Thoughts about membership one-time payment features?

I think this issue deserves a proper discussion on the forum. Previously, the policy of SiYuan is "All local features are free", which I interpret it as all local features are free including all future local features and have been going around telling people how great it is compared to Logseq, which reservse the right to put future local features behind paywall. However, the devs have changed it to "Most features are free, even for commercial use.", which means that future local features may be put behind paywall, similar to Logseq policy.

I don't like it and consider it as backtracking from previous statement, but I think it's okay because it's still new (to the English-speaking market) and that now they're forthcoming with their policy. I also do want them to make good money for such a great product and dedication. I'd just like things to be communicated more clearly from now on.

I have 2 questions specific to the issue above.

• Does the life-time subscription ($148) include all future pay features as well or only for these "S3/WebDAV" and "Asset content search" features?
• Does the "LiuYun: $64 (earlybird $48)" includes all future one-time pay features or only for these "S3/WebDAV" and "Asset content search" features?

Simply, are people expected to pay for future local features more than 1 time?

I think drawing some comparison to other apps would be helpful in this case. Take Obsidian for example, all local features including future ones are free. They make money solely on Sync ($96/year), Publish ($96/year), and requires Commercial License ($50/user/year—to be clear, this doesn't include Sync) which I think is more in-line with the current trend: make money mostly from business usage and from server features. Interesingly, Obsidian doesn't collect any data, so they don't even know if you're cheating by using it at your company. But it must be embarassing to cheat like that.

I hope the policy would be more clearly stated from now on. "Most features are free, even for commercial use." isn't clear enough for me. I'd like to see "Almost all features are free, even for commercial use. Some features are available for one-time fee." And then list out those features. I'd also suggest you to refer to Obsidian's policy for commercial use and reconsider the free for commercial use policy. I think it's better that you make money from commercial use instead.