No one should be worried about perpetual licenses or offline support for an app that hasn't proven it even solves the problem in a viable way yet. If those things are key to your purchasing decision then you probably ought to be buying from established businesses with proven products and good support, and that is definitely not any startup I know.

I suspect your comment betrays the fact that you think the first version of a startup's software is the first finished and stable version. That's the main problem here. Startups need to be selling long before they're at that stage.

This is completely empty and made up argument. For every piece of software with perpetual license you can normally get evaluation version. Download and evaluate to your heart's content. Normally it is 30 days but I have not had one case in my live when vendor refused to extend eval period when asked.

If he doesn't think you're worth the money... You can say gravity is wrong all you want, you're still hitting the floor.

He wants a different product with features that aren't in the MVP. He absolutely is not the person I'd be selling to. If it turns out that I can't find customers selling what I think is the right product for the market then I might have to pivot to build what he wants, but until then he's just someone who isn't my potential market right now.

Startup sales is about getting the customer to buy in before the product is exactly right for them. Changing your product to suit whatever the person in front of you wants is massively distracting, often bad for the product, and doesn't guarantee a sale anyway.

If he doesn't think you're worth the money..

The product not being what someone wants only means it's not worth the money for them. That doesn't mean the product isn't worth it for anyone. You need to find the person who wants what you have right now despite it not being perfect, and who is willing to pay for what you have on the basis that it'll become what they need in the future.

Developer is not entitled to that "steady revenue stream". Keep working and releasing new products / features that customers are willing to pay for and you'll be fine.

Well, this makes you irrelevant as a target customer in this heavy subscription/SaaS 2020 market.

There are others like you. But not many enough to make it worth focusing on them, plus they'd be more picky and have all kinds of other demands too that regular users don't have.

My personal opinion is that this business model is simply not sustainable long term except for cases where the subscription model is a natural choice (Netflix for example). If I had to pay subscription for every piece of software I own I'd be ruined. With perpetual licenses however I only update / upgrade when I feel there is a benefit in it for me. Otherwise that old copy keeps working. I suspect I am not alone here.

As for not being relevant: so far I do not feel any lack of software offerings with perpetual licenses so allow me to disagree. I maybe irrelevant to your strict business model but not to the overall market.

That's a very good point.

But also neither here, nor there. That's here the market seems to go, and it seems to indeed want us all ruined.

Or, rather, living paycheck to paycheck to pay those things...