Good news! I’m happy to announce that all existing users will get TotalFinder Lion upgrade for free. On the other hand I will increase TotalFinder price for new customers the same day Apple releases Lion. Please read the details below.

The summary

• Single TotalFinder binary will work on both Snow Leopard and Lion without restrictions
• There will be no TotalFinder upgrade fee for Lion
• When Apple releases Lion, I will increase the price to $18 (currently $15)
• For EU customers I won’t cover VAT in the price anymore

Single TotalFinder executable

I made some nice progress on Lion compatibility. I’m pretty confident that I will be able to provide all TotalFinder features under Lion. The bonus is that I was able to implement it in a single binary, so there should be no headaches with maintaing two separate plugins.

You get a TotalFinder upgrade for free

A quote from TotalFinder licensing page:

A new major OS release (OS X 10.7) will probably require substantial rewrites and intensive testing. I may charge existing users an upgrade fee for a new OS. I expect it to be 50% of the full price.

This time I’ve decided to give it for free and here are my main reasons:

1. all TotalFinder licenses are less than a year old, I don’t feel it is fair to charge you twice per year
2. sales are still pretty strong and it covers my development costs [happy face]
3. you supported me in the early days by buying it, you are all early adopters, thank you!

TotalFinder price will go up

TotalFinder is definitely getting better. It is still not perfect, but we are getting there. For example I’ve added cut&paste which alone added value of $8. I’m committed to continue. I have some great ideas on the list.

But I have different arguments why TotalFinder price should go up:

1. I believe that early adopters should get a better price
2. I have been overwhelmed with user support lately, by increasing the price I get less people jumping in, which gives me more time for real development, instead of sitting in gmail all day long
3. I live in the Czech Republic and the dollar lost ~20% against Czech currency during last year

I will stop paying taxes for EU customers

Last year when I was opening the store via FastSpring I’ve selected option to hide VAT in the price. The VAT is similar to sales taxes in the U.S.

Why did I do that? Well, here in Europe, it is common that end-user prices in stores are displayed including VAT and people don’t think about it (what a great social hack, isn’t it?). I wanted my ordering process to be as seamless as possible and I didn’t want to spend time explaining people why they should pay 20% more than is advertised on the homepage.

Why it was a mistake? Simply it is not fair. It creates inequality between customers. Some pay more than others. For example from U.S. citizens I get full $15, while for example from German guys I get roughly $12.5. I have to collect the remaining $2.5 for German government (as a VAT).

I’m libertarian by heart and I have to fix this. The day Apple releases Lion I will flip the switch. This will make TotalFinder more expensive for EU customers (according to their country’s VAT rate).

The bottom line

Ok, those changes won’t be popular but I believe they are the right thing to do. Complain to your governments, not me.

If you’ve already bought your TotalFinder copy you made a good investment. It helps you every day with Finder and the value is increasing over time (hopefully). And I will do my best to keep it that way!

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