Official: You Can Now Get Early Access to the Next Version of Logos
Comments
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Just stay in business for a few more decades at least; whatever that means you need to do!
I could probably narrow down my tech "requirements" to a few: Overcast for podcast and Things for tasks, but I could get by if they folded though I'd miss Things the most.
More necessary, having used Macs since 2003 I can’t imagine using anything else. And since 2014, I have used Logos and can’t imagine using anything else (esp considering how much money [credit card payments] I have given y'all during that time). I don’t know what the future of my Christianity and my ministry looks like, but I hope that a Mac with Logos in the Dock will be a staple for the rest of my life. I doubt Apple and its 2.8 trillion will disappear, but I also hope that Logos will do whatever you have to do to thrive (for our sake and also for your employees).
preachertony.com — appletech.tips — facebook.com/tonywalker23 — twitter.com/tonywalker23 — youtube.com/tonywalker23
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Hi, Mark. I read books. I highlight books. I write a few notes. I want no new features.
My question: Every year I buy NEW books. I want them to work without a monthly subscription......How do I do this in the new subscription milieu? Will I have to subscribe?
Does this help:
Subscriptions aren’t required to maintain access to your existing content. They’re for those who want access to new and improved features. With Logos, your content investment is always safe, and you’ll always be able to access it for free. The subscription benefits listed above for features don’t apply to books in the same way, so we don’t foresee a time when we’ll stop selling perpetual licenses to books.
Thanks for your reply, Mark.
I wonder if there will come a time wherein I cannot buy book Y because I don't have the subscriptional features to read it. Therefore, I have to get a subscription. I am retired. A monthly payment for a subscription is a downer.
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The subscription that will launch later in the year will replace Faithlife Connect and Preaching Suite. The tier we're launching today, Logos Pro, includes exclusive new features, but there are a few tools and datasets in Connect and Preaching Suite that aren’t in Logos Pro but will be in another tier of the subscription. Most of the books in Logos Pro are different from those included in the existing subscriptions.
Mark,I have purchased a full year of Faithlife Connect. My subscription sunsets in December. I insist that I receive full value on the dollar I have entrusted to Logos Bible Study.
I am a long time early adopter and expect to cross this bridge to the future as I customarily do. Don't poison good faith by switching bait and running away with the value I have paid for in advance. In other words I expect to see the features and perks I've bought to continue through December 2024.
Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.
International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.
MacBook Pro MacOS Sequoia 15.1 1TB SSD
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Just stay in business for a few more decades at least; whatever that means you need to do!
Amen, brother! We've been in business for more than thirty years, and we have every intention of being here for the next thirty years and more.
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I wonder if there will come a time wherein I cannot buy book Y because I don't have the subscriptional features to read it.
Maybe in 2050, they'll invent 3D interactive blockchain books that require a subscription. But that shouldn't happen for any ordinary book. We deliver software updates every six weeks that will ensure compatibility with OS updates and any tweaks to our book format. We want our free software to be compatible with every book we sell.
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I am a long time early adopter and expect to cross this bridge to the future as I customarily do. Don't poison good faith by switching bait and running away with the value I have paid for in advance. In other words I expect to see the features and perks I've bought to continue through December 2024.
Understood. We're very conscious of customers like you, and we want to do the right thing for you.
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I wonder if there will come a time wherein I cannot buy book Y because I don't have the subscriptional features to read it.
Maybe in 2050, they'll invent 3D interactive blockchain books that require a subscription. But that shouldn't happen for any ordinary book. We deliver software updates every six weeks that will ensure compatibility with OS updates and any tweaks to our book format. We want our free software to be compatible with every book we sell.
Appreciate your reply, Mark.
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Not being negative, just tea leaf reading, we'd be smart to purchase any needed features before L11, presuming a subscription policy that becomes the feature-vehicle, and don't need a subscription..
Which kind of seals the future (sale) deal on a good-size L10 package. I assume.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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We're very conscious of customers like you, and we want to do the right thing for you.
