This post follows a post of Mario's on the DPReview forums : https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60407758 (https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60407758)
There is obviously a debate about ways for paying software, up to the point that some people run away from Adobe and their now exclusively reccurrent licence.
I can fully understand that - especially for a single developper or a small team - recurrent payments are more secure and permit to project a bit more in time rather perpetually living on past incomes in a high incertainty. So I don't have a problem with recurrent paiments for software.
IMO, the problem is more about what's happening when you decide (for any reason) to stop paying. Pure recurrent licencing would let you almost without anything. I think that both sides need to agree on something fair. Mario seems fair, so why not trying something hybrid between perpetual and recurrent ?
Alpha idea :
- Customer buys an iMatch2017 licence, full price and have the right to use iMatch2017 during his whole lifetime
- A new major version iMatch2018 is out : either Customer buys it "perpetual" at an upgrade special fee ; or Customer decides to pay monthly at a fair price, and gains the right to use it
- Up to that point, in the later case, if an new major version iMatch2019 is released and Customer doesn't want to pay in a recurrent way anymore, he is granted a perpetual iMatch2018 licence because he used to pay during the whole iMatch2018 period
Monthly fees would need to balance well with update fees, of course.