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Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust
Josh:
Extended Offer
Based on tremendous customer response SlySoft management has decided to extend both the current 20% promotion and lifetime free updates until Sunday, January 11 2009 to give everybody a chance to sneak a peak at 2009 prices and subscription fees for better comparison
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It looks like slysoft has extended the lifetime license offer. I am hoping this isn't just a common thing they are going to do, I.E. continuously extending the lifetime offer indefinitely, but we shall see.
zridling:
Nice find. Thanks, Josh; let's hope that's the case.
sazzen:
:) Such a heated discussion. I love it. Here is my 2 pennies worth.
Back in the days when I was first enjoying shareware I didn't know Updates/Upgrades could be a problem. My first bad experience was with a PIM called Golden Section Notes. It was a troublesome program that periodically ate a few files. I periodically asked for help. I never got any. I did get notices for newer versions. One day, after installing the newer version, I couldn't get access to any of the kazillion files I had stored in it. Turned out that the newer version was an upGRADE not an upDATE. The company wouldn't help me get back to my old version because they said, "It isn't supported any more." So I was left in the dust with the mess.
My next negative experience was with Xplorer2. I understood the website to say it included lifetime updates. Shortly after I purchased it I received a notice that they were changing their policy etc., etc. and they kindly offered to sell me a lifetime upgrade license. Would I trust that? Certainly not. I have learned a valuable lesson. I no longer trust anyone who claims to offer a lifetime license. Who's lifetime? Mine? Theirs? Until they realize they need more regular income? Until their mood changes?
Certainly I understand that the people who write these programs need to generate income. All I am saying is that - If upGRADES will be charged for in the future, that should be made clear from the beginning. Updates (as I understand them are fixes), I should have to pay for them no more often than NEVER.
It has also been my experience that an upgrade isn't necessarily an improvement. Often it is just more bloat, junk, or a change in the UI that I do not like. Several times I've backed up to a previous version. I've learned to keep the old setup exes whenever I venture into a newer version.
There are several mentions of pirating and expecting everything to be free in this thread. That's insulting. I never pirated anything in my life. Guess if I wanted to, I'd learn how it is done. Come to think of it, it might be a good idea given the current trend. Neither do I expect everything to be free - just affordable. If I can find a freebie program to use in place of a paid one - that I will soon have to pay for again - I will use the free one. I, and millions of others, don't have an unlimited supply of $. Income vs Outgo is as much an issue for us as any company. Shareware comes somewhere after food in our budgets. Lots of things are out of my reach and I will never purchase a yearly subscription to use an application. For rich folks, that's fine, for the rest of us it is idiocy. I doubt it will turn out to be a profitable direction for companies to head in, especially in these times.
f0dder:
I'm not a fan of companies changing license policies, and I don't find lifetime licenses very realistic... Imho a (reasonable) cost for major versions is the way to do, possibly combined with upgrade discounts. And major versions should be major - not just bumping because of some bugfixes.
Can't say I blame Nikos for sorta giving up on lifetime licenses, since that gives a pretty limited source of income. And xplorer2 is reasonably priced, imho. Still doesn't change the fact that changing license type is bad, though.
mwb1100:
I no longer trust anyone who claims to offer a lifetime license. Who's lifetime? Mine? Theirs? Until they realize they need more regular income? Until their mood changes?
-sazzen (January 09, 2009, 05:51 PM)
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This reminds me of an SMC router I had several years back - it had a lifetime warranty, and when it failed one day and I tried to get warranty service I found out that the 'lifetime' of the warranty was the the marketing lifetime of the product. Ie., since they didn't sell that model anymore, the warranty had expired.
I was actually more amused than angry at the use of the fine print - even though it was totally deceptive, I had to give them props for a clever deception.
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