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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 whil

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 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.

asddubs 3y ago
I think the easiest way to communicate it is to just regularly increment your version number and then have people be able to buy version X. Like Photoshop, and really most software used to be sold.
- SturgeonsLaw 3y ago
  Right! Has it really been that long since this was the status quo?! There was a time when it was expected that you bought a copy of Widgetmaker 2, and you could use it for as long as you liked, there might be some patches, there might not, but you own (or something close to it) the software and can use it whenever you want. When Widgetmaker 3 comes out, it's a new product with new features, and you'd have to buy it separately if you want the new goodies. Simple. It worked well enough to build behemoths like 1990's Microsoft. There are some companies that claim to offer this, but are very sneaky in their approach (NitroPDF is one I'm familiar with), they will offer a one-off purchase, but after a release or two, will no longer provide downloads for your version's installer, and in some cases won't activate it if you reinstall using your own copy of the installation media. Bring back the days of installing your software, typing in your product key, then using it for as long as you wish.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    One of the reasons why I buy less software than ever before is because so much software isn't sold like that anymore.
- dceddia 3y ago
  Yeah, that's another way to go, and I considered doing that. The main thing I didn't like about that strategy was how I'd be sitting on lots of unused code between major releases. All the new features sitting on my SSD for months aren't helping any customers :/
  - jjnoakes 3y ago
    Why can't you release features whenever you like under this model?
    - ghaff 3y ago
      You can. But you also sort of want to hold anything really significant back for the next major rev.
    - dceddia 3y ago
      I was thinking if the model is: buy Version 1 for $99... then next year, Version 2 is out with lots of new features for the upgrade price of $79 -- well, then nothing really stops you from releasing new features under Version 1, but at some point you kinda have to hold something back for Version 2, or there won't be any reason to upgrade. So it shifts the incentives toward holding back big new features, and away from incremental updates.
      - shagie 3y ago
        And if you need some money and have a few features, release version 3 - even if it doesn't feel like enough to really cut a new version for. Your cash flow for the software now becomes a big bang with then drawing on it until you run out and need some more. Subscriptions offer a more measured approach. "I have 10,000 people with subscriptions of $10/month - each month I'll bring in $100k which is then used for these expenses." There's no push to release a build because AWS changed their pricing or that you want to hire a new developer.
      - account42 3y ago
        That really depends what timeframes you need to be working with. Adding new features to version n for free still incentivizes users of version < n to pay for the upgrade.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  Yeah, calling it a lifetime license to CoolSoft 7 or to CoolSoft 2023 is the easiest way out. It brings some seasonality however, since the duration of updates is now couple to when in the update cycle you purchase.
- clnq 3y ago
  Games still do it correctly. If you buy Spacewars you'll get patches and updates for a while, but you won't get Spacewars 2. Unfortunately, it is evident that the pay-once monetization model has been corrupted too. Many AAA game companies sell pre-orders and otherwise bet on people buying their games mostly on marketing and promises. Over the last decade in the AAA industry, marketing has steadily pushed out quality game production as means to make money. The games are hyped beyond what publishers know will be delivered, and in some cases, far beyond what's possible to deliver within the release schedule. Now it's common for AAA publishers to mostly show "pre-alpha" footage (often this is a lie and at least beta footage is shown) or "not in-engine" cinematics before release. Demos are a thing of the past and gameplay from reviewers is embargoed until just before release. Sometimes embargo terms don't allow showing bugs. So, overall, everything related to monetization of software seems to be corrupted by psychological manipulation and greed. And not just in games or sold software packages, also with SaaS subscriptions and social media. It's not impossible that more and more consumers will give up dealing with this nonsense in the future. We already see large numbers of people choosing not to engage in social media due to the emotional manipulation and echo chambering to squeeze out more advertising revenue out of them. And because I am in the games industry, I see signs of players simply abandoning AAA games for these manipulative practices and returning to indies. Time will come for SaaS and manipulative software licenses. If consumer trust is further tarnished, the future will either involve returning to where we've been — clear and simple one time software fees and clear trial/demo periods, or it will involve something more insidious than what we have. In either case, the pricing models we have now are starting to tire consumers out.
  - account42 3y ago
