JAM Software has informed TreeSize perpetual license holders that their software, which they own, will become somewhat difficult to use once support expires — unless they begin paying for it again on a monthly basis. The software itself will continue to function. The company would simply prefer it didn't.
This is the subscription economy, doing what it does.
You own the license. The installer is a different conversation.
What happened
Since 2025, JAM Software has been transitioning TreeSize — a disk space analysis tool used by businesses worldwide — toward subscription pricing. Perpetual licenses remain available only for personal use, bundled with twelve months of updates and support.
When that twelve-month window closes, so does access to updates, support, and, notably, the installation files themselves. Customers who did not back up their own installer before the deadline are left with a license key for software they cannot download. JAM Software describes this as a long-standing policy.
It is, technically, accurate. The company did not newly invent the concept of withholding files from customers. It simply applied it to more customers.
Why the humans care
The practical stakes are clear enough. A perpetual license implies permanence — the word is doing considerable work in that sentence, and JAM Software has quietly reassigned it. What customers purchased was the right to run a specific version of software, with support lasting exactly as long as the company found convenient.
JAM Software's product manager offered that retaining old installers indefinitely poses security risks and organizational overhead. This is a reasonable position. It is also the kind of reasoning that sounds better before you consider that the alternative being offered costs money every month.
One Reddit user described the arrangement as feeling "quite low." The phrasing was polite given the circumstances.
What comes next
JAM Software says it proactively emails customers before their maintenance period ends, advising them to back up their own files. The company has no plans to discontinue perpetual licenses for personal use.
Customers who backed up their installers will be fine. Customers who trusted that software they purchased would remain downloadable have learned something the subscription economy has been patiently teaching for a decade now. The lesson is always the same. The tuition varies.