I dislike subscriptions as much as the next guy, but I can see why the developers need to have a source of income to keep up development. I personally prefer the system used in apps like Agenda where you only (voluntarily) pay for new features as they are released and get to keep any feature you've previously bought indefinitely.
That's what most peopel are saying Ginger Labs should do. My guess is they're worried people will continue to use the paid for app and not subscribe so they've pulled features to drive subscriptions.
If you want to move to a subscription model, you launch a new version and leave the old one alone. You don't remove stuff people have paid for and demand more cash.
A number of apps have done that and it's a reasonable approach.
If they want to transition to a subscription model, they should rename this version “Notability Classic” and freeze the feature set, while providing security updates and bug fixes. Going forward they can sell the new subscription based Notability. Grandfathering is the right thing to do.
I would go so far as to say they should could simply leave it as is and not support it. You want bug fixes, etc., then buy the subscription.
Yep. Sounds like a crap job to be a developer. Apple raises prices and people line up and say take my money. lol. Let a dev do this and it’s outrageous.
It's not about raising prices but pulling paid for features from a product.
People are free loading with paid apps because they are not viable in the long run. 15$ is completely reasonable. If you don’t have $15 use Notes.
This notion that we should be able to buy an app in the App Store once and then keep using it -- with updates! -- forever is just totally crazy.
I don't expect updates forever but do expect to have access to the features I paid for until a new OS renders the app unable to run.
The whiny entitlement is quite strong with a lot of folks -- the same ones who line up to give Apple hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year to purchase (rent, if you're on the iPhone upgrade program) shiny new devices to replace last year's shiny new devices. What kind of logic is that?
The same logic that said Apple was wrong when they took steps to throttle performance to save battery life.
The problem, as it always is, is Apple's fault with its idiotic App Store rules. Along with the 30% racket fee, this is why sideloading apps absolutely has to become an option.
Apple's fee is actually quite low when you look at your argument about the old way:
For all the young'uns here who think subscriptions are the only possible solution, let me tell you how software sales used to work, before you were born. And I can assure you, companies survived just fine, as will be made clear in a moment.
Under the old way companies were lucky to get 30% of the sales price, if they could get distribution and had to upfront all the costs of duplication, printing, packaging before the first sale and their 30% cut.
Company X releases Product Y version 1.0. Developers keep working like crazy in the product, so that next year they can offer you version 2.0 with all these new features. It is entirely up to you whether you should buy it or not. If you don't you still have version 1.0 to work with, and you're not due anything else to Company X just to keep version 1.0, that you already paid for, working. So Company X's continued survival depends on them adding features that customers actually want and are willing to pay for. The free market in its finest incarnation.
The key is what I noted above in your post: what you paid for keeps working. I have no issue with a company releasing V2 and charging for it as long as they don't disable V1 if I paid for it.
In comes Apple with the App Store and imposes a rule no one called for, and that benefits absolutely no one: you can't charge for an upgrade. You have to release a completely new app, and you can't offer upgrade pricing to your old customers.
Actually, you can. Some companies released a new app version as a separate purchase and charge for it; some discount the price for a while to give current purchasers a upgrade discount. They can also add features as in app purchases.
It should come as no surprise that I much prefer the old system where the developer has to earn a new sale by adding features. Unfortunately, the idiotic App Store rules did away with that option.
As I pointed out, the App Store rules still allow the old system. What really killed the model is how apps were priced. Instead of charging a sustainable price, developers went for the bottom and users came to believe apps were worth at best a few dollars, pounds or Euros. Apps became a volume business in a market where volume sales year over year are not sustainable; since many phone sales were upgrades and users simply moved apps to a new phone, and not an ever growing market size.
Since you brought up the old system, apps were often at least 10 - 20 dollars, pounds, marks, escudos, francs, etc.; which would probably be 15 - 30 inflation adjusted today.
I like SetApp, even though it is subscription and I actually bought a number of apps on it before I subscribed, for the price of a couple of my must have apps I get a bunch of additional apps that are useful.
Unfortunately, I talked to Apple support a few hours ago. They told me they noticed a few complaints about this and they recommended me to contact the developers myself. I don't know if things have changed after more complaints go to Apple.
It will be interesting to see Apple's response. If they let some AppStore guidelines be violated it may prove harder to enforce them later.