Hi Mark,
I appreciate that assurance. Like several other users on this thread, I am a long-time Logos user (from the days of Libronix) and an early adopter of subscriptions. My first subscription was to the "Logos Now" when it came out. Then, because I already had a large library, I moved to "Faithlife Connect Essentials - No library (formerly Logos Now) - Annual" as soon as it was available. I now have an even larger library, so after subscribing to "Logos Pro (early access)" today, only 106 books were downloaded to my library out of the ~400 books included in the Logos Pro (early access) subscription.
I am much more interested in the features of Logos Pro than I am the books it includes (I purchase what I need when I need it, or what's useful when it goes on sale), so I am interested in a features subscription (at a lower price) that does not include books, or at least has dynamic pricing considerations. I am also interested in a discounted annual subscription.
I think you said earlier in this thread that Faithlife Connect subscribers will be contacted with Logos Pro subscription options. I look forward to learning more about those options. In the mean time I will continue to use (and beta test) the early access features of Logos Pro.
Thank you for continuing to advance the usefulness of Logos Bible Software, and partnering with users in its development.
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I think going SaaS was inevitable and the new AI features are very cool. I was an early adopter of Logos Now, and so I don't think things will change much for me. But when Logos Now first came out, subscribers could get a pretty steep discount on the full feature set. I didn't ever do it, and that discount did not continue with Logos 10, so buying a perpetual license to the full Logos 10 feature set would cost me about $600. When you send out the email to existing subscribers, I hope that you can consider including a coupon code to buy the full feature set at a discount so that we can keep the Logos 10 features as a baseline in the future. It would make me feel better to know that I was not worse off for jumping on the subscription when it first came out, especially since it was pitched at the time as a way of helping keep Logos strong for years to come.
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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Mark, I subscribed! I notice the About Box still says "Verbum Early Access". Should it say Logos Pro? Does it need a restart?
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As long as the ability to purchase features is still available, I guess we’ll be fine. I understand the AI subscription, but other features don’t need AI or cloud to work.
I have “connect no library” so how is that going to work? I don’t need to pay for a subscription that includes books I already own.
DAL
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I hope that you can consider including a coupon code to buy the full feature set at a discount so that we can keep the Logos 10 features as a baseline in the future
We've recently been discussing something similar to this. It's good to hear that – for some people at least – both a subscription and a discounted purchase would be valuable.
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Mark, I subscribed! I notice the About Box still says "Verbum Early Access". Should it say Logos Pro? Does it need a restart?
In beta, we had "Logos Early Access", because we hadn't settled on the final name of "Logos Pro". We later changed the About screen to "Logos Pro (early access)", but that change didn't quite make it into v32. You'll see the updated language in v33.
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Just wanted to get some direct clarity on this announcement.....
So, is the subscription model the only way to access new features going forward? New features will no longer be released as part of new packages and or upgrades?Also, not sure that the only way to release new features without waiting two years is only possible via subsciption.... That sounds like a business model decision, not a definitive fact that new features could not be released whether as app updates or purchasable add-ons....
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 15 & Android 14
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As long as the ability to purchase features is still available, I guess we’ll be fine. I understand the AI subscription, but other features don’t need AI or cloud to work.
So, is the subscription model the only way to access new features going forward? New features will no longer be released as part of new packages and or upgrades?
The last part of my post says:
Does this mean Logos will be subscription-only? Will I be able to buy Logos in the future?
Logos subscriptions aren’t new. More than ten thousand people have been subscribing to Logos for nearly a decade. But we’re now embracing subscription for our software because doing so has five distinct advantages.
- New users can have much lower upfront costs and try Logos with much less commitment.
- It allows us to continuously release new features and improvements as soon as they are built, rather than holding them back for a major release every two years. That’s especially important at a time of rapid technological change.
- It allows us to include features like AI, which we can’t offer permanent licenses to because of the significant ongoing costs.
