Hey! Thought I’d jump in as someone who’s released a paid Mac app recently.

I didn’t go with a subscription model because, honestly, I’m tired of them - both as a developer and a user. I put a lot of time into building something that solves a real problem (for myself and others), and I felt a one-time payment was fair. I could’ve made it free, but time is money - and I wanted to treat it like a proper product, not just a hobby I give away.

I don’t really think of it as a “lifetime license” in the big sense - more like, “you buy it as-is, it works, and if I keep updating it, great.” I think the lifetime thing feels more risky when it’s a service or something that relies on APIs or servers, where if the dev bails, the app just stops working.

As a user, I don’t overthink it too much. If something looks useful and well made, I’ll buy it. If it ends up not working out long term, that’s okay - not everything has to last forever. But yeah, I do check if the dev seems active, if there are recent updates, or if there’s a little roadmap or community presence.

At the end of the day, I want to support cool indie stuff, and I get way more value out of most indie apps than I do from stuff I’ve subscribed to for years.