The developers have accepted that the upgrade process wasn’t as smooth as they had expected and that a lot of people aren’t happy with the sudden upgrade to a major version without explaining anything in the auto update message.
Your license isn’t expired. You can still use ST3 with your license as mentioned in the above FAQ.
Related: https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/previous_versions.html
Funny enough, despite the shock of an undocumented paid upgrade (have bought/upgraded from 2 to 3), I was even prepared to spend the $152 US to do so and also buy the merge product. After all, I use it daily.
Then, when I go and try and purchase, BOTH of my (recently used) VISA cards were declined. Am Canadian.
Whoever approved that upgrade text for release made a HUGE mistake. That VISA process was no thrill either.
This is actually a good opportunity to give NP++ another try and to continue to use VS Code / Platform IO as I wasn’t really using the advanced features of my registered version of Sublime 2 and later 3 these many years.
I may come back and look for support (if this forum is the proper support mechanism), and I may not.
Edit: Now that I’m retired on fixed income and just working on open source projects, not sure if that expenditure was in my best interest anyways.
I’m pretty shocked at the amount of whiny, entitled sounding people on here.
Yes, the upgrade notice/process was a mess and confusing — but the devs have held up their hands and vowed to make this better. Jeez, has no-one here ever miscommunicated? What more do you actually want or expect at this point?
Look once you calm down you will realise: No one has taken anything away from you!
Sublime Text 4 is an excellent piece of software. You don’t want to pay? Don’t pay.
Think VSCode is better? Go and use it (and enjoy giving away your data).
If you are having problems with your licence, contact sales and they will sort it!
All the ridiculous threats that you will effectively ‘take your ball back home’ if people don’t jump through hoops is pathetic!
Yeah, I agree. But I think those posts needed to exist. It just was unclear if the developers were audacious and evil or just didn’t think about the whole update/upgrade process. The latter is just human error and no evilness 
I think it’s worth being honest that this upgrade experience was pretty bad but that it clearly was not the result of maliciousness on the developers’ part. I feel this could be avoided by simply showing the changelog screen – and everything that would change, licensing, broken plugins, etc. – BEFORE the upgrade.
1Password does a really good job with this. I understand this is a “for-devs, by-devs” app but a little more UX around the upgrade process would go a long way.
Look to other indie devs like Panic for great experiences here. Lots of warning time, lots of support people available to talk to confused users, and blog posts that highlight the changes coming up.
Exactly, “making things better” happened because of the posts. And I don’t want anything more from the devs, just needed to get a confirmation that I can continue using ST3 as before, and I got that.
This is highly disappointing the way this update was rolled out without any notification. Please try to do better next time, first, you barely provided any features in 3 years, then there are free IDE and VSCODE and you rolled out a feature for mangaing GIT and want to charge $70 to use the IDE. Please, there are better ways to make money then rolling shady updates. I was a big fan until now after reading this nonsense about the sales FAQ and 3 years and also the pricing, better asks for crowdfunding next time and your users will support but this needs to stop and this issue needs to be resolved.
Yes, the only thing worse than the utter deluge of complaints is the occasional interjection from some smug ST apologist, acting as if on the behalf of ST, but really only creating a negative air of insensitivity in the face of an overwhelmingly unified sentiment of frustration and disappointment in the process. Hopefully the “shock” at least means you’ve registered how out of touch you are with the majority of users. Thanks for your contributions to this community! 
ST is text editor, SM is git client, none is IDE. I think that the devs are pretty aware of current topic, and they are working hard to resolve similar future situations. I think also that it’s very rude to talk like that.
No one pulled a gun on you and told you “you must purchase sublime products”… you are free to work with whatever suits you…
I feel the same that when you roll out product for your paying customers there needs to be similar respect shown to your customers from a business standpoint. And you’re right no ones pointing anything to my head it’s my choice and I can express my frustration caused by this release, it’s not a breaking change but when you put trust in something and pay for it you expect transparency, not refer to purchase FAQ’s in response. There’s been no updates from your product in 3 years.
Last update on release 3.2.2 (BUILD 3211) 1 October 2019, that’s almost 3 years ago. So I paid 3 years ago and received no features, no updates. You see my point here.
i totally understand your ‘frustration part’, but no one is going to benefit from constant all-around rant, if we can agree.
No bad intentions from my side neither, i just wanted to point out that rant isn’t going to bring us any good (i suppose)
I’m also really disappointed in this upgrade path. I bought Sublime Text in 2012, gladly upgraded to 3.0 for $30 in May 2018, and now would have to pay almost full price because my licence is 3 years and 3 weeks old.
This is forum for discussion. If you have a real issue, report it on github. Don’t come here to complain about non-issues.
This is an extremely user hostile choice, I bought a LIFETIME ST3 license - thats the way it was marketed when I bought it. By forcing a ST4 update (without warning) you have violated the terms of the license.
f you purchased Sublime Text 3 license years ago then by all means you are covered by those old terms. You basically have access to a perpetual license for that version. But Sublime Text 4 or now simply called Sublime Text has new terms now. Now instead of having a perpetual license for that specific version, you are paying for 3 years of support.
solution A: pay for the new version or keep using it unlicensed.
solution B: downgrade to ST3 and keep using it happily with your perpetual license for that version.
Great! That would of been helpful BEFORE being forced to upgrade to ST4.
Where exactly is that FAQ link located on the official ST3 documentation? https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/index.html
It appears this is a major issue so perhaps a call to action with a notice would be helpful instead of making people complain in support to find the link.
Perhaps a link that says “keep using ST3” on the buy a license page ~ or perhaps not force the upgrade for lifetime license holders. That would be helpful.
The duality of man. First they complain about Sublime Text not having updates. After an update finally appears, they complain about it.