But what I want to point out is that revoking something that was once promised to users, ridiculous explanations that the company didn't expect their product to last for so long, and finally deleting comments from their forum is a shitty move that Cerberus should be shamed for. As well as everyone who tries to do the same.
Why? I just find it offensive and predatory. If vastly more complex products of Pixelmator/Affinity's quality can remain on a pay-once model, then a goddamn text editor can too. Don't give me your pity post about how not switching to a monthly subscription will cause children on the moon to starve etc. It feels like a thin veil upon what often just seems like basic greed.
An optional yearly upgrade model (a major version jump) is also fine, and has been the most common case throughout computing history.
I would even be fine with IAPs presented as completely optional donations. In fact, pay-once + donate-if-you-want would be my preferred model for things like Pixelmator that are still providing free updates for years after my initial purchase.
I'd love to effectively repurchase many times over to support something that I appreciate and use regularly, but at my own pace please, without ever having to worry about being locked out.
Seems to me "I don't pay for it at all" would be the exact opposite of "count on practically forever".
> If vastly more complex products of Pixelmator/Affinity's quality can remain on a pay-once model
Unless they can keep expanding their userbase forever, they can't and don't over the long term (though a relatively high initial price helps there).
Historically this sort of software has relied on "major version" sales to keep revenue flowing e.g. you'd buy version 2, then would buy version 3 for a reduced price, there would be churn (and buying version 2 would entitle you to using it forever) but there's a point at which continuous work requires continuous pay.
Many software houses have switched to subscriptions not because that's fun, but because upgrade pricing was not an option (AFAIK it's available from neither Apple nor Google) and "pay once" is not a sustainable model.
> An optional yearly upgrade model (a major version jump) is also fine.
That's a good model, but AFAIK no appstore caters to it. You can do either subscriptions or "only get money once", the latter only works for software which is essentially not maintained like video games (and even that's not really the case anymore).
They literally touted them at various WWDCs.
As the proper and official way to implement upgrade pricing?
The majority of software has been pay-once (not counting major version upgrades) throughout the history of software, and still is. I just mentioned some major examples: Pixelmator and Affinity, along with Astropad, CrossOver, DaisyDisk, Duet, Final Cut, Motion, Path Finder, Pixen, SiteSucker, Textual, Unarchiver, to name a few from my Applications folder, and also the vast majority of games.
> That's a good model, but AFAIK no appstore caters to it.
Acorn 4: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h...
Acorn 5: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h...
Acorn 6: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861...
You may not be able to view the product pages for Acorn 4 & 5, but they show up in my purchase history and I can still redownload them.
There are other examples like that.
If a company chooses to keep its older versions on display they could.
No.
> (not counting major version upgrades)
That's very much a different model. You can't "not count" major version upgrades because that's how you make "pay once" actually work.
> Acorn 4: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h....
> Acorn 5: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h....
> Acorn 6: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861...
That's a hack, which I mentioned in an other comment: the appstore has no support for this model, so you have to release each major version as completely separate software with loss of history, reviews, links, … and you can't do upgrade pricing.
Yes.
> You can't "not count" major version upgrades because that's how you make "pay once" actually work.
Pixelmator. Affinity. Again. Also Panic. Final Cut. Motion. Logic. SiteSucker. Unarchiver.
I paid literally once for them years ago and they're still getting substantial updates and I'm still getting the latest version on every machine, without having to do anything except sign into my App Store account.
Panic even let you receive updates for Coda after they took it off the App Store!
The majority of apps I use are pay-once. The majority of games I play are pay-once. The next most common model is yearly-upgrade (Parallels, CrossOver, Path Finder) or sequel/expansion, but even they do not prevent me from using their older versions if I choose to (system compatibility notwithstanding.)
> That's a hack, which I mentioned in an other comment: the appstore has no support for this model
Yet they are all there on the App Store. I have been using Acorn for years and I was able to choose when to upgrade and I always did. I can still access the older versions; the App Store itself shows them to me in my history. They can still publish the older versions if they wanted to.
