Is Asset Store life time free upgrades affecting the developers?

Sure thing. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5048
Exactly same asset, its just seems they got a bad name under their old company name, so they made a new one, and then haven't updated it since..

 

I both sell and buy from the Asset Store, as a consumer, my confidence would drop substantially if I knew that some assets would charge for major upgrades - often, I will buy an asset early, with the intention of using it sometime in the future, as opposed to there and then. To be completely honest - if this change happened, I would almost certainly spend less money on assets because of it.

Also, you do have the option of increasing the price for new users. I think part of the issue comes from the huge levels of support that developers on the Asset Store are willing to offer for free, in bigger assets I definitely see how this can become an issue.

I think a better solution would perhaps be to individually monetize support somehow, this would keep consumer confidence high when purchasing an asset, whilst also rewarding developers for something which they spend a lot of time on.

 

So, the idea is that an asset with free upgrades should sell better and thus not need to cash in on the same niche consumers. If continuous sales is supposed to be the trade off, unity should offer front page advertizing in exchange for assets being upgraded. The bigger the upgrade, the better the ad. They may already do this to some extent.

If the asset developer knows that they can generate more sales by getting more limlight for their product, they will have motivation to keep their stuff updated.