the Creative
| Suite, Microsoft did it for Office and does it for Windows,
| Atlassian does so for their datacenter and not-yet-expired
| self-hosting licenses and JetBrains does it for their IDEs as
| well.
|
| 2. "lifetime" as in "buy once, get upgrades in perpetuity".
| That one entirely depends on the business model of the
| developer. If it's just some hobbyist developing a piece of
| software because they want to solve a problem they have (e.g.
| Hyperswitch, SizeUp for Mac) or open-source developers, that's
| just fine - they do the work anyway for themselves but get a
| ton of coffee. If it's something MANY MANY MANY people want but
| the maintenance effort is low, something like the
| Slysoft/Redfox suite of DRM removal tooling, it can work out as
| well. The critical thing is something that needs a ton of
| ongoing maintenance... and most of these fail spectacularly or
| do rug pulls on their users.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Providing a benefit for a lifetime is something that companies
| do every day. The financial world calls such products a
| "perpetuity". (Or in some cases, an "annuity" because your life
| is not expected to last into perpetuity, but for a certain
| number of years.)
|
| It is not difficult to calculate the net present value of such
| products so that you can charge the correct price. It is
| incompetent management that gets into these situations. The
| correct response from consumers is to file a small claims suit
| for a refund. And/Or apparently to blast to company loudly on
| social media :)
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I think you're out of your mind if you don't think a lifetime
| license is practical.
|
| The default license for almost everything, including software,
| is lifetime. I do not pay Ford an annual fee to advance the
| timing of the ignition sequence when I need to accelerate into
| traffic. I do not renew a subscription for the thermostat on my
| wall every winter when I need to put it in heating mode. When I
| was young, I bought a license for Epic pinball from then Epic
| MegaGames. I still have a license to that & can still enjoy it.
| maushu wrote:
| The difference with your Ford car is that no one is changing
| how the roads work every year. Compared with other areas IT
| is really unstable.
| roland35 wrote:
| I think there is plenty of room for lifetime licenses. In fact
| pretty much any video game works this way! I bought Zelda from
| Nintendo a few years ago, and Nintendo is not making any money
| from that purchase any more. But they instead make a new game,
| which I'll buy, and the cycle continues...
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| I'd be good with lifetime* license
|
| * lifetime is __ years
| dwighttk wrote:
| I just want to buy it and use it until I need to upgrade... if
| I'm issuing it I'll usually upgrade every major update, but a
| subscription happens every 12 months (or whatever) no matter
| what... I can't say "I'll update next month when I have some
| money set aside" and forgo the amazing new features for a
| month... or I'm not really using this very often and the new
| features look non-compelling so I'll just keep this version for
| the quarterly use I'm getting out of it.
|
| Agree on services but not if it is merely a service to justify
| a subscription
| lkschubert8 wrote:
| Isn't pay per usage viable for value via web or does that fall
| under subscription? I tend to think of subscription as a
| monthly/annual payment for access.
| Retric wrote:
| Pay per use has terrible incentives for pure software.
|
| It's more reasonable if there's an end product at the end.
| But you don't want to discourage people using your 3D
| printing service because your bundling software access that
| people might not need.
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Slightly related to the topic, but another way to screw up the
| customer it's when a web hosting company offers "free, unlimited
| shared hosting."
|
| We all know it's technically impossible. Once your typical-day
| WordPress weighs more than 5 GB, they'll be calling you urgently
| to split it up or increase the supposedly unlimited plan.
|
| Wasn't it unlimited? We all know unlimited server resources don't
| exist, especially not for $3/month.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I want to say "I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'm selling, why not
| buy that too!"
|
| But in software, so often there's no significant cost to lifetime
| subscriptions. Then it's just bastardy to revoke them.
| [deleted]
| nolan879 wrote:
| in 2015 I bought a lifetime license for SpeedDial2 Pro, but in
| 2021 they switched to a yearly subscription model to sustain
| upkeep and development. I am thankful that their team has
| grandfathered in lifetime licenses for use of the core feature
| set. I believe the new features that came after the subscription
| model are only for the new subscribers.
