"If I Disappear Tomorrow, Your Copy of owntime Keeps Working"

#The question everyone is too polite to ask

When you buy software from a solo developer, there is a question underneath every other question. Nobody types it into the support form. It sits in the back of the mind while you read the pricing page and hover over the buy button.

What if you disappear?

It is a fair question. You just watched Harvest, a twenty-year-old company, get bought and reprice its customers overnight. A solo developer vanishing is not a paranoid fantasy. It happens. Projects get abandoned, maintainers burn out, companies fold.

I think about this more than you do, because I am the one selling the lifetime licenses. Every time the early-bird counter ticks down and someone pays me $99 for a tool that is supposed to outlive my involvement, I feel the weight of that. This is not a theoretical essay for me. When I shipped the first licenses, I sat and stared at the email from the payment processor and thought: these people just trusted me with their billing history, and the only thing standing between them and a dead product is my stubbornness. That is a real feeling, and you deserve to know it is on my mind.

So let me answer the question directly, not with a promise, but with the architecture. Because the difference between owntime and every subscription tool you have ever depended on is that the answer to "what if you disappear" is not "trust me." It is "the app does not need me."

#What happens the day after I vanish

Let us play it out. Suppose tomorrow I stop answering email. No updates, no blog posts, no sign of life. Pick the worst case you can imagine: I am gone entirely.

Here is what happens to your copy of owntime, in order.

Nothing.

The timer still ticks. The entries still save. The invoices still generate, with your letterhead and your tax and your terms. The import still reads your Harvest or Toggl CSV. The backups still run on your schedule.

None of that depends on me, because none of it depends on a server I run. owntime is a desktop app. It runs on your Mac, stores everything in a local SQLite file, and has no account, no cloud, no telemetry, no phone-home.

The one thing that could stop working is downloading future updates. And even that has a floor: the version you have keeps running until your Mac gives out. You lose improvements. You lose nothing that already exists.

#Why this is different from every subscription you have left

The Harvest situation made the difference vivid. When Bending Spoons repriced Harvest, customers did not just face a higher bill. They faced a choice between paying it and losing years of history locked in someone else's database.

That leverage is structural. It is not about whether the company is nice. A subscription tool can always change the deal, because it controls both the software and the data, and it knows you cannot leave without pain.

owntime removes both levers.

The software lever. Your copy is licensed, not rented. A one-time purchase, verified against an offline key. The app does not check in with a server to keep running, because there is no server to check in with.

The data lever. Your history is not in my database. It is one file on your disk at ~/Documents/owntime/timesheet.db. Open it with any SQLite browser. Copy it to a new Mac. Back it up to Dropbox or your own S3 or R2 bucket. It is yours in the most literal sense: it is a file you hold.

I structurally cannot hold your history hostage, because I never held it at all.

#The license key, explained

The one piece of owntime that does involve me is the license key, and it is worth explaining exactly how it works, because this is where buy-once tools usually cheat.

When you buy, Lemon Squeezy handles the payment and sends you a key. You paste it into Settings, and the app checks that key with the license server once, over HTTPS. That is the only network call the license ever makes. The activation is stored on your machine, and from that day on your copy never checks in again. No login, no refresh, no phone-home, no server keeping a session alive.

This matters for the disappear scenario. After that one check, there is nothing for me to keep running. If every server I touch is unplugged tomorrow, your activated copy keeps working exactly as it is, because it never asks anyone anything again.

I will state the one honest limit plainly. A brand-new install on a new machine needs that first activation, so it needs the network once. If owntime and Lemon Squeezy both vanished and you had to reinstall from nothing on a fresh Mac, that check could fail. Everything already on your machine survives: the app keeps running, the file keeps working. That is the whole trade, and now you know its exact shape.

Compare that to the buy-once tools that quietly require a login, or a cloud sync, or a periodic "activation refresh." Those are subscriptions wearing a one-time costume. owntime asks once, then never again, which is the only version of buy-once that does not depend on my inbox.