    Games (at least AAA) have been moving towards live services where there is an ongoing reliance on the operator at least for multiplayer games. While often the main payment is still upfront there are typically ongoing revenue streams like batttle passes and other microtransactions. Thankfully this model has not yet been accepted for single player games.
    - clnq 3y ago
      For live services, the game has to be a success. ROI for pre-release marketing is more guaranteed and cheaper.
bcrosby95 3y ago
Heh, the DLC business model from games comes to mind.
- dceddia 3y ago
  That would be a choice, wouldn't it! The thought crossed my mind but somehow I see people not being happy with having to pay $X to unlock every little feature, heh. "Tell 'em what's behind tab number 3, Johnny! Johnny: More gated features!" There's probably a tipping point somewhere.
  - 3np 3y ago
    It might work, depending on your cadence. If a user is interested in getting a particular feature NOW, they pay for it specifically and then get the rest of the new stuff when they buy the next version upgrade.
whatsakandr 3y ago
Perhaps the support period should be sold as a "warranty period". People understand limited warranty periods on cars and dishwashers, so it's a known model.
jsmith45 3y ago
The easy way to explain it is to have obviously versioned releases. These could infrequent Like yearly, through to fairly frequent like monthly. (Out of cycle hotfix releases should probably just be treated as free for anybody with a license to the relevant base release.) Then you are selling Lifetime licenses to a specific version (like 2023.04), which incudes free cost licenses to any versions released in the next X months. Advertised as "Lifetime license to 2023.04, and free updates for X months" (or X years, etc as applicable). You can also choose to sell paid upgrade licenses which are identical to the main offering, except less expensive, and require the purchaser to own a license to some older version. The discount could potentially even scale depending on how old the old version is, but that usually makes more sense when no new releases were provided for free.
mthoms 3y ago
>you could keep using the last version forever Note that this isn't what Jetbrains does. You only have a perpetual license to the version released when the subscription started. Thus, you'll have to downgrade and say good-bye to any features and fixes released over the term of your subscription.
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  Not quite: once you've paid for a version for twelve consecutive months you get a perpetual license to that version. If you unsubscribe you keep your perpetual licenses.
  - mthoms 3y ago
    Sorry, but you're wrong. This misconception is very common. https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What-is-a-perpetual-fallback-license- https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What... See here in particular https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/article_attachments/203511589/One_year.png https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/article_attachments/203511589...
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      From your first link: > If paying on a monthly basis, as soon as you pay for 12 consecutive months, you will receive this perpetual fallback license providing you with access to the exact product version for when your 12 consecutive months subscription started. You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every version you’ve paid 12 consecutive months for. (emphasis added) What did I get wrong?
      - mthoms 3y ago
        From your quote: >access to the exact product version for when your 12 consecutive months subscription started. (my emphasis) As for the rest of the quote from Jetbrains: >You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every version you’ve paid 12 consecutive months for. In a one year subscription, the only version you will have paid 12 consecutive months for is the version that existed at the beginning of the 12 months. If a new version was released with only three months left in your subscription. Then it's impossible to have "paid 12 consecutive months for" it when your subscription is up. Here's a screenshot[0] I just took of my account. The subscription started about 6 weeks ago when 2022.3 was the latest version. Thus, as shown in the screenshot it's the version I have perpetual license to. Even though 2023.1 was just released two weeks ago (roughly three weeks into my subscription) [1]. It's all worded terribly (probably intentionally so) so I don't fault anyone for getting the wrong interpretation. The whole thing gives me a bad impression even I though I love JB otherwise. [0] https://imgur.com/a/SSLPijk https://imgur.com/a/SSLPijk [1] https://blog.jetbrains.com/webstorm/tag/webstorm-2023-1/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/webstorm/tag/webstorm-2023-1/
JohnFen 3y ago
> because it didn’t auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever Surely that's just a regular sale, not a "lifetime license". I mean, technically, it's a nonrevocable perpetual license, but that's what has traditionally been considered a "sale" in software. Saying "lifetime license" implies something else entirely.
- detaro 3y ago
  Not really, because a "sale" would traditionally be for a specific version (or a version and patches for that version at best).
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Perhaps I misunderstood the OP, but isn't that exactly what he was doing? That's how I interpreted "it didn’t auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever".

asddubs 3y ago

I think the easiest way to communicate it is to just regularly increment your version number and then have people be able to buy version X. Like Photoshop, and really most software used to be sold.

