I don't pay to rent it, I pay for a service, and to support future developments and the company. The lifetime license is a bad business model. I am sure many users would pay $5-10 a year for MBAM Pro instead of $25 for a lifetime license just to support a great product and company.
Darn right I would, although I think that's a wee bit low. Around 20 dollars a year would be a better amount in my opinion. It's dirt cheap and it would bring much more cash flow in for them to put towards development and nice things like food, shelter and so on
The downside is that people have gotten so used to MBAM Lifetime License that if they change it things may go wrong but to be honest i agree with all of you, MBAM should change to yearly licenses.
You know, it's such a highly regarded program that I'm not so sure it would really hurt them any unless they were to go crazy and pull what some AV companies do with 60-80 dollar a year subscription fees.
People complain for anything so this would be no exception IMO but to be honest MBAM should go with yearly licenses, it would help them a LOT i'm pretty sure.
It depends how much you charge for the lifetime license. I don't mind paying ever $50 for a product as solid as MBAM. I would never however pay for anying on yearly basis just of the idea, that I own software and not rent it. Why not offer both? SBIE does it. For those that just want to try it out, then MBAM could offer $5 yearly license.
There you have it Swex, i'm telling you that people will never get over MBAM if they switch to yearly licenses.
Isn't the difference that SBIE (Tzuk) is a one man company? (afaik) While Malwarebytes corporation has around 50 employees? In teams doing research, development, support etc etc... And if MBAM would offer a yearly license at some point then I would say that $10+ would be a minimum.
I'm sure they will if they realize that they have no choice if they want to continue to use MBAM, at least I hope the majority will understand anyway
I'm sure Tzuk probably has another job as well, which would make more sense that he could afford the lifetime model ((That, or he was rich to begin with.)). I'm very surprised MBAM has lasted the amount of time it has with the lifetime business model being a bigger company with more mouths to feed. Of course I also imagine it does massive business too, being as cheap as it is and not necessarily being "specialty software" like Sandboxie is and home owners to corporations can just "set it and forget it". For pricing, there would be no way I'd say 5 or even 10 dollars a year if they went to a yearly license. In my own opinion, that's really cheating them. The very least I would suggest would be 20 dollars, with the maximum capping out at, oh, say 40?
I think any sensible person realizes these people have overhead costs, need to eat and take care of themselves.
Agreed. On the other hand I've never paid more than 10-12 dollars a year for my solution(see signature) which I deem enough to support them and to pay for their salaries. We mustn't forget that this is the Internet, a market potential for millions of users. A well known Russian antivirus company, last year had an income of 600 million dollars, I personally don't think they are worth that much, and their security solution is well over 10 dollars a year.
You do all the time, if you want to get technical about it. You don't own your OS or any software whether free or paid that resides on it. You pay for keys, not software. Even if you keep, let's say, Windows XP or 7 for the next 10 more years. You'll do so never owning it, but simply being rented the key. Same as MBAM, that lifetime license is nothing more than leasing out the software to you for as long as the product exists. Welcome to the digital age. I don't agree with the practice but, as they say, "Them's the breaks.".
Sure but whatever way you put it, once I pay for my windows 7 I don't have to pay for it ever again. And I am just not going to stack up on my yearly bills AV/ AM/ VPN/ Netflix/ Amazon prime, Cloud storage, etc. List is getting ridiculous with everyone wanting to have yearly subscription to my credit card.
I believe one time fee just results in abandware. Yearly fees are the way to go. And much more transparent.
Until 6 months ago I used free antivirus programs. With prices being low on some of the well regarded programs I have been using paid programs. I don't have a personal preference either way as long the program works well.
Then how come some completely free products can do well. For example Comodo, they are not even one time fee but they are complete free. I don't see them as Abandonware.... Same goes for AVG, Avira and others that have been free for year. There is a way to make money, those that are completely free can do so, those with one time fee can do so as well and those that have yearly subscriptions can do so as well. MBAM could very easily make 3 levels for its software: 1) Basic - on demand completely free 2) Comprehensive or whatever - one time fee with 80% of its features 3) Extra features - yearly subscription, lets say $2-5 per year or so.
The only reason those are not abandonware is because all of them make money and stay in business by yearly subscriptions of their more feature packed suites. AVG AV AVG IS, Avira premium Avira IS, Comodo IS Complete Comodo IS Pro. And things like Privatefirewall survives because the company makes money by making security apps for businesses and enterprises. So they make home app free.
That's exactly how MBAM should get into business. Release more features with subscription only, etc.. Offer different levels of the same product. I mean I 100% agree with you guys, they other party has to make money. But on the other hand there are several ways to make it as well. Few of them provided by the example above.
Exactly. Also, these other free products like AVG have paid versions as well that do well enough that the free products can be supported. How exactly would MBAM make more features without straying from their core purpose and/or becoming just another bloated "all-in-one"? One-time fees make economical sense for users, but they're terrible for long-term business unless you can sell a lot of licenses or a lot of multi-system licenses. Even then, those are all customers that will, likely, never have to buy from you again...unless you're a moron like me who lost their original key and in addition purchased said key through an email address and service you long ago abandoned