> loss of history, reviews, links
New reviews for a new version is how it has always worked for all apps on the App Store, and how it should be, considering how updates sometimes piss users off. Keeping the same history/ratings/reviews across all versions is vulnerable to baits-and-switches.
As for links, again taking Acorn as an example, whenever a new version was available, the older versions mentioned it in an alert and on their product pages.
The Unarchiver seems to be free now but I felt certain I had paid for it.
Free downloads of the older versions here: https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html
That this is largely no longer true is itself a problem. Maintaining compatibility (when reasonable) may be more work for the OS vendor, but it creates far less work for all of the individual developers. And reliability for users.
And that's okay. People who bought the software can keep using it and we don't have companies that are forever old hanging onto the market "just because that's what people buy".
That's not to pick on them exclusively: everyone who wants to make a living writing software needs a recurring revenue stream. Even open source developers are starting to get tired of leeches (though it's more on the corporate side in that situation. But barring corporate sponsorship, the revenue is going to have to come from somewhere...)
What about Affinity?
> expect them to move to subscriptions as well.
> everyone who wants to make a living writing software needs a recurring revenue stream.
Why is preying on your current users and pulling a bait-and-switch on them the only option?
If the continued development of a pay-once/optional-yearly-upgrade product really is unsustainable for you, branch out into more products. Or review your expenses. You don't have to live in San Francisco or replace all your computers with the latest Mac Pro.
It's like, "Oh no our single product cannot sustain our extravagances/desired lifestyle, so let's flay our existing flock some more instead of attracting new customers or creating new/better products."
That only delays your demise, because the users will definitely review their expenses.
You can have a recurring revenue stream with pay once software. Every day, hundreds of thousands of new people are born who don't have a license yet!
It's really easy to make the same amount of money with pay once licenses compared to subscriptions: just take the average number of months that someone uses your app, multiply with monthly price, make that the "pay once" price, done! Now you have the same revenue but don't need to charge for subscriptions, and you get all the money up front!
I sell a software product (pay once with upgrades every few years), and every month people show up and buy licenses. My monthly revenue is pretty stable, and I definitely consider it "recurring revenue".
The used to charge $5..$10 for an app. I love that to change to $5 plus $1/year thereafter. I'm not going to notice the $1, and if they have 100K users they've got an excellent reason to maintain it.
But that isn't what has happened. Instead the price has dropped to free, but the subscription has gone up $20/yr. I'm not paying that. I got along perfectly fine without the app before. I am somewhat perplexed anybody does pay that, but I guess there must be some out there that do.
I could buy App A now and buy App B later.
But subscription-based apps/services compete with each other every single month; they are constantly at risk of me cancelling a subscription – and realizing that I can live without it after all – whenever I review my needs and finances.
Bait and switch laws still a thing?
If they took away existing features, or added annoying upgrade nags to the app, that's a different story.
Security patches should be factored into the original cost of the app.
If you decided to not get Pro+ via the lifetime offer, you'll keep all the features you had until now, we're not moving them to the higher plan, only for new users, not for you, never.
I hope it makes sense, let me know if not.
-Petr from Feedly
The legal way to do this is to go bankrupt, launch app 2.0, and market it under a similar name.
They have a ponzi scheme business model, it failed. There's nothing legal about this; you make promises, you sign contracts, you have to live up to them.
We, the little insignificant people, have to afterall. The rules for us and them are the same.
You do this to a few people you lose your shirt, you do this to thousands or tens of thousands, that accousts the public trust. Management should be in handcuffs and in jail for this.
This news site is questionable for calling the business practice "questionable".
This is an easy case for the FTC and state regulators.
There are multiple reasons for that but primary two, that are history proven are:
- I dont trust you
- I REALLY, REALLY DONT trust you
Credentials storage? Any data storage? Yeah right, I have my own server and dont have time to reverse and check your code each update (but I did on first use).
