The UR upgrade policy (discussion?)

[Spliff]

Currently, "major" updates, i.e. upgrades, come every 4, 5 years, which is extremely sparse, compared with other applications, so, after 20 years of so, we are at version 6, while other applications, about 10 years old, are at version 15, 18...

More and more other applications have switched to a subscription model, which makes me enormously nervous, and I currently have not a single software subscription running: If I had all my applications which I use here and there, as subscriptions, even at just $5 a month, I would spend several HUNDRED $$ a month just for using my pc.

So-called "web services" are almost all by subscription, and more and more users switch to web services, especially (and over there, almost systematically) in the Apple = Mac / iOs environment, but we're on W10 here; on the other hand, W10 notebooks (then rather expensive) don't weight anymore than 1 kg, or then, the UR license allows for installation, for the same user / "seat", on a (cheaper) notebook, and on your desktop (I personally had been using notebooks from the 80s on; now my desktop is sufficient for me).

I would never ever consider developers who demand regular payments (i.e. subscriptions) for applications which I only use here and then, perhaps 2 or 3 times a year: I buy them upfront, and then also "can live" with them becoming an "ancient" version, over time, IF I use them less and less over the years; if I continue to use them, sparingly, I "update" perhaps every 3 or 4 years or so, e.g. from version 4 to version 6.

Similar for MS applications: Every some years or so, it's convenient to "upgrade", and so I had bought versions 2003, 2007, 2011 2013 and 2016; I just use Outlook and Excel, but for most use cases, I prefer PlanMaker to Excel anyway.

Now for UR and for my web browser (FF in my case): Both applications accompany me (now, I've switched to UR just some months ago) from the moment I switch on my pc, to the moment I switch it off, and ditto if ever I might to need a notebook again: There, too, these two applications would be, together with my file managers, and with "Voidtools Everything", those ones I'd install right after setting up W10, and use'em all day long.

This implies two things, and I hope I speak for almost any UR here:

- I want these applications to be as "smooth" as it gets: I want them to be almost, well: perfect!

- I'm willing to PAY for the development work behind that excellence!

While it seems that with my FF predilection, I'm just part of 4 p.c. of all internet users, most users don't use an application as UR either, since they simply don't have discovered the benefits of such a program; in my (currently) 5 UR databases combined, I maintain almost 200,000 "items" (being an ex-journalist, with a personal "archive"; "import" into UR was quite a task, took me a month or so, but was finally successful), so I know of its benefits indeed...

Let's be honest here: I personally would even accept a UR "subscription", but would not be happy about that - I tried other, similar applications and would not pay for them as long as UR is available -, but fact is, UR's upgrade policy is non-standard, just a minority of other applications "upgrading" as rarely as UR, and for most of them, the necessity of working on the code is not as obvious as it is for UR's perfection: If your application is very simple, once it's "running", there's no much nee to amend it further, whilst for a personal information management system, that "need" is felt daily, every hour, and at the end of the day, there is NO "web service" which, even from far, could "compete" with the basic strength of UR, it's just its "edges" which I, and hopefully many of users in this forum, would like to be "rounded", "rounded" further and further indeed, over the years.

Let's view it from another perspective: So-called "desktop" applications, which, as said/implied above, are perfectly apt to serve you on your (modern) notebook, too, are becoming, more and more, "exotic" while, on the other hand, it's obvious that they are an absolute necessity, not just for people with 200,000 "items", but for everyone who doesn't want to more or less "give away" all their data, to some "cloud service", AND who wants real functional and processing power, which most of the "cloud services" do not really provide - and just one example among a dozen I could bring along, the functional reductions (!) of the (subscription) "competitor" "TheBrain" over more than just a few years now.

Thus:

Also inviting a more general discussion, I invite you, dear Kyle, to, for a starter, come out with upgrades every two years from now on, and then, perhaps even every 18 or 12 months, both for

- "making pay" customers who use your fine application between 8 and 12 hours a day, AND

- to really "perfect" UR, i.e. eradicate the "edges", over the years, and let's see how many of current users will "follow", how many will just "upgrade" every 4, 5 years (which will don't harm, financially, since it would be just a continuation of current proceeds):

Many subscriptions of today are just a scam, since they are nothing more than software rent, more often than not even for "receding" software, which loses functionality you had paid fore previously, and then taken away.

But a fine tuning between regular (!) paid upgrades AND the optimization of some real core software - the one you use all day - will make the developer AND all "power" (i.e. serious, more or less "professional") users happy at the end of the day, the "casual user" having switched to some pretty, fluffy, tiny web service already, long ago, I assume?

(I personally had refrained, for years, from switching to UR, for not having been aware of its tree formatting capabilities which, for me, are absolutely necessary: Just 7 being a bit sparse indeed, but they work wonderfully now: Here again, thank you so much for them, Kyle!!!)