Lifetime subscription

Unfortunately, we don't currently offer one. We've discussed it in the past, but haven't settled on how we'd provide it. Our current subscription policy allows users to get support for unlimited domains that they own. That's been a great policy for our users, but with a lifetime subscription, it would cause additional issues as that policy has been abused in the past (developers who install the extension on all of their clients sites, for instance).

We don't want to add additional restrictions, don't want to make our forum more difficult to use by requiring the domain name that the issue is for, etc.

Ultimately, a lifetime subscription may happen at some point, but it's just not something we can currently offer.

I hope that helps explain the reasoning. We do understand that some users don't like to re-subscribe every 6 months. The 30% discount is meant to ease that burden though.

Thanks,
Alex

Thanks for the feedback. It's definitely appreciated. We've had different subscription policies in the past, including a 1 year. Ultimately, we settled for the one-size fits all with the 30% discount for renewals. That discount makes 2 renewals cheaper than our older 1-year subscription (it was $100 where 2 renewals is ~$80).

I know JomSocial used to have a Lifetime subscription, but discontinued that policy, as have some other larger extension clubs. For some of the clubs with many smaller modules (vs 1 main product), it can make more sense to have a lifetime since changes aren't as frequent. With social networks constantly changing their interface, policies and features, JFBConnect is always under development to keep up.

Because of the work to always keep JFBConnect improving, for a lifetime subscription, even for just one site, would still be in the hundreds of dollars. Considering the price sensitivity of many users, we don't think that would be a widely chosen selection.

Of course we never force users to upgrade JFBConnect. You're free to continue using the version you have during your subscription for as long as you want. As social networks (or Joomla) change, some features may eventually break. We know of many users that are still using v6.0 (released more than 2 years ago) without issue and we're perfectly fine with that!

As always, your feedback is very appreciated!
Alex

Edit: Updated "still using v6.0" instead of v6.4

You offer one software product and event if social networks change frequently you have to work "once" to develop/update/fix your Joomla extension to satisfy ALL the users.

This is unfortunately not true. Our subscriptions come with extensive support, which take considerable time and is what comprises a good chunk of our subscription fee. Additionally, if all sites were equal, used the same extensions and template, and version of Joomla, then things would be much simpler and code we write would work without issue on every site. In the real world though, there are conflicts between social networks, extensions, Joomla, hosts and various other problems that we put huge amounts of effort toward fixing.

So you should ask yourself: is more convenient to lose a customer or offer him a lifetime subscription considering that you have to update/bug fix your product not specifically for that customer but for ALL you customers?

While we *could* offer a lifetime subscription with no support, it would most certainly cause issues when a bug is found and we're not available to help that user. That's not customer service we're willing to provide. In fact, we'd rather not have a customer instead of having a disappointed one.

Beyond that, I don't have a clue about JoomlaXTC's business model, extensions or levels of support. If they, or another extension club, were to offer all the features you need in a social network extension and the support level and price you want, I'd suggest using them. Until then, we will continue to evaluate our subscription policies. As noted, we may offer different options at some point, but for now, we're comfortable with our 6-month subscriptions with a 30% discount on renewals.

Thanks,
Alex