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"Exclusive Lifetime Offer £69.99" Lifetime could be 6 months, could be 6 years. The latter is probably impossible and a rebrand could nullify it. Be honest ab

by markx2 3y ago

"Exclusive Lifetime Offer £69.99" Lifetime could be 6 months, could be 6 years. The latter is probably impossible and a rebrand could nullify it. Be honest about what 'lifetime' actually means, write it into a binding contract (yeah, 'binding' is difficult) and I might consider it.

jbverschoor 3y ago
Yup. Too many outs from lifting these days
amelius 3y ago
Just give me a non-SaaS solution. Something that I can keep backups of.
1123581321 3y ago
They’ve honored their other one-time purchases, Pixelmator for about 15 years now.
- dudus 3y ago
  They did release pixelmator pro after some time and charged again for it.
  - 1123581321 3y ago
    It's a different app. Anyone who bought Pixelmator still has it. It hasn't had an update for a couple of years, now, but updates overlapped with Pro for awhile. I do remember some people being upset that Pro wasn't just a free feature enhancement to Pixelmator when Pro was announced, though.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I have both Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro. I've been revisiting old games I wrote 35 year ago (rewriting them with modern API) and it is the lowly Pixelmator that I have been using near daily. (In fact was just using it this morning.) Besides occasionally foregrounding its palette windows when it is in the background, I find it fully capable for pixel-editing.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  Except Pixelmator Pro should be Pixelmator
waboremo 3y ago
I would love to see "lifetime" purchases be regulated out entirely, so that a lifetime purchase of software has very specific meaning and can't be weaselled out with a major version update, a rebrand, a new listing, etc.
- jorvi 3y ago
  Exactly what they did with the Pixelmator > Pixelmator Pro switcharoo trick. I wouldn’t have minded as much if they hadn’t taken every single complaint about Pixelmator and made it a feature on the new product instead of a fix in the old one. Makes me steer people to Affinity every chance I get.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - handsclean 3y ago
    You buy a hammer, they make a better hammer, you still have your old hammer, and that’s a “switcharoo trick”? Lifetime licenses always mean the thing you’re buying, not all its future updates. Affinity just did the same thing, came out with a paid 2.0. I think it should be that way, all “free {x} for life” deals end with you getting the absolute minimum that’s arguably {x}. Besides, Pro is actually a huge remake and expansion. I’d guess only 10% of its code came from the predecessor, compared to 90% for normal big updates like Affinity 2, and 99.99% for Photoshop.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      You are reading my comment wrong. I see no problem with making genuine new features something that is brought out in a versioned, paid update. But turning a deaf ear to QoL requests because in secret you’ve decided to use them as a stick to force people onto your v2, and just see the complaints (= customers) as free research.. that just makes you a grubby little company. Let’s say it’s 20 lost sales per enthusiast (10 directly, 10 from second order effects). 2500 enthusiasts that you have made your enemy. That’s 50 000 lost sales. If you don’t have market capture, don’t be an asshole to your customers. It’s just bad business. I’ve done my part and sent at least 2 dozen people to Affinity over the years, if not more. Hopefully others did too. Edit: your hammer example is absolutely terrible because you cannot patch everyone’s hammer remotely for cheap. If the surface of the hammer is so shiny it reflects the sun too harshly, you can’t just send a patch that lowers the reflectivity.
EugeneOZ 3y ago
That's easy: they’ll create Photomator v2 and voila - you need to pay the full price again, because “this version has SO MANY innovations...”
- mrzool 3y ago
  What's wrong with that? Better than the monthly/yearly subscription model as far as I am concerned.
  - EugeneOZ 3y ago
    Only “lifetime” word.
- arnvald 3y ago
  Which is fine, isn't it? The way I see it, there are 2 options: either you buy software "as is" and can use it forever, but you don't get free access to updates (or get them up to certain point of time), or you pay for a subscription. People who bought old versions of Pixelmator or Photoshop or 1Password can still use them (I have 1Password 4 on one of my devices), as long as the system updates won't render it useless.
  - EugeneOZ 3y ago
    I do share this opinion, but their “lifetime” term is a trick. I prefer honest pricing and honest promises.
- arrrg 3y ago
  That was the model in the past, yeah. Is there something wrong with it? Expecting lifetime updates with your lifetime license seems weird to me. That‘s not a realistic expectation.
  - Firmwarrior 3y ago
    Yeah, it's kind of funny, at first I heard about the Pixelmator/Pro debacle and thought "Damn, weaseled again" but really, that's how software all worked back in the 90s, and it was fine. I bought Corel 5 in the 90s for $200 or whatever, and it worked great. If I wanted new features or other substantial changes, I was willing to pay for a new version.
nikolay 3y ago
We've all been burned by "lifetime" licenses.
nocoiner 3y ago
They’ve been pretty darn good about keeping their other apps updated following a one-time purchase, and I’m just glad to see any new product launched with an option other than subscription pricing. Not sure what happened with Pixelmator/Pixelmator Pro, but whatever it was didn’t offend me too badly at the time. I’ll probably pay $99 for this app in large part to reward a dev for giving users the option to pay upfront. I don’t mind paying 3-5x the annual subscription cost to get a paid-up license, and the “pay once, pay again if you want new features released after your first year” seems pretty fair. But $50 a year, ever year, into perpetuity for, say, a weather, calendaring or Twitter app seems pretty stupid to me.
WA 3y ago
You're overthinking this. "Lifetime" is just a new word for: no monthly costs, buy once, use forever (= as long as your device and OS supports this software), just like it was for almost all software from 1990-2010. But since everything is now a subscription, we need a new term that signals "one-off payment". The confusing part is whether or not the devs must provide a lifetime of updates, which is unlikely, but also an unreasonable expectation. Hence, lifetime means: buy once, use as long as you have a device that supports the software, get all updates for free, as long as the developers keep providing updates. Could stop tomorrow, could stop in 10 years, when they announce a new app. Depends on the developer.

by markx2 3y ago

jbverschoor 3y ago

Yup. Too many outs from lifting these days

amelius 3y ago

Just give me a non-SaaS solution. Something that I can keep backups of.

