So perhaps a few extra sales from people who really need the bug fixes. But at the expense of at least a loss of goodwill and increased hassle for legitimate customers.
I believe this is more widespread than you might think – many places are looking to cut budgets and if you have in-house staff who handle most of the work support contracts are a glaring line on your budget. It's not just about the customers who did drop support but also those who might be considering doing so in the future.
> So perhaps a few extra sales from people who really need the bug fixes. But at the expense of at least a loss of goodwill and increased hassle for legitimate customers.
Agreed: this is classic management-by-spreadsheet encouraging short-term thinking. I remember a few microcomputer and NAS vendors trying the same thing before going bankrupt, selling the business, etc. because everyone involved recognizes it as a shakedown operation. At multiple employers we switched to more ethical vendors specifically in response to moves like this.