In reply to Ben Fox.

Because if you've purchased the licence on lifetime updates (via Envato), having the licence change to yearly renewals is just low class.

You don't see that with WooCommerce, AffiliateWP, Gravity Forms, Restrict Content Pro, BackupBuddy, Ninja Forms, UpdraftPlus and the likes.

Rather, if you had purchased on lifetime, these companies honour their lifetime licences to you. Some Envato authors (not all), are trying to be low class by dishonoring the lifetime licenses which they sold their items on :)