CheersnGears

Is this similar in concept and features to Yoast?

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Thanks Charles. I just checked this out and I'm very impressed with the offering. I do appreciate the hard work you guys have all done at IPS to repackage this in a way that's enticing for admins like me that want to have it all 😆 I may wait until the new year to jump in on this (funnily enough my loyalty gets me a couple extra months on my plan, but if I jump in now it will push my renewal back to December which... isn't a convenient month for renewal fees! 😅 The offer is almost too good for now in that case, haha!).
I know some of us clients like to whine about this and that sometimes... but the truth is I'm very happy as a long-term IPS customer, and when I get even a flitter of a 'grass is greener' thought in moving to another platform (other forums in the same content vertical as me go for a competing software) I just think about the things I plan to do for my community/site and realise that nothing really touches IPS honestly. Especially in the comms department - people may grumble that this topic or that topic doesn't get replied to, but you guys respond when it matters (tech issues etc) so I wanted to just show my appreciation for that too while I'm here. Thanks for all the hard work!
As @CheersnGears said, I also don't believe that having "just a forum" cuts it anymore if you want to be serious about managing a community/site (although I've nothing against anyone who just wants to run a forum solo), so having all of the apps at your fingertips is the best approach for both clients and IPS (in terms of development I imagine). I know I've had great success in migrating my old Wordpress site content into Pages/CMS, and have lots of ideas of how to use Gallery and maybe even Blogs...
I hope that this new "all apps" structure for Classic allows IPS to spend as much time revamping and enhancing each app as equally as each other... either way, I'm looking forward to jumping in at the right time for me and taking advantage of the offer. Many thanks again!

The new terms only begin once you opt in to the new terms.  
There's a certain amount of hysteria that these changes are being applied retroactively.  
If you don't accept or want the new terms and want to coast along on v4, then don't accept the new terms.
It's understandable that clients with your worldview will skip renewals, perhaps because of experiences in other forum ecosystems.  It would make sense that you are cautious about continuing to invest in an active license if, for example,your forum developer doesn't release any new features after years of no activity. If you truly and authentically evaluate IPS on its own merits by looking at the Release Notes and the Company blog, however, you'll find a development and release cycle that is robust, monthly, and feature rich.  
The terms by IPS seem more stringent in light of other ecosystems.  I invite you to evaluate IPS on its own merits, instead of imposing the fears from other vendors.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

Yup, working now! Thank you 😄
 

Ah! That'll do it.  I had the same issue when I added Cloudflare.
Already propagated.
 

I amend my suggestion. You have a DNS issue.  Make sure you have your CNAMES set up correctly in DNS.

Honestly, the process was fantastic, and the discussions were numerous. While IPS does want the CIC product to be their primary product, they see the value in being the best self-hosted product on the market as well.
But as they've said for a while, the self-hosted market is changing.  Sites that are "just forums" are not likely to survive long going forward, which is a position I've held for years back when I added IP.Content/Pages as the article management system on my site.  As such, it doesn't make sense to keep the apps as individual products anymore and instead sell the suite as a whole.  It allows IPS to integrate the apps even tighter. 
In my view, site owners who run "just a forum" need to sit back and reflect on where the world is today and if such a site makes sense to continue self-host, or just migrate it to Reddit instead. If you are a "just forums" site owner, I would encourage you to look at this change as a chance to grow in new ways with the new apps that you didn't have access to before.  The only limit is your imagination.
IPS published several drafts of the upgrade language to us in the group and we all took turns making suggestions and modifying the language.  While IPS certainly set the guidelines, it was a very collaborative effort between IPS and those of us in the customer focus group. I think every person in the focus group submitted a modification suggestion to IPS and IPS was very receptive towards them. 
With regard to how the licensing changes work, especially regarding renewals, it's clear that in order to make sure the self-hosted product is a viable, ongoing product, people who use the software need to chip in. The pool of self-hosted customers has shrunk dramatically over the last years. Making the renewals and catch up fees mandatory was the only way to do that in a fair manner but IPS counters that with lower renewal fees for any site with 2 or more apps.
My relationship with IPS over the last 20-ish years has been strained from time to time, but I have to say that this has been a fantastic experience for me personally.

