I don’t understand the discussion. There are a lot of other applications also only allow activation on one Mac / Windows PC. Which is definitely not leading to subscription…
Norm wouldn’t have done this decision if there wasn’t the need for it… if you want to support a sustainable business model, you’re currently able to purchase a second license for $54.99.
Dear Norm,
I feel that there is going to be a lot of discussion around this licensing change, whether people are concerned or not.
Probably due to the fact that neither in the above mentioned blog link or in this discussion can it be found a reasoning behind this change forward with Blocs 5.
What I have always appreciated is that there exists a great relationship between yourself and the users, trust, support and transparency which led to this fabulous community of Blocs users.
Perhaps if you shared some insight about why this was decided, people could understand and eventually accept the change 100%. Until then people are going to interpret this in many different ways and probably not always in one’s best interest.
That said, I am currently changing careers and moving away from web design, but have upgraded to Blocs 5, could not resist 
Awesome upgrade and new features. Will now be a hobby for me.
Good luck with this awesome release.
Cheers
MDS
I personally think the reasoning behind it all is for the hobby/1-or 2 site user then one version is fine…those that want to move now and again to another machine can simply de-activate and move to the new machine if its something done now and again…and then for the professional user who jumps from a desktop/studio to another machine (maybe a dedicated graphics editing machine) then this might be classed as professional user - then 2 copies can be bought at still 45% off !!!
The price of Blocs is just outstanding value for money…and to be fair, to release it around Black Friday at a discount is just something unheard of for a small company and at this price…oh and to keep the same price as last year!!! - as a business owner myself I bet Norm has many months of hardly no income while constant bills for office rent, wages, hardware, staff and more to keep paying out while working to create the next Blocs master piece, answering our help on forums and fixing things…to be honest - how Norm can do it at this price is shocking as my mind is telling me this should be over double the price!!!
@Norm Of course it takes just a minute to deactivate and reactivate the license and you expect your customers to do the same every day and everytime they go out to the office and then again when they come back home…
So now one more work on top of main job is to deactivate and reactivate the license twice in a day at least.
Moreover the upgrade link is not even working for Blocs Plus V5 upgrade from within the app. Right now there is extra discount for Black Friday and I guess the link will start working once Black Friday is over…
I have written atleast 3 times to the support asking for the link that works, but haven’t received any appropriate reply. All they are concerned about right now is to collect money from the people.
I understand the hard work, time and money it takes to write an app or software, but the company should also think about its customers while making sales.
First I have to again pay for the upgrade after purchasing Blocs Plus V4 just 2 months and 20 days ago and second I can only use that license on 1x Mac at a time now.
I know that it is not mandatory to upgrade, but with new features everyone wants to upgrade. Other apps give at least 6 months of time before they would charge for upgrade or at least other incentives to customers who recently purchased the previous version license. At least make it work on 2x Macs…
Or you could just pay for an additional licence for the convenience of NOT activating and reactivating.
Like Adobe, which costs 80 USD a month, and does not give any other incentives other than being “market leaders”?
Sarcasm aside…
I do not use blocs often, but honestly I feel their price is still very fair. Like… it is the cheapest subscription I maintain apart of Transmit (which btw follows a very similar model, just that they support family sharing. Family sharing is something @Norm might want to look into, at some point, I find it great, and it still restricts the usage of the app quite effectively)
The upgrade link works fine if you have a valid v4 license and click on the Preferences > License > Upgrade to (your choice which one).
It leads to a link that is already prepared for your purchase, so no one could give you the “right” link, as it is a paddle checkout link with an unique key in the URL (I’d assume that key is composed of your current license data and so on)
The link looks like this https://buy.paddle.com/checkout/183235123426-chre87f19abac49-b08ced3123 (of course, this is just an example, it won’t work for you).
Have you tried these steps? What is the link you get? What is the screen you see instead of a paddle checkout?
Perhaps knowing this all can help people help you better 
There are also some music plugins that have to be deactivated, it is very hard to use because it has to be deactivated on that computer, “rogue apps” of “Blocs” can be seen all over the net, but I don’t think it would be even more useful for developers to waste time killing that site, we are paid users, we are legitimate users, we want to be treated better by legitimate users.
I’d have to disagree with most of the comments in support of this change. Most design app licenses cover 2 computer seats with only one being able to be used at any time, with the expectation that there’s a desktop computer and a portable computer.
As a freelancer, I typically do half of my work at home and half of my work on the road. Just installed Blocs 5 while I was doing some minor website work before Thanksgiving dinner, got home to install it on my desktop and noticed this change.
