As long as Sublime can charge for upgrades in the future, it's not too large a problem. The problem is all the App Store software that can't and the user expectations of free upgrades that are being set by Apple (not familiar with other app stores to know if they are following the same path).
Right, but my thesis is that the upgrade-train model of software revenue is faltering. I think Sparrow is evidence of this (what you say about Sublime could apply as easily to Sparrow.)
I think it is a large problem, and we are seeing the manifestations of it now.
Time will tell, but I'm sure not gonna work on one-time charge software, nor would I recommend it to anyone. I'll work on free open source stuff, financed by work on whatever recurring models I can figure out.
Having purchased sublime text 2 I would definitely encourage the author of it to do this. The main competition text mate is a great example itself of this model being unsustainable in terms of having someone continue to develop the product full time in the long term.
Opposite problem. TextMate made Alan Odgaard so much money that he didn't need to work on it anymore[1].
Who wants to maintain an old code base when they could spend ten weeks trekking in New Zealand[2] and then hunker down for the Great Rewrite That Fixes All The Problems?
(Not that I blame Odgaard; in fact, as an ST2 user this is my greatest fear about that product--selling thousands and thousands of copies at $60 is an extremely viable level of revenue for a one-man shop.)
I disagree, I think it it more that the future effort vs reward didn't stack up as well. Because so many developers had already purchased and it was well known, a free version 2 wouldn't represent the same kind of financial gain the initial spike did, despite all the extra effort.
A paid version 2 though produces a similar windfall again, rather than diminishing returns.
I'm with you, man, I'm cheap too. But that's the reality of todays software.