How exactly is this fair when you have paid money to upgrade the original product in my case Xara Pro? The previous 9 or so original versions I purchased were all upgrades from the previous. No other company takes away paid upgrades from their customers. So you're saying the last $100 + I paid for the upgrade was just throwing money away? Thanks for the heads up as I have Vegas and Sound Forge along with a few others under a different email that I won't bother upgrading any further.

@Carlton-Munday

Hi.

It is only recently that Magix changed their policy slightly. It used to be you only got the version you paid for minus any patches brought out after the paid update date. Now you get all patches for the version you payed for.

That way at least you get the version with the least amount of un-patched bugs. The idea of giving you the new release in the current period of your latest purchase is to encourage the user to renew their update service if they like the new version. Better and more fully functional than having to download a demo of a new version.

There are two ways of looking at things. Yes it sucks from a consumer viewpoint but is a more solid business model and the terms and conditions are in the end user licence agreement. You have to remember no-one owns any software. You own a licence to use the software. It is always best to check what that licence entails before purchase. This is why you have no right to reverse engineer or use parts of the program such as images or audio supplied within a program for other uses than those intended by the end user licence agreement.

The question of fairness is a good one.

I worry about my car more than my programs on my computer as I don't own the software that runs my car either.

I checked.

Ray.

From the business model of maximizing company profit, sure the chosen model works. From the business model of customer satisfaction I would say that it does not work. If the customer is unhappy they will never pay money for a service that takes away from their satisfaction. I have been a Xara customer for many years and now I can't even reinstall the software without loosing what I paid for. I paid for a year of updates regardless of how many. The entire point of paying for an upgrade service is to cover all the updates that occur during a set period of time. Company semantics aside. Just the magnitude of similar posts that I've read on the matter show that this is a flawed practice.

@Carlton-Munday

You do have my sympathy as a user and I'm sure there are more than a few others here that have felt and possibly still feel the same way. I myself wrote a similar question here on the forums the first time that happened to me as I had not read the EULA either before purchase. Things had changed since the days I purchased my software from a local shop.

The business model of a majority of companies has now changed over time. Software companies more so. Personally I am relieved that Magix has not yet decided to go to a subscription based only model and have openly said that they intend never to do so. I hope so as more and more companies turn to that way of supplying software. The customer base has also changed a great deal. Customer loyalty is mainly a minority support base among older users. Subscription models with added benefits are seemingly more attractive to a younger and growing customer base. Enough people are born in the world now to replenish old customers if they leave or simply don't bother to renew.

The subscription model gives a more steady income stream all be it slightly smaller each month which allows companies to plan their business models with more confidence.

There are lots of niggles associated with using software in general. Like realising opening a very old project will probably mean it doesn't work as older codecs and plugin effects become inactive or missing in newer versions or are replaced with newer versions that are not recognised by the newer software.

The other is realising the newer software does not run as well as the previous software due to the increased demand on one's own computer being older than it was and may even be no longer compatible.

So for one I do sympathise with you learning the nature of the agreement you signed up to but now you have to decide whether it is worth renewing to get some functionality back that perhaps is now missing or call it a day with that software and look somewhere else.

I wish you the best regardless of which choice of action you choose to take.

Ray.