JRiver goes Subscription - sort of

[DuckToller]

44 minutes ago, church_mouse said:

I do think Audiophile Neuroscience has a valid point here. Would people be so happy to accept the argument "that is just how the industry works" if they were told that parts of their car would now be switched off by the manufacturer merely because you had not bought a new car from them within 5 years?

 

I have an old (unused) JRiver licence. I haven't updated it in quite a few years because there has simply been nothing in their updates for which I have any great need/use. They have taken a development line which does not fit my use case. 

 

Chris, correctly, points out that the aggregate cost seems small (unless, of course, someone purchased JRiver when they were financially sound and now finds themself in much harder times where every penny counts). However, that avoids the principle - IF JRiver is switching off access to a service for no reason other than the owner of the software licence subsequently has not bought anything else (an update) from them, how can that be morally right? If the principle is morally right, then the amount is irrelevant and charging $6 per month or per week would also fit the principle.

Hi David,
I tend to agree that it would be morally superior if JimH would inform clients about his future business plans before they buy into his product.
From a practical stand-point it looks quite different, imho.
A typical example for cars is the TomTom navigation system in my 2013 Mazda. After 4 years, it stopped updating and asked for a paid subscription. I now pay with my personal data to Google using Waze.