#What you actually lose if I vanish

Let me be precise, because "keeps working forever" is a strong claim and it deserves an honest scope.

If owntime disappears tomorrow, you lose:

• Future versions. No v1.1, no new features, no Windows or Linux builds. The roadmap I keep in the repo, the timeline feature, the backup-to-your-own-S3, all of it stops at the version you have.
• Support. No one answers migrate@ or fixes a bug you hit next year.
• Concierge migration. The free hand-migration offer for the first ten switchers ends with me.

What you keep:

• A fully working time tracker and invoicing app.
• Your entire history, in a file you can open with other tools forever.
• The ability to reinstall and re-license on a new Mac, because the key check is offline.
• The updates you already downloaded, which are signed and install in the app.

Here is the asymmetry that makes the trade worth it. With a subscription, the worst case is you lose the tool and the history and the money you paid into it, all at once. With owntime, the worst case is the tool stops improving and your file keeps working. The worst case of buying beats the best case of renting, and the gap is not close.

#Why I built it this way

The honest answer is that the constraint is not purely altruistic. Building owntime without servers was the only way to build it at all.

I am one person. I do not want to run a server, monitor uptime, handle account support, or explain a data breach. Every server I do not run is a thing that cannot break, a cost that cannot grow, and a subscription I cannot be tempted to add later.

The no-server architecture is also the only version of this product that keeps me honest. If owntime had a cloud component, there would come a day when running it cost more than the one-time license revenue justified, and I would face the exact choice Harvest's new owners faced. By removing the server, I removed the temptation. I cannot reprice you because there is nothing to reprice, and I built it that way on purpose.

#What to check before you buy any solo tool

If you are reading this because you are weighing a purchase from a solo developer, here is the checklist I would use, and owntime is designed to pass it.

1. Can the app run without the developer's servers? Look for desktop software that does not require a login. If it phones home to run, the developer disappearing takes your tool with them.
2. How often does the license check in? owntime activates once, online, then never asks again. A periodic activation refresh is a subscription in costume.
3. Can you read your own data? Ask what format your data is in and whether other tools can open it. A SQLite file you can browse is ownership. A proprietary database you cannot reach is a hostage.
4. Can you export everything today? Do not wait for the crisis. If export is easy and lossless, you always have a way out.
5. What is the actual worst case? Write it down. If the worst case is "the tool stops improving but my work and data survive," that is a purchase you can live with.

#FAQ

What happens to owntime if you stop developing it?

Your copy keeps working. owntime is a desktop app with no servers, so nothing about the timer, entries, invoices, or import depends on me. You lose future updates and support, but the version you have runs offline until your Mac gives out.

Is the owntime license really offline?

Activation happens once, online, through Lemon Squeezy. After that one check, your copy never contacts any server again — a machine that has already activated keeps working with no internet forever. The one limit, stated plainly: a brand-new install needs that first activation, so it needs the network once.

Where is my owntime data stored?

In one local SQLite file at ~/Documents/owntime/timesheet.db. You can copy it, back it up, sync it through Dropbox or your own cloud, and open it with any SQLite browser. owntime never stores your data on its own servers, because it has none.

What do I lose if owntime is abandoned?

You lose future versions, support, and the concierge migration offer. You keep a working app, your full history in an open file format, a license that never checks in again, and the signed updates you already downloaded.

How is owntime different from Harvest after the acquisition?

Harvest's repricing was possible because customer data and software ran on Harvest's servers, giving the new owner leverage. owntime removes that leverage: the software is licensed offline and the data is a file you hold, so there is nothing to reprice and nothing to hold hostage.

#The last word

I cannot promise you I will never disappear. No founder can, and anyone who promises immortality is selling something.

What I can promise is that it will not matter as much as it would with any subscription tool. The architecture was built so that the worst day of my life, the day I vanish, is a Tuesday for your timesheet. The timer ticks. The invoices go out. The file stays yours.

That is the whole product. Own the tool, hold the file, and let the subscriptions worry about their next owner.

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