[MlMt] Subscriptions

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

On 11 Jun 2016, at 18:37, Marco Carmosino wrote:

> Apple just introduced subscription pricing for apps on the app store. 
> Maybe this opens up some new revenue possibilities for MailMate, in 
> terms of how users are willing to pay for great software? I'm not 
> saying MailMate should move to any kind of app store, but if Benny 
> could find a way to (directly) charge me $50 a year for MailMate I 
> would sign up immediately.

I've been considering something like this for quite some time and, 
technically, it's already possible with my current reseller 
(FastSpring). I'm glad to see that Apple moves in the same direction 
since this would make it less “controversial”.

> Would anyone else be interested in this?

I have *many* generous users, but in general I'm pretty sure most users 
would prefer that software (and anything else) is as cheap as possible. 
If/when I change the payment policy then I'll describe my motivations 
for doing so, but let me address some of the concerns that might arise 
as a result of this email:

* I would prefer to not introduce a subscription system which makes 
MailMate stop working if you don't pay. If anything, it should only 
affect access to future updates.
* MailMate 2.0 is, as promised, still free for all users and updates 
will be free at least a year after I bump the version number to 2.0.

> To be clear, I don't really *want* anything for the subscription, 
> beyond knowing that I'm supporting ongoing development of MailMate 
> instead of a one-and-done purchase. Maybe there could be some kind of 
> bling next to my license number in the "registration" menu, like a 
> unicode star or happy face or something.

I've considered an (optional) variation of the `X-Mailer` header. This 
would allow users to discretely advertise their support.

Let me emphasize that I haven't made any decisions yet!

-- 
Benny
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