Hi Michael,
There is nothing lost or wasted, and I answered you regarding your payments by email, as it's a private matter.
We communicated about this change by sending several emails directly to the users. I'm sorry if you feel it was not enough, we will try to improve it next time.
Regarding your other concerns: Substance Live was "rent-to-own", but it allowed you to get the PREVIOUS versions of the software.
If you wanted to use your accumulated payments, you would have gotten for example Substance Designer 5, not 6.
This means all your current files would not have been compatible, and it thus didn't make sens to go on in this way.
I'd like to remind that Substance Live was not a "credit plan": it was a monthly payment, giving benefits when you had been paying for more than 16 months. With the new system, we brought those benefits after 12 months.
The fact that you paid 16 or 24 months didn't have any advantage in the previous rent-to-own system, and it's the same way in the new one.
You should see it in this way:
- you get access to the latest versions of the software as long as you are subscribed
- when you want to cancel, if it's been more than 12 months, we give you the possibility to get a license of the software so you can still work on files.
Cheers,