I have commented on this before.
I will restate it here again:
We offered the lifetime for early commitment, not so people can rent-to-own.
The lifetime should not be an end-goal for Roon subscribers, it hurts us as a company and is not a viable business model for our future.
If you have the cash and want the lifetime, go for it while it lasts. If you don’t, the annual is the right thing for you (and for us)… or use a credit card like @garym suggests above.
@john_v’s two posts above (one, two) really do a good job explaining the situation at hand.
If we were in this for a quick financial win, I’d be begging you to buy the lifetime. But that’s not our goal… for many many years to come, we want to keep innovating and keep pushing the state of the art. The annual helps us do that, and it keeps us honest to keep earning you repeated year-after-year business.