Official: You Can Now Get Early Access to the Next Version of Logos

Hey, I have subscribed and am liking it so far, but my biggest issue with subscriptions is paying for a long time and not owning it.  I seem to remember when signing up something saying that if I pay for two years, I no longer have to pay to keep the logos 11 features?  Is my memory playing tricks on me or is this reality?

I have two basic problems with the direction Logos is going here.

First, I've been in IT for 30+ years (rule11.tech, rule11.ac). I know a lot of the folks in this forum have little exposure to my world, but I can tell you there is no instance of a company going to a subscription model that does not eventually tie content as well as services to the subscription. It's a sheer matter of finances. The fine folks at Faithlife can swear to me, up, down, and sideways, that there will never be a day when I cannot access content I have purchased, or that all actual content will be purchasable. They can swear they will forever maintain a version of Logos to access the materials with all the features that exist today. 

It's not that think anyone is lying about this. Faithlife truly believes it will be possible to maintain a subscription service and purchased content "forever." But I don't know of a single instance in the history of IT where a company offering a subscription service has not put their efforts into that service, eventually failing to support software they sold in the past. Operating systems are updated. Security and other defects will be discovered (although Faithlife has never, ever, taken user security and privacy seriously). The funding for these things will dry up as the subscription model takes off and drives corporate revenue. 

You still "own" every Word document you have ever written. Accessing those documents, however, becomes harder and harder every year without subscribing to a service. Ownership is meaningless if the data can only be accessed via a subscription service.

In almost every instance, support for the older, non-subscription software will be moved to some "less expensive part of the world," and support will become sketchy. Eventually, the company decides taking the "black eye" of just not supporting expensive to support software that generates lower amounts of company income is worth it. 

I've never seen this not happen. It's not a matter of intentions. It's not a matter of wanting to do the right thing. It's always, in every case, a matter of leaning into financial realities. 

I wish I could be confident this will never happen, but I don't see how to avoid it once you start down the subscription path. I'm not the only one who thinks this, btw ... Christians in the tech world are a shy group. I've received emails from a few different people in the tech world who are serious students of the Scriptures who are already looking for an alternative to Logos. I know some who are exporting their Logos library into other formats to make certain they can keep access to their most important books. They all know electronic media provided on a subscription basis is often stealth edited. 

Second, I really object to dividing people between "professionals" and "others" in the way this is being done. Stop treating lay people as dumb. Stop treating them as "second class." I've left four churches in the Knoxville area because I was told: "theology belongs in a classroom, not in the pew," "God doesn't call smart people," and "you cannot build a big church if you expect the average person in the pew to be smart, and we want to save as many people as possible, so we want to build a big church." 

I've yet to find the commandment in the Scriptures to "go forth and build a big church by not teaching them theology because they might leave." This entire separation between the "dumb congregant" and the "smart pastor" encourages this sort of thinking. I earned/hold an MACM from STS, and a Ph.D. from SEBTS (apologetics and culture). I am a member of EPS. I attend EPS/ETS at least once every 2-3 years. I am a published author in the Christian (and technical) worlds. I write a substack on theology and culture.

I have no interest in being a pastor, but I think every single Christian should be theologically informed. 

And here is Faithlife saying: "Everyone should not understand the scriptures on the same level. Non-professionals just don't need to understand the Scriptures as well as professionals."

I find this entire move to subscription ill-founded and distasteful. I suppose we will not know if this is going to "work" or not is to wait ten years or so, and see how well the non-subscription part of the software is maintained ... but by then, if it doesn't work, it will be too late to go back. I will, probably, on a personal level, start exporting the most important books in my library to some other format so I have a "safe backup" of the books I have purchased through Faithlife. That might seem a little "extreme," but I just don't think I have another choice.

You can't point to the subscription model as an eventuality, not as long as the company has other ways to drive revenue and people are more devoted to it. I think it's more than likely people will decide they would rather take books and can't consistently stick with the subscription model themselves.

Note the naming used here ... it's the Legacy Fallback. That speaks volumes about what the future is.

You can't point to the subscription model as an eventuality, not as long as the company has other ways to drive revenue and people are more devoted to it. I think it's more than likely people will decide they would rather take books and can't consistently stick with the subscription model themselves. I wonder, hypothetically, if Logos decided this model didn't work out, how might they backpedal.

That has been my thoughts. A subscription model may get a lot of new people in the door... temporarily. But rarely do they create perpetual subscribers. People who normally might have paid $XXX+ every other year on the package upgrades can just choose to not subscribe for a year if they aren't using the features much. 

And for the new subscribers... there's no loyalty. Us veterans have already invested more money than we care to admit in Logos books, but a newbie paying $X a month might try it for a couple months and then look elsewhere. And let's face it... Logos is difficult to use. It's very overwhelming for the new user. I think new users will be more likely to try it, get frustrated with the learning curve, and then go elsewhere. Whereas if you just invested $xxx in this, you're far more likely to keep figuring out how to use it. 

That's the rub: they're clearly concerned with the cash flow, and not the experience of the individuals using it.

I would really like to believe this is the case, but it often isn't in the real world. It costs money to keep software updated. New operating systems need to be supported. Code gets old. I know the costs involved as I work in IT. I've lost books (and other media) I purchased in other formats because the reader software was simply no longer supported.

