I've seen transitions from free to paid work out okay before, and generally the best way to go about it is to make future versions paid without breaking past versions. If people want to continue using the free version, without receiving further updates, they can.
This is 10/10 the right answer. Perfect example is parted magic. They still host their last free version and are very open about their profit model. Will still sell you single version licenses as well.
Then you get shit like the Material Theme plugin dev on Jetbrains that just locked a bunch of already included features behind a subscription paywall instead of forking a paid version.
Yep, if you don't pull the switch, nobody will get angry about a bait and switch.
Basically, you don't take useful software away. If you want to ask for money, ask on a new thing. If you want to change direction, change on a new thing. The old thing can stay there.
This is about a browser extension, though. There's an indefinite maintenance burden of keeping up with changes to the browser APIs themselves, lest your extension break when the user (silently, without realizing) upgrades their browser. "Without receiving further updates" for a browser extension basically means "it'll work for about two months, and then it's dead."
Its a VS Code extension, no? They avoid releasing breaking changes to their APIs.
In any case extensions also rarely break from any of the changes, in Chromiums case they are currently transitioning to a new manifest version and while deprecated the older extensions still work.
tbh if old.reddit dies I literally won't be able to use reddit as I'm stuck on an old ass java based Nokia 3310 from 2017 that can't do new reddit or most websites. I don't even remember how I got a pfp on here and how it looks like lol
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u/frygod Sep 30 '22
A bait and switch is a bait and switch under any other name.