No punishment at all! In fact, there is no "catch up" on annual renewals. If you let an annual renewal expire for example for 6 months, you can just pay the normal annual fee 6 months later.
There is only a catch up on the monthly because it's kind of like a finance plan for the annual. If that makes sense 🙂 

The new pricing structure is very fair imho. People will get their money's worth and then some, no questions about that. Personally I find it a very good deal. But unfortunately, no matter what you do, you can't please everyone.
 
 

It's great that you guys managed to keep the classic version viable, I thought it was unrealistic! Thank you.

Microsoft does exactly that. You can't buy new copies of Win10 anymore, which would give you a free upgrade to Win11. They also made it so that if by chance you started on Win7 and upgraded to Win10, that it is extremely unlikely you'll be able to upgrade to Win11 on the same hardware. It's possible, but the sliver of hardware that is eligible to go to Win11 that started on Win7 is so narrow, that it is likely less than half a percent of all computers out there.   They've effectively made it so that you buy one version and get one version upgrade (not counting service packs) before you have to pay full price again. 

I can see how you might look at it that way in terms of saving money. But we spent a lot of time, resources, and money in development of those 3 years of features and other clients have an expectation from us.
The only way to make self-hosted viable for the future is to ensure people are paying for the effort put into developing it. Otherwise we really should just get rid of it. If you are not willing to do that, there are cheap or low cost alternatives out there but you don't get the owners of the company replying to you and you most certainly do not get monthly updates and constant improvements. Look at literally any other community platform and you will see many are at worst dead and at best barely supported.
It is also very, very common. I'm not sure where you have been living in 30+ years of the software world. It's very normal for software to require a subscription fee or to require a re-purchase at major versions. I get emails all the time from software I own that says "new version pay up!"
We are not requiring people to re-purchase for v5 as other platforms would. The "catch up" renewals only apply to the monthly option as it is basically a finance version of the annual fee. You may wish to review the new terms in the client area as you seem incorrect here.
We are growing and, if you are actually serious about your community, a few more dollars a year to get a platform that is actually alive must be worth it. If having something that is actively developed is not worth it to you, then your community will probably suffer with another platform.
But, as has been said a lot already in this topic, you don't have to do anything. You can stick right where you are on your current terms.
 
TL;DR: We are committed to our clients using Classic, self-hosted who are committed to their communities being a success. It is a joint venture.
 
And to your examples:
1. Insurance companies actually do charge you more if you have a huge gap in coverage. They see you as a greater risk. Same idea here.
2. Microsoft does not do upgrade fees they just make you buy the new version outright. If you would prefer that, I would be HAPPY to do that as it would make our software cost way more.

I couldn't like this post enough and I completely agree 100% with the above.
Personally, I truly appreciate the way that Ips management keeps their customers in the loop, listens to us and interacts with us. 
You don't see this at other community platforms, where there is only silence from the management, and indeed, bad and barely support. 
Ips is and will remain the best and leading community platform in the market.

The AdminCP setting to "Automatically embed links" applies to every platform that is supported, and while I want to be able to allow embedding of YouTube videos etc I want to DISABLE Twitter links specifically. There appears to be no sub-setting to choose which platforms you can allow embedding on - it would be good to have support for this.
There are multiple reasons I want to disable Twitter specifically:
Embedded tweets take ages to appear on page load, making for a crummy UX for my users Distracts from community content, which is not helpful when Twitter etc are platforms that forums constantly have to compete with for attention - if people really want to see what a tweet says, they should just click the link Twitter going the way of the dodo generally and I really don't want to support it In a perfect world, would be good to have a sub-setting in AdminCP where we can pick and choose which links automatically embed and which ones we can disable... but in the short-term there should just be a mod/hack to allow disabling of Twitter embeds and auto-embedding of everything else. 🙂 

Not Charles, but your site is not suppose to be frozen in time.   If the template designer went AWOL, look for a new template by a new designer... keeping in mind that going to V5 will completely change the template system and you'll need to update again.
These are just the costs of running a website.

Not Charles, but your site is not suppose to be frozen in time.   If the template designer went AWOL, look for a new template by a new designer... keeping in mind that going to V5 will completely change the template system and you'll need to update again.
These are just the costs of running a website.

Not Charles, but your site is not suppose to be frozen in time.   If the template designer went AWOL, look for a new template by a new designer... keeping in mind that going to V5 will completely change the template system and you'll need to update again.
These are just the costs of running a website.