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Comment by newsclues | Hacker News Reader

There is a way to have a sustainable business that sells lifetime deals and continues to support it.

You generally need low maintenance and support costs, but if you setup an investment to generate consistent returns for minimal dev/support costs or have a recurring stream of new customers it is possible, or charge for new features and add ons.

Do you really think that Adobe Photoshop CS purchases or video game purchases don't generate enough revenue to cover the costs and the only solution is recurring revenue?

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I don't think Adobe is exactly a good example here since they stopped selling one-off licenses altogether and only offer a subscription based model now.

The old model worked for decades though. For them and their user's, subscriptions offer a low cost entry point which was always a challenge at their full price point.

It worked for them because they kept releasing new version with new licenses, not updating Photoshop 1 in perpetuity.

And yet, that worked for their customers, and Adobe.

And now they are charging extra for colours people already had (Pantone fiasco).

Pantone is a weird case because they actually do something even if the colors don't change. You're paying for a guarantee, not a color. They have to keep apprised of changes in materials technology used in printing and manufacturing to provide that guarantee. There's a reason the company that bought it out is in the materials business.

It’s a weird case because they want recurring revenue for digital assets when they already have recurring revenue from the physical materials that are also regular recurring purchases.

I think when it comes to games, at least from what I see with my own kids is after awhile the game becomes stale so they quit playing it. They introduced new “seasons”, battle passes and loot boxes to keep them engaged at all times and to prevent user churn. They try and suck the maximum life from each user at all cost

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