Their faq states that the license is valid for the current version (v1) and not for any future versions. So all they have to do is increase the version number when money is tight.

wow, that's a lot of life for "lifetime" license right?

I have no affiliation with this product or company. I'm curious about the options here from a business perspective.

A business has continual costs, which at the minimum may just be the ability to support a single developer's adult life. This app is selling itself once per major version, which judging by some comments here is somewhat unappealing. Many people are justifiably sick of subscription payments. I am also assuming many people would not appreciate e.g. an ad-supported version of something like this app.

So, what does that leave in terms of realistic business options? Are there any examples out there of a software business that succeeds in supporting its own development while helping its customers feel like they are getting their money's worth?

I think selling by version is arguably the most ethical way to do it, maybe with a SaaS license option. I think the main thing is just be honest that that is what you are doing.

I think JetBrains model is best with thier IDE. You purchase, and get one year of updates, if you don't renew you get a perpetual license at whatever update level your update license ended at, and you can restart at anytime.

This avoids games about what is or is not a "new version" or shipping minor updates as versions or any of that nonsense, it's just updates generally.

This isn't true for JetBrains any more, and hasn't been for ~10 years. They run on what is essentially a pure subscription now, with the caveat that if you stop paying, you can continue to use a version of the software. However, it's not the version you're using at the end of your subscription period, it's the version from 1 year prior to that. So if you stop paying, you will probably have to downgrade. See: https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What....

You have to charge for upgrades. It's not reasonable to pay once and expect lifetime updates. Subscriptions are annoying, but if you want ongoing support of course you have to pay.

It can work if the updates are significant enough to warrant a new version.

Probably. Isn't Expressive also the people that touted being Open Source til that didn't live up to their unrealistic expectations?

We have exactly the same business model as Affinity.

You might go and read the ad copy of Affinity (I own v2 of it).

  USD$164.99 One-off payment | excl. tax
  Get Version 2 of Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher on 
  all operating systems, including iPad, for one low bundle price.

See how it explicitly calls out "Version 2"?

How about Cleanshot?

  $29 One-Time Payment
  One year of updates

See how it calls out "One Year of updates"?

Now let's look at Expressive:

  Enjoy the benefits of our lifetime license and get access to all features and 
  upcoming updates with a one-off payment.

Get access to all features AND UPCOMING UPDATES. Nobody is going to assume this is restricted to the current major version, and having this "gotcha" in the FAQ is going to come with some headache when customers discover "All upcoming updates" doesn't really mean what it says.

Well you didn't make that clear in your initial speel about getting all future upgrades. You tried to pull a fast one, it didn't work, and now you'll have to back-track and clarify.

Yeah, it's called "listening to feedback", so don't get into conspiracies with what I have tried :))

Haha. You knew what you were doing. You were trying to fish people in un an underhanded way by not making it clear that the one-time purchase isn't _actually_ a one-time life time purchase with all future updates for free. Take the L and move on.

You've read me like a book! When you grow up, you should become a detective. Or a business consultant, as you are equally good at figuring out why people buy stuff.

If Adobe buys them, then all bets are off.