I like the term &quot;version ratcheting&quot;. It captures the essence of a particularly insidious disease that is currently plaguing our industry.<p>There are several other variations that are starting to become widespread as well. A lot of professional software, the kind of stuff that costs 4+ figures for a permanent licence, is seriously defective when first shipped and then receives updates, perhaps via some proprietary tool. What happens if you need to reinstall it but the updates are no longer available, or the update files are available but the tool no longer functions to install them as you could before?<p>A lot of professional software also requires some form of activation, and may provide a related tool to migrate a licence from one PC to another. Again, what happens if you have a properly purchased copy and want to use it according to your agreement but the developers have turned off the lights on the activation server?<p>I suspect laws are going to have to change before too long to keep up with the real relationships involved in modern software. Normal commercial agreements between a purchaser and a vendor don&#x27;t really cut it in 2016, because the third party -- the software developer -- has a much bigger role in the ongoing nature of how the software works. Turning a blind eye to defective software has worked reasonably well in practice as long as we had the gentleman&#x27;s agreement that developers would provide free updates to correct the serious flaws anyway, but increasingly that is no longer the case or the updates come with strings attached.<p>In an age of DRM, activation, automatic updates, dependence on remote systems, and the like, it might be necessary to start imposing statutory requirements on vendors <i>and</i> original developers responsible for software, to ensure that users can continue to enjoy what they were actually agreeing to pay for in the first place or receive suitable compensation. It might also be necessary to enforce minimum periods of support for permanent licences, and to limit the kinds of lock-in that can be applied with temporary licences or online components, in order to follow the same basic principles of consumer protection and fair competition as other fields.