- It’s a sustainable way of ensuring we can keep delivering improvements for decades to come.
- Releasing early and often significantly shortens the feedback loop, enabling us to continually tweak our improvements to ensure they’re really solving the most important things for all our customers.
With books, it’s different. The content of books isn’t continually improved—once they’re published, they’re done. And while we bear small ongoing costs to allow you to download and interact with your books, those costs are orders of magnitude lower than that of AI and similar services. Therefore, you will still be able to buy permanent access to Logos libraries and any other books from our catalog. In the future, we may add rental options for those who want it, but we don’t foresee a time when we’ll stop selling perpetual licenses to books.
We’re still thinking through what that means for purchasable feature sets, and we’d value your feedback on whether the option to purchase would be important to you, knowing that you’d miss out on all the AI and cloud-backed features along with regular updates.
Does that answer your questions?
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I have “connect no library” so how is that going to work? I don’t need to pay for a subscription that includes books I already own.
We won't have dynamic pricing on the subscription, but we will be offering generous discounts to people with existing books and features. We know that many of the included books are widely owned by people with existing base packages, and we've priced this accordingly.
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I have “connect no library” so how is that going to work? I don’t need to pay for a subscription that includes books I already own.
We won't have dynamic pricing on the subscription, but we will be offering generous discounts to people with existing books and features. We know that many of the included books are widely owned by people with existing base packages, and we've priced this accordingly.
I'm sorry, Mark, I don't get the logic. Could you please elaborate? What is it that you cannot accomplish without including books in the package? Well, we know that the more books you add, the more the pricing. You can bring the price down by eliminating all the books in the package.
I don't need to be paying a monthly rental for resources I already own. This is pure double-dipping into my pocket.
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God
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I am really disappointed to hear that Logos is moving its features to subscription-only. Now that I have an updated app across all of my devices, I don't see myself subscribing to Logos Pro.
I'll still buy some Logos books that I need (as long as journals, etc, can be direct-purchased. If I ever have to subscribe, I'll just go direct to Galaxie instead).
I subscribed to Logos Now early on, first monthly, then annually. I was there when Logos Now silently made the price increase, then I went through the catastrophe of the migration to Faithlife Connect. For a while, I stayed on Faithlife Connect (No Resources).
After my dad passed away and I needed to scale back my subscriptions at the time, I saved up enough money to direct-purchase a Logos Full Feature Set so I could own the features and drop Faithlife Connect. I'd then put aside money to save for a Logos Full Feature Set if I wanted the new features, otherwise if I didn't, at least I knew I wouldn't be out any extra money.
I'm not against Logos offering a subscription option like a "Logos Now" that gives users rolling releases to new features quicker, and subscriptions are a useful option for covering development costs.
However, completely eliminating a direct-purchase route to own the features in Logos is not a great move. I've "virtually chatted" with a lot of Bible software users in general over the past year, and the biggest thing I've heard is they don't want to go subscription-only for features. They like the option to direct purchase and own their software (so do I).
There are a few reasons why I hope Logos seriously reconsiders going subscription-only and make it an option, but not a replacement:
- Logos customers (including myself) have been "burned" here more than once. We were "burned" with silent Logos Now price increases and really "burned" with Connect (until Logos made it right). I'm really leery about subscriptions when it comes to Logos, given the track record.
- While my financial situation has changed to where I can afford pretty much any subscription I'd want at the moment, I've been through a time when I needed to make major scalebacks of subscriptions due to changes in my finances. If I were to pay out monthly for something, I'd rather put a Feature Set on a payment plan and know that once it's paid off, I own it, or I'd rather set aside money in savings to direct-purchase and own it. I'd like to be in the driver's seat when I buy new upgrades to software apps. If I want to be on the "cutting edge" and subscribe for "early access", I'd have that option, but if I wanted to wait and direct-purchase the software later on and own it and wait and own it after other users have "battle tested" it, I could.
