Looks like BambooLabs revises their Terms of Service after the community objected so that they can discredit the people that brought it to the attention of the community.
YES I love our Lightburn Family A LOT more after seeing this type of crap from greedy companies.
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Apart from Linux and a few “idealistic” programs, all programs are made to make money, it also applies to a high degree to Lightburn. It is legitimate and part of our way of living in a free market economy.
However, the chain falls off when users do not have a free choice to choose the most suitable product for them. The list of programs that abuse their market position is long and that is the way they do it too.
The balance of making good money and having satisfied user is hard to find and keep, wrong decisions in business strategy can be fatal. Everyone (customers) has a limit where the price/service ratio of an item overturns and they are not willing anymore, to pay the price it costs.
Lightburn, for example, has experienced a fantastic development. There have been so many, new different laser types and so many professional features have been implemented and a new program branch for milling machines is on the way … but, it also has its price for us users. Linux Development is stopped and the price of a laser license is another as it has been a few years ago. The price of starting with LB and a G-Code Laser was in 2009 $ 40 and $ 80 for a DSP version. Today it is approx. $ 125 and $ 250 …
My OMT 60W 600x400 cost in 2021 $ 2,163 and the same machine (minimal upgrades) costs today $ 2497. I am very pleased with both products, but the price trend of one of the products is hefty.
But no sour faces here, Lightburn is the best program for laser work, you can connect all the machines you want and can use the program on 3 computer, and if you do not want to upgrade it is just like the laser machine, a one -time investment.
Whether it is the best way to make licensing policy, I will not judge, but that you can operate a business with many laser machines at the same price as a hobbyist with a single laser machine may be a bit “remarkable”.
Lightburn’s development is nothing but impressive, I think the number of registered user was over 200,000 in 2024 (?), so Lightburn does it right and has not reached many buyers’ limits of the mentioned price/benefit relationship yet and there are also no worthy competitors on the horizon, yet.
Let’s hope that Lightburn does not become even more expensive, do not become cloud -based and will not be sold to the highest bidder in the near future.
Way higher than that - for the record, as far as number of license keys.
We take our licensing scheme very seriously, because we too use software that is locked behind a subscription fee or otherwise. It’s a very conscious decision to not go to a subscription-based model because we don’t like those either.
That said - I cannot predict what will happen in the future, but we’ll do our best to keep LightBurn affordable and available for as many people as possible.
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… I’ve read/heard from @lightburn that there were 750,000 customers in 2024, but couldn’t find the source again, so that’s why it’s set to “only” 200,000 
I will always pay for something better if it is indeed better and I can benefit from it. Not just lipstick 
on a pig 
if given a choice .
The main point of my post was relating to “bricking”what you already paid for and forcing the consumer to either get on board with the new communist doctrine or piss off your investment and go away because they can. If I was happy with an exhausting version of Lightburn they do not brick my program without warning in the middle of a job and force me to upgrade or else. That is what I love 
. I hope they don’t sell to Adobe… that I never 
thought about until you mentioned it.
Adobe is the devil. I remember the old days of Photoshop when I had a physical copy of the program and if the new version was out with more features I would make the decision of :”are the new features worth my big pile of money 
for me to go buy the new version or is it just a gimmick to get my big pile of my hard earned money and my old program still does everything I want it to do”
Fast forward to today’s Photoshop. Today Adobe not only makes you bleed slowly every month they OWN your @$$, the cloud and your creations are theirs to use as they see fit to train their AI 
for which they make money. Like making a deal with the devil 
they will eventually own you if you let them.
I never had a problem with things costing more I just have a problem when somebody puts a gun to my head and says that it’s their way or the highway and I don’t get to make a decision…they will make the decisions for me and I have to have a smile on my face.
If the product/service was FREE when I initially got it then it is their right …however if their terms of service change AFTER they take my big pile of money for their puny product/service so they “F” me and they keep my money THATS when I AM PISSED 
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Check out https://www.photopea.com/
Essentially photoshop like I remember it.
I don’t have a problem with Adobe, but I never upgraded either. I bought Adobe CS3 Designer Edition 18 years ago 
That’s like 120 in software years. I use Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat Professional. I still design in CAD, and export to Illustrator to run my non Chinese laser.
I registered my CS3 when I purchased it. When I lost my install CD, Adobe send me a new serial number and a link to download my version again. To me, that was good customer service. I will keep using it until I die, or it dies
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If it’s not broken then don’t fix it. Very nice that they gave you access to what you had paid for in the past. Hopefully you will never need to upgrade anytime soon. When and if you do let’s talk again because I think you might be able to see my point then.
Cheers 
Sas