If you don't honor contracts, then you should go out of business, because nobody will trust you (if they're wise, though there are always some people/companies who will be foolish).

If you make a contract that involves you receiving a one-time fee for something that will cost you far more than that fee, then you will eventually go out of business for being stupid.

Yes, there are hosting costs and maintenance costs. So the original deal (pay once for something that costs us ongoing money) was a stupid business decision. Doesn't change the fact that they undertook to make that contract. So now they should be held to it.

And the fact that someone else bought them does not invalidate the contract. When you acquire a business, you acquire their contractual obligations. As it should be, otherwise contracts cannot be trusted in the long run.

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hiAndrewQuinn 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

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-...

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anon-3988 3 days ago | parent [-]

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

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hiAndrewQuinn 3 days ago | parent [-]

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

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Zagorath 3 days ago | parent [-]

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...

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theshrike79 3 days ago | parent [-]

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 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Usually subjective opinion isn't binding (though I'm sure there are exceptions to this across jurisdictions)
	▲	Zagorath 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		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.

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simultsop 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If people/companies want to support a thing they think should exist, it is their sacrifice to keep it alive. I don't think as them being stupid.

For the concerns of contracts, you are not alone on the suffering side. Alltogether humanity elevated tolerance to this level, this is not a surprise.

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JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If you don't honor contracts, then you should go out of business

We're talking about Automattic. It's virtually their business model.

	▲	baby_souffle 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think they owned Pocket casts all the way back then...

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3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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