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To a lot of developers : I'm tired of subscribing to your app!
- Thread starter katbel
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What I dislike is the nagware I seemingly have bought and paid for. The weasels at Pathfinder have started everyday to have a popup on my computer nagging me to upgrade to the new version. It was bad enough to see it ever once in a while with the previous version. Now with the new it is every damn day wanting me to go subscription. Only thing it has done is make me think it will be cold day in hell before they ever get my money again.
For me, payment has to be for something novel. It has to feel like a fair exchange of money for something I didn't have before. Paying for continued access to the same old thing feels like I'm getting a bad deal, like I'm paying again for something I already have. Is that how developers want users to feel?
I don't mind paying for new features. If v3 adds new functionality that wasn't in v2, then I don't mind paying for it again. And if v4 adds even more functionality, then I'll pay for it again. Or I'll decide the upgrade isn't worth whatever new is added and I'll stick with the old version until it isn't supported by the OS anymore.
But the sense of paying for just continued access to software feels like double-dipping to me. It makes me resent that particular developer. Carrot weather is a prime example of this.
I don't mind paying for new features. If v3 adds new functionality that wasn't in v2, then I don't mind paying for it again. And if v4 adds even more functionality, then I'll pay for it again. Or I'll decide the upgrade isn't worth whatever new is added and I'll stick with the old version until it isn't supported by the OS anymore.
But the sense of paying for just continued access to software feels like double-dipping to me. It makes me resent that particular developer. Carrot weather is a prime example of this.
I don't think you not upgrading or buying adobe products is causing adobe's expenses to increase ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You can make the point that they're not seeing any revenue from you, but it has nothing to do with expenses.
I disagree, but it doesn't matter since Apple isn't about going try to force other companies to adopt a business model that is not that profitable. Think what you will, the fact remains that the subscription model is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
To the (quite many) developers that want to turn their one-time-purchase price straight into a yearly subscription fee: no problem, but please deliver a new and improved version every year (one that holds more than a few bug fixes or some refurbished icons).
If you don’t, I will just call you greedy 🤑
If you do, nice to meet you, you’re the first 😜
(I have enough subscriptions to know what I’m talking about, sadly enough)
If you don’t, I will just call you greedy 🤑
If you do, nice to meet you, you’re the first 😜
(I have enough subscriptions to know what I’m talking about, sadly enough)
Isn't it funny that "Apple" leads others on such decisions where they even don't have 2% on computer industrie, that's why I call Microsoft is not innocent.
@GerritV 's comment is valuable. Developers whose jobs is making occasional updates like every month or two and bringing beautiful features deserve this, other sadly don't and you should not give them this money.
Apple leads better models. Renting a software means you don't have to spill your money and see that the app is garbage. You can try it for free if developer agrees, use it for a while, even spend some 4-5$. If you then, don't like the app, you can remove it and you won't pay 60$ for app.
On the other hand, you'll spend 100$ for an app that is advertised hardly, you see that it does'nt satisfy your need and you can't get your 100$ easily. This is a difference.
@GerritV 's comment is valuable. Developers whose jobs is making occasional updates like every month or two and bringing beautiful features deserve this, other sadly don't and you should not give them this money.
Apple leads better models. Renting a software means you don't have to spill your money and see that the app is garbage. You can try it for free if developer agrees, use it for a while, even spend some 4-5$. If you then, don't like the app, you can remove it and you won't pay 60$ for app.
On the other hand, you'll spend 100$ for an app that is advertised hardly, you see that it does'nt satisfy your need and you can't get your 100$ easily. This is a difference.
Well, Dropzone 4 is now also a subscription for 17,00 dkr a month. which is a US $1,99
(You can use Dropzone 4 but the goods come with a subscription)
From the App Store page:
I purchased Dropzone 3 via Mac App Store and have been using the unsandboxed version.
I'm not sure this is a healthy trend but the money needs to come from somewhere - that I do understand.
I could have a few of these subscriptions and perhaps pay perhaps $30-$40 a month in total for all the apps, but I can't justify doing it despite my fondness of Dropzone as an example.
I just can't make that kind of a commitment.
Dropzone is developed by Aptonic.
(You can use Dropzone 4 but the goods come with a subscription)
From the App Store page:
I purchased Dropzone 3 via Mac App Store and have been using the unsandboxed version.
I'm not sure this is a healthy trend but the money needs to come from somewhere - that I do understand.
I could have a few of these subscriptions and perhaps pay perhaps $30-$40 a month in total for all the apps, but I can't justify doing it despite my fondness of Dropzone as an example.
I just can't make that kind of a commitment.
Dropzone is developed by Aptonic.
You don't need a subscription/rental for that. For decades, the model was to have a free trial period (typically 30 days) where you could test the app in full function to see if it served your needs. Some developers would then sell a key to unlock the software. Others had a separate trial version.
That's nothing but a strawman argument... and a weak one at that.
The scourge that began in the last decade. The rise of the subscription-based business model.
