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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

I generally prefer to prepay a year. It tends to knock a bit off the price, and is less annoying, as I'm not constantly getting notices of withdrawal. Many companies will actually refund the unused portion, if you cancel early.

However, lifetime subscriptions seem to be almost worthless, as I have yet to encounter a company that doesn't redefine "lifetime," to mean the lifetime of the subscription, which ends, whenever they want.

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"Lifetime" anything in tech is insane. The company is not going to be around as long as you are, not without a major shock and reorganization. Nor is your need for the product going to last that long in the same form either. Imagine having a lifetime subscription for typewriter ribbon.

No, the only place that does lifetime products right is the financial services industry, because a pension is necessarily a lifetime product.

In response to your last point, Image Line has has had lifetime updates for FL Studio for over 25 years[0]. They even changed the name of the product but kept the lifetime updates in place.

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/lifetime-free-updates/

At best, a lifetime subscription means the lesser of my lifetime or the company’s lifetime. If the former, sucks for me - it’s kinda like “winning” on your life insurance policy.

I think reneging on a lifetime signup is really petty. I strongly suspect that they don't actually constitute much of a drain, and they are folks that had faith, and supported the company, early on.

Had a few apps that become subscription and lifetime is given to the early subscribers including free upgrades

Depends on what you're getting. I have some 'lifetime subscriptions' that allow me to keep copies of whatever these companies are selling access to, which means that it's in part up to me what I take from the deal and keep until the end of my lifetime.

The lifetime deals that work out, are worth it.

Hitting a bet on the appsumo startup casino can be fun.

I have a few tools quietly that have remained lifetime, like brain.fm.

Supporting what you think will win, early is a risk and an opportunity.

Plex has done a great job with their lifetime subscription. I paid something like $250 ~7 years ago and it's still the same.

But you should learn about the concept of time value of money. Don't part with your money until you have to, due to interest.

Depends. If a year is $50, and a month is $5, then you save $10 (16.7%). That's probably more than I'd make in interest.

My time is valuable, too. Every second not spent deleting reminder texts, is a second I can use for other stuff.

> My time is valuable, too. Every second not spent deleting reminder texts, is a second I can use for other stuff.

Don't delete them then. Inbox Infinity.

And of course taxes make it better to spend less money than to earn the same amount of additional money. Beating a 10% discount for a one-year prepay means you're getting really good returns on your money, and 10% is the low end for annual discounts.

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