| uni_baconcat wrote:
| There's an app I bought on my phone a few years ago. Someday,
| they moved to a subscription model, and the app became free to
| download. But I like their method because I'm still able to use
| the app and get updates. All the features they launched before
| are available to me, and only new features added after the switch
| are locked and require an active subscription.
|
| With the trend of new business models, my best expectation is
| that I could 'own' everything up to the time I made the purchase.
| I am not expecting more, but please don't take away what I have
| paid for.
| RugnirViking wrote:
| reminds me of games like rocket league that I once paid for,
| which have now gone free to play and nag and beg me to buy
| "premium subscription". Not on your nelly.
|
| Its infinitely worse than never having done it at all.
| richrichardsson wrote:
| I can understand you being pissed having paid for it, and I
| don't want to come across as a simp, but... if you play
| regularly enough to advance through the "rocket pass" you earn
| enough credits to pay the next season's pass. I only ever paid
| that one off PS7.99 or whatever it was and always get far
| enough through. I guess it's a tax on people who either not
| very good or don't play often enough. Still sucks that going
| from paid product to "freemium" there wasn't some kind of
| "thank you" for having been an early supporter.
| kevincox wrote:
| I don't think the problem is I paid for it and now it is
| free. That is not a big deal to me (but a small thank you
| something would be nice).
|
| The bigger issue is that they degraded the game because of
| the free players and subjected those who paid to the same ads
| and noise that you wouldn't expect from a free game.
|
| For example I paid for TF2 and don't really care that it is
| free now. They do give me an occasional crate to tempt me to
| buy a key but it is fairly unobtrusive (and I think they had
| that before it went free anyways). If I was asked to buy
| stuff after every game I would be quite upset and would like
| my money back.
| egoisticalgoat wrote:
| I've had the same experience with other games that went
| F2P. If they at least upgraded customers who previously
| paid for the game to some kind of legacy ad-free version or
| something I'd be much more okay with it.
| henriquez wrote:
| Remember Google gave early adopters free "lifetime" subscriptions
| to their Google Workspaces for Business (aka gmail for domain
| names) and then pulled the rug out a year ago? If Google can get
| away with this shit then it's normalized in our culture that
| nothing corporations promise is true, pray they don't alter the
| terms further.
| danpalmer wrote:
| The important bit here is "free". While it wasn't a great move,
| nothing was paid for so there's no contract. Also I'm not sure
| it was ever called "lifetime" (I can't find that), it looks
| like it was just "grandfathering" old users in to a free plan.
|
| I think that's a materially different situation to selling
| lifetime licences and then reneging on that.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I get very wary of lifetime licenses because when companies start
| offering them it often means they are scrambling for cash. The
| lifetime of the product might be six months or less from when you
| purchase.
| lightedman wrote:
| A program called Camfrog did the exact same thing. Lifetime codes
| got flipped into a new subscription system.
|
| Realistically, this is fraud.
| josephcsible wrote:
| This is now the third high-profile occurrence of this exact thing
| in just a few months. The last two were Filmora
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34199153>
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34177057> and mIRC
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864660>.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Sort of reminds me of IAR's compilers for embedded systems. Their
| pricing models only seem to hurt their business by irritating
| their customers. As our company grew, it became more cost
| effective, less stressful, and less risky to port our code base
| over to GCC than to keep dealing with increasingly more contrived
| licenses.
| wowyallsuck wrote:
| Has _any_ company's "lifetime" license lasted more than, say 5
| years? 10? (I mean for software that is updated or requires a
| server of course).
|
| I like the jetbrains model well enough.
| shaicoleman wrote:
| Total Commander was first released in Sep/1993, almost 30 years
| ago.
|
| It's still updated regularly, and all upgrades are free.
|
| (Total Commander is a dual-pane file manager for Windows)
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I've been a Jetbrains customer from the very first release,
| introduced the product in every company I came into. Switched
| to VS and then switched back. I do think Jetbrains does a lot
| things right, they also honored past licenses and helped when I
| had license trouble. So now for some years im on an All
| Products Pack license and it's nice to just install whatever
| you want.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| NFT has entered the chat.
