Our upgrade policy is MORE GENEROUS than what you're proposing! - Doug-Ray

I can see both sides of this argument. Tinderbox is a great program, but it's a niche program that has a small but dedicated user base. I can see why Eastgate needs to charge a premium for yearly upgrades, because it's a difficult program to get into (which keeps the number of users down), but once you do, you're probably OK paying the annual fee to use all the latest features. On the other hand, if it were cheaper and if it did have a different (more standard?) upgrade policy, perhaps they would get more users, but I imagine that someone at Eastgate has done some analysis of this when they decided on the price. My own experience with Tinderbox is that I paid for it, but I never used it as much as I thought I would. I'm curious to see if the new features would make me use it more, but because I'm a casual user I can't see purchasing an upgrade right now. I keep thinking that if the renewal price was a bit lower (perhaps ~$50) I would probably upgrade, who knows for sure. Anyway, like the man says, if you don't want it, don't buy it. And if you really get into it, you probably won't mind buying it. It's the casual users who must sit on the fence.

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Tuesday, July 18 2006 @ 10:15 AM PDT

Our upgrade policy is MORE GENEROUS than what you're proposing! - sasha_efi_dotmac

Same here; I can see both sides. However, I'm on the user side of money :)

Right now, I'm afraid to even test out the new features before deciding if I want to shell out 90 USD for the next upgrade. What if I don't like it -- how do I return to my 'paid' version? What if no major upgrades come for another 12.5 months? Then I'll have to pay again.

My choice -- step out of the upgrade plan altogether. I'm stuck at 3.5.4; so be it. When I bought Tinderbox in October 2006, it was version 3.0.0. If I had followed the upgrade cycle, I'd have already paid 180 extra USD for two years of minor upgrades between full versions. Yeah, I know -- I don't have to pay. So I don't. But normally, I'd expect to have paid through to version 4.0.0. Only I haven't.

Also, seems like I have to pay another 39.95 USD for documentation in a separate book, to get the full value of my 198 USD original investment (or was it 145 back then?) and the upgrades. But wait; wouldn't the book be out of date by the time I upgrade the program? Or is the book not documentation, but a world view, and thus I don't really need it to understand the program? Maybe.

I like the program, and I have used it a bit here and there, but as a casual user, I'm not happy with the payment scheme. The developer would have gotten more cash out of me long-term with a more sensible way to upgrade. I like paying Mac developers, usually :)

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Tuesday, April 24 2007 @ 11:42 AM PDT