ManyCam

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ManyCam is a live video-streaming software application owned by Paltalk, formerly known as AVM Software. ManyCam.com describes the application as: Template:Quote box

Revoking of lifetime licenses

In the summer of 2022 Paltalk retroactively amended the purchase of it ManyCam software, blocking "Lifetime" subscribers from updating to the newest version, leaving them without access to their software.

Prior to ManyCam's acquisition by Paltalk in 2022, ManyCam offered lifetime licenses which were advertised as including all future versions and upgrades for a one-time payment a fact made evident by the statements on the ManyCam website, up until March 2022, that Any paid ManyCam Lifetime subscription allows you to upgrade the ManyCam software for free whenever a newer version of ManyCam is released and that ManyCam Lifetime subscription plans are a one-time payment, no renewal or other fees included.

After acquiring ManyCam in June 2022, Paltalk released an update for customers to upgrade to ManyCam 8.0.0, a version of the software with which the lifetime licenses did not work.

A screenshot of ManyCam 7 Lifetime Studio with default settings. The "Notify me about new ManyCam versions" setting is enabled by default.

As ManyCam 7 was configured by default to notify users of any new versions available for upgrades under the "lifetime" license, many users followed the usual upgrade path to ManyCam 8, and were unable to activate their "lifetime" license as usual. Presumably this was not properly communicated with many customers, as many expressed their surprise when their lifetime licenses stopped working like they used to.

On July 1st 2022, a "Guest Writer" who was posting under the guise of Visicom Media, the previous owner, made a blog post on the official ManyCam.com website:

Retroactive change to ManyCam FAQ Page

After the release of the ManyCam 8.0.0 update, around June 18, 2022, Paltalk modified the ManyCam Knowledge Base webpage to change the stated terms regarding the ManyCam Lifetime subscription plans (emphasis added):

ManyCam Lifetime subscription plans

Any paid 'ManyCam 7' Lifetime subscription allows you to upgrade the 'ManyCam 7' software for free whenever a newer version of 'ManyCam 7' is released, i.e. with 'ManyCam 7 Lifetime', you will get lifetime access to all future versions and updates of the 'ManyCam 7' application for free, which includes access to the paid 'ManyCam 7' features available in your subscription plan (Standard, Studio, Premium, Enterprise, Education). 'ManyCam 7 Lifetime' subscription plans are a one-time payment, no renewal or other fees included.

The new language simply replaced "ManyCam" with "ManyCam 7" and thus their statement effectively made no promises of any upgrades because ManyCam 8 had already been released, and no new versions of ManyCam 7 were to be worked on by Paltalk.

Customer Reaction

After Paltalk's acquisition of ManyCam, many customers posted their experiences and complaints on both personal web blogs and the official ManyCam Forums.

One user created a post on their personal web blog, describing the situation:

How one day I've learned that lifetime license doesn't mean lifetime

I wanted to talk about customer relations and how to have a successful startup. And what not to do.

Let’s start with a story. I’ve bought a Premium Lifetime license from ManyCam. ManyCam is a software that does several things, I needed it to be able to use a webcam in two applications at the same time. One year after I’ve bought the Lifetime license, they released a new version and my Lifetime license effectively stopped working.

“ManyCam is now under new ownership. […] Visicom Media stands by the Lifetime customers and will continue to support them by arranging with the new owner for a total of two years of free subscription." Standing by the lifetime customer by offering two years and dishonoring the lifetime license? I call that a “Weasel License” not a “Lifetime Premium License” as the lifetime of a weasel is two years (Can you believe that? I didn’t know either).

There is the saying that a happy customer doesn’t talk, but an unhappy customer spreads their bad experience to ten people. The person you’ve sold the lifetime license to will probably never update, because they hate you, there is no money in it for you anymore from that customer except you can hold them hostage. In this case even more sinister, offering a free subscription to get you on the subscription bandwagon - screw you twice. But I chose a one time lifetime license exactly because I don’t want a subscription. So trying to get me on a subscription doesn’t make any sense at all. In the end money for you but the downside of an unhappy customer running around, telling their story.

