MacUpdater for Sale

I don't understand why this is so cheap. It costs US$4.40 as a one-time purchase. This would be cheap even at a US$10 yearly subscription, given that maintaining the app list is an ongoing investment for the developer.

For sale: a delivery mechanism of binary code onto probably 10s or 100s millions of macs running one of 6700 apps (and many of them abandoned). Available for a malware creator with a highest bid.

Fucksake. Why? Why must this keep happening?

Silly question—of course I know why. Capitalism, silly. You simply can't realistically grow beyond much higher than the actual cost of the operation, especially not for something which, though it has clear and demonstrable value, is or should be a commodity feature. It's just sad.

@Plume Yes indeed, they were running a survey recently to gage how various price-points would be received, and USD10/year would absolutely be the minimum I'd pay.

I have a general allergic reaction to apps that switch to a subscription model for no good reason, but this one, I would have gladly paid for a subscription: it requires constant maintenance and curation.
As far aas I’m concerned, this app is a must have (OK, maybe I’m a bit OCD with updates, but still…) and I can’t even envision seeing it risking going away!

oh man -- I LOVE MacUpdater -- I'm so sad to see this and wish I was in a position to give this the development time (or pay for someone else to) to buy something like this.

I'd happily pay $50 a year for this app as it exists now. I think the old Mac Update desktop app back in the day was $35 a year or more and it was far, far worse than MacUpdater.

I guess there has been no sale yet. From the release notes of the newest version:

• Unfortunately MacUpdater 3's promised lifetime of "until 2026-01-01" is now over
• This is the last and final update to MacUpdater 3 😭 😪 💔
• There will be no MacUpdater 4 or any continuation of the MacUpdater product from us
• Our daily maintainaince has been stopped and we don't verify updates anymore
• You can keep using this unsupported version for as long as you wish
• This version is free-to-use for everyone including "Pro" features
• The database server will be kept running until 2026-12-31
• 💼 📈 Is your company is looking to buy / license MacUpdater's update tech? Head here
• ❓ℹ️ Surprised or having question about MacUpdater's discontinuation? Look here

Yup. They're laying down their sweet heads and waiting for death. And it's pretty clear there'll be no rescue. :(

They recommend Latest as an adjunct, which relies on bundled Sparkle "Appcast" references to find the latest. As the MacUpdater FAQ makes clear, this is the bare minimum required. But it's better than nothing. And Latest is FLOSS.

Unfortunately although the app is now free with pro features, it also imposes the free user limit of two scans a day, which I'm already running into. I'll get all my installers now, while I still can. A year of free updates including pro, even sans maintenance of the online infrastructure, is generous, honestly.

Latest finds about 30% of the updates that MacUpdater finds, sadly.