Selfhosted
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Ah, yes, the Autodesk style "not a subscription."
Which lasts JUST long enough to get people to buy in on the lower levels before they pull the fucking rug.
I read the whole thread just waiting to see something that would make me go, "Oh, see, there it is - that's how it's a trick. That's why it's a double-speak betrayal."
And...I didn't see it. It honestly looks like they are doing a thing to help develop the product in a way that as a user, I want; and they are not throwing current users under the bus or bait-and-switching what we were promised when we committed to the platform.
New users may not have it quite as good, but it still seems reasonable, and honestly - getting involved early is something that should be rewarded in special ways. We accept it in all sorts of other contexts (just with more up-front information, but not in materially different outcomes).
While it's a valid business decision, and while I can see that they're trying to open more storage options for lower tiers, it does feel like a bait-and-switch to me. I've had so many people pushing this to me and I've been interested, but unable to justify the money for a license, because I'm poor and have severe health problems in the USA, which means unfortunately my money is better spent elsewhere.
So when I'm finally getting close to feeling like I might maybe have a spare $90 I could put towards a Plus license, it just feels lame that if I don't come up with the money soon, I'll be left paying for updates each year.
On the current Buy Now page it reads "Buy Once, Use for Life. No subscription. No hidden fees."
This just feels like the first step of enshittification to me. While its great the low-level plans now have access to more storage devices, now it is a subscription if you want to keep security updates? So no subscription until they change their minds, essentially. I don't know, it definitely makes me feel less inclined to invest my money in it. I never saw myself needing more than 12 storage devices, and a lifetime of updates seemed like a great deal. This seems like an average deal. I don't even have close to 12 drives, so having "unlimited" storage devices seems... pointless to a casual user trying to set up a cheap NAS at home.
Good now I don’t have to plan a huge data migration for a good long while
Not gonna lie, I thought it already worked like this.
As long as the lifetime licenses continue to be a thing, it's great.
I'm fine with this. The old model was great and unsustainable. They are switching with the explicit goal of not taking VC money, which is a good thing in any context.
My biggest problem is security updates.
The "x years of upgrades" model is okay when it's for an app, where you can just keep using it with the old feature set and no harm is done.
But Unraid isn't an app, it's a whole operating system.
With this new licensing model, over time we will see many people sticking with old versions because they dont want to pay to renew - and then what happens when critical security vulnerabilities are found?
The question was already asked on the Unraid forum thread, and the answer from them on whether they would provide security updates for non-latest versions was basically "we don't know" - due to how much effort they would need to spend to individually fix all those old versions, and the team size it would require.
It's going to be a nightmare.
Any user who cares about good security practice is effectively going to be forced to pay to renew, because the alternative will be to leave yourself potentially vulnerable.
This is where I'm conflicted. Software development is hard and it's expensive. I completely understand that the old model was unsustainable.
HOWEVER - I've seen this a dozen times before. They make a move that's not great but it is understandable with the community. It's the next move that I worry about, when all of a sudden there is a subscription, or those old "lifetime" plans suddenly aren't lifetime. I remember PlayOn TV suddenly saying "Well now it's PlayOn Home. That's a new product, so you did get the lifetime of the old PlayOn TV! So we didn't really reneg on our deal!" Immediately in the garbage.
So, I'll be staying on for now.... with a big "we'll fuckin' see" in the next few years.
I'll keep using it until they no longer let me, I guess. Pretty sure OMV and TrueNAS have matured enough to fall to if unRAID decides to go full subscription, at least.