SturgeonsLaw 3y ago
Right! Has it really been that long since this was the status quo?! There was a time when it was expected that you bought a copy of Widgetmaker 2, and you could use it for as long as you liked, there might be some patches, there might not, but you own (or something close to it) the software and can use it whenever you want. When Widgetmaker 3 comes out, it's a new product with new features, and you'd have to buy it separately if you want the new goodies. Simple. It worked well enough to build behemoths like 1990's Microsoft. There are some companies that claim to offer this, but are very sneaky in their approach (NitroPDF is one I'm familiar with), they will offer a one-off purchase, but after a release or two, will no longer provide downloads for your version's installer, and in some cases won't activate it if you reinstall using your own copy of the installation media. Bring back the days of installing your software, typing in your product key, then using it for as long as you wish.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  One of the reasons why I buy less software than ever before is because so much software isn't sold like that anymore.
dceddia 3y ago
Yeah, that's another way to go, and I considered doing that. The main thing I didn't like about that strategy was how I'd be sitting on lots of unused code between major releases. All the new features sitting on my SSD for months aren't helping any customers :/
- jjnoakes 3y ago
  Why can't you release features whenever you like under this model?
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You can. But you also sort of want to hold anything really significant back for the next major rev.
  - dceddia 3y ago
    I was thinking if the model is: buy Version 1 for $99... then next year, Version 2 is out with lots of new features for the upgrade price of $79 -- well, then nothing really stops you from releasing new features under Version 1, but at some point you kinda have to hold something back for Version 2, or there won't be any reason to upgrade. So it shifts the incentives toward holding back big new features, and away from incremental updates.
    - shagie 3y ago
      And if you need some money and have a few features, release version 3 - even if it doesn't feel like enough to really cut a new version for. Your cash flow for the software now becomes a big bang with then drawing on it until you run out and need some more. Subscriptions offer a more measured approach. "I have 10,000 people with subscriptions of $10/month - each month I'll bring in $100k which is then used for these expenses." There's no push to release a build because AWS changed their pricing or that you want to hire a new developer.
    - account42 3y ago
      That really depends what timeframes you need to be working with. Adding new features to version n for free still incentivizes users of version < n to pay for the upgrade.
wongarsu 3y ago
Yeah, calling it a lifetime license to CoolSoft 7 or to CoolSoft 2023 is the easiest way out. It brings some seasonality however, since the duration of updates is now couple to when in the update cycle you purchase.
clnq 3y ago
Games still do it correctly. If you buy Spacewars you'll get patches and updates for a while, but you won't get Spacewars 2. Unfortunately, it is evident that the pay-once monetization model has been corrupted too. Many AAA game companies sell pre-orders and otherwise bet on people buying their games mostly on marketing and promises. Over the last decade in the AAA industry, marketing has steadily pushed out quality game production as means to make money. The games are hyped beyond what publishers know will be delivered, and in some cases, far beyond what's possible to deliver within the release schedule. Now it's common for AAA publishers to mostly show "pre-alpha" footage (often this is a lie and at least beta footage is shown) or "not in-engine" cinematics before release. Demos are a thing of the past and gameplay from reviewers is embargoed until just before release. Sometimes embargo terms don't allow showing bugs. So, overall, everything related to monetization of software seems to be corrupted by psychological manipulation and greed. And not just in games or sold software packages, also with SaaS subscriptions and social media. It's not impossible that more and more consumers will give up dealing with this nonsense in the future. We already see large numbers of people choosing not to engage in social media due to the emotional manipulation and echo chambering to squeeze out more advertising revenue out of them. And because I am in the games industry, I see signs of players simply abandoning AAA games for these manipulative practices and returning to indies. Time will come for SaaS and manipulative software licenses. If consumer trust is further tarnished, the future will either involve returning to where we've been — clear and simple one time software fees and clear trial/demo periods, or it will involve something more insidious than what we have. In either case, the pricing models we have now are starting to tire consumers out.
- account42 3y ago
  Games (at least AAA) have been moving towards live services where there is an ongoing reliance on the operator at least for multiplayer games. While often the main payment is still upfront there are typically ongoing revenue streams like batttle passes and other microtransactions. Thankfully this model has not yet been accepted for single player games.
  - clnq 3y ago
    For live services, the game has to be a success. ROI for pre-release marketing is more guaranteed and cheaper.