- I've noticed my life is a LOT simpler with fewer subscriptions in it. I haven't eliminated all of my subscriptions, but I've cut out most of my software subscriptions and moved my subscriptions solely to a handful of value-added areas in my life. In doing so, I've been able to boost my contributions to charity, boost my savings, and "live simpler" without the stress of starting at a bunch of extra monthly bills and subscriptions.
That's my two cents, ten cents, or dollar's worth of advice. Thanks again for listening.
Dr. Nathan Parker
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Also, not sure that the only way to release new features without waiting two years is only possible via subsciption.... That sounds like a business model decision, not a definitive fact that new features could not be released whether as app updates or purchasable add-ons....
That's true. We could release some new features without a subscription at any pace we want (not including AI features, of course). But it's very hard to add a new feature and then deliver multiple improvements to it over several months without a subscription model. Without a subscription model, we'd need to:
- Wait until all the improvements are added before we sell the feature. (But if users aren't using it, we won't know which features are most beneficial. And waiting is what we're trying to avoid.)
- Or we could price in all the possible future improvements when we launch the feature and deliver the improvements to everyone who bought the feature. (But then what are users actually buying—a feature or a promise of a better feature? And what if there isn't any need for improvements? Or what if there need to be more improvements than we priced in?)
- Or we sell the feature for $10, and then the next release adds improvements and raises the price to $15. (But that punishes early adopters and makes our code incredibly complex. We've also got to make sure that any related features work with the $10, $15, and $20 versions, which makes testing much more expensive.)
It's that ability to add new features and then iterate and improve on them that subscription gains us. And we've had LOTS of feedback from users along the lines of, "I don't want any more features; I just want you to improve the ones I already have." Subscription will help us to do that.
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As long as the ability to purchase features is still available, I guess we’ll be fine. I understand the AI subscription, but other features don’t need AI or cloud to work.
So, is the subscription model the only way to access new features going forward? New features will no longer be released as part of new packages and or upgrades?
The last part of my post says:
Does this mean Logos will be subscription-only? Will I be able to buy Logos in the future?
Logos subscriptions aren’t new. More than ten thousand people have been subscribing to Logos for nearly a decade. But we’re now embracing subscription for our software because doing so has five distinct advantages.
- New users can have much lower upfront costs and try Logos with much less commitment.
- It allows us to continuously release new features and improvements as soon as they are built, rather than holding them back for a major release every two years. That’s especially important at a time of rapid technological change.
- It allows us to include features like AI, which we can’t offer permanent licenses to because of the significant ongoing costs.
- It’s a sustainable way of ensuring we can keep delivering improvements for decades to come.
- Releasing early and often significantly shortens the feedback loop, enabling us to continually tweak our improvements to ensure they’re really solving the most important things for all our customers.
With books, it’s different. The content of books isn’t continually improved—once they’re published, they’re done. And while we bear small ongoing costs to allow you to download and interact with your books, those costs are orders of magnitude lower than that of AI and similar services. Therefore, you will still be able to buy permanent access to Logos libraries and any other books from our catalog. In the future, we may add rental options for those who want it, but we don’t foresee a time when we’ll stop selling perpetual licenses to books.
We’re still thinking through what that means for purchasable feature sets, and we’d value your feedback on whether the option to purchase would be important to you, knowing that you’d miss out on all the AI and cloud-backed features along with regular updates.
Does that answer your questions?
Honestly, that last comment is so vague and open to the unknown that it is what stood out for my question..... Thinking through is not an actual answer, nor is just asking for feedback. Whether the option to continue purchasing upgrades as we always have been able to since the Libronix to L4 days is an essential for some. If that some is a minority that Logos is now going to look past, we need to know that now and it should have been investigated and input sought prior to a subscription based model plan being set in stone. Why? Some may be purchasing resources and upgrades that they otherwise may not if the future is subscription based features only.
Also.... Are new packages going to be released for new users and for upgrades or will the only option for resources outside of subscriptions be in single resource or set purchases, thus losing the ability to get the better bang for the buck that comes with an upgrade or new package purchase?
