Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

amazingcto.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 311 posts

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#211

Post by TheCoelacanth »

ihateyouall123 wrote: post #185
freeone3000 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People must be held accountable for their actions; if it cannot be through self-governance, their reputation must meet needs.

What exactly does "being held accountable" mean? I hear this a lot and this statement seems empty

In this instance, it appears to mean making it possible to purchasers to be aware of past business decisions made by people in positions of authority at companies that they are considering doing business with so that they can make an informed decision.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#212

Post by cjbgkagh »

Edit: reading some of the comments it seems that the license was offered with perpetual free future update, so backports would not be needed. In that case the author does have a legitimate grievance. Though these rug pulls are so common they should be expected.

Lifetime of bug fixes and back ports, that is ridiculous. He is still free to use his software in a VM. Maintaining old versions like this is super expensive and is generally only done for customers that are paying a lot of money for that service. You basically need a whole second dev team for back-ports. Usually this is only done for government or industrial type stuff where the software is certified for a particular version. They pay a lot of money for that service, people who don’t need pinned versions are far better off with a subscription.

As far as I can tell no licenses were revoked, the author is still able to use his old versions and thus this is a total non issue.

I’ve personally been through the process of shifting customers from a perpetual license to a subscription model. Some did ask us to maintain old versions indefinitely for them but to explained to them that wouldn’t be viable without charging for that and since so few people wanted old versions maintained that cost would be amortized over fewer customers and would be much more expensive that simply updating. It’s not just one old version that needs updating it’s N, and if the fix depends on a new feature, well that would have to back-ported as well, it’s a total insane mess. I would ask the customer what their reasons for pinning to a version and make sure we didn’t break those reasons in new versions.

I have some customers still using V1 from 14 years ago and they’re still happy with it.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#213

Post by jahewson »

tyingq wrote: post #38
art0rz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely there is a clause that allows them to change the "Lifetime" subscription to anything they want.

The original language seems pretty clear that it was for all future versions. https://forum.manycam.com/uploads/default/optimized/2X/0/0da...

That’s not the contract. That’s the advertising.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#214

Post by andix »

29083011397778 wrote: post #81
andix wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lifetime license is the same price as 3 years. Lifetime licenses are a lie anyway, nothing lasts forever. But if they cancel my „lifetime license“ before 3 or 5 years elapsed, I will be very, very angry.

I wouldn't worry too much, considering my Plex pass (that I bought on sale, no less) is still good, 12(?) years on. Hell, Plex got dropped from my de-Googled phone before they ditched Lifetime users. I changed email providers before they ditched Lifetime users. Plex could renege tomorrow, but they've absolutely earned the benefit of the doubt in my opinion.

I also don’t worry too much, that’s why I got the lifetime pass instead of a yearly subscription.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#215

Post by JohnFen »

dahart wrote: post #144
Someone1234 wrote: post #55

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…

> 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). I don’t really know what you mean by “dishonest”, that seems like a slightly hyperbolic word here. If someone pays for a lifetime license the company isn’t working for free nor necessarily assuming unlimited growth, they just have to understand and correctly price the av…

I don't think I agree with the "dishonest" label, but lifetime licenses are a bit scammy even when they're offered earnestly.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#216

Post by freedude »

"Coming back to customers. Do you invest in extracting short term money from customers? Or do you invest in long term relations. In the case of ManyCam they could have sold me add-ons that feel like they are worth it. By honoring the lifetime license the likelihood of me buying from them increases. It is the same as from the detour. In the beginning it’s about getting traction, then about getting money. And then the key to growth is retention. If you want to grow your customer base, the first thing is to prevent customers leaving. If you fill water in a bucket with a hole - something I’ve seen in to many startups on how they use marketing without product market fit - then after some time the bucket is empty when you stop pouring. So don’t make your customers run away."

When I was in high school I had an opportunity to learn customer service from one of the greatest businessmen that lived. My grandpa, the produce farmer and peach orchardist. He owned and operated the largest peach orchard in Oregon at the time and had customers that had been returning to his orchard for a lifetime.

Why, would they keep coming back?

Because he made a produced a final product that was so sweet and juicy the flavors would explode in your mouth and the juice would run down you arm and drip off your elbow.

Because they wanted to support a family man that was dedicated to providing a good living for his family, who also worked for him.

Because they wanted to get out of the city and see, for the briefest of moments, what is was like in the fresh air and sunshine of the Oregon countryside.

Because they wanted the opportunity to harvest the food they were going to eat and choose what they wanted for themselves.

and many other reasons... He would talk with customers he would see only once or twice a year and discuss the topics of the day in a down to earth way that only a farmer can express. And they would keep coming back...

Don't run off your customers. They are a business' most valuable asset.

If you want to know more about customer service and how it used to be, read Les Schwab's book, "Pride in Performance: Keep It Going".

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#217

Post by JohnFen »

dahart wrote: post #158
crazygringo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's dishonest in the sense that a company knows the probabilities are such that they can't actually ever truly support a lifetime license, so it's a lie from the start. At the end of the day, companies usually go out of business or else sell themselves to another company within a certain number of years. And a new company (like in this case) may change their mind about lifetime licenses, because it's a total…

Ugh, please don’t make it worse and escalate to “lie”. You’re blaming the wrong source, and have it backwards IMO. The previous owners weren’t lying, the new owners are the ones to blame for breaking a pre-existing contract with the company. Breaking this contract might not be legal, and in that sense they may be only the ones lying.

I don't think it's that anyone is lying as much as the concept of "lifetime licenses" is itself a lie. There is no such thing, as proven by all the various ways that such licenses have been voided.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#218

Post by JohnFen »

krisoft wrote: post #79
Someone1234 wrote: post #55

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…

I see your point, and I largely agree with you. One trickynes is with the "This incentivizes them to deliver value" part. The problem is that if the software just "works" and there are no compelling new features the user will quite rationally stop buying new updates. Which incentivises the developer to make sure that either the software never really "just works" or that they hype up new features to create FOMO. They…

> The rumour was that that forced Adobe to change to a subscription model.

But of course it didn't do any such thing. Adobe could have produced software that people wanted to buy, instead.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#219

Post by mh- »

mannykannot wrote: post #164
mh- wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They eventually went down to $20 (from $199!), which is when I pulled the trigger, according to the email receipt I just found. January 2021. I archived the email's "view in browser" link here: https://archive.is/y23DN

I wonder, was there was ever a time when buying the lifetime license turned out to be a better deal than a fixed-term one?

Their fixed-term ones are $100/year currently. so, yes.

Re: ManyCam dishonored my lifetime license

#220

Post by mthoms »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #176
brvsft wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making unethical business decisions that negatively impact customers is a bit different from jaywalking.

We have courts of law that determine fact, and if the behavior isn’t criminal, we have civil courts as well. For professionals we have ethics boards and censuring processes. But do we really want to set up a system where people vote people out of their careers with no review or process? How do you prevent this from being abused? Or worse expanding beyond the original remit to more facets of life? There’s a reason we…

I didn't have such a draconian interpretation of the idea. I don't know where you got "lynch mob", "ruin[ing] random people" and "social credit score" from it to be honest. Quite a dramatic take.

Individuals and companies knowing more information about the professional history of the people they're doing business with is always better.

Post reply on HN