|
| In all seriousness though, I think the only lifetime licenses
| that come to mind are probably ones like JetBrains and old
| software where you had the install medium on a disk and a key
| to install it with and it required no software updates,
| assuming the software doesn't need the internet to verify,
| you're pretty much guaranteed what you paid for. Don't you miss
| lifetime ownership of software licenses? :)
| blcknight wrote:
| An NFT wouldn't do anything. It's a new release of software
| and the lifetime license stopped working on it.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| > NFT has entered the chat.
|
| And how would they help in this situation?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Was a joke about how it just sits there doing nothing.
| Tepix wrote:
| In practice after a few months the web server hosting your
| NFT's image goes down and it's broken.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| Oh I understand that. The server doesn't even need to go
| down, a specific NFT can simply be blacklisted. I was
| asking to see if there is something I'm missing.
| gowld wrote:
| You missed that the thread OP was trolling.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I was making a one off joke about how long an NFT
| theoretically could last (until the blockchain itself
| dies due to nobody using it, or what have you). The rest
| of my commentary was quite serious.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| If the NFT is backed by a DApp[0] it should not matter if
| the regular web server is gone so long as there's fuel to
| keep the DApp going.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_application
| gregoriol wrote:
| Lifetime software license is quite ok: you buy a version, you
| can use that version while it runs.
|
| What is a real scam is lifetime services
| (storage/backups/emails/...).
| iamsaitam wrote:
| No Man's Sky seems to have provided such a thing, taking into
| account all the updates with 0 paid DLCs.
| AdamGibbins wrote:
| My Arq backup lifetime license is 7 years to the date tomorrow,
| still getting all updates.
| martin_a wrote:
| Not sure if anybody ever bought a WinRAR license, but maybe
| they do?! :-)
| Krisjohn wrote:
| Yeah, my key still works on the current version.
| mattl wrote:
| I've been receiving issues for my lifetime subscription to 2600
| Magazine for well over 25 years.
| devstar wrote:
| Malwarebytes Premium; I've been carrying the same license since
| Windows 7.
| sebdufbeau wrote:
| Image-Line's FL Studio has been going strong for decades
| msravi wrote:
| I bought Turboscan Pro by Piksoft sometime in 2016 and it's
| been one of my most used apps. Still works great. Still gets
| the latest updates.
| selykg wrote:
| One of my original Joyent lifetime licenses is still active. I
| had a shared hosting lifetime plan and one of their container
| services as a lifetime plan, both of those are long gone. But
| they sold off Strongspace to Expandrive and that's still going,
| somehow. It's only 100gb, so, not exactly huge amounts of
| storage these days, but it's all still accessible, though the
| service doesn't seem to have been updated since I originally
| bought it either lol.
| eitland wrote:
| Edomondo did provide a workaround for existing customers when
| they changed tp subscription, - but was later shut down by the
| new owners.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| I think the ones that give a lifetime license to a freemium
| like version of their app often do better than those who give
| lifetime to the overall.
|
| But if I pay a few bucks and get 2-3 years of use I'm probably
| going to be pretty happy. If I spend tons of bucks then I'll
| probably be less than happy.
| fryry wrote:
| I bought a lifetime Plex subscription in 2016 and it's still
| working
| wowyallsuck wrote:
| I'm impressed by the number of people that have long-running
| still active lifetime licenses!
| Tepix wrote:
| My early (2011) purchase of Apple's Final Cut Pro X has been
| pretty awesome. I originally bought the software using
| discounted iTunes gift cards so i paid around 200EUR instead of
| 250. Nowadays it costs 350EUR.
|
| There have been countless big updates, all for free. It can now
| edit 360deg and multicam footage and many more features like
| object tracking and HDR support have been added for free. Just
| browse the long list of release notes at
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201237 and you'll get the
| idea.
| dwater wrote:
| I have a license for an MP3 tagging software called Tag&Rename
| from what's probably a one man shop called Softpointer that
| still works 14 years after purchase. I'd been using it for free
| for a few years at that point. The last release was in 2018 but
| it still does what I want. Maybe I'll buy another to show my
| support.
