> There's also the whole question of one-time purchases vs. subscriptions. Subscriptions seem like the optimal model for this, so I'm not sure how to accommodate people who just don't like them.

My company is just large enough to require Docker Desktop licensing, and a per-seat continuous drip is too much for us. So, if you're looking to differentiate, having a buy-out option that gives permanent access to at least a range of versions would be big.

The way I've seen this choice done that makes it easy (for me as a director of software dev) to buy into is a hybrid. You can pay $x/mo or $10x/yr. If you pay for the year, you don't have to do it as a subscription, but if you don't renew then you're stuck on the last version released during that year.

FontAwesome, TablePlus, and some others I've paid for multiple seats on do this and it's great. Some we just paid for the one year, and others we were able to see enough ongoing value to keep paying on the subscriptions.

Oh, I'll certainly pay for it. I'm excited to do so; and if it's substantially better than Docker we'd consider moving Notion eng over to it.

I’m not on macOS so I’m not in your intended audience but I’ve paid for stuff on the JetBrains model where the subscription also gets you permanent access to some previous version.

> Maybe something like Docker Desktop: free for personal use, license required for companies? That seems like a risky bet as an indie dev.

That's how it works currently.

Yes, but I'm guessing kdragOn's legal budget is a whole lot smaller than Docker, Inc's, so the perceived risk of stealing the product would be a whole lot smaller.

Most businesses are honest, plus once you get to a certain size, it's all about CYA, so sure, some people might plunder it, but if you provide something a lot of people want, you could make plenty of money from the legitimates or people afraid of getting sued at some point.

Then once the business is viable, the legal budget will be bigger...