While I understand that the additional cost is “low” in comparison to other apps, I would have rather have had the license upgrade system ask me to purchase a multi-seat license while selecting either Blocs 5 or Blocs 5 Plus. Very unexpected to be purchasing an upgrade with numerous great features, with the taking away of a major benefit of previous versions is essentially a footnote on one random website page.
What doesn’t make sense is the concept of “Well, just deactivate before you leave your house” as a solution to something that could be solved by just having the app be smart enough to know I’m not handing licenses out to other people. I’m nearly positive I have other Paddle licensed apps that can do this.
Was there a problem with this implementation before? I would rather have had a minor price increase than juggle additional licenses.
That is an interesting thought
Errr… wait, what?
Just jumped—more or less without giving it a second thought—onto Blocs 5 yesterday to keep supporting the project. I opted for the upgrade to Plus from the standard 4 license.
Not being able to run an active license on my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro at the same time is a major letdown.
I’m totally fine (I think) with not being able to run Blocs simultaneously on two computers if you think people are trying to “share” licenses, but I actually need to be able to work on a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro SEAMLESSLY with my Blocs 5 Plus deal. Honestly: at least make the 2-computer thing part of the Plus-benefits AND make it extremely easy and convenient to activate/deactivate when switching computer for the rest. Something like an alert: “do you want to move your license to this computer?” inside of Blocs and then one click confirms.
I think this was a bad move, overall. VERY few extra licenses will be sold due to this and it will generate a lot of frustration and inconvenience.
When working on a project I might need to go between computers several times a day. This actually sucks.
EDIT: I just want a time-stamped “for the record” addition here: this caught me off guard—I guess I should have read the fine print. I want to see how this pans out, but I might want a money-back revert to my working Blocs 4 non-plus license, that actually worked for me.
Let’s try to get that down to 5 seconds then. And it’s a must that it can be done without access to the ‘active’ computer.
I don’t want to micro-manage Blocs every time I leave the house—just in case.
Try hitting the refresh button in your browser when the link is opened by Blocs.
Most other apps are charging what we charge, per year on subscription.
This can be found in the top left corner of the Paddle popover.
The increase originally planned was not minor. Blocs is a lot more feature rich than it was 6 years ago.
We are guna look into this.
Blocs 4 still works, the license generated is seperate.
OK, that makes the switch back less complicated—thanks.
Is there a money-back window? Never thought I would need it, so I didn’t check…
Perhaps one of those 48h things that apply to all purchases online?
OK, so I’ve asked for a refund of my Blocs 5 Plus purchase (around $90) and I’m hoping that works without issue.
A few thoughts: all software is subscription based—in concept. Software gets old, almost by the day. Developers really need to stop saying “no subscriptions!”, as if it was the “high road”. Software that is being used needs to be maintained. As new features are developed, all users of the software should get them.
Pricing: the price of software is a reflection of how many users it might attract. Complex, specialized software with few users is expensive. Apps that target millions of users are cheap, even if they are complex and expensive to develop.
If Blocs becomes more powerful and even easier to use, one argument could be that it should become half as expensive, since you are now hoping for twice as many users or more. Now, that isn’t my point of view, since I want you to be able to expand and increase profits, but more features = higher price also doesn’t fly.
Anyway: we will all “have to buy” the next version when IT comes out (making this quasi-subscription) and keeping the price same-ish, but growing the user base (with new features), nets the same result as increasing the price.
There won’t be any issues with your refund, we will get that issued once our office opens around 9am.
Sorry to hear this is such an issue for you.
Look guys - let’s see what Norm does here. Could be a case of if you leave your office to come home and forgot to deactivate, that when you open your Mac back at home it asks you to deactivate the one machine that’s logged on - so when that Mac in the office goes online blocs stops it from working and says the secondary login is active, would you like to deactivate etc……stops one licence being used at the same time fully.
I cannot second that. There are many users here using quite old hardware / macOS combinations (I don’t name them 
) in order to use their favourite applications. With a real subscription, they won’t be able to use these applications the next year.
It’s not that easy. Double the users will also double the support requests.
Glad to hear it.
The “issue” is strictly on principle since this decision is a massive brain fart (pardon the french). The desktop-laptop combo per license is the standard. This convenience for license owners costs the developer nothing… UNLESS there is a worry about misuse, which I can’t comment on, since I don’t know.
I would consider re-committing to Blocs 5 if you come up with a solution that works before the Cyber Monday deal expires. I will not renew any licenses once the deal period is over.
I need to be able to use Blocs on two computers without “feeling the management”. I only need one active license at the time. I’ll give this some more thought myself, but for the moment I’ll take the refund.