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 15 & Android 14
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Also, not sure that the only way to release new features without waiting two years is only possible via subsciption.... That sounds like a business model decision, not a definitive fact that new features could not be released whether as app updates or purchasable add-ons....
That's true. We could release some new features without a subscription at any pace we want (not including AI features, of course). But it's very hard to add a new feature and then deliver multiple improvements to it over several months without a subscription model. Without a subscription model, we'd need to:
- Wait until all the improvements are added before we sell the feature. (But if users aren't using it, we won't know which features are most beneficial. And waiting is what we're trying to avoid.)
- Or we could price in all the possible future improvements when we launch the feature and deliver the improvements to everyone who bought the feature. (But then what are users actually buying—a feature or a promise of a better feature? And what if there isn't any need for improvements? Or what if there need to be more improvements than we priced in?)
- Or we sell the feature for $10, and then the next release adds improvements and raises the price to $15. (But that punishes early adopters and makes our code incredibly complex. We've also got to make sure that any related features work with the $10, $15, and $20 versions, which makes testing much more expensive.)
It's that ability to add new features and then iterate and improve on them that subscription gains us. And we've had LOTS of feedback from users along the lines of, "I don't want any more features; I just want you to improve the ones I already have." Subscription will help us to do that.
Personally, though the Sermon file addin failure aside - I'd prefer to pay for each new feature if I wanted it and then own it for good without subscription, but again if that is the new business decision,,,, It is what it is...
In relation to your last sentence here..... If we already paid for a feature and it gets improvements - will the updated feature only be available to those who subscribe? If so, doesn't that punish early adopters as you mentioned???
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 15 & Android 14
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I guess I'd like to see more in-depth explanations of what is going to change for people who don't want to subscribe. Will what we have be updated to run on operating systems as they upgrade? Or will we eventually be forced into subscriptions if we want to continue using our resources?
Also, will there be a Verbum tailored version as a Logos counterpart? Or will we all be squeezed together?
WIN 11 i7 9750H, RTX 2060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD | iPad Air 3
Verbum Max0 -
I'm sorry, Mark, I don't get the logic. Could you please elaborate? What is it that you cannot accomplish without including books in the package? Well, we know that the more books you add, the more the pricing. You can bring the price down by eliminating all the books in the package.
I don't need to be paying a monthly rental for resources I already own. This is pure double-dipping into my pocket.
One of the advantages of subscription is that new users can have lower upfront costs and try Logos with much less commitment. But it's very hard to say to a new user – "Hey, you can try Logos for a month or two, but only if you spend $500 on a library, because the features are fairly useless without any books". So we wanted to include enough books in Logos Pro in order to make sure that someone testing it out – without a library – would get a good experience.
Now, none of that applies to you. You're not a new user. You already have a good-sized library, I presume.
So, we could offer a different version of this subscription, and remove the books, and charge you $5/month less. But, we're going to have four subscription tiers, in both Logos and Verbum, in several different languages. So that's a lot of new book-free subscriptions we need to create. And then we need to change the buying experience to give everyone the choice of buying the books-included version or the book-free version. That adds development time, and it makes the checkout experience slightly more complicated for everyone.
Or we could have one type of subscription, with the books included, and charge you $5/month less anyway. Existing users wouldn't benefit as much as new users, but they might appreciate getting a few extra books nonetheless.
That's what we chose to do. As an L10 Full Feature Set owner, you're getting a healthy discount on the full price. We know you already own most of the features, and we assume you probably own most of the books. The discount takes that into consideration. It's not intended to be double-dipping.
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However, completely eliminating a direct-purchase route to own the features in Logos is not a great move. I've "virtually chatted" with a lot of Bible software users in general over the past year, and the biggest thing I've heard is they don't want to go subscription-only for features. They like the option to direct purchase and own their software (so do I).
The end of my post includes the following:
Does this mean Logos will be subscription-only? Will I be able to buy Logos in the future?
