https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864660
(Whatever perf issue HN is happening makes it hard to figure out right now)
And offering upgrades for life and then trying to backtrack on it is even worse.
Individual customers, and corporate customers, are wildly different.
The "buy it for life" business model works very well if you're trying to launch a mass market product to individuals.
In your first year of a product, those users who'll pay upfront 3 years of subscriptions for a "lifetime pass" are an awe-inspiringly useful customer segment to identify.
They're your way to run experiments to find "what am I doing well and how can I do more of it."
Plus, they're effectively loaning your business money against future revenues. During the first 2 years of your product, that's an amazing deal all round.
Just... never, ever, let corporations "buy it for life." Corporations will exploit by it for life dramatically.
Own-it-for-life means "I expect free updates for the next 20 years" which as we've seen with the mIRC author isn't the best business model. Turns the software developer into indentured servitude to all the people who bought it in the past.
The JetBrains model where you own it up need to rent it to get upgrades seems to work reasonably well, but given how languages like C# and Rust are moving forwards all the time you want get those upgrades. Since I want to see the developers doing that work for me, it seems rational that I should be paying them.