What does a "lifetime" plan mean?
reddit, user rddrasc:
In general: "Lifetime" is the established marketing term for "one time payment" and doesn't mean "for (your) lifetime" but whatever is shorter: Your lifetime, the vendors lifetime or the products lifetime, so "lifetime" deals are kinda gambling.
But you asked yourself the wrong question: Question isn't "Will they go down?" but "When will they go down"* and that's pure speculation. The clever customer just does the math:
Actual risk (in years) is roughly (price of "lifetime" / price p.a.) -1
So for pCloud it was (for e.g. 2TB) (279 / 100) -1 == 1,8 years (actually 2 years (or 200 bucks), at the 1st day of the 3rd year a subscriber already paid more). So the only question is "Will pCloud and my account survive 2 years?" and that's rather easily decided.
From a customers POV "lifetime" deals are in general just a test, kinda natural selection. Those capable of math and risk assessment will profit a great deal, those incapable will stick to subscriptions and by that provide the necessary funds to keep the vendors long enough profitable (and by that alive) for the capables to profit. ;)
Another advantage: Money. IMO it's rather uncleve rto build up recurring cost. As a LT customer you still have that service available no matter what happens in your personal life (even if you become dirt poor and homeless). I consider that the superior model to the WEF's new world order of "you will own nothing and be happy" (the latter only an unproven claim, especially Canadian truckers and Chinese dissidents beg to differ greatly).
Icedrives CEO described the POV of serious vendors* some time ago:
It is no surprise that eventually, lifetime plans become unsustainable - especially with a product that offers cloud-based storage. Infact, it should make anyone slightly nervous when they are offered!
That being said, lifetime plans have served a huge purpose and enabled us to secure a large amount of funding without having to relinquish any control of the company to 3rd party investors or conglomerates - Something we feel is extremely important for a privacy focused business.
source: https://archive.is/Roe9t
Filens CEO:
The revenue generated from the lifetime plans sold was mainly reinvested in our new servers. Through these investments we reduce our ongoing costs, which in turn makes the lifetime plans more profitable in the long term.
Without the last Black Friday sale, the hardware project would not have reached its current scale. It allowed us to make the project more comprehensive and future-proof than initially planned, with more servers, racks, cells, and data centers.
source: archive.ph/23BpQ#black-friday
* sure, there are SCAMers as well, that's why "risk assessment" is necessary.
Tomasz Stachewicz