Exactly what they did with the Pixelmator > Pixelmator Pro switcharoo trick.
I wouldn’t have minded as much if they hadn’t taken every single complaint about Pixelmator and made it a feature on the new product instead of a fix in the old one.
Makes me steer people to Affinity every chance I get.
You buy a hammer, they make a better hammer, you still have your old hammer, and that’s a “switcharoo trick”?
Lifetime licenses always mean the thing you’re buying, not all its future updates. Affinity just did the same thing, came out with a paid 2.0. I think it should be that way, all “free {x} for life” deals end with you getting the absolute minimum that’s arguably {x}.
Besides, Pro is actually a huge remake and expansion. I’d guess only 10% of its code came from the predecessor, compared to 90% for normal big updates like Affinity 2, and 99.99% for Photoshop.
I see no problem with making genuine new features something that is brought out in a versioned, paid update.
But turning a deaf ear to QoL requests because in secret you’ve decided to use them as a stick to force people onto your v2, and just see the complaints (= customers) as free research.. that just makes you a grubby little company.
Let’s say it’s 20 lost sales per enthusiast (10 directly, 10 from second order effects). 2500 enthusiasts that you have made your enemy. That’s 50 000 lost sales.
If you don’t have market capture, don’t be an asshole to your customers. It’s just bad business. I’ve done my part and sent at least 2 dozen people to Affinity over the years, if not more. Hopefully others did too.
Edit: your hammer example is absolutely terrible because you cannot patch everyone’s hammer remotely for cheap. If the surface of the hammer is so shiny it reflects the sun too harshly, you can’t just send a patch that lowers the reflectivity.
The point of the of course very different hammer example was that it’s the same contract and it’s a perfectly moral contract: give money, receive a thing, and that’s it. You seem to be arguing that they should keep doing things for you because they can and it benefits you, and I agree that they can and it benefits you, but it’s also at a cost to them, which I don’t think they have a moral obligation to pay unless that was part of the sale to you.
Maybe communication is a root issue here. I think both of us could agree that they should make sure people know before buying whether they’ll be getting updates, and for how long.
Affinity did exactly the same just now. They've released version 2.0 which is a paid upgrade so people who bought 1.x will not receive any new features anymore.
That's true in most cases, just wanted point out that Pixelmator is not alone in doing so, their direct competitor does the exact same thing. And I don't mind since I used the original Pixelmator a lot, and now I'm using the Pro version as well and I consider it was well worth my $49.
I wouldn’t have minded as much if they hadn’t taken every single complaint about Pixelmator and made it a feature on the new product instead of a fix in the old one.
Makes me steer people to Affinity every chance I get.