[hiAndrewQuinn]

Well, does anyone actually have a copy of the contract from 14 years ago? Usually there are clauses hedging against this kind of thing.

Example: I recently wrote the T&S for my Finnish dictionary app (still working on it), and I make it clear in advance that the license was a one time fee for perpetual use for that major version. [1]

I can do this because the app is almost entirely offline, and because for the parts that are, smart cloud infra decisions means my recurring infra costs are low. If I add in features which imply a bespoke server down the line, of course that would probably be a major version upgrade - and a change in the pricing model to boot. But I'd still keep the old v1 stuff up for the lifers.

[1]: https://taskusanakirja.com/terms-of-service/#91-pricing-and-...

[anon-3988]

IIRC they advertised themselves as "pay once, use forever" in their marketing. So why shouldn't they uphold that?

[hiAndrewQuinn]

An advertisement is not a contract, unfortunately. If we're going to talk legal, we need to talk in legalese.

[Zagorath]

They are (or were, at the time they had that slogan) an Australian company. I am an Australian citizen. Under Australian Consumer Law, an advertisement is absolutely legally binding.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/advertising-and-promotions...

[theshrike79]

So if an Australian ad tells something is "the best" or something similar and you can prove it isn't, you can get your money back?

[packetlost]

Usually subjective opinion isn't binding (though I'm sure there are exceptions to this across jurisdictions)

[Zagorath]

The link I shared makes it quite clear that "puffery" that nobody is reasonably expected to take literally does not count.

Being told that the app you paid for would be a one-time payment, and then having the service deliberately degraded to try and force you into a subscription model, is clearly not puffery.