It's easy to say "we're going to do this." It's harder to actually do it.

Second, I really object to dividing people between "professionals" and "others" in the way this is being done. Stop treating lay people as dumb. Stop treating them as "second class." I've left four churches in the Knoxville area because I was told: "theology belongs in a classroom, not in the pew," "God doesn't call smart people," and "you cannot build a big church if you expect the average person in the pew to be smart, and we want to save as many people as possible, so we want to build a big church." 

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don't think that's the driving factor. Take my situation. I'm an elder/teacher in my local church. I prepare my own lessons. I write position papers. I meet with a lot of people about any number of theological/doctrinal questions and concerns.

My wife also serves in our local congregation. She teaches kids, disciples women, serves on Sunday mornings, speaks on panels, etc.

We both are group leaders.

She loves deep bible studies.

I love deep bible studies.

She doesn't use Logos.

I use it every day.

I've tried to get her to use it like I do, but she's completely content using her printed resources and other online study tools - those get her 95% of the way to her needs.

I've been a Logos user since Logos 4 and have gotten most feature upgrades along the way to Logos 10. When this sale/subscription was announced, the first thing I did was get the Logos 10 Full Feature upgrade, then subbed to the "Pro" tier for future feature updates. 

The first thing my wife did was say to me "yup, that makes sense for you."

Nobody is treating either of us as dumb. Neither of us are on staff, neither of us has a seminary education. Both of us have 25+ years in service to a local body, and both of us desperately desire to grow in our faith and knowledge.

That means something completely different to both of us as our contexts are very different.

Personally, I love the tiered approach. The "Max" tier has stuff I'd probably enjoy but would likely never really use outside of niche situations. The "Premium" tier isn't quite enough for what I want. I have friends who need the "Max" tier. I have friends who don't need anything more than the "Premium" tier, and I have friends who are perfectly content with the free version and a few purchased resources.

It's not about "thinking I'm dumb", it's "allowing me to get the stuff I want without paying for stuff I don't need."

The hardest part about that was convincing myself I didn't "need" Max...hehe

Just my $0.02

Each of these journals from the Galaxie Software collection I purchased over 20 years ago are unlocked on my account and were accessible in Logos 2 and Libronix, but not accessible in the current Logos. 

Seems to me that the right thing to do here would be for Logos to grant access to those who legitimately own earlier versions of books/resources. This would be consistent with the mantra that we "never lose access to resources that you own." It's a principle that already applies to, say, updates to other existing resources, such as Bible translations.

I completely agree with your comments about Bradley. I wanted to write something along these lines about his helpfulness although, probably wouldn’t have been as good as yours. So I’m happy to join in!

(I’m not commenting/endorsing on the snake in the grass part. I just wanted to recognize Bradley)

Good news: I was able to find one of those files on an old network share. It "scans" in and loads just fine

Interestingly, this collection is one that is still currently available: https://www.logos.com/product/4615/emmaus-journal

That's a set of fifteen resources (one per volume) that I think Galaxie might have originally produced, but that we brought in-house and updated. (The files are GS_EMJ_01.logos4, GS_EMJ_02.logos4, etc.)

The resource mentioned by the previous poster is GS_EMJ.LSF/LIX, which was also produced by Galaxie but perhaps never updated by them even to the Libronix format (let alone Logos 4). It looks like that one file might be equivalent to GS_EMJ_01 through the first half of GS_EMJ_08, but I'm not completely sure.

Thank you very much for your assistance regarding this.  When I originally tried scanning the location that had my .LSF files, it turned out that I didn't copy the .LIX files within that location at that time.  So with that said, on an older laptop running Libronix, I managed to find a directory containing all of my old Logos 2 files, including the .LIX files for the theological journals (I copied all of that content years ago over from CD-ROMs that I ended up throwing away, and fortunately I still had that content on an old laptop).  I was then then able to scan them into my Logos library afterward, and now I have access to all my journals.

Thank you again for your help.  Greatly appreciated.

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate Bradley and his posts. 

He's always very helpful, and even, as seen above, is willing to go beyond what might be expected. 

100% agree with you Donnie. 

Interesting - I have emails from this thread that do not show up on the actual  thread - is someone deleting posts?

It does look as though two of the posts were edited after the emails were sent, but one post is non-existent

Two likely explanations:

1. The poster deleted it themselves.

2. It was an egregious post that was reported and Faithlife deleted it.

Interesting - I have emails from this thread that do not show up on the actual  thread - is someone deleting posts?

It does look as though two of the posts were edited after the emails were sent, but one post is non-existent

Two likely explanations:

1. The poster deleted it themselves.

2. It was an egregious post that was reported and Faithlife deleted it.

Option 1 is likely with the post that is missing - Option 2 would be amazing if it happened as they did nothing with users being referred to as Satanic when it was reported.

But then again.... Question Logos, speak against decisions that impact your investment and/or have a "negative" view and you can be disparaged, disrespected and insulted without issue.... Not a peep from Logos or Forum "MVPS" towards those treating other users that way, but they'll jump on someone who dares speak against Logos....