101–110 of 311 posts
> Upgrade now to ManyCam Studio Lifetime for only $39 and get access to all the future versions and updates, forever!
What they presented to the user was unequivocal. In a just world, the company who sold ManyCam (Visicom Media) should not be able to get away with this.
I just want to state outright that OP was wronged, and I side with them. That being said; I dislike both full subscription (i.e. breaks on expiration) and lifetime licenses. Subscriptions are too expensive for software that rarely gets major investment and lifetime licenses are dishonest (e.g. company cannot work for free, so their funded is based on unlimited growth, which isn't realistic for most). My current favor…
After selling a desktop app with a license like that for a little while though, I’ve also unfortunately realized that not everyone understands it. I had a number of customers referring to it as a “subscription” (which it wasn’t, because it didn’t auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever) or “lifetime” (which it wasn’t, because the updates were a paid option after a year).
Plus it’s hard to adequately explain how it works in few words.
For better or worse I think the majority of people understand 2 buckets: “subscription” and “lifetime”. So I went back to selling a lifetime license, with a caveat that any new features that incur ongoing costs might need to be an optional add-on subscription/pay-as-you-go/etc plan to cover those costs.
My general belief is that anyone with a subscription service who offers a “lifetime license” will probably eventually welsh, so I never spend my money on them. Doesn’t excuse it but this is an example.
Visicom really pumped the ManyCam lifetime upsells. I found 15 emails over an 18 month period in 2020-2021 with them pitching lifetime (which I eventually bought). An example email text they used is: > Upgrade now to ManyCam Studio Lifetime for only $39 and get access to all the future versions and updates, forever! What they presented to the user was unequivocal. In a just world, the company who sold ManyCam (Visico…
Happy Scale, a weight tracking app I really enjoy, had the opposite example: I bought a full license for some bucks some years ago, and later they decided to switch to a subscription based model to ensure funding. Instead of going the "hey, here is a new version of the app, you need to subscribe now", they explicitly included a thank-you note directed at everyone that bought the "Premium In-App Purchase" at the begin…
Sadly, for larger companies loyalty to the customer base doesn't make financial sense, when you can make $$$ from new users, and your old users just cost you money to support.
With the trend of new business models, my best expectation is that I could 'own' everything up to the time I made the purchase. I am not expecting more, but please don't take away what I have paid for.
Has any company’s “lifetime” license lasted more than, say 5 years? 10? (I mean for software that is updated or requires a server of course). I like the jetbrains model well enough.
Not sure if anybody ever bought a WinRAR license, but maybe they do?! :-)
I just want to state outright that OP was wronged, and I side with them. That being said; I dislike both full subscription (i.e. breaks on expiration) and lifetime licenses. Subscriptions are too expensive for software that rarely gets major investment and lifetime licenses are dishonest (e.g. company cannot work for free, so their funded is based on unlimited growth, which isn't realistic for most). My current favor…
From the developer side I feel like this type of license makes the most sense to me too. After selling a desktop app with a license like that for a little while though, I’ve also unfortunately realized that not everyone understands it. I had a number of customers referring to it as a “subscription” (which it wasn’t, because it didn’t auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever) or “lifetime” (which i…
Visicom really pumped the ManyCam lifetime upsells. I found 15 emails over an 18 month period in 2020-2021 with them pitching lifetime (which I eventually bought). An example email text they used is: > Upgrade now to ManyCam Studio Lifetime for only $39 and get access to all the future versions and updates, forever! What they presented to the user was unequivocal. In a just world, the company who sold ManyCam (Visico…
> On June 30, 2022, we entered into a License Agreement with Visicom (the "License Agreement"), pursuant to which we agreed to distribute, at the discretion and direction of Visicom, a specified number of ManyCam software updates to certain license holders to whom Visicom has previously granted a "lifetime" license to ManyCam software. As consideration for distributing the software updates, Visicom paid us an initial upfront nonrefundable payment of $65,000. The License Agreement provides that Visicom may purchase additional licenses at prices specified therein. Other than providing a one-time, limited license to Visicom for the distribution of ManyCam software updates pursuant to the terms of the License Agreement, we do not have any obligation to provide support or service to the licensee end users.