Well, as long as Xara keeps functioning if you decide not to renew your annual subscription then I don't see it as being a problem.

The only real difference then would basically be that you now have to choose whether to opt-out each year rather than to opt-in. The opt-in default will likely generate more revenue from fence-sitters or those who don't pay enough attention to their subscriptions and I can understand Xara wanting to keep those users. Once again, as long as they keep it a subscription for UPDATES ONLY and you can continue the program if/when it expires, I don't find it objectionable.

What I'm more interested in is what they've got in store for "X-next" then as it were. The only news about the next version seems to be about how they'd prefer we pay for it. I'd really like to know what they've got in the oven as it were. As much as XDP X9 is still my go-to vector program at the moment, the last couple of upgrades have been lackluster and am really eager to try Affinity Designer now that it's coming to Windows. Perhaps this will be a motivator for them.