Question about HexOS long-term sustainability / business model

[zavock]

Hi,

I’m one of the happy lifetime license holders for HexOS, and overall, I’m really excited about where the project is headed. But there’s one thing I’m worried about: long-term sustainability.

I get that selling lifetime licenses is great for upfront cash flow, but how do you plan to keep the project financially healthy in 5 or 10 years? Honestly, it reminds me a bit of what is happening with Plex, and that’s kind of worrying. For the same reason, I’ll never buy services like pCloud with “lifetime” storage.

I assume you have a strategy for this—maybe optional subscription services (like cloud backup, premium/enterprise support, etc.). Could you share a bit about it? Are you confident that these income streams will be enough? Even though I’ve already paid for my license, this actually affects my decision about whether to start my main server on HexOS. Long-term viability matters more to me than the initial cost, to be honest.

I’m not trying to be critical—just looking for some clarity to feel more confident about the future.

Thanks for any insights!

[Todd Miller]

People have been hearing about the monthly support option for many months so that seems to be a possible primary long term income.  After that I will be very surprised if anyone answers this post beyond statements like look at the quarterly docs to see the future plans.  Deep down I don't blame them considering the general level of company communication not tied to support.  They may not even have the team built out to answer those questions in detail because today, they don't really need to.  There may be a lower income ceiling than the team realizes but I think it is much more likely they would get bought out or merged with a new startup then to fold up.  What that means for lifetime subs is not worth stressing about today.  Pay services are a cop out because it takes away from the core product but we will see what the next group of buyers say.

[Mobius]

The team has previously mentioned that they may also provide a subscription service for additional features that have ongoing costs

[Todd Miller]

Can you please tell me where that mention is?  I must have missed that.

[zavock]

Thank you all for your replies!

I understand that you may already have plans in place, even if this isn’t the right time to discuss them publicly. However, the sentence “they may also provide a subscription service” is not very reassuring at the moment. I would have preferred to read “they will” or “they must,” as that would sound more realistic and proactive to me.

This thread was simply about whether the team is being realistic about this. I’m genuinely trying to be constructive here — I really want this project to succeed!