Three items.

1. If every plugin will require a yearly payment for critical (security) updates there is a limit that many buyer/users will pay… meaning that they will use fewer plugins. It is one thing to have 15 plugins and pay $50 each for them one-time, but quite another for them to pay the same $750 EACH YEAR for a 48 month site life-cycle… $3000.

2. The other problem is the logistics. No one wants to cut 15 checks a year to vendors. And no one wants to give some vendor they don’t know their credit card for annual billing. What would help if there is a clearing house of some kind (think Envato) so that users can write ONE check a year to a known entity for all of their plugins (pro rated if necessary for first year) and the house will take their service charge and remit the balance to the plugin vendors.

3. The “pay me forever” system is going to work for the large, established, well-known vendors. I know the quality of the code that Woo or Gravity or Studio or Espresso sells. If I’m going to be locked in, I want to be locked into a company I believe will be around for a while. I probably won’t ‘waste my time’ on YOUR company’s plugin because I never heard of you and have no idea of what kind of code you write. If it means I have a choice of paying Gravity $400 over four years and paying you $400 over the same time… I’m probably going with the Gravity.

Everyone here is looking at this from the side of the vendor. You need to look at this from the side of the buyer as well. The ‘solution’ has to be a win-win for both sides… and each side needs to recognize the needs of the other side… that the vendors need a recurring income and that the buyers don’t want to feel like they are being ripped off for updates with features they don’t want or need, nor feel they are being held hostage for site-breaking updates.

There is a middle-ground somewhere and I’m sure that the market will find it.