| papruapap wrote:
| I think there was a guy that bought a lifetime 1st class plane
| ticket for 10.000 dollars and used for like 20 years.
| HiJon89 wrote:
| My Plex lifetime pass is still going strong
| kop316 wrote:
| Same here. I purchased it in 2013.
| goblinux wrote:
| Industrial software perpetual licenses are really perpetual.
| Those things will outlast the company that wrote them and they
| don't have claw-back mechanisms
| mackman wrote:
| My dyndns perpetual tokens lasted 15 years or more. Sadly they
| got acquired and it finally stopped.
| mikelovenotwar wrote:
| MIRC https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864660
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Edit: reading some of the comments it seems that the license was
| offered with perpetual free future update, so backports would not
| be needed. In that case the author does have a legitimate
| grievance. Though these rug pulls are so common they should be
| expected.
|
| Lifetime of bug fixes and back ports, that is ridiculous. He is
| still free to use his software in a VM. Maintaining old versions
| like this is super expensive and is generally only done for
| customers that are paying a lot of money for that service. You
| basically need a whole second dev team for back-ports. Usually
| this is only done for government or industrial type stuff where
| the software is certified for a particular version. They pay a
| lot of money for that service, people who don't need pinned
| versions are far better off with a subscription.
|
| As far as I can tell no licenses were revoked, the author is
| still able to use his old versions and thus this is a total non
| issue.
|
| I've personally been through the process of shifting customers
| from a perpetual license to a subscription model. Some did ask us
| to maintain old versions indefinitely for them but to explained
| to them that wouldn't be viable without charging for that and
| since so few people wanted old versions maintained that cost
| would be amortized over fewer customers and would be much more
| expensive that simply updating. It's not just one old version
| that needs updating it's N, and if the fix depends on a new
| feature, well that would have to back-ported as well, it's a
| total insane mess. I would ask the customer what their reasons
| for pinning to a version and make sure we didn't break those
| reasons in new versions.
|
| I have some customers still using V1 from 14 years ago and
| they're still happy with it.
| xattt wrote:
| Wondering the last few years how long my Plex lifetime pass will
| last now.
| noirscape wrote:
| Plex' lifetime pass is iirc tied to major versioning. You'll
| have lifetime for as long as 2.x is the version they're on, but
| if they ever release 3.x, it's time to open your wallet again.
| No promises were made at the time on if you can stay on 2.x
| forever.
|
| Extremely scummy move, they changed those terms in 2017 if I
| recall and got a ton of flak for it.
| xattt wrote:
| Interesting. I bought in around 2016, so I may have dodged
| the bullet?
| andix wrote:
| The lifetime license is the same price as 3 years. Lifetime
| licenses are a lie anyway, nothing lasts forever. But if they
| cancel my ,,lifetime license" before 3 or 5 years elapsed, I
| will be very, very angry.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I wouldn't worry too much, considering my Plex pass (that I
| bought on sale, no less) is still good, 12(?) years on. Hell,
| Plex got dropped from my de-Googled phone before they ditched
| Lifetime users. I changed email providers before they ditched
| Lifetime users.
|
| Plex could renege tomorrow, but they've absolutely earned the
| benefit of the doubt in my opinion.
| andix wrote:
| I also don't worry too much, that's why I got the lifetime
| pass instead of a yearly subscription.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I bought lifetime licenses for the other competitors of Plex:
| TVersity, PlayOn, Twonky.
|
| Twonky currently is the only one I'm using, but all of them
| seem to respect the lifetime licenses! They've moved on to
| newer versions which use subscription models, so I don't get
| new features. Twonky still offers old version downloads (which
| is nice), but I'm not sure the others do.
|
| Honestly, I'm not sure I need any of this software anymore now
| that VLC is available on Android, Xbox, etc. and supports
| reading off SMB shares.
| xattt wrote:
| > Twonky
|
| Twonky (running on a WRT350n in ~2010) was the first media
| server that got me on the path to Plex. Glad to hear it's
| still kicking.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It might, but only because Plex is changing their profit model.
| Instead of trying to make money from the software directly,
| they're now injecting a bunch of ad-supported content into
| search results/default landing experience.
