Yes, I'm a penny pincher
There are at least four aspects to my issue with the upgrade.
1) I'm a penny pincher. I've not earned enough business with SiteBuilder to recoup costs or profit from the original v3 license. It is hard to sell when I myself have had issues with SiteBuilder on my own site trying to market SiteBuilder to new customers. If I don't believe in the product, I cannot sell it. I'm just not that used-car-salesman type.
2) I am a firm believer in customer service. Today's company's are wrought with poor customer service policies and procedures. These companies think more of their own pockets than their customers needs. A product is created to serve a need or desire in customers. If that product fails to serve the need appropriately, in this case SiteBuilder, and the company fails to respond to the inadequacies of the product to make it fulfill those needs, what happens to the customer? They don't return to make future purchases. I feel like I should get what I've paid for, in a timely manner. In this case, software with primary features that work flawlessly.
3) Doesn't this concern SWSoft? I know there are millions of potential customers for their products, but does that necessarily mean that they release a product, a few minor updates, start work on a new release, and fail to support existing users in sufficient manner in this forum and the knowledgebase?
4) I understand business is about making profit. So how to generate more short-term profit in the software industry? Do what SWSoft is doing. Release slightly upgraded products every year or two. Encourage users to pay for additional support and software updates by offering it at time of original purchase, but also encourage it by providing less-than-industry-standard support in the forum or knowledgebase. That pushes users in a real bind to cough up $ for support.
I rant so much about this subject here because SWSoft has a potentially great product with SiteBuilder, but their support falls so short that users like myself are sure not to upgrade without any compelling reasons to do so. That is contradictory to what SWSoft *should* want to grow their business and make more profit.
Obviously, SiteBuilder has something that I care enough about to go on and on about. Sooner or later, I and others like me who haven't posted on this topic will grow tired of the BS and move on. We won't even care enough to post anymore, or upgrade SiteBuilder. If SiteBuilder isn't reliable enough to help us sell it and grow our business, we'll find something that will. Even if the competition isn't as pretty, if it works as well and offers adequate support, the competition will look pretty enticing.
PS: I write regular software reviews. I'd requested to review SiteBuilder 4, but never got any response from SWSoft. That's probably a good thing for SWSoft. I tell it straight to the reader, what's good, what's bad, what falls short. The subject of my posts here might likely have made their way into my review, unless v4 performed flawlessly.