bcrosby95 3y ago

Heh, the DLC business model from games comes to mind.

dceddia 3y ago
That would be a choice, wouldn't it! The thought crossed my mind but somehow I see people not being happy with having to pay $X to unlock every little feature, heh. "Tell 'em what's behind tab number 3, Johnny! Johnny: More gated features!" There's probably a tipping point somewhere.
- 3np 3y ago
  It might work, depending on your cadence. If a user is interested in getting a particular feature NOW, they pay for it specifically and then get the rest of the new stuff when they buy the next version upgrade.

whatsakandr 3y ago

Perhaps the support period should be sold as a "warranty period". People understand limited warranty periods on cars and dishwashers, so it's a known model.

jsmith45 3y ago

The easy way to explain it is to have obviously versioned releases. These could infrequent Like yearly, through to fairly frequent like monthly. (Out of cycle hotfix releases should probably just be treated as free for anybody with a license to the relevant base release.) Then you are selling Lifetime licenses to a specific version (like 2023.04), which incudes free cost licenses to any versions released in the next X months. Advertised as "Lifetime license to 2023.04, and free updates for X months" (or X years, etc as applicable). You can also choose to sell paid upgrade licenses which are identical to the main offering, except less expensive, and require the purchaser to own a license to some older version. The discount could potentially even scale depending on how old the old version is, but that usually makes more sense when no new releases were provided for free.

mthoms 3y ago

>you could keep using the last version forever Note that this isn't what Jetbrains does. You only have a perpetual license to the version released when the subscription started. Thus, you'll have to downgrade and say good-bye to any features and fixes released over the term of your subscription.

iudqnolq 3y ago
Not quite: once you've paid for a version for twelve consecutive months you get a perpetual license to that version. If you unsubscribe you keep your perpetual licenses.
- mthoms 3y ago
  Sorry, but you're wrong. This misconception is very common. https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What-is-a-perpetual-fallback-license- https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What... See here in particular https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/article_attachments/203511589/One_year.png https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/article_attachments/203511589...
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    From your first link: > If paying on a monthly basis, as soon as you pay for 12 consecutive months, you will receive this perpetual fallback license providing you with access to the exact product version for when your 12 consecutive months subscription started. You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every version you’ve paid 12 consecutive months for. (emphasis added) What did I get wrong?
    - mthoms 3y ago
      From your quote: >access to the exact product version for when your 12 consecutive months subscription started. (my emphasis) As for the rest of the quote from Jetbrains: >You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every version you’ve paid 12 consecutive months for. In a one year subscription, the only version you will have paid 12 consecutive months for is the version that existed at the beginning of the 12 months. If a new version was released with only three months left in your subscription. Then it's impossible to have "paid 12 consecutive months for" it when your subscription is up. Here's a screenshot[0] I just took of my account. The subscription started about 6 weeks ago when 2022.3 was the latest version. Thus, as shown in the screenshot it's the version I have perpetual license to. Even though 2023.1 was just released two weeks ago (roughly three weeks into my subscription) [1]. It's all worded terribly (probably intentionally so) so I don't fault anyone for getting the wrong interpretation. The whole thing gives me a bad impression even I though I love JB otherwise. [0] https://imgur.com/a/SSLPijk https://imgur.com/a/SSLPijk [1] https://blog.jetbrains.com/webstorm/tag/webstorm-2023-1/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/webstorm/tag/webstorm-2023-1/

JohnFen 3y ago

> because it didn’t auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever Surely that's just a regular sale, not a "lifetime license". I mean, technically, it's a nonrevocable perpetual license, but that's what has traditionally been considered a "sale" in software. Saying "lifetime license" implies something else entirely.

detaro 3y ago
Not really, because a "sale" would traditionally be for a specific version (or a version and patches for that version at best).
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Perhaps I misunderstood the OP, but isn't that exactly what he was doing? That's how I interpreted "it didn’t auto-renew and you could keep using the last version forever".