I do understand the constraints of a business, and sometimes you need money right now, so you want to get all your future income from a customer and offer a lifetime license. I also understand selling a business and the new owner has new priorities (the reason I tell all my CTO coachees they need everything in writing from their boss in their contract, a new boss will probably only honor what is written down, not spoken promises). I understand the reason for the lifetime license might be to increase sales numbers before you sell the business. But then you should honor that deal and let the customer use your software for a lifetime, and not make it stop working after a year. You can argue it’s a new release, and lifetime was only for the old software. If you keep lifetime bug fixes coming and all the features working for the old software, this might be fine but still feels dishonest (they didn’t answer my question of how long my version would be supported with bug fixes - especially as it crashes rather often1). And I’d argue from a software developer point of view it’s easier to let the customer use the newest software than updating and fixing older version for “Lifetime”, especially if you have a complete rewrite.

[…]

Coming back to customers. Do you invest in extracting short term money from customers? Or do you invest in long term relations. In the case of ManyCam they could have sold me add-ons that feel like they are worth it. By honoring the lifetime license the likelihood of me buying from them increases. It is the same as from the detour. In the beginning it’s about getting traction, then about getting money. And then the key to growth is retention. If you want to grow your customer base, the first thing is to prevent customers leaving. If you fill water in a bucket with a hole - something I’ve seen in to many startups on how they use marketing without product market fit - then after some time the bucket is empty when you stop pouring. So don’t make your customers run away.

As is evident from these posts, many customers were unhappy about being placed in the situation that Paltalk put them in, and felt that Paltalk was being dishonest because their actions constituted a classic bait-and-switch tactic. Other users agreed with this assessment, saying that they were "'disgusted'":

[USERNAME REDACTED] June 15, 2022, 4:56pm

So, after using the beta for a while now, suddenly it tells me that my lifetime sub isnt valid for manycam 8 or higher.

There is no longer any lifetime pricing listed on their site.

They’ve basically sold lifetime subscriptions and spontaneously stopped supporting them in releases going forward.

Bait & Switch trash move. I’m disgusted.

Other customers were thankful that people in the ManyCam online forums had posted their experiences to warn against upgrading.

At least one customer was evaluating ManyCam as a candidate for purchasing software licenses for their employees. However, they removed ManyCam from their software candidate list citing Paltalk's deceptive act of changing the "lifetime" license terms to only apply to ManyCam version 7.x.

Another customer who purchased the "lifetime" license noticed that the new version of "ManyCam Lite" had also been updated to put a feature gate on the high resolutions, which now required the new paid subscription.

Yet another customer was upset about changes to the app which Paltalk made to advertise their other self-titled app, "Paltalk".

As evident from these forum posts, many paying customers were not pleased and driven away from ManyCam because of Paltalk's actions. Understandably, those paying customers were very unhappy when their "lifetime" license no longer worked, as it had for all other versions prior to ManyCam version 8. Customers noticed that the company had changed the terms of their lifetime licenses after they had purchased such licenses under the promises of free future upgrades. One customer related their experiences with previous upgrades to compare and contrast with the new situation and highlight their perception of the company's dishonest behavior:

[USERNAME REDACTED] June 15, 2022, 7:55pm

MANYCAM 8 is a Rip Off-!!!

For all of us who have supported this company with a Premium Lifetime Subscription, of which I had purchased two, I feel very let down that my subscription of a ‘Premium Lifetime’ does not apply to version 8? Yet, for all the other versions up until v7 and its updates it applied. I cant work this one out. How can they charge for a Lifetime Subscription, which at the time included ALL FUTURE UPDATES, now not count with version 8.

Am I the only one who has fallen fowl of this Company? It seems they are Judge, Jury and Executioner when it comes to changing their policies, forgetting their loyal customers who paid good money for them to exist. If this is how they treat their loyal customers, just think what they must be like to work for! I pity their employees. If nothing else, ManyCam has FAILED to honour all customers who purchased a Premium Lifetime Subscription! Shame on you!!!

Another customer agreed with the "AmazingCTO"'s assessment and proposal that Paltalk should honor their previous customers' Lifetime licenses by grandfathering them in:

[USERNAME REDACTED] August 12, 2022, 9:35am

This is NOT the way you treat your customers. The correct way would be to grandfather in Lifetime subscribers and let the new subscription model be for new users. Or AT LEAST give us a minimum of 10 year free use.

I have bought Studio Lifetime and upgraded to Premium Lifetime. And do not even get a full year of use before I need to convert to a subscription to continue to get updates?

I do believe my lifetime is more than ONE YEAR!!

Indeed, as "AmazingCTO" and this user observed, most human beings would concur that a "lifetime" is a span of time much greater than one year. As such, these customers perceived Paltalk to be disingenuous by not honoring the "lifetime" license agreement.