Transition from 32-bit to 64-bit started with OS X 10.5 more than 12 years ago. 32-bit was then deprecated almost 10 years and finally removed in Catalina. Plenty of time for developers and users to adapt to it.
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I tried out Canary for 10 minutes and dropped $20 for the premium. I don't mind paying if its good. I think minimally the main app with no ads should have a fixed price first, then the dev can add DLCs and subscriptions on top if they want.
Some devs work around this by abandoning the old version and make a new version that has to be purchased again (Geekbench). Then there are the sketchy devs that charged you a one time fee, but overtime they update their app so you lose the premium features anyway unless you pay for subscription, or nonstop nag you to upgrade, in this case Office Suite. Or the ones who update their apps, take away features and invalidate the ads free which you paid for, in this case Weather Underground.
Some devs work around this by abandoning the old version and make a new version that has to be purchased again (Geekbench). Then there are the sketchy devs that charged you a one time fee, but overtime they update their app so you lose the premium features anyway unless you pay for subscription, or nonstop nag you to upgrade, in this case Office Suite. Or the ones who update their apps, take away features and invalidate the ads free which you paid for, in this case Weather Underground.
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I bought Canary 3.0 as well. Much better than version 2 was. Too bad the stock app isn’t as nice.
Those are different, those things are either always changing and adding new content (digital TV) or they rely on someone else's service/server (cloud storage). Those items need the ongoing work of the distributor. So, yes, those items need a subscription service.. the value of those items is constantly being increased so the payments need to constantly continue in proportion.
Software, on the other hand, does not constantly increase. In fact, with the way tech gets outdated so quickly, software apps actually decrease over time and may stop working if the computer is upgraded - like the removal of 32-bit compatibility. I still have and use apps that I purchased years ago and they still work fine today - the value of those apps has never increased since the date of purchase so a subscription model wouldn't have been warranted. Software apps do not need the ongoing care of the distributor.
One very important question users must ask themselves if they are going to pay for a subscription model; what is going to happen if the developer passes away tomorrow? The backend services for your subscribed app will eventually be switched off due to non-payment from the developer, so your app will eventually stop working. Yes, you can stop the subscription payments. But, without your approval, your access to the app will also stop due to the developer's untimely demise. Will you have anything to show for all of those software subscription payments?
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
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This was precisely my reaction yesterday. Before the constant nagging, which at one point locked me out of Fantastical on iPhone, I was considering looking at what was on offer. No longer. If this is their game play then now was the time to delete and move on. That's what I've done because the nagging will be relentless until they've reached their target share of the market. It could have been different had they not been so pushy.
Indeed, I have not deleted yet but it is to the point where the chances of me paying for an upgrade are zero due to their actions. If I could find something that had the features I need or want it would be gone in a second.
I have used filemaker pro for years I think since ver. 6. I used mostly at work and we upgraded overtime a new version came out. I am now on ver. 11 and the current ver. I think in 18. My work abandoned using it after ver. 11 and that version does not work on high sierra and above. I thought about keeping up the license myself but the occasional need for it does not justify the $39/month subscription. My solution is to continue using ver. 11 on an old mac mini running Sierra. For the way I am using it I do not need the current version.
I'm the same way with subscriptions. If it's something that has updated content like music or movies then I can see a subscription but I'm not paying every month for a calculator. The problem is I currently have 162 apps on my iPhone. At $2.99 per month that's over $500 a month for apps... Umm no that's insane! I have other words in mind but I'm sure they're not allowed on the forms. I will buy apps and pay for subscriptions for content but not paying rent for apps...
I have a new app coming soon, that is free with limitations for test/light usage. And I'll offer either subscription, either a one-time licence fee for unlocking everything.
With free future updates.
Do you think it is a good balance?
The problem is for new features that take a lot of time to develop. Apps are now about continuous improvement. Hence the subscription model (which does not make any sense for apps that are not updated).
With free future updates.
Do you think it is a good balance?
The problem is for new features that take a lot of time to develop. Apps are now about continuous improvement. Hence the subscription model (which does not make any sense for apps that are not updated).
My thoughts:
An app that works the same way a year from now as it did on the day of purchase should be a one-time license fee. If the user wants updates then they can weigh the updates versus cost of buying the updated version of the app and act accordingly.
An app that is continually updated and has more features a year from now than it did on the day of purchase would be good for subscription model pricing. I feel we must be cautious here.. we don't want developers throwing in pointless features for the sole purpose of justifying subscription pricing and then have that practice setting a precedent.
About bug fixes: Bug fixes should be provided for free.. it's an incentive for the developer to deliver on the advertising promise. If your oven or coffee maker didn't work as advertised then you would return it, and I believe software should have the same expected value upon purchase. Think of how many refund requests would have been made had Apple charged money for Catalina.
Apps don't need to be continually improved, I still have apps that I purchased years ago and they still work as they did on the day of purchase. We need to get off this "continually improved" thing.. it's bad for users and developers alike. I feel that some end users should shoulder some of the blame here due to their unrealistic expectations.
