For me, @attah already ended the debate at post #4
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It seems people who are in support of the subscription model are looking at it as a means of âdonationâ to SFOS. If you want to pay Jolla, E30 - 50 up to 100 every year, why not just buy a SFOS license every year? Maybe you can donate that license for free to your friends and family, in effect evangelizing and growing the user-base of SFOS.
Alternatively, maybe just ask Jolla for a donate button. Both these options are better than forcing everyone to be on subscription. I personally feel like a subscription model would be horrible for Jolla. They donât have enough users to make subscription viable to pay the bills for new development. Also, the OS is not polished enough and the majority who voted against it would just get up and leave.
If you look at successful subscription models (autodesk, netflix, pandora, etc.), they have a large (typically growing) user base, a product that is polished, well tested, and continuously adding new features. Unfortunately SFOS is none of these. The native browser sucks, the main camera frequently needs to be restarted when using whatsapp, there are often issues with Android apps when switching between WiFi and data, VoLTE is non-existent (so we canât use it fully on 4G), and there are several other minor bugs large and small (papercuts) which you learn to work around.
Donât get me wrong, things are continuing to improve, and the positives of the OS exceed its issues. But in my opinion you would kill the user-base of the OS if you moved it to a subscription model in this state. Also, E50 a year, really doesnât help add much manpower when your talking about a small user base (a few thousand users). So, at this stage, IMHO it would be best to continue buying licenses and donating it to others for free to grow the user base and give some support to the developers. That should also satisfy your urge to donate to Jolla and SFOS. 
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Just because you want to pay for it every update, doesnât mean that everyone does. You can buy a new license every 2 updates and donate it to a friend.
Satellite TV doesnât have bugs. SFOS is still an unfinished product, and weâre essentially Beta testers. While weâre happy to pay for it once, a subscription is not welcome by the majority as the polls have shown and would lead to more hassle than help for Jolla.
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I must acknowledge your arguments, Swayer, and i agree with you.
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The purpose of my question was exploring if there could be a better, more sustainable business model for Sailfish, that can become an alternative to Apple and Google. Donations or charity are no serious business models. Then I could see what I am typing here. Now I canât.
Perhaps we should stop this topic?
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So it looks like there is. There are a lot of people that want to pay 50 to 100 Euro/Usd per year for a good supported and private business phone os.
Jolla doesnât have to change their whole model, just add a recurring business license for 99 a year for some extra features and apps.
The community benefits from the general os updates and Jolla can put more developers on the project. At least people have a choice to what level they are able to financially support the development and Jolla has a more sustainable business model. In a sense Canonical (Ubuntu) is doing the same.
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As an additional revenue stream Jolla could consider selling Jolla or Sailfish branded pitchforks and torches to their loyal community, for when a new update changes something about Sailfishâs design. 
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I keep hearing about a poll that I donât recall seeing, makes me wonder what the response percentage was.
Personally I would like to see Jolla and SFOS continue to exist and develop and I understand they need a revenue stream for that.
That being said the choice of phone models since the Xperia X is lower quality and doesnât meet my needs while I am very frustrated that my X is not running a new kernel and on an outdated version of Android I would not switch to an XA2 or a 10 for a million dollars.
Thus I would much rather be able to pay a nominal fixed fee on a yearly basis for improved support.
Also the whole discussion of updates vs. new phones needs to be seen with the available models and so far sadly the Xperia X is the best Sailfish X phone out there, if they were offering Sailfish X on a good replacement for the X (compact and good specs) I would buy a new license in a heartbeat but right now I just want my F5122 to improve.
/Edit - To underscore this, if my Xperia X were to fail right now I would not buy an XA2 or a 10 I would search for a second hand X or fix my phone since neither other models offer good replacement/upgrade value.
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Sailfish is too good to be neglected. That is the point. But switching every two years to another device is not a future proof system. We have to focus on more durable devices. I like my sturdy XA2plus (ladies have handbags) and also the smaller XA2, but they only have 32GB and they are nearly sold out. Apple made a good gesture by selling more âsimpleâ devices, that last as long as the expensive one, with years of updates. Sony should come with better, long lasting devices, that we can open up and with replacable batteries, etc. Like Jolla 1 !
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Hereâs one Jolla 1 that have itâs seventh birtday soon 
.
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Absolutely, JP1 is still a nice and sturdy phone
To be clear - I really want to support ongoing efforts, I own a JP1 the first one and have a second JP1 still new in the box that I bought when I damaged my screen but was too lazy to switch to.
If I had a good reason to give Jolla money right now I absolutely would but at this time Jolla is not giving me that reason, just about the only possible reason for me to buy another license right now would be if I got my hands on another Xperia X to start helping the effort to get Android 8+ support to the Xperia X (we should be able to do at least Android 9).
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great! For me the speakers were too bad, but the design, 
The current payment model is based on licence which for each phone - those types are in group so itâs not transferable - not sell able. Iâm would not mind support the SFOS more - but I feel itâs not open enough as company (holding too much control - not able to download old flash images etc) and the quality is not there - too fragmented & outdated store situation, latest upgrade is step back from daily driver phone 
Chicken & egg situation if situation is caused by lack of funds. For now the trust in company direction is not there (whatâs next hardware, when global licence etc) - perhaps this is a good way to start communicating.
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I would gladly support the development.
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The phone is sellable! The SFOS licence is linked to the device and both together can be sold without any problems! If you give your access data of the linked forum+store-account to the buyer, he or she can also change the real name in the account and print an invoice for the SFOS licence with the new name. I did buy such a used Sailfish phone 2 months ago and everything worked fine. I see no problemâŚ
If you are in doubt if a new SFOS version is always better as the previous one, then you can download and store the current version before the next one comes out. As a precaution I did so now, looking forward to the next update. But until now I had luck and every new version worked (felt) better than the older one.
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I would be willing to pay a monthly subscription to help provide regular income to the team. I think replacing the current, pay once, with a subscription woukd be easy e.g make the subscription optional to existing paid customers but mandatory for new customers (or existing customers changing their phone) who want exchange and android support.
Thus would make it less of a barrier to trying new phone hardware.
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Or a triple model:
for free as now, SFOS only
pay once for Android support without updates
premium subscription for Android support and updates.
Premium sounds better!
What purpose would the middle tier serve?
More people running more outdated software and being upset over bugs that have been fixed in later versions?
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People can try and test the Android support and the MS Exchange without permanent subscription. If they are satisfied and want updates, they can change to subscription model.
If Jolla doesnât make it a little bit more expensive they will not get more money.
What? No subscription is permanent.