|
| If that is successful you might just see them scrap charging
| entirely.
| harrisonjackson wrote:
| Companies that acquire lifetime users should have a budget set
| aside for refunding these users.
| planede wrote:
| Isn't this just breach of contract, plain and simple? Change of
| ownership should have little to do with it.
| art0rz wrote:
| Most likely there is a clause that allows them to change the
| "Lifetime" subscription to anything they want.
| setr wrote:
| I'm guessing that would fall under false advertising
| tyingq wrote:
| The original language seems pretty clear that it was for all
| future versions.
|
| https://forum.manycam.com/uploads/default/optimized/2X/0/0da.
| ..
| jahewson wrote:
| That's not the contract. That's the advertising.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| I imagine this is one of those extremely common situations
| where the law doesn't matter. Even if you are entitled to some
| compensation, how are you going to get it?
|
| The only recourse is taking them to court which will end up
| costing your time, money, and sanity.
| planede wrote:
| I think it could be an easyish case for small claims. Bought
| software at X date, used it for Y years, expected to use it
| for a further Z years in professional career, and now you can
| only use it for 2 further years, instead of Z. Get atleast a
| refund for the years that you won't be able to use.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| Cost of lifetime license: $39
|
| Time used so far: 4 years
|
| Time remaining with new license: 2 years
|
| Time lost due to license change: 20 years
|
| Damages awarded to the plaintiff: $30
| hansvm wrote:
| Court fees: $70
| planede wrote:
| Could be recovered in a winning case, right?
| mthoms wrote:
| >Court fees: $70
|
| Plus the opportunity cost of your lost time.
| planede wrote:
| Author bought "premium lifetime" license. In 2019 May it
| cost $129 (discounted from $199, apparently).
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190508161003/https://manyca
| m.c...
| Pxtl wrote:
| I mean if there are a large enough group of users with that
| lifetime license a class-action might be worthwhile for an
| enterprising law firm.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Name a class action suit that harmed a business enough that
| the violation they committed was no longer profitable.
| kazinator wrote:
| There is probably some legal way that the transferred company
| can wrangle itself out of such obligations. Such as, for
| instance, that the company is actually a wholly different
| corporate entity which is just using the assets and branding of
| the original.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Not a lawyer, not a customer, not read the ToS.
|
| But the wording allows for many options.
|
| A lifetime license, to a specific version. With no updates. A
| lifetime license for upgrades.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| In my limited experience, companies that breach contracts like
| this plan for a small amount of litigation in their books, and
| determine that not enough people will have the means or will to
| sue them, but the profits of breaching the contracts will be
| enough to cover the few that do.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Which is why punitive damages should be more common. It
| should NEVER be financially feasible to bet against the
| courts and your own liability.
| nelox wrote:
| The OP states "the reason I tell all my CTO coachees they need
| everything in writing from their boss in their contract, a new
| boss will probably only honor what is written down, not spoken
| promises."
|
| However, he seems to have ignored his own advice and not
| understood the ManyCam EULA.
|
| "... This license is in effect until one of the parties
| terminates the license. You may terminate the license by no
| longer using the ManyCam software or web services. Visicom Media
| Inc may terminate the license at any time for any reason. Visicom
| Media Inc may change this software license agreement at any time.
| The license agreement may also be terminated if you violate any
| of the terms and conditions of this agreement."
|
| "... ManyCam may change from a free service to a pay service at
| any time and vice versa, and may change its pricing structure at
| any time in any way. ManyCam may discontinue its service at any
| time for any reason. ManyCam may charge for any support. ManyCam
| may limit software features or access to certain parts of the
| ManyCam website with no warning or notice and with no liability.
| ManyCam may stop service either temporarily or finally any time
| for any reason with no warning or notice and with no liability."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220517072603/https://manycam.c...
| hansvm wrote:
| The EULA may or may not be enforceable, but even if it is
| they're still liable for the real damages incurred by the false
| advertising causing people to make that purchase.
|
| It's kind of like if you buy a car as-is but the seller goes
| out of their way to knowingly lie about the condition of the
| car -- saying it's fit to drive when the brake lines have a
| leak or something. If there's any evidence then the courts will
| usually side with the buyer.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| For real. Contracts are not ironclad unbreakable deals with
| the devil even in America.
