@ John Hammond.
I started using the internet in early 1996, by 1997 I bought my first lifetime license from Real Networks for a version of their Real player. I had the player and used if for about a year and a half before I downloaded a new version and entered my serial number to make it fully functional. When the player rejected my serial number. I contacted support, they told me this was their latest version and it was better than what I had, but I would have to pay another 19.95 for the new player. I said no thanks, I then tried to revert back to my old model and could not do it. Real networks was the first software company I personally blacklisted, no more money from me.
The second lifetime license I bought about 1998, was for a security program. To be honest it was the best security program I have ever had. But they to changed the rules and changed my lifetime to a two year subscription model. If I were to recount their explanation for the change you probably would die laughing. So I said goodbye to them.
Now if you were to take a look at Roxio. They spun off from a company called Adaptec. Now Adaptec produced some of the best cd burning software out there at the time. However when Roxio became a separate entity they began to play their little games. First they started introducing new versions almost every six months. And how did they get you to buy new versions or upgrades, they built in a list of burners the software would work with, if your burner was not on the list the software would not work. As you can imagine this was unsustainable with more and more companies making generic computer parts. So they switched to the only reliable way to guarantee that they would get almost 100% reups every few years. They made the software only work within the parameters of a version of a particular OS. So after buying 3 full versions of Roxio, when they made version 7, completely uninstallable on Vista. I said goodbye to Roxio forever also. And I really do miss Roxio 7 I used every last component of the software suite.
Long story short, Roxio, Adobe, Microsoft Office, Pinnacle, Nero —all software companies that are for profit have to make their software obsolete in some way to stay in business. It is just simple economics, software is not like durable goods which breakdown with use. So you either have to make the program do something totally new and great every now and then to get a lot of rebuyers or you have to make the software become completely non functional in some manner. Microsoft was a major enabler of the latter.
John Hammond, I for one understand the point you are making. In the current economic climate, Redfox probably can only sustain itself for about 3 years with 5 being the absolute maximum. Before another full license reset. It is just the reality of the situation.