I’d make the distinction between paid app and subscriptions. I think most people don’t mind paying once for something. But every single thing is nowadays a subscription model, it’s ridiculous.
To a certain extent I get it though. It’s one of the fundamental failings of the App Store. In the olden days you paid for a piece of software and whatever was on the disc is what you got. When next year’s version came out you had to go to the store and pay for that one too or call the number on the shareware screen. When the App Store came out all of a sudden Apple and their customers expected devs to keep supporting apps on newer platforms with changing APIs. You can’t develop with no income, so developers turned to subscriptions and similar.
There needs to be a better way but Apple makes money off the way it works now.
I don’t know why the micro subscription model hasn’t become a thing. I get that even if you do basically no new features on an app it still needs to be updated from time to time as Android changes. So why not have apps be a buck or two a year?
It seems they’re either free, or a $8+ a month. All the fitness apps are insanely priced considering they have very little development and all the data within is crowdsourced. Plus I guarantee they’re selling your health info.
I would have no issue at all subscribing to dozens of apps if they were super cheap. You get a lot of people chipping in $2 and that adds up quick. I’m guessing the reason they don’t is transaction fees and app store cuts.
Also most people do not want to pay for an app. They simply don’t.
They either don’t mind the ads or just buy a subscription, but don’t even think about spending like 1€ once to never be bothered.
Every single thing is not subscription today
Paying once is fine. Subs are not to be tolerated.
Subs are fine for services. I personally also think they provide a better incentive structure. But they’re often abused
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I think the ideal model is something like 1-time purchase w/ 12 months of updates.
Software does often require ongoing maintenance. So after 12 months, no more updates, and it works as long as it continues to work, without any new features or patches. Updates are an optional fee for like 10-20% of purchase price.
Yeah, you can’t expect devs to actively work on an app indefinitely just because you gave them a few bucks that one time. It makes no sense financially if the app isn’t exceptionally successful.
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Yes!
I blame Apple for setting the standard of $1-$3 for an app with lifetime updates. And also for making it so old apps stop working on newer OSes after just a few years. The business model was broken from the start. It was great at first but the bubble burst in record time.
That was nearly unheard of just 20 years ago.
I understand your sentiment, but a lot of that isn’t right.
Early iPhone apps were going for $10-20. So many developers being okay with just data harvesting plus so many devices out there made the $0.99 / free with ads model dominate – people got used to “free” apps from the big guys (Facebook, Google, whoever).
iOS apps are pretty resilient to OS updates. They usually only totally break when huge changes happen (dropping 32-bit support, etc) and those happen once a decade.
Tons of Windows software didn’t survive the 3.1 to 95 transition. A bunch died on 98 to XP, too. In the Apple world, a lot got left behind on the Mac when they went from PowerPC to Intel processors in 2007, or when they dropped 32-bit libraries.
Hmm, maybe I’m thinking more iPhone 3G era than original iPhone era? I recall a time when there weren’t many apps yet and you could put out anything marginally-functional for 99¢ on the app store and get some quick cash from it. I don’t remember $10-20 being the norm but maybe that was before I was onboard.
I’ve certainly been burned by apps either breaking with iOS updates or no longer being available to download on the App Store (so you could keep using them, but only on existing devices that already had them installed).
As with anything, nuance exists. Does a monthly / annual donation to a FOSS developer count as a subscription?
I have a few things I’ve paid once for additional function or even banner ad removal that don’t receive updates. Though at a glance I don’t see anything I have installed that has a recurring cost and receives no updates.
I suppose there’s a fine difference between what I consider a subscription, and supporting active development of something I use regularly, but that difference probably varies person to person.
Honestly, these days I use fdroid as my primary app store. It’s been an amazing way to cut through the junk and find great apps.
Same but with the droidify client. FOSS is life.
I just found out about this interval timer. It works great
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What I can’t stand is when platforms don’t take no for an answer.
Every fucking visit to Dropbox: “Upgrade to Standard!”
Every check out on Amazon: "Upgrade to Prime!
Every time I open Walmart: “Upgrade to Walmart+”
I fucking can’t stand it.
Would you like to activate this annoying feature!
- Yes.
- Remind me later.
Stop shopping at Walmart and Amazon
If it isn’t FOSS, it’s not free.
Notesnook took down a basic Markdown feature as Premium and its foss. I felt like betrayed
Did they!? I’m self-hosting the server and haven’t noticed any functionality disappear. Markdown is a local feature you can toggle in settings, not something you should need a server for.
Edit
Oh my god, they did. And ligatures, too. What a way to punch the FOSS community in the face! I think if you set up your own server and connect to it that arbitrary and coercive limitation may disappear.Another edit
I see the code changes in 3.3.0. The “good news” is that being open source means you can reverse those aggressively anti-user anti-features if you feel up to it. Search formarkdownShortcutsin the code. It seems like the gating mechanism is very simple and should be easy to flip on or off. See this https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook/blob/v3.3.5/packages/common/src/utils/is-feature-available.ts#L118
Very little pisses me off like downloading a ‘free’ app and immediately being hit with a paywall for a subscription without so much as a free trial. Those devs can go fuck themselves. Their app is NOT free and should not be marked as such.
Alternatively, shit like what Accuweather did also pisses me off. Years ago, they had a one time payment to remove ads permanently. I paid, because I like their service and didn’t mind kicking a few bucks their way to support development. A few months later, they introduced a sub model that locked many existing features behind a wall and started showing me ads again. I immediately uninstalled that shit, sent them a scathing email (which I recognize does nothing, but made me feel good), and found an alternative.
Then use FOSS apps.
Atleast they kindly ask, NOT “BUY THE PAID VERSION OR FUCK YOU, NOTHING FOR YOU, GO TO HELL”.Instead of looking for “free” look for “open source”
Anyway a lot of these developers get it wrong. Don’t bully people into paying with aggressive or misleading tactics as that just alienates your user base. Instead make the app so good to use that people are willing to pay for extra features. The free version should be so good that people stop and wonder how they can support the dev. Then offer a feature that is genuinely useful.
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Okay, but what is the solution? I see a lot of whining from consumers about how expensive and enshittified everything is, yet very few people seem to be willing to donate to/pay for the few alternatives that exist. They vote for the same entrenched political parties in their countries (or don’t vote at all). They don’t get involved in activist movements. Why are we expecting the system and/or the outcomes to magically change when all we are willing to contribute is crying on social media?
I have no issue paying for an app. I have an issue with a free app wanting me to pay $5 a month to use it.
I paid for Boost!, definitely worth it. IMO: it’s the best Lemmy app.
Then uuuuh stop using them?
Everything is so enshittified now, that we need to redefine the concept of “free”
That blog post is AI slop, both text and image
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Yup. Even if you don’t change anything in your app, it still requires maintenance to run on newer devices.
You can either have 0 of my money forever
Or you can have a reasonable amount of it for lifetime access, at minimum, to the version I purchased
I would love to have an overview before I install an app what it might cost. Play store lists at least minimum and maximum in-app-purchases, but the information is not very visible and I cannot filter my results based on it. And if need to pay for a subscription on the app website it will not be reflected at all.
Developers should be forced to provide an outline what you get for free (if they decide to advertise/sell their app as free) and what the different payment/subscription tiers include.
Of all places Microsoft Windows Store does it quite well for some apps (like MS Office), but also does not enforce it for all apps.
It also gives you no clue whether those prices are one-off purchases or monthly subscriptions, making them entirely useless.
$3.99, sounds like a dea… per month… YOU BASTARDS.