Logos subscriptions aren’t new. More than ten thousand people have been subscribing to Logos for nearly a decade. But we’re now embracing subscription for our software because doing so has five distinct advantages.
- New users can have much lower upfront costs and try Logos with much less commitment.
- It allows us to continuously release new features and improvements as soon as they are built, rather than holding them back for a major release every two years. That’s especially important at a time of rapid technological change.
- It allows us to include features like AI, which we can’t offer permanent licenses to because of the significant ongoing costs.
- It’s a sustainable way of ensuring we can keep delivering improvements for decades to come.
- Releasing early and often significantly shortens the feedback loop, enabling us to continually tweak our improvements to ensure they’re really solving the most important things for all our customers.
With books, it’s different. The content of books isn’t continually improved—once they’re published, they’re done. And while we bear small ongoing costs to allow you to download and interact with your books, those costs are orders of magnitude lower than that of AI and similar services. Therefore, you will still be able to buy permanent access to Logos libraries and any other books from our catalog. In the future, we may add rental options for those who want it, but we don’t foresee a time when we’ll stop selling perpetual licenses to books.
We’re still thinking through what that means for purchasable feature sets, and we’d value your feedback on whether the option to purchase would be important to you, knowing that you’d miss out on all the AI and cloud-backed features along with regular updates.
The last paragraph is especially important, and I appreciate your feedback on that question.
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I would like to know if subscriptions similar to Logos Pro will have something like dynamic pricing? Because I was examining the books in the subscription, and many I already own, as I currently have almost 7,000 books.
(1) Has Faithlife considered this issue of books that the subscriber already owns in the subscription?
(2) Will there be a subscription only for the resources and tools without adding extra books?"
____________
"... And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." (Ne 8.10)
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Thinking through is not an actual answer, nor is just asking for feedback. Whether the option to continue purchasing upgrades as we always have been able to since the Libronix to L4 days is an essential for some. If that some is a minority that Logos is now going to look past, we need to know that now and it should have been investigated and input sought prior to a subscription based model plan being set in stone. Why? Some may be purchasing resources and upgrades that they otherwise may not if the future is subscription based features only.
I'm a bit confused by this. One of the main purposes of this announcement is to "investigate and seek input" prior to making any decisions that will impact whether you'll be able to buy a feature set in the future or only subscribe to one. We're trying to be open and transparent while also listening to feedback. The downside of that is that some decisions won't be made until we've heard that feedback. I understand the desire for clarity, but I think it's the right thing to listen to our customers before we make big decisions.
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Why is it hard to get a straight answer? So let me rephrase the question:
Will we be able to purchase features or are features going to be subscription only?Thank you!
DAL
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If we already paid for a feature and it gets improvements - will the updated feature only be available to those who subscribe? If so, doesn't that punish early adopters as you mentioned???
If we update an L8 feature (for example), those improvements are likely to be available only to people who subscribe (or who purchase an upgrade, if we offer that), especially if those improvements significantly enhance the feature. There will be exceptions to that, but that will be the general rule. I don't think that harms early adopters who will have had at least four years of great value out of the feature, and may well have many more.
I think it would punish early adopters if we sold a new feature, and then six or twelve weeks later offered a better version.
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Or will we eventually be forced into subscriptions if we want to continue using our resources?
From my original post:
Will I be forced to subscribe to Logos in the future? What about all the books I’ve already bought?
No one will be forced to subscribe to Logos to retain access to their existing content. You will always be able to access all the books you’ve purchased without further payment. Your books are your books. Subscriptions are for those who want access to the latest improvements, which aim to help you uncover deeper insights in less time.
So yes, we will continue to update our software, for free, to run on future operating systems, so that you can continue to enjoy the books you have bought.
Also, will there be a Verbum tailored version as a Logos counterpart? Or will we all be squeezed together?
The Verbum team is working on an equivalent Verbum subscription. Listen out for more details in the future!
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