The justification is that they sold you a copy of the software with a lifetime license to use that copy. Not a lifetime license to download the installer from them.

It's not customer friendly, but it doesn't seem like it's going back on a promise, unless the license especially called for it.

That's a reason they're not legally obligated. It doesn't make me understand their actions in the sympathetic sense, and the sympathetic sense is how I interpreted "but I can also understand".

It doesn't explain the choice they made. "Legally they could" applies equally to removing the download and keeping the download.

The only reason I can think of, to make me understand in a much more derogatory sense, is they want to give a deliberately bad experience to customers that didn't give them money recently enough, trying to make them buy again to keep using the software.

Just like it would cost you roughly nothing to keep exactly the same copy in your own backups. So why didn't you if it was so effortless and free?

My job isn't based around copies of this software, so hypothetical me forgot.

Forgetting is a pretty good excuse I think.

The company didn't forget anything. They're refusing the download on purpose, presumably because they don't want the user to walk away happy without paying more.

What an incredible load of excuses and rationaizations.

The fact is they don't owe anyone any backups or any reasons.

I guess you will just have to go on feeling abused and robbed. Go ahead and try to sue them for theft and fraud if you think your argument actually holds water.

Is forgetting to back up an installer really that bad of an excuse?

I don't even know what you're calling a "rationalization".

And this isn't about what they legally owe, this is about them having very bad customer support.

The rationalization is that since in your opinion it wouldn't cost them very much to give you something, that they really owe it to you and if they don't give it to you, they are actually withholding something and you are being denied something you have a right to.

We all agree, even me, that it's not the most cutomer-first policy. Except, maybe it is actually the most customer-first, because their support & security argument is not bullshit. If there are things wrong with the old version that they know about, then it is entirely valid to decide not to actively help facilitate the proliferation of old bad versions that still have their name on it out in the world. Maybe they don't have the policy for such pure and virtuous reason, or maybe they do, but it doesn't matter because it's actually perfectly valid anyway.

The fact you don't like it is purely a you problem.

> The rationalization is that since in your opinion it wouldn't cost them very much to give you something, that they really owe it to you and if they don't give it to you, they are actually withholding something and you are being denied something you have a right to.

The reason they should do it is because it helps their customers get what they paid for.

They have a solution to the problem, and sharing the solution costs nothing, but they refuse to share it.

There doesn't need to be an obligation to make that refusal asshole behavior.

At no point am I rationalizing anything here. I'm not even a customer.

> Except, maybe it is actually the most customer-first, because their support & security argument is not bullshit. If there are things wrong with the old version that they know about, then it is entirely valid to decide not to actively help facilitate the proliferation of old bad versions that still have their name on it out in the world.

Moving toward a world where users can't use that version but have no replacement is not customer-first.

> The fact you don't like it is purely a you problem.

Why do so many people act like it's invalid to complain about legal company actions? Complaints about bad service give warning to other potential customers, and might get the company to change things for the better.

Companies can have bad support, and that risks them getting bad reviews.

Your criteria for "perpetual license" requires immortality. I don't see a justification for that, or a possibility.

I'm not using the word "forever" literally. Please try to give some benefit of the doubt.

For one, the company can stop hosting the installers when it goes out of business (but they should do their best to not leave customers in the cold). And if they don't have 30 year old files around, I won't complain too hard (but I will make fun of them if they lost the ability to look back at their main product historically).