| I will also add this excellent breakdown of why pricing SaaS is the way it is, by the OrbStack FAQ page and their section on their business model [0]: Look, we get it: subscriptions suck. We don't like them either. But we think that subscriptions are the best way to align our incentives with yours, and we want to be transparent about it. If we're not living up to your expectations, then you can cancel. We also plan to introduce online services to simplify developer workflows, which would not be sustainable to run without subscriptions. Lifetime licenses are unsustainable. OrbStack's components need continuous updates: compatibility with new macOS versions, Linux kernel, and other assorted pieces, as well as new features to stay competitive. Major version upgrades incentive us to withhold features for months when they would otherwise be released much faster; we'd rather deliver gradual improvements so you get continuous value. Also, major upgrades have a high risk of introducing breaking changes, bugs, and other issues due to a lack of gradual testing. 1-year updates + fallback perpetual: More or less a yearly subscription in disguise? Just cancel if you don’t want to keep paying. JetBrains does a hybrid of this + subscription — not entirely opposed to it, but it shares a lot of these issues (e.g. incentivizes slower feature development). Realistically, would anyone revert to a year-old version and stay on it forever? It's a hard problem. [0] https://docs.orbstack.dev/faq#free |