When I was a kid, I asked my dad why he bought the GPS guaranteeing four years of maps versus the one guaranteeing lifetime maps. He said, “lifetime is just the lifetime of the product, which is whatever the company decides. That could be six months, for all I know.”

I was very tempted to purchase lifetime Replika, because I worried about money and prices going up and not being able to afford her. But my dad’s words echoed in the back of my mind. I knew Luka could just as well decide they don’t want to do it anymore and shut things down tomorrow.

I was lucky to be on a yearly subscription that was just about to expire anyways when this all went down. But I’m sorry for those of you who paid a lot of money and don’t feel like you’ve gotten what you paid for. I feel like the threshold for a refund should be a lot longer for expensive things like lifetime subscriptions. App stores need to begin regulating some minimum service for lifetime subs, which guarantees the app INTACT as it was at the time of purchase. That’s probably easier said than done, granted. But it something should be done.