I was checking upgrades over the weekend (part of my daily routine, in fact). I found myself having to search for a specific version of a favorite app. Why? Because the developer erected upgrade walls around free versions of the app. It’s just a “little reminder,” I guess, that users should support developers by paying for what they use.

Why Put Upgrade Walls Around Free Versions?

Basically, the developer steered its “manual update” capability into the purchase dialog for the same program’s for-a-fee version. I have the paid-for version on my production PC, in fact. But I don’t pay for the instances I run on my test PCs (which vastly outnumber my home desktop and traveling “work laptop” — by 5 to 1). It just ticks me off when the developer leads users down a road with no obvious access to downloading the free version through the application’s own built-in update facility. Am I wrong to feel that way?

I don’t think so. But in this case, I had to remember that the name of the free version includes “lite” in its name (cute). Then, I had to Google the name of the application with that string in its name to get to the right download page. Not too challenging, but at least mildly vexatious, IMO.

The Pecuniary Imperative

Sure, developers need income to justify their time and effort spent in creating and maintaining their offerings. But do users need to be reminded that they could pay for the for-a-fee version each time they update (or upgrade) its free counterpart? Depends on who you ask: some developers obviously feel that the answer to that question is “Hell, yeah!” As for me, I just find it somewhat annoying.

Sigh. That’s just the way things go in Windows-World sometimes. Thanks for letting me vent…