1123581321 3y ago

They’ve honored their other one-time purchases, Pixelmator for about 15 years now.

dudus 3y ago
They did release pixelmator pro after some time and charged again for it.
- 1123581321 3y ago
  It's a different app. Anyone who bought Pixelmator still has it. It hasn't had an update for a couple of years, now, but updates overlapped with Pro for awhile. I do remember some people being upset that Pro wasn't just a free feature enhancement to Pixelmator when Pro was announced, though.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
I have both Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro. I've been revisiting old games I wrote 35 year ago (rewriting them with modern API) and it is the lowly Pixelmator that I have been using near daily. (In fact was just using it this morning.) Besides occasionally foregrounding its palette windows when it is in the background, I find it fully capable for pixel-editing.
hackernewds 3y ago
Except Pixelmator Pro should be Pixelmator

waboremo 3y ago

I would love to see "lifetime" purchases be regulated out entirely, so that a lifetime purchase of software has very specific meaning and can't be weaselled out with a major version update, a rebrand, a new listing, etc.

jorvi 3y ago
Exactly what they did with the Pixelmator > Pixelmator Pro switcharoo trick. I wouldn’t have minded as much if they hadn’t taken every single complaint about Pixelmator and made it a feature on the new product instead of a fix in the old one. Makes me steer people to Affinity every chance I get.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- handsclean 3y ago
  You buy a hammer, they make a better hammer, you still have your old hammer, and that’s a “switcharoo trick”? Lifetime licenses always mean the thing you’re buying, not all its future updates. Affinity just did the same thing, came out with a paid 2.0. I think it should be that way, all “free {x} for life” deals end with you getting the absolute minimum that’s arguably {x}. Besides, Pro is actually a huge remake and expansion. I’d guess only 10% of its code came from the predecessor, compared to 90% for normal big updates like Affinity 2, and 99.99% for Photoshop.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    You are reading my comment wrong. I see no problem with making genuine new features something that is brought out in a versioned, paid update. But turning a deaf ear to QoL requests because in secret you’ve decided to use them as a stick to force people onto your v2, and just see the complaints (= customers) as free research.. that just makes you a grubby little company. Let’s say it’s 20 lost sales per enthusiast (10 directly, 10 from second order effects). 2500 enthusiasts that you have made your enemy. That’s 50 000 lost sales. If you don’t have market capture, don’t be an asshole to your customers. It’s just bad business. I’ve done my part and sent at least 2 dozen people to Affinity over the years, if not more. Hopefully others did too. Edit: your hammer example is absolutely terrible because you cannot patch everyone’s hammer remotely for cheap. If the surface of the hammer is so shiny it reflects the sun too harshly, you can’t just send a patch that lowers the reflectivity.

EugeneOZ 3y ago

That's easy: they’ll create Photomator v2 and voila - you need to pay the full price again, because “this version has SO MANY innovations...”

mrzool 3y ago
What's wrong with that? Better than the monthly/yearly subscription model as far as I am concerned.
- EugeneOZ 3y ago
  Only “lifetime” word.
arnvald 3y ago
Which is fine, isn't it? The way I see it, there are 2 options: either you buy software "as is" and can use it forever, but you don't get free access to updates (or get them up to certain point of time), or you pay for a subscription. People who bought old versions of Pixelmator or Photoshop or 1Password can still use them (I have 1Password 4 on one of my devices), as long as the system updates won't render it useless.
- EugeneOZ 3y ago
  I do share this opinion, but their “lifetime” term is a trick. I prefer honest pricing and honest promises.
arrrg 3y ago
That was the model in the past, yeah. Is there something wrong with it? Expecting lifetime updates with your lifetime license seems weird to me. That‘s not a realistic expectation.
- Firmwarrior 3y ago
  Yeah, it's kind of funny, at first I heard about the Pixelmator/Pro debacle and thought "Damn, weaseled again" but really, that's how software all worked back in the 90s, and it was fine. I bought Corel 5 in the 90s for $200 or whatever, and it worked great. If I wanted new features or other substantial changes, I was willing to pay for a new version.

nikolay 3y ago

We've all been burned by "lifetime" licenses.

nocoiner 3y ago

They’ve been pretty darn good about keeping their other apps updated following a one-time purchase, and I’m just glad to see any new product launched with an option other than subscription pricing. Not sure what happened with Pixelmator/Pixelmator Pro, but whatever it was didn’t offend me too badly at the time. I’ll probably pay $99 for this app in large part to reward a dev for giving users the option to pay upfront. I don’t mind paying 3-5x the annual subscription cost to get a paid-up license, and the “pay once, pay again if you want new features released after your first year” seems pretty fair. But $50 a year, ever year, into perpetuity for, say, a weather, calendaring or Twitter app seems pretty stupid to me.

WA 3y ago

You're overthinking this. "Lifetime" is just a new word for: no monthly costs, buy once, use forever (= as long as your device and OS supports this software), just like it was for almost all software from 1990-2010. But since everything is now a subscription, we need a new term that signals "one-off payment". The confusing part is whether or not the devs must provide a lifetime of updates, which is unlikely, but also an unreasonable expectation. Hence, lifetime means: buy once, use as long as you have a device that supports the software, get all updates for free, as long as the developers keep providing updates. Could stop tomorrow, could stop in 10 years, when they announce a new app. Depends on the developer.