Anyone who knows DT knows how good the app is. Your loyalty and that of many other users will certainly please many.
In a globalized market, it’s difficult to decide what role long-standing users play as opposed to new ones. Although I do have an opinion here.
In any case, none of this is a guarantee of whether something will be sold in the future or not. However, a good product with many users will certainly sell better. So the risk of a sale increases with the success of DT. At least in theory.
and now they have to decide “do i extend or not” as well. added a new layer of decision to it.
I have extended now but have no plan of extending until v5 comes around. the small features in-between major versions have always been a weakness of DT.
I am quite sure that this policy will change now. in the past major new features have been released only with a major upgrade, now with the yearly-extension model I assume that new interesting features will be released with the regular updates over the year. This makes the licensing model attractive for the users, and I for sure will support this great team and its software.
You only need to upgrade your licence when the developers have made enough updates for you to justify the upgrade. That puts the onus on DevonTech to produce compelling updates. If they don’t, you still get to use DT indefinitely. That’s fair.
But the concept of the licence and the seats, and a more expensive Server version have all been there since 2019 and the introduction of DT3. Nothing has changed in that respect, has it?
The only thing that has been a little confusing has been when the year’s update starts – from date of purchase, or from date of release?
That’s been clarified: if you buy DT4 now, you’ll be able to received updates for one year after the release for the final version – the beta period doesn’t count for that. Everything else is exactly the same as it was for DT3, AFAICS.
Actually, it’s “Now I have to think about whether there will be any new features in the next 12 months that are worth paying $99 in advance to me.”
If the answer is no, then you don’t update until there’s an update you actually want – and then you get another 12 months updates after that.
I know that this feels like a small difference, but in practice it’s crucial. Updates aren’t automatic: you choose whether to update or not. Tinderbox has used this method for years, and it works well.
Yeah this is a common response. People are used to either one off purchases or subs, and are familiar with the pros and cons of each, and can’t quite wrap their heads around something that is a bit of both.
With a one off purchase, you pay a larger amount up front, and if the devs don’t release enough features to justify it, you’re stuck, as you’ve already paid. With a sub model, if they fail to release new features, you can cancel any time, but you can be locked in, as ending your sub loses access partly or wholly to the software.
With this model, when your license runs out, you can choose whether to extend or not. If the devs haven’t released enough new features to tempt you, then just don’t extend your license and save your money. You can keep using your software in the same way regardless.
Just come back in another 3 months and see if anything new’s changed your mind. If not, great, you’ve saved yourself a few quid. And if they’ve released something compelling enough to make you grab another license, cool, you can pick it up at that time.
The devs are strongly incentivised to develop new features in a way that is distinct from either a buy-once policy or a subscription policy. And if they fail to convince you, you lose nothing, you just keep using the software as usual.
It may be new to you, but this method has been used for highly respected programs like Tinderbox for many years.
Don’t get hung up on version numbers - developers have reasons for changing them which don’t always relate to how they’re paid for. E.g. if you’ve paid for a year’s updates with Tinderbox 9, you get Tinderbox 10 as part of the update – it’s not an additional cost.
I don’t know if this question has already been answered. DT3 will no longer be compatible with the current macos at some point in the future. Assuming only minor changes would be needed to make DT3 compatible, will that happen?
People complained about the old model as well. Even six years later, Sales gets flak about the prices, seats, etc. There is nothing that would satisfy everyone… and “free” wouldn’t satisfy everyone as we would be unhappy to close down and no longer create our products and sustain our families with it.
The breaking change is that starting with version 4, DEVONthink uses a different bundle ID than its versioned predecessors. So it’s just a minor change that you’d need to make in your scripts and they should stay compatible for quite a while from now on.
I only use indexed folders with the excellent search features and not much else, so I think the cost incentive for me is not to ‘extend’ my DT3 license until the last possible moment some years (hopefully) in the future.
This might be because of a change in MacOS that breaks DT3 in some fundamental way, or when the last version of the DT4.x series is about to be superseded by DT5.
FWIW, 50% of the original purchase price every year does seem a bit much.
I wonder about this, in that what if I’m not compelled to update for 2/3 years by the upgrades offered BUT in the meantime a macOS update ‘breaks’ the version (or however it will be described) I’m on? It has already been intimated upstream that development of old versions won’t be kept up.
This model always strikes me as likely to prompt feature bloat as developers struggle to justify asking for the extra €99 per annum. Though the DT devs have always shown themselves to be particularly good at only adding features that add to DT’s utility, their calculus has now changed just as much as it has for us customers.
It has already been intimated upstream that development of old versions won’t be kept up.
Well, logically and practically, we can’t continue developing a product forever that has been replaced. That would make no sense from a resource or financial standpoint.
It would probably help if the pricing structure was made public - how much for each version, how much to “extend” the version, and how much to “update.” For someone who buys DT4 pro now, will it still be $200? And in a year, is the “extension” $99? How long does the user get to decide, 1 week? 1 month? 3 months? And then what happens after that? If the user doesn’t buy the extension, but then wants to say 6 months down the line, will they have to pay full price ($200) again? It would be helpful if the actual prices and time tables were listed on the website, instead of telling people to mysteriously go “check your account for how much your update will cost.” I think that is adding a lot to the confusion.
I just bought DT3 pro last week. I knew DT4 was coming, but the DT3 trial version worked for what I wanted and I was willing to pay for that functionality. I was concerned that DT4 would switch to a subscription model, and I prefer software that doesn’t just stop if I don’t pay the subscription, so I paid for DT3 as a hedge against that. I am happy that I get DT4 “for free” and that it will keep working even after my year is up. But I’d have to see the actual pricing structure in order to decide if or when I might upgrade.
Thanks @BLUEFROG, who would have thought? Luckily your answers are usually more helpful than this one.
@eboehnisch Forgive my ignorance. I’m not particularly technically skilled, but why should I adopt the bundle ID from DT4 when I’m working with DT3? And what does this have to do with macos changes?
I absolutely take that point Jim and that makes perfect sense, but it also makes it clear that this is not an opt in/opt out upgrade model, it’s an opt in model. Otherwise the 2025 version of DT will likely will be unusable in 2027.
Omni Group provide road maps at the start of each year. Is that likely to be adopted by DT? It would certainly help with the question of whether to upgrade, and also provide insight into what direction DT is taking. Eg., will the 2026 upgrade be very AI focused? Or improve the audit friendly features?