|
| The question is, will you step up and fight for your fair
| portion? If the company has 100 diehard customers affected by
| this and 99 of them don't fight it, then it's easy to appease
| the 1 while still coming out ahead.
| Graziano_M wrote:
| Visicom is the new owner, right? So that's a new policy, as in
| not the one he agreed to when he signed up for a lifetime
| license.
| undecisive wrote:
| No, Visicom is the old owner, as per the quote in the
| original post:
|
| "ManyCam is now under new ownership. [...] Visicom Media
| stands by the Lifetime customers and will continue to support
| them by arranging with the new owner for a total of two years
| of free subscription."
| Graziano_M wrote:
| I misread. But then I got all these upvotes for nothing.
| undecisive wrote:
| Yeah, it's awkwardly worded. I must have read the same
| sentence 3 times before I realised what it was saying.
| Looking at the latest version of the TOS, the new company
| is operating under the name "ManyCam ULC"
| nicbou wrote:
| In Germany, such lopsided agreements are illegal and
| ineffective.
| tescocles wrote:
| I don't know the contract law in the relevant (presumably US)
| jurisdiction, but surely an asterisk in the contract that's
| basically:
|
| Lifetime perpetual licence!*
|
| *but we can cancel any time without any penalty lol teehee
|
| is not enforceable? I don't think it would fly in court where I
| live, it doesn't matter if it was in a signed contract if it's
| preposterously unfair.
|
| edit: and I don't even necessarily think a lifetime licence is
| something a company should offer, they are quite unfair on the
| developer. It's a big commitment to say you'll support some
| software in perpetuity. But the solution to that is to not
| offer a lifetime licence. It's not to just outright lie and say
| you are when you aren't. And if you're one company looking to
| buy another, you buy those contracts along with it and should
| take that into account in your due diligence.
| rrobukef wrote:
| On the other hand, airlines have had major trouble with
| lifelong tickets sold in the eighties.
| leokennis wrote:
| Exactly. If this was really legal, I do not understand why
| Ford would not market it's newest pick-up truck as "now with
| flying ability!" and then just add in small print "it can not
| actually fly at all".
| undecisive wrote:
| Yeah. Lots of red flags in that EULA, including bits that don't
| seem to make any sense:
|
| "You agree any legal dispute involving ManyCam services and
| software must take place in the state or federal courts in
| Montreal, Quebec."
|
| and
|
| "You consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in Montreal,
| Quebec and waive the defense of forum non convenience."
|
| and yet
|
| "If a U.S. court finds any part of this license agreement
| unenforceable then the remainder of the agreement will continue
| intact and in full force and effect."
|
| Basically, it's your typical "We have rights, you have no
| rights" kind of contract. If the OP had even briefly scanned
| that "agreement" (and let's face it, most of us don't) I'm sure
| they would have realised that their "lifetime" license had no
| legs.
| Pxtl wrote:
| While the contract would mean they have the right to terminate
| the "lifetime license", it would also mean that the phrasing
| "lifetime license" is false advertising isn't it?
| emodendroket wrote:
| I'm not sure, since "lifetime warranties" are never actually
| perpetual either.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Well, they're presumably good for the lifetime of the
| product. Oh, it failed after 6 months? Tough... that was
| obviously the limit of its lifetime.
| jnsie wrote:
| The law deals with what is reasonable and 'reasonable
| expectations' a whole lot. From my IANAL perspective it is not
| a reasonable expectation that the average end user is
| proficient enough in the law to understand the implications of
| the legalese in the EULA. EULAs are thrust upon us, rarely
| read, and rarer still read by those with enough legal expertise
| to fully understand the implications of the text and to 'know
| what they don't know'
| mthoms wrote:
| Advanced Custom Fields is one of the must-have WordPress plugins
| for anyone who works with WP professionally. They handled this
| like champs; Upon moving to a subscription model, all existing
| lifetime license holders continued to have their license honored.
| 100%. It was quite refreshing, actually.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-04-12 23:03 UTC)