Blue Iris witout Maintenance

Yes. Many people are on older version updates and even version 4 and haven't bought for years.

Even though I am on an older version, I still pay for updates as it allows them to make improvements that one day may add something I want.

The "annual support fee" is completely optional. You should get 12 months of updates when you first purchase the software (ie the 1st year of support is included in the software). Your license will continue to work "forever" even after the initial 12 months. You just have to remain on the versions of the software that were released during your period of "paid support" before it ran out/expired.

If you have let the "paid support" period expire and you eventually want to install a new version, you simply have to pay for a new year of support. This year will start on the day you make your purchase and be valid for 365 days. There is never an attempt to make you pay or "make up" for periods where you were not covered by paid support. In other words, you could go years without paying for support and then decide that you want to update the software and simply pay for a new year of support. With that payment, you would be able to update to the latest versions available on the payment day and any versions released for the next 364 days after that payment date. Any versions released during the 365 days that you were "covered" by the paid support year would be valid "forever" even if you let your annual support expire in the future again.

ZeroTier can be very helpful if you want to remote view something without messing around too much.