Love the tautology
.
Would you mind explaining?
The reason we're considering a subscription is that in its current implementation, we're dependent on other services to be able to provide the BACCH technology to users. In its current implementation, uBACCH works with the 8c's streaming inputs, Spotify Connect and Roon. What if at some point Spotify Connect and/or Roon will be no longer available? Also, we don't know what other cool features we'd like to develop in the future, and we can't know for sure if we'll be able to support uBACCH in combination with that future functionality.
There are some things I am willing to pay subscription for, and some things that I won't. I have subscriptions for news, Idagio, and Google Play because I get a lot of value from them. Idagio has replaced having to buy music, and Google Play provides more functionality than I can name. I used to pay to have newspapers delivered, and I am happy to pay less than what I used to pay for newspapers to get the news digitally. I have no other subscriptions, and I actively avoid ANY service that requires subscriptions when there is a pay once for lifetime access alternative available. For this reason, I do not use Roon when JRiver costs less than 1/10 the price and offers more functionality for me. I do not use Microsoft Office 365 (I use Google Docs instead) and I don't have any smart devices at home which require a subscription (e.g. Arlo, Ring, etc). I would buy Office 365 as a once off if I could keep using it, but I am not going to pay a subscription for a service that I rarely use. More than that, I boycott companies that try to make a fast buck from subscriptions - e.g.
Mercedes-Benz asking for a subscription to unlock faster acceleration in electric cars (no more Mercs for me), or
BMW installing heated seats in their cars and asking for a subcription to unlock them - so no more BMW's for me either.
From a consumer's point of view, subscriptions suck, period. If you have too many of them and you forget that you have an auto-renewing subscription, that is a lot of money down the drain. I prefer to be in control of my spending. This is why I cancelled my Netflix subscription, because they auto-renew without sending you an email with opt out instructions.
If you need to update your app to take care of future needs, why not follow BACCH's existing model? One off payment, free upgrades and support for one year, and discounted license for future versions.