Immediately when you dont support self hosting of my data, you have lost a potential customer, regardless how "good" your application is (typically in this case, it is far from good, developer lacks the knowlidge of how to do it without some major lasigna code on server side or is predatory).
All of application that I have bought are running on complete lockdown from any server (including firebase and other unneeded services) that is not mine. And countless times it was proven as a very good practice.
This is no longer the business model for a vast majority of software development. Now, software is never 'done', but new features are continually added (whether needed or not) and most software requires a large server farm to provide services for the sold software (or the entire offering)... this is both a design decision, but even more so a decision that requires customers to keep paying for the same software as 'support'
Good point - the whether needed or not puts the finger right on the point. The subscription model is funding development of subpar features that aren't needed. This is an inefficiency, and ideally it should be eliminated
Quite a few doctors would sign on the spot for that.
1. software prices were not below coffee prices
2. you got what you bought, you could not and did not expect updates
3. updates and upgrades were not free
Given the number of user-hostile updates that often arrive somewhere along the way, i'd like to go back to not expecting updates. Happy to pay for new versions when new features are enticing enough.
And many devs would be glad to provide that, but the shit-heaps that are "modern" storefront don't allow for it. AFAIK neither Google's playstore nor Apple's appstore allow for upgrade pricing, if you release an update or upgrade every user gets it for free.
Or you have to release a completely different piece of software, pray that it does't get rejected as a duplicate, pray that it doesn't consume a finite resource (like twitter application tokens) and can't offer "upgrade pricing" different from first-purchase pricing because you can't differentiate.
This sort of pricing methods remains fairly common for computer software houses who sell their thing directly.
As cortesoft already noted:> A major difference is that the programs were standalone. Once packaged, the software was done and required no more work from the creators. They would either switch to making the next thing, or making the next version of the last thing (which would have to be bought again).
That is a big reason software was of higher quality. Although the developers moved on the next version or next thing, there was still support.
What I was told as a developer of retail software sold on floppy or CD-ROM in stores like CompUSA, Egghead, Best Buy, and the like is that every time a customer had a problem that they could not figure out themselves in the software or by reading the manual and so ended up calling our toll-free help number, that cost us more than our profit on the sale--in fact, I was told, it would cost us more than our profit on several sales.
This was at a time when only a small fraction of customers had internet access. A larger, but still small, fraction would have modems that they used with some non-internet service like CompuServe or with BBS systems.
This meant that there was no cheap way to get software updates to a majority of customers--mailing them a floppy or CD-ROM would be the only way. There was also no way to get workaround instructions to the majority of customers, other than mailing them via the post office.
Thus it was very important to management that when the software went out the number and severity of bugs was sufficiently low that not many people would need to call help. If the number or severity was too high, dealing with all the calls or sending everyone a new floppy or CD-ROM would probably make the product a net loss.
This resulted in an emphasis on software quality throughout the company. Even if the actual functionality the product offered was stupid, we would make sure it was very good at doing that stupid thing, and that the manual was clear and complete.
Even if we were working on a new product for which there were currently no competitors on the market, and we knew that another company was working on a similar product and it looked like they would get to market first, we'd not cut quality to beat them to market. Being second to market, and so not getting as big a share as we would have had we been first, was better than being first with a product that would kill us on support costs.
Another consequence of most customers not having internet or other online access such as CompuServe or BBS systems is that it was important to get good reviews in magazines such as PC Magazine, Byte, Macworld, since those were the only reviews many potential customers would see.
If your release went out with any noticeable bugs, they would probably get mentioned in the reviews. Even if you did bite the bullet later and send out new floppies or CD-ROMs to all your customers to fix the bug, you probably would not get a second review. People will remember the first review, and your sales will tank.
I think that as a programmer I liked that era better than the one we are now in, for a few reasons.
• I liked the emphasis on quality. If I wasn't happy with my code, management supported making it better even if this would take longer.
