Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Sandboxie lifetime license discontinued

<< < (2/6) > >>

MilesAhead:

Are there any good alternatives? perhaps something like Shadow Defender?
-Jibz (October 24, 2013, 04:21 AM)
--- End quote ---

It's my impression that the "rollback" type utilities give you greater protection against yourself than really nasty malware.  Afaik they depend on reverting to a known system state on boot.  But a really nasty malware may hose the boot mechanism entirely.  I'm not sure how W8 secure boot figures into it.  I just got a machine with W8 and I haven't read up on secure boot details.  Supposedly it's more resistant to rootkits is all I've heard.

wraith808:
My next release won't be a free upgrade. I'll be making a blog post for reasons when I'm near to release.
-Renegade (October 24, 2013, 06:02 AM)
--- End quote ---

That's a bit different from what they are doing.  I understand paying for an upgrade- that's fine.  But when you have to pay every year in order to keep using the software that you paid for?  That's SaaS by another name.

40hz:
Probably mostly moot at this point. With the advent and improvements in VM implementations for the desktop, I'm thinking traditional sandboxing's days as a viable (if kludgey) technology are numbered.

Vurbal:
As appealing as they are from a short or even medium term consumer perspective it seems to me that lifetime upgrade licenses introduce a challenge that typically isn't given enough thought by developers who adopt them. At some point any program will reach some sort of saturation point where sales growth slows, eventually to the point where revenue from new customers is not enough to cover development costs. Possibly at that same point, but potentially either sooner or later, it simply won't make sense for the program to continue at all.

A developer cannot possibly hope to predict what that cycle will look like when a new program is introduced. In fact I would argue more often than not it will be difficult to predict at all and may only be apparent in hindsight. Lifetime licenses, particularly the ones you sell right before you realize revenue, technology, or both are adversely affecting your business, create pressure on developers to make decisions which are unhealthy for your business in the long term.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be considered or used at all. It does mean they almost always cause more problems than they solve unless used sparingly and carefully to achieve specific and limited goals. Typically the reason for offering a lifetime license is to build either a completely new market or market share for a relatively unknown brand or product. There's nothing wrong with that so long as you don't plan to make it the standard licensing model forever and you are honest and upfront

I don't need hindsight to know that licensing model never has and never will be sustainable indefinitely. If that's your choice then your calculations better take the inevitable product lifecycle - including its eventual end - into account. That had better include either regular and continuous release of new products with the same license or a slate of other products with slower development cycles but sustainable licensing.

Otherwise you should resign yourself to eventually either cutting off a bunch of angry customers or ruining yourself financially by putting it off as long as possible. We, and as someone whose job is increasingly promoting other people's software I include myself, need to find ways to help developers avoid suicidal decisions. Simply as a consumer I want developers to thrive so they can create new and better software for me to use.

It's probably more important today than ever as smaller developers and cheaper, more specialized software has become the backbone of the industry. It's actually something mouser and I have discussed at length and our conversations have definitely helped clarify my vision for a successful future. The future I envision and intend to be proactive in building is one where groups of "little guys," developers and media outlets together, work together to create a sort of infrastructure that benefits all of us.

Microsoft, Google, and Apple leverage the strengths inherent to their size and we need to do the same. They just don't happen to be the same strengths. They throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. They add every feature they can think of and decide what to keep after the returns are in. But we can get direct feedback from individuals and adjust on the fly. They can attract followers but we can build communities. We will fail frequently and repeatedly but we can learn from our failures and make the adjustments millions of shareholders wouldn't stand for.

Jibz:
That was a great post Vurbal, and it reflects many of my thoughts on licensing as well :Thmbsup:.

As I wrote, I can understand his need to make money, and lifetime licenses are a short-term solution in many cases. My concerns were with the way he implemented the change -- someone on the forum even called it a coup.

Like you say, lifetime licenses are sometimes used to get into a market. I think they can also work for some more mature products, if you sell them at a high enough premium that you feel reasonably confident they cover a large part of what revenue you could have realistically expected from one customer through regular paid upgrades (2.5-3 times the normal price seems to be a popular level).

Paid upgrades have the drawback that you have to periodically actually make enough useful changes that your users see justification in paying again. As you described, most software reaches a level of maturity where this becomes harder to achieve.

For many products, the ideal solution for the developer seems to be subscription based licenses, where you are guaranteed a steady stream of income, as long as you (at least appear to) continue updates.

The problem from a user perspective, is if the software stops working when you cancel your subscription. The order page and FAQ do not seem to clearly indicate if this is the case.

Also, by restricting the license to a single machine, you all of a sudden force people who have a desktop, a laptop for travels, and perhaps a work computer, to have 2-3 subscriptions running.

Basically, what I reacted to, was that it feels like a big shift, from one end of the licensing spectrum to the other, with no warning. But of course I do not have all the facts. (And to be honest, I am a little annoyed I did not decide to buy a license a couple of weeks earlier, I would have been happy to buy the lifetime license if I had been told the option was going away soon).

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page