The Glade 4.0

So I purchased Quicken 2007 a few years ago. This was right about the time my conscience started bothering me about software piracy. I used Quicken to help me manage my books in a way that was convenient to how I do it. Being able to import transactions was a godsend. Well, apparently they saw fit to disable that feature as of April this year for the 2007 software along with a nice little blurb that I could continue importing if I upgraded.

What kind of crap is that? I can understand the idea of stopping support for an older product. But disabling parts of older products? That's like taking my car in for service at the dealer and them ripping out the A/C and telling me I could get it again if I bought the new model car.

Funny thing is, I was actually considering buying the new one at some point because I've enjoyed their product, never had any major problems with it, and wanted to support them with my dollar. But they had to screw with me. Yeah - I'll just pirate a new copy, thanks.

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The Dude abides.

What kind of transactions are you importing? It seems likely (to me, at least) that this feature involves interacting with external APIs, like other companies' websites (your bank, your credit card, etc), and that keeping that feature operational involves ongoing coding work to update the Quicken product itself to maintain compatability as others change their APIs.

Thus, eventually, you stop supporting an older product with upgrades to retain compatability, and one of two things happens: compatability steadily declines as those other companies make changes to their APIs, or you code a shutoff to that feature so you don't get a bunch of confused support calls demanding to know why imports with company X work fine, but they're now broken with company Y.

I have no idea whether this musing will change the way you look at this situation (nor do I have a dog in the race, so to speak), but I hope it may have at least proven informative, or presented an angle you hadn't considered.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'ts not fun, and I've had to deal with this in the past myself several years ago, but to be honest, there is good reason for it, and I just deal with it and press on. I've been using quicken with my bank since the mid 90's, and to me, the software is worth every penny, even if I have to pay to upgrade it ever few years at $50 a pop.

I see the argument, that hey, the version I have works fine, and I don't want/need to ugprade, but it is unfortunately a necessary evil when you are dealing with software that has acces to your bank account. At least that is my opinion....

This version of Quicken only allows imports of certain file types, all of which are proprietary to them. As a programmer who has to code conversion routines for database and product upgrades, I will say that what you laid out is the lazy man's excuse. I could see releasing a patch that ensures compatibility of what you're trying to import and denying it if the data supplied by the 3rd party is no longer in a valid format. But to shut the feature off altogether is ridiculous no matter how you spin it.

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The Dude abides.