When a Lifetime Subscription Can Save You Money - and When It's Risky (msn.com) 25
Apps offering lifetime subscriptions may pose risks despite potential cost savings, according to cybersecurity experts and analysts. While some lifetime plans can pay off quickly - like dating app Bumble's $300 premium subscription that breaks even in five months - others require years of use to justify hefty upfront costs. Meditation app Waking Up charges $1,500 for lifetime access, requiring over 11 years of use to recoup the investment.
Security researchers warn against lifetime subscriptions for services with high recurring costs like VPNs and cloud storage. Such providers may compromise user privacy or cut corners on infrastructure to offset losses, said Trevor Hilligoss, senior vice president at cybercrime research group SpyCloud Labs.
Security researchers warn against lifetime subscriptions for services with high recurring costs like VPNs and cloud storage. Such providers may compromise user privacy or cut corners on infrastructure to offset losses, said Trevor Hilligoss, senior vice president at cybercrime research group SpyCloud Labs.
some just look for ways to get out of that lifetim (Score:2)
some just look for ways to get out of that lifetime with no refund!
Lifetime subscription (Score:3)
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I hvae a free-for-life email address, that lasted about 9 months before they figured out it wasn't feasible. I think they assumed everyone would see ads, but many just used it as a forwarding service. Still the cost now is very low. The snag is that it has become a home to spammers so often my legitimate emails get blocked (or forwarded mails from there to my ISP are blocked).
I did get a lifetime sub in an MMO, and 16+ years later I'm still there. A very good deal. But I need a way out. It feels like a t
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Lifetime subs have always been "life of the company", not YOUR life.
Back in the day (Score:5, Insightful)
We used to just call it buying a license, and it was usually a lot cheaper. Sure, things intended for businesses could get a bit spendy; I vaguely recall Novell Netware costing a pretty penny. But software intended for individuals was usually fairly priced. Seems like ever since IAPs and recurring subscriptions became the new hotness, you've got all these app developers chasing after whales.
If you charge $1.5k for a lifetime license for a damn meditation app, I'm sorry but at that point you deserve to have it pirated.
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If you charge $1.5k for a lifetime license for a damn meditation app, I'm sorry but at that point you deserve to have it pirated.
Or, Sam Harris says if the price is high enough to make you uncomfortable, you can write to the support team to ask for a voucher for some period of free usage. He says they don't say no. Though it is a proper business, he doesn't want means to limit access.
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If you charge $1.5k for a lifetime license for a damn meditation app, I'm sorry but at that point you deserve to have it pirated.
It is worth reflecting on the fact that people have been practicing meditation without "apps" for thousands of years. The last thing I want near me when I'm meditating is a goddamned smartphone.
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If you pay a dime to a meditation or "wellbeing" app you're being overcharged.
"Deserve" (Score:2)
Such a strong word. I think I would deserve to have no sales, to take the loss, and to financially bottom out on the whole thing. But I don't know why I would deserve to have it stolen. In what part of life does that even remotely make sense? It's not a trick. They're telling you what they are selling. If you buy it at the exorbitant rate, it seems like you would "deserve" to have done poorly from a value perspective.
Obvious? (Score:1)
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As much as I hate monthly subscriptions they make a certain business sense: you can count on some fairly consistent monthly revenue when doing costing and paying your own bills. If you only sell lifetime licenses, well, that's a one-off spike in your current month... where's your recurring revenue coming from to pay for bills a couple of years down the track? There's a reason a lot of small development shops from the nineties and noughties don't exist any more.
Be careful with bumble's lifetime subscription (Score:2, Redundant)
No mention of the buyer's age... (Score:5, Funny)
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I suggest arranging all online accounts to be titled by alias name such that Google/Apple/etc never actually find out on your passing. Whichever lucky kid ends up inheriting and getting control of the alias name and app store accounts ends up with all those lifetime subscriptions.
It makes the most sense to title the Lifetime subs in a joint account with your youngest of kin.
Re: No mention of the buyer's age... (Score:2)
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I'm 73 years old. "Lifetime" subscriptions are probably not the best value.
be an optimist. I bought a "lifetime alignment" for a 20 year old SUV with 300k miles. I've used it about 6 times already. Just hit 364k
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For younger people too, since "lifetime" for most commercial products doesn't refer to YOUR lifetime, but to the "lifetime" of the product...which is often just a few years.
I don't know... (Score:2)
I thought most things you buy a subscription to usually come with other things that subscriptions usually come with, like the ability for them to terminate the subscription or arbitrarily change the terms, however infrequently that happens.
I'd rather buy something that doesn't need to have a subscription, such as something I can run myself. And if I do need it to be hosted, I'm fine with paying a regular fee. I pay for what I need, stop when I don't need it any more. And I don't feel bad about the expect
Free 501c hosting for life at Dreamhost (Score:3)
I have enjoyed some absolutely free internet hosting for life, courtesy of Dreamhost, for about 20 years already. The basic shared unlimited [dreamhost.com] plan is free for life if you personally manage 501c non-profit internet assets. Proof is required [dreamhost.com].
As a Drupal developer, it is no big deal to generate static websites using Tome [tome.fyi] which run great on Dreamhost shared hosting, along with unlimited email accounts. The infrastructure is debian as I recall, and within your own linux account on the server, you can create unlimited user accounts of your own, but don't try to consume bandwidth by proxying Netflix using SSH for example -- you'll get busted.
FWIW, this is not the only cloud service I use. But that should be obvious for folks here.
Having just read the terms I linked to, you're limited to hosting only the charity's assets, however on my, (possibly grandfathered), account, I have no such limitations.
Sometime it works out. (Score:2)
I bought a lifetime subscription to the Rouxbe cooking school website, good lord... I don't ever know how long ago... 15 years? Maybe more. And they have honoured it ever since. No tricks. No annoying upsell attempts. No rug pull. One of my best content purchases.
But with my first personal computing purchase being a VIC20 I bought with paper route money, I've seen the medium-long arc of tech history, and I know that a product you think you own for a lifetime can be invalidated by things beyond the control
Lifetime subscriptions are Ponzi schemes (Score:2)
It is however i
It's always risky (Score:2)
One of my fellow local HAMs has a lifetime membership to the NRA, which he got before they went totally batshit. Now he's associated with them forever.
"Lifetime subscription" until it isn't (Score:2)
I've bought products with a "lifetime subscription", but then they come out with a rename of the product and say the "lifetime subscription" only covers up to the last version of the older named product. No way to get fixes or security patches, and if you need to reinstall it the downloads have disappeared
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