• I liked that things ended. When we shipped the product, it was done. I could make a clean break and start working on our next product, which might have nothing at all to do with the prior product.
• If we did decide to do another version, it had to have enough new functions and features to make people with the prior version want to buy it. That was often enough changes to justify treating it as a completely new product which I could completely re-architect if I wanted to.
So I think lifetime licenses might make good business sense if you know that the service you provide is effectively limited in time by external factors anyway, like for instance a service having to do with young children or education for instance.
In this case for Cerebrus it doesn't really add up though, and the justification given by the support is absolutely baffling to me:
>Quite frankly we did not think Cerebrus would last that long!
Uh, well, kudos for honesty I guess. So what they're saying is that they sold lifetime licenses expecting that they'd never actually have to deal with they because they'd either go under or be acquired before it'd become a problem.
Honestly I think I spent €3 on it, and I'd happily pay that a year to keep using the service. My automated testing-utility probes about 1000 ping/ssh/http services every 90 seconds, and sends me notificaitons when/if anything fails via that application.
Pushover has been absolutely robust and reliable, and although I don't expect instant notification in all circumstances I seem to have received it.
How do you back out of a bad promise made in good faith?
Of course you could also have made a promise with a provision for what happens in case you want to back out (typically with some sort of compensation if appropriate).
I don’t think it’d be that controversial to release a new version of the app with a different pricing model while offering a fair upgrade path to existing users. Only this version would be available on the App Store.
They can choose not to upgrade and the old app will still work just fine. Keeping the servers up for that would be the cost of doing business.
This is more or less what 1Password have done. All their old versions are still usable, you still have the license for an old version because you bought it. Each upgrade is basically an entirely different release that you can subscribe to or pay for.
Cerberus have fucked up by pulling the rug from underneath everyone and revoking their licenses, making the software they bought unusable.
And as a word to the wise, maybe don’t think about making lifetime or ‘free forever’ promises. They’re totally unrealistic.
You received this message because your 1Password subscription has lapsed. While your account is frozen, you can still view all your items, copy your passwords, and even copy items to vaults outside your account. But you won’t be able to:
Add new items to vaults
Edit items
Invite people to your family or team
Fill items in your browser
It becomes a read-only list of your passwords, instead of providing ongoing service at a fixed version of the software (unlike JetBrains IDEs, where you actually keep fully operational version of the IDE at the latest version you qualified for).
That upholds the promise (you still get whatever you paid for at some point) better than the other legal alternative (shutting down the app entirely, which ends the "lifetime"). If you want to get rid of the dead weight, and it doesn't happen organically, periodically offer specials for customers of the old app to transition to the new one.
What you should never do: take something that is "lifetime" and make it expire. That only demonstrates that you're not trustworthy.
The only valid thing to do is to refund the purchase price. Either all of it, or at the very least the difference between price paid and how much is would have cost to buy the pay as you go license up til now, plus a consolation bonus.
Yes, the app will be functional on Android 8 in 2039 - if you can still find a functional Android 8 device then (after the epoch roll-over).
Basic maintenance helps the app move forward to Android 30 (or whatever is current then), letting you enjoy precisely the features you've bought back in 2017, so to me that seems to be strictly better.
(I exaggerated version numbers and dates to take in the epoch roll-over issue as an outside-anybody's-responsibility issue with an ancient base OS: https://www.quora.com/What-will-happen-to-a-64-bit-Android-d..., but the same scenario also applies when talking about supporting whatever base OS of 2022 and the ways it will or will not be compatible to today's apps)
If you didn't promise free updates/upgrades, you then can sell additional premium services only available to people who voluntarily upgrade to a package that pays more.
The very least that a company that wants to go back on the promise would have to do would be full refunds. It would still be wrong, but the fact that they aren't even giving those out (automatically on cancellation, without asking) shows the lack of good faith.
2015: https://www.droid-life.com/2015/09/03/cerberus-free-lifetime...