Existing user licenses

I was asked to post this here. It's basically my suggestion on how existing license and/or license purchased before the IO Ninja business model changes should work after the business model changes:

Why not let old users keep their license at the price they purchased it at instead of revoking it and offering them credits and ask them to purchase a new one at the new price? I get where you are coming from but won't this alienate them? I feel like this way there is not much incentive to buy it right now.

I want to purchase a license, and if I knew I get to keep it even when the price increases, that would make me hurry to buy it at the current price, but knowing that the price will increase in the future and I don't get to keep my license but I have to purchase it again at a higher price (even if I get credits for my old purchase) that puts me off of purchasing a license right now.

Perhaps announce something like an year/until next year this month, where users can purchase licenses and get to keep them when the price increases, without having to re-buy them a gain. Although, you did mention that if someone has already purchased a license, it will always continue to work, so I am a bit confused. I am guessing it works but if you want the new features you need to re-purchase, but I feel like that's confusing and not ideal, as if there's a lifetime option, it needs to be lifetime, not lifetime with conditions I mean like, you purchase once and that's all for a lifetime and you get updates and new major versions and features. I mean probably that's plan and I am sure I am missing/not understanding/misunderstanding something, I am just giving my feedback/opinion/asking about the plan.

Hello, and welcome to IO Ninja forums! Good questions, that's why I asked you to post them here.

Why not let old users keep their license at the price they purchased it at instead of revoking it and offering them credits and ask them to purchase a new one at the new price? I get where you are coming from but won't this alienate them?

Well, we can't keep old licenses simply because we are moving away from this all-in-one lifetime license model in the new version. But I believe we are doing the best we can for the old users -- we essentially return the full amount spent on the old license and allow to reuse it the way a user deems appropriate -- either for an all-in-one subscription or for lifetime purchases of capabilities on a per-demand basis.

I feel like this way there is not much incentive to buy it right now.

Of course, you can wait for the new release, but by getting a license now you lose absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, it's the opposite. You get this user-name/product key which you can forever use with the current generation of IO Ninja (v3.15.1 and below) -- of course, we going to stop issuing licenses for old versions of IO Ninja as soon as we release the new one.

Additionally, maybe, we can offer a free subscription for a few months to old users? Would that work?

Perhaps announce something like an year/until next year this month, where users can purchase licenses and get to keep them when the price increases, without having to re-buy them a gain.

To avoid confusion -- licenses do not expire! All purchased licenses will work forever with the version they were purchased for! The release archive remains open, so if some old users don't want to switch to the new model, they don't have to upgrade and can instead keep using what they were using before (a.k.a. perpetual fallback to an old version).

I am a bit confused. I am guessing it works but if you want the new features you need to re-purchase, but I feel like that's confusing and not ideal, as if there's a lifetime option, it needs to be lifetime, not lifetime with conditions I mean like, you purchase once and that's all for a lifetime and you get updates and new major versions and features.

I fully understand that you as many others would prefer the all-in-one-for-lifetime model. But from the publisher's point of view, this model has quite a few problems, one of which is that we essentially sell a product once and then keep releasing new features and updates for free forever -- needless to say, the development of new features is not free.

One approach to solving this problem would be to make major updates paid. On the other hand, it's really difficult to ask users to pay for new versions -- attempting to make an upgrade paid results in many users simply disabling upgrades (or hating the product if that's not possible). I believe this is the main reason for more and more software publishers switching to the subscription model.

However, we DO want to keep the lifetime-purchase model in some form! And this form is cutting the "all-in-one" license into "capabilities" (i.e. some functional modules), and selling those on a per-demand basis. This way, we reach a compromise:

1. People can still buy lifetime access to the functional blocks they need;
2. When we release a new big feature we can do it in form of a new paid capability and thus fund its development;
3. Users/companies who don't want to bother with choosing/buying capabilities one-by-one, can instead get an all-in-one subscription.

This way, we keep upgrades and many capabilities free; we also can run promotional campaigns by allowing time-limited free access to certain paid capabilities. At the same time, subscriptions will be cheap and cancellable at any time, so I expect that yet another (not initally intended, but completely legal nevertheless) way of using IO Ninja will be getting a monthly subscription and immediately unsubscribing so that users enable everything for a month (exactly when they need it).

As for companies/corporations -- they can purchase subscriptions or capabilities in bulk and then "share" them between empolyees (i.e. an employee can "borrow" a subscription/capability after joining a corporate account).

Hope this makes our reasoning and the whole system a bit more clear.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain!
Now it all makes sense. I was a bit confused at first because I thought there is going to be a pay-once for a lifetime like the current one, but some stuff seemed to contradict that.

I understand often what the users want and what the company can afford to do or what's best for them is not the same. Thankfully, I think you have chosen an absolutely awesome middle ground.

I actually really love the idea of buying separate capabilities.

Regarding current licenses - if you get a license now and exchange it later for buying separate features - are you still able to use it for a specific old version that - if that's the case, I completely agree with you that you actually get more by purchasing a license now.

Glad to hear that!

And I agree with you regarding companies-vs-individuals -- what they can afford is not the same. I actually expect companies to mostly buy subscriptions for their employees, while indy-developers and hobbyists to cherry-pick capabilities. We will see.

Hi. I just upgraded IONinja software because the application prompted me that there was a new update that I should install. It then required me to create a login to use the product (which is new).

The original worked fine and had all the features I needed.

Please advise if any of the original features have been removed now that I "upgraded" the software due to license changes and what it will cost to retain those features.

I purchased the IO Ninja "•Serial Tap for IO Ninja - Standard" for $195 on 18 Jul 2019.

Please read the introduction to the new licensing model here: https://ioninja.com/capabilities-intro.html

In particular, the section "Have a License?" outlines how to reuse old licenses in IO Ninja 5.

Also, Serial Taps (and all other IO Ninja hardware taps) do not require any paid capabilities and should work just like before, even with fewer restrictions. With IO Ninja 3, to use a Serial Tap, one had to possess a license. Now, it's not required -- for example, you can freely share Serial Taps with your friends.