Until they revoke your lifetime purchase and put the new updates under a sub..
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Happened to me with the Android anti-theft app Cerberus, AND with the PlayOn TV recording service.
We should make a shame/do not trust list.
That shit better not happen to Plex, I'll never buy software again, will pirate the fuck out of it for this reason alone.
That would be punishing yourself compared to switching to Jellyfin, though.
This is the best advice. Heed it!
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Discover FOSS software. Just be sure to toss some donations to your favorite projects.
Imma be straight up. Donations are cool but not a lot of people give donations. partly because some are skint (i used to be) but mainly because people just don't know.
i feel like the biggest issue that foss projects face is the fact that they don't ask for donations in a way that the average user knows about. Kde sends a notification around christmas asking for donos. I haven't seen any other foss app do anything similar.
I give donations, but way less than I'd like (less in terms of quantity of recipients, not the total financial quantity).
What I'd love (not only for FOSS, but also stuff like podcasts and other things I'm donating to regularly) would be a service where I can set a budget and select the software and tools I use and it splits it up automatically.
I don't mind donating, but I hate managing it, having dozens of small transactions for it, and I feel like I'm forgetting to donate to like 90+% of the stuff I'm using. Also, with payment provider's fees it's often not worth it to donate <1€ a month, so bundling transactions would be way more effective - for me as the user as well as the recipients who'd get one transaction once a month from said service rather than hundreds of small ones.
I never really understood why e.g. Patreon doesn't offer this. You can't expect perks with this because the perks probably will start higher than what's the breakdown of each recipient woild be at a reasonable budget, but the advantage would be that (mostly) everyone would get a piece of your cake, rather than like 5 of the 500 different creators/developers/... you're using content/software of. Also, you could reduce or increase the monthly budget depending on your financial situation, rather than cancelling or modifying dozens of small subscriptions.
sounds like a good business idea to me... maybe i could make something like this if nothing else exists
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If you're into music production, FL Studio has a lifetime license that's stood the test of time, and has kept up with or exceeded the capabilities of packages like Reason, Ableton, and Logic. It was the first to really embrace an open VST plugin interface, and has so many options that even after 25 years I haven't yet explored them all. It also comes with a ton of free instruments you can download (basically free DLC).
I picked up a lifetime license for $99 in 2001 when it was Fruity Loops 2.0. Used it for 10 years as it evolved and was amazed that it was keeping up with the big boys. That encouraged me to drop another $80 to upgrade to the producer edition to start making professional level tracks - and I was not disappointed.
The best part? The base license is still just $99. Producer edition is still $179.
EDIT: side note - the demo is actually the full software package, so you can try it out for free. The license just unlocks the capacity to save projects with the plugins that are covered by your licensing.
Bruh I'm still using my fls 11 license from the early '00's and it still works. Modern hardware has made it work even better really
FL 11 was an amazing piece of software - that's the version that really kicked it into the big leagues.
You should check out the newest version - the download manager is much better since FL Studio 20, and they've got a bunch of new packages and plugins. The Flex plugin is one of the best traditional instrument synths I've ever worked with (think it came in on v 17 or 18).
Even the new version has excellent performance on my 10 year old desktop - you'll love it when you get a chance to upgrade.
I've bought way too much software that suddenly abandons their product to launch a new subscription based version.
I'd rather choose FOSS than anything payed.
I boycott anything that has to be paid or is non-free.
I donate regularly to FOSS projects (that I use).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_software_packages
Buy never software
Donate when you can tho
And contribute if you can't.
For non-programmers: Yes, reporting bugs, writing docs, and answering questions is contributing.
Edit: Fun story, the best contributor I ever had was someone who randomly reproduced reported bugs and filled in the details about how they did it.
I use almost exclusively FOSS and I have monthly/annual contributions set up for various projects.
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Act like a real man. But free and open source software because the devs deserve your money for their free work
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Software maintenance does cost a lot, it's a full time job. Most people don't pay foss or any at all ( winrar or total commander case ). Most people won't be able to maintain or adjust foss on their own... Foss doesn't work forever ( it's a pain to deeply depend on foss which stops being maintained ). It's a reality that 1 year fallback license is necessary evil
I prefer the model where you buy updates if you want or need them
I use moneydance for finance, it's $50 for the current version, as of now they give you one free version upgrade, with no requirement to upgrade again if you are satisfied.
It has a learning curve and isn't the prettiest but I've been satisfied with managing my transactions and running reports.
What it lacks though is a decent budget extension.
The IntelliJ products are not exactly "buy once" - if you want updated versions you need to keep paying periodically.
Not that I think that's a bad thing necessarily - it doesn't make sense to expect devs to continue working on something year after year when you're not paying them for it.
They are "buy once" in that their licenses include perpetual fallback. Whenever you stop paying, you retain your licenses perpetually
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Shady practices.
They make program/editor pay 99$ to be listed and the link all redirect to a subscribe page sling for an email.
Good enough. Now tell me where it is made and you can call it perfect.
I think paid open source like GPL Blender addons from BlenderMarket, Gumroad, etc. is a good option. You pay for it to support the devs while also owning what you bought.
own forever
Ownership implies control - being able to maintain/repair, modify or even resell.
To be in control of software you need access to it's source code, and have the right to share changes with others.
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Fuck paid software, use open source
It's not even for the cost of it, I simply refuse to trust any software that is not open because I know they'll try to fuck me over one way or the other
I understand sentiment after seeing how a lot of tech companies are. The other side of it is this: Developers still have bills to pay. FOSS projects are great, especially if they're done by a small team and have a supportive community, but there are only a limited number of developers who have a combination of knowledge, skill, free time, and financial capability to truly dedicate themselves to FOSS projects.
If I could support myself by coding for FOSS projects, I would probably try (hell I just might not be aware of opportunities for this) but that isn't the reality in front of me.
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