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> there's a point at which continuous work requires continuous pay. The majority of software has been pay-once (not counting major version upgrades) throughout

> there's a point at which continuous work requires continuous pay. The majority of software has been pay-once (not counting major version upgrades) throughout the history of software, and still is. I just mentioned some major examples: Pixelmator and Affinity, along with Astropad, CrossOver, DaisyDisk, Duet, Final Cut, Motion, Path Finder, Pixen, SiteSucker, Textual, Unarchiver, to name a few from my Applications folder, and also the vast majority of games. > That's a good model, but AFAIK no appstore caters to it. Acorn 4: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-humans/id634108295?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h... Acorn 5: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-humans/id1019272813?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h... Acorn 6: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861775?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861... You may not be able to view the product pages for Acorn 4 & 5, but they show up in my purchase history and I can still redownload them. There are other examples like that. If a company chooses to keep its older versions on display they could.

masklinn 7y ago
> The majority of software has been pay-once No. > (not counting major version upgrades) That's very much a different model. You can't "not count" major version upgrades because that's how you make "pay once" actually work. > Acorn 4: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h.. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h.... > Acorn 5: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h.. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h.... > Acorn 6: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861… https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861... That's a hack, which I mentioned in an other comment: the appstore has no support for this model, so you have to release each major version as completely separate software with loss of history, reviews, links, … and you can't do upgrade pricing.
- Razengan 7y ago
  > No. Yes. > You can't "not count" major version upgrades because that's how you make "pay once" actually work. Pixelmator. Affinity. Again. Also Panic. Final Cut. Motion. Logic. SiteSucker. Unarchiver. I paid literally once for them years ago and they're still getting substantial updates and I'm still getting the latest version on every machine, without having to do anything except sign into my App Store account. Panic even let you receive updates for Coda after they took it off the App Store! The majority of apps I use are pay-once. The majority of games I play are pay-once. The next most common model is yearly-upgrade (Parallels, CrossOver, Path Finder) or sequel/expansion, but even they do not prevent me from using their older versions if I choose to (system compatibility notwithstanding.) > That's a hack, which I mentioned in an other comment: the appstore has no support for this model Yet they are all there on the App Store. I have been using Acorn for years and I was able to choose when to upgrade and I always did. I can still access the older versions; the App Store itself shows them to me in my history. They can still publish the older versions if they wanted to. > loss of history, reviews, links New reviews for a new version is how it has always worked for all apps on the App Store, and how it should be, considering how updates sometimes piss users off. Keeping the same history/ratings/reviews across all versions is vulnerable to baits-and-switches. As for links, again taking Acorn as an example, whenever a new version was available, the older versions mentioned it in an alert and on their product pages.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Uh, little note, The Unarchiver and SiteSucker are freeware. You definitely didn't pay for them, unless you were kind enough to send the developers a donation, which is quite a different thing. :)
    - girvo 7y ago
      I believe I purchased SiteSucker from the Mac App Store, too, unless I’m misremembering?
    - Razengan 7y ago
      SiteSucker is $4.99: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sitesucker/id442168834?ls=1&mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sitesucker/id442168834?ls=1&mt... The Unarchiver seems to be free now but I felt certain I had paid for it.
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        ...oh, okay, so it looks like SiteSucker was freeware, and now it's not. Wonder when that happened. Free downloads of the older versions here: https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html
x0x0 7y ago
There was also no agreement or assumption that the software would work on any OS upgrade in the future. No annual OS releases (Mac, iOS, android); no monthly OS releases (chrome, firefox), nothing. No assumption that bugfixes were included: companies regularly charged for bugfixes in the form of upgrade pricing. No assumption that a piece of software would continue to work while external APIs mutated. No online services that require services, and more importantly, human time to keep them up and secure. Pricing was one to two orders of magnitude higher. To the extent that there was free software, it was almost always subsidized by the OS.
- Razengan 7y ago
  And none of it was remotely denied from running if the company could not keep withdrawing money from your account, even if it did not require any remote resources to continue functioning.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Well, it certainly helped that Windows updates used to very rarely broke existing software. That this is largely no longer true is itself a problem. Maintaining compatibility (when reasonable) may be more work for the OS vendor, but it creates far less work for all of the individual developers. And reliability for users.

masklinn 7y ago

> The majority of software has been pay-once No. > (not counting major version upgrades) That's very much a different model. You can't "not count" major version upgrades because that's how you make "pay once" actually work. > Acorn 4: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h.. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-4-the-image-editor-for-h.... > Acorn 5: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h.. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-5-the-image-editor-for-h.... > Acorn 6: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861… https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acorn-6-image-editor/id1233861... That's a hack, which I mentioned in an other comment: the appstore has no support for this model, so you have to release each major version as completely separate software with loss of history, reviews, links, … and you can't do upgrade pricing.

Razengan 7y ago
> No. Yes. > You can't "not count" major version upgrades because that's how you make "pay once" actually work. Pixelmator. Affinity. Again. Also Panic. Final Cut. Motion. Logic. SiteSucker. Unarchiver. I paid literally once for them years ago and they're still getting substantial updates and I'm still getting the latest version on every machine, without having to do anything except sign into my App Store account. Panic even let you receive updates for Coda after they took it off the App Store! The majority of apps I use are pay-once. The majority of games I play are pay-once. The next most common model is yearly-upgrade (Parallels, CrossOver, Path Finder) or sequel/expansion, but even they do not prevent me from using their older versions if I choose to (system compatibility notwithstanding.) > That's a hack, which I mentioned in an other comment: the appstore has no support for this model Yet they are all there on the App Store. I have been using Acorn for years and I was able to choose when to upgrade and I always did. I can still access the older versions; the App Store itself shows them to me in my history. They can still publish the older versions if they wanted to. > loss of history, reviews, links New reviews for a new version is how it has always worked for all apps on the App Store, and how it should be, considering how updates sometimes piss users off. Keeping the same history/ratings/reviews across all versions is vulnerable to baits-and-switches. As for links, again taking Acorn as an example, whenever a new version was available, the older versions mentioned it in an alert and on their product pages.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Uh, little note, The Unarchiver and SiteSucker are freeware. You definitely didn't pay for them, unless you were kind enough to send the developers a donation, which is quite a different thing. :)
  - girvo 7y ago
    I believe I purchased SiteSucker from the Mac App Store, too, unless I’m misremembering?
  - Razengan 7y ago
    SiteSucker is $4.99: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sitesucker/id442168834?ls=1&mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sitesucker/id442168834?ls=1&mt... The Unarchiver seems to be free now but I felt certain I had paid for it.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      ...oh, okay, so it looks like SiteSucker was freeware, and now it's not. Wonder when that happened. Free downloads of the older versions here: https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html

x0x0 7y ago

There was also no agreement or assumption that the software would work on any OS upgrade in the future. No annual OS releases (Mac, iOS, android); no monthly OS releases (chrome, firefox), nothing. No assumption that bugfixes were included: companies regularly charged for bugfixes in the form of upgrade pricing. No assumption that a piece of software would continue to work while external APIs mutated. No online services that require services, and more importantly, human time to keep them up and secure. Pricing was one to two orders of magnitude higher. To the extent that there was free software, it was almost always subsidized by the OS.

Razengan 7y ago
And none of it was remotely denied from running if the company could not keep withdrawing money from your account, even if it did not require any remote resources to continue functioning.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Well, it certainly helped that Windows updates used to very rarely broke existing software. That this is largely no longer true is itself a problem. Maintaining compatibility (when reasonable) may be more work for the OS vendor, but it creates far less work for all of the individual developers. And reliability for users.