I paid for Halide and almost immediately afterward, they announced a policy of locking new features made after whatever version you had bought unless you bought it a second time.
It's the only app I've ever bought whose developer has done that bullshit.
It sounds like you bought Halide 1. At the time, we had supported Halide 1 for three years of huge feature updates when we launched Halide Mark II. Rather than just drop Halide 1, we gave everyone Mark II and a year of additional updates.
The alternative would have been to just release a separate app called Halide 2 and stop updating Halide 1. In that case, version 1 would probably fall apart pretty quickly due to OS and camera changes year to year.
I’m genuinely curious if you’d have preferred we stopped updating Halide 1, because we’re always trying to find the best way to support users while keeping the light on.
Following the action button release, we added deferred processing support. It involved rewriting a bit of the capture pipeline, but significantly speeds up 48MP captures.
Following that, we had a series of bug fix updates while we worked out the next major update. It’s maybe 2/3 done, but we had to shelf it until after the Kino launch for external reasons.
Without any malice or snide intent, I assume you must be under 25? Quickest example that comes to mind is every OS update to both Apple and Microsoft platforms until the former went free. Hell, iPhone OS 2 was a paid upgrade for iPod touch users.
30+ years in the software industry. Everyone did this back in the day - then it changed for 3 reasons (1) completely unsustainable (2) people didn't upgrade, or being forced to upgrade and pay large prices got grumpy about it. (3) the money people figured out subscriptions were more profitable.
There's tonnes of companies that have legacy 'pay upfront' models, that hit the wall as they'd saturated their markets, then their revenue stream dropped off and all of a sudden saw the wall of transitioning to web/mobile needing to happen and didn't have the funds to pull it off.
I'd almost completely forgotten about it until I was challenged by a prospect in a meeting monday 'is this one of these new lease software systems, I want to own it!" had to educate him on the way the world worked now...
New version every 2-3 years which required a purchase. It was a few hundred dollars every time you wanted to upgrade (people may not remember this, but PS was the "value" product when it launched; professional software was often low 4 figures).
For every couple year major versions (with decently advanced notice it's coming and/or a recency allowance) I think it's fair to charge anew but for minor improvements over the lifecycle of a major version I think it's fair to want to buy everything that will come in the major version up front if you're making a one time purchase. Tons of software is this way from Sublime to Windows to ZBrush to an absolute crapload of games. In this model a one time purchase is seen more as an alternative to holding a subscription over the lifetime rather than the intent to forego any future features or enhancements out of interest of the exact current feature set being all you'll ever want. There is also the "in-between model" e.g. IntelliJ where you get the current version + a period of updates and you can either stay with where it ends at that period or pay a smaller amount for more updates.
I'm not sure which group the Halide changes mentioned above fell into but just on the general topic I think it's a fair expectation.
They do something which is "common" in Apple-land (Dash for MacOS does this, a Twitter client did this as well, over and over): They get the same app, add some features, call it v2, launch as a new app and remove v1 from the store.
They don't "give" you the new version. They take away the app you paid "once", and provide you with a version with an expire date. So you have no choice. You either pay them, again, or lose access to the v2 (subscription based) app.
I don't mind paying for good software, I even think Hallide is worth $60. But I won't make the same mistake again. So best of luck Lux! I really wish you all the success. If you treat your customers right this time.
That is "forever updates" = no but "take away what you had" also = no. It was a period of updates with a dropoff date of where you left off. This lines up with my expectations of a one time purchase in that I'm not expecting 50 years of feature updates when buying software just because they haven't went out of business yet I'm just expecting I keep the feature access I have at the end, which is what these posts from many different folks are all claiming.
"Entitled" seems like an inappropriate word here. OP isn't entitled to the software, and the publisher isn't entitled to repeat customers or the perception of being a good value.
I dunno. I understand "entitle" has connotations - like the word "privilege" these days - but I thought this was used in the straight sense of the word.
It's the only app I've ever bought whose developer has done that bullshit.
I won't make that mistake again.