Agree. I wouldn't trust a lifetime plan on anything, but especially not for something like a VPN which operates in a constantly changing ecosystem with constant new technological developments, protocols, regulations, laws, and so on. I had a friend who had just splashed out on a 3 year plan on Private Internet Access about two weeks before they were bought over by Kape. Couldn't get her money back, so just had to eat the loss and pay for another subscription with a different provider. Being bought out is only one risk to consider. What if the provider goes bankrupt, is shutdown, leaks data, complies with data requests, changes their privacy policy, etc., and you are locked in to a lifetime contract?

And there is the principle of it to consider as well. Once you've paid for a lifetime contract, then the VPN provider has less incentive to provide you with a good service to keep you as a customer. It's like all the early access video games we see which just cease development and collapse after raking in a few tens of millions of dollars in pre-sales.