Buy once, use forever A directory of one-time purchase software

Serious question, because I'm not sure how I feel about it... should software with a server-side component that needs to keep working be counted as "buy once"? We've seen so many cases of companies going out of business or just deciding that it's no longer worth running these services, and leaving customers with no recourse.

An example from this list: LocalCan – https://buyoncesoftware.com/localcan – there's a server-side component (which is why ngrok its competitor is subscription based). If this component disappears the app ceases to function.

The flip side to this is that just because an app is entirely local doesn't mean it will work as the software around it gets updated (OSes etc), so if a company decides to stop supporting it, that too is useless in a way. It's not the same because running it on the machine you had when you bought it would still work, but that's not how we use computers in practice. Perhaps this is a different case because many of these "buy once" would charge for a major update like that anyway.

If it depends on a network service that isn't included in the purchase, then it's definitely not a thing you purchased

The OS upgrade example you give is different from a required server I think, because

- that's under your control: you can choose to keep an old system around, run emulation or WINE, depending on how important this is to you

- they don't have ongoing costs, like they do with a service, so there's no reason for them to stop providing the thing you thought you purchased