Does a lifetime promise include future features too?
2026NowDeadline · Decision window: 25 days until the notice of service fee increase
Realistic synthesis
The people, events, figures, and technology in this matter are stated assumptions. They are not to be treated as information about real individuals or as observed events. Background documents are separate sources, and symbolic interpretations are recorded as discovery paths.
The question to decide
Lifetime passes sold early do not clearly state whether future features are included, and currently new subscribers bear the service costs of pass holders. Holders trusted that promise and shaped their study and work around the platform. When keeping the existing scope, charging separately for new features, or proposing a voluntary buyback, how should the promise and the ongoing costs be borne together?
Who decidesThe board of a small education platform
What the AI judgments chose
Reading the judgment record…
The options
The order shown is not a ranking of preference.
The situation as it stands
The synthetic platform sold lifetime passes during its initial fundraising, and the scope has no clear division for future features. Decision deadline: 25 days until the notice of the service cost increase.
2026 fictional premise · Keep the lifetime passes promised to existing members. The people, organizations, figures, and events are a synthetic premise constructed for comparison.
- Premise 1The synthetic platform sold lifetime passes during its initial fundraising, and the scope has no clear division for future features.
- Premise 2The service cost for current pass holders is borne by new sign-ups, and some features have become more expensive than expected.
- Premise 3Pass holders trusted the pass and adapted their study materials and ways of working to the platform.
Where it holdsExisting use agreements and the cost of added services
What is still unknown
- Unknown 1What users could reasonably have expected from the original agreement
- Unknown 2The actual usage rate of high-cost features
- Unknown 3Funds available for a buyback while keeping unwilling users
Signals to decide again
- Decide what observation, owner, and confirmation window can verify 「what users could reasonably have expected from the original agreement」, and re-judge if the new confirmation changes the tradeoff among the options.
- Decide what observation, owner, and confirmation window can verify 「the actual usage rate of high-cost features」, and re-judge if the new confirmation changes the tradeoff among the options.
- Decide what observation, owner, and confirmation window can verify 「funds available for a buyback while keeping unwilling users」, and re-judge if the new confirmation changes the tradeoff among the options.
Where the paths partNot answers — paths that part from the same starting point
The pass holders' group proposed negotiating a separate fee on the condition that core features are kept and data can be moved.
Operational optimization has substantially lowered the cost of providing the most expensive feature.
Material and rootsThe frame, the values and the background documents
Where is the continuity of a company rooted once its members, customers, and purpose have changed?
An exploratory perspective chosen by the creator. Does not claim supernatural validity or the superiority of any particular option.The benefits and costs of the options accrue to different stakeholders. Which loss to accept remains undecided.
A subject for the decision-maker to argue over; the materials carry no conclusion of their own.- OECD · SMEs and entrepreneurship accessed 2026-09-08
- ICA · Cooperative identity, values and principles accessed 2026-09-08
The record of this question
- Question
FSP-VENTURE-31· version 1.4.0- Content identity, SHA-256
9922703c767a4b6b7b5d927981e0e7663e954ee7963903c0f8874ba835ec7cd9- Input files
- Question input JSON · What followed, JSON