I think you are in your right to do what you want with your app. However, a subscription is a good way to earn in money each month without actually doing what's said in a given description for an application, despite promising continuous updates that improves the app greatly.
Though I don't know what app you're releasing or working on I am very aware that if other human species are like me; adult men and women - and not babies, They'd take what ever cash they can get. Users will drop off the subscription to a given app and a developer feels that. If suddenly a $1000 dollar income each month goes to $100 a month for that one app.
I'd love that developers stick to just a full one-time unlock for a 2.x version and so on. I think that earns more respect from users. A developer is a user of some apps too I gather?!
By respect I mean, that a user will buy an app for $10 - $15 and that's sell so many copies.
Do what one will with that money - no-one awaits your next move. Secure the app, fix bugs within your limits for dealing with said application. When that's over, make the app unsupported.
Is macOS and iOS and Apple devices really for the rich and the unknowing as the tale goes?
We've heard that for years on end and it appears that Apple, by allowing app-subscriptions, magnifies that tale plenty.
In the days of theming OS X Tiger using Shapeshifter from Unsanity; I would have given them $5 a month easily for working around the APE Framework that gave Apple Genius Bar so much trouble(from memory, but reading about it back then). Even the Flavours guys for continuing support modern macOS versions I would have given $49 for a version of Flavours that can run on macOS Catalina. It's just not happening because of SIP.
Things like that give meaning for me. It's what I'm happy seeing, doing, working on and with.
I get that other people have e.g a writing app or a calendar app as their Must Have App. I just don't. There's no-one sitting down(that I know of) coding the next Flavours style app for macOS 10.15. The world is so different today. I'm 41 and I don't know if age is a factor in wanting subscriptions shipped into deep space.
I'll end this one with a nice one..
To the developer and fellow Mac/iOS user I quoted; I'm sorry. I tend to think out loud and I am a filthy-minded human being.
I feel a pressure to write and speak and sometimes it gets out on a tangent.
I just hope you do whatever you feel is best for you. You as a developer make apps for me and everyone else in our eco-system. Thank you.
A lot has been said already. I'm mostly against Subscriptions but I have no problem paying iCloud's $9.99 for 2TB for my family, I have no problem paying $34/year for Day One, no problem paying for Carrot Weather's premium service, and Office 365 Home (5 licenses for $99).
But Fantastical was pushing it. I had bought Things 3 and Calendars 5 - I live purchasing apps and using them but I hate subscriptions because I feel obligated to use them. This is why I gave up ToDoIst and quite a few other subscriptions over the last year. I gladly paid Calendar 366 and am using it now.
The argument that developers need $ to survive and promise to put out more features has backfired I think. I know apps that switched to subscription haven't outputted more (imo). If anything it begs complacency because there's always a stream of income so no need to push new features to generate revenue.
I have a feeling management needing to have profit for the month is the drive behind a lot of this (often times resulting in failure later on).
I'm tired of subscriptions. I may be getting old but I'm tired of paying monthly for something that goes away if I stop paying it. My usage of a piece of software shouldn't be reliant on X company to survive.
I love to spend $ trying out new apps and helping developers. I hate and avoid signing up for subscriptions - I avoid them like the plague these days as I'm subscription'ed out. Don't get me started on my many subscriptions .........
But Fantastical was pushing it. I had bought Things 3 and Calendars 5 - I live purchasing apps and using them but I hate subscriptions because I feel obligated to use them. This is why I gave up ToDoIst and quite a few other subscriptions over the last year. I gladly paid Calendar 366 and am using it now.
The argument that developers need $ to survive and promise to put out more features has backfired I think. I know apps that switched to subscription haven't outputted more (imo). If anything it begs complacency because there's always a stream of income so no need to push new features to generate revenue.
I have a feeling management needing to have profit for the month is the drive behind a lot of this (often times resulting in failure later on).
I'm tired of subscriptions. I may be getting old but I'm tired of paying monthly for something that goes away if I stop paying it. My usage of a piece of software shouldn't be reliant on X company to survive.
I love to spend $ trying out new apps and helping developers. I hate and avoid signing up for subscriptions - I avoid them like the plague these days as I'm subscription'ed out. Don't get me started on my many subscriptions .........
This is the crux of the problem right here. People expect bug fixes and compatibility updates for free. Under the one time purchase model, a developer may end up with a large number of versions they are trying to provide bug/security/compatibility updates for. That takes time. Time they can no longer spend producing newer versions of the software. Under the subscription model, the company gets to focus all of their time on one version of the software. In the end, it provides a much better user experience for the majority of customers. In our workplace we previously had everyone on different versions of Windows, Office, Adobe, Mathworks, etc. each with slightly different capabilities. Since we’ve standardized on their subscription models, everyone is on the same version all the time and things work much more smoothly.
Software has traditionally been under-priced relative to the value it provides to users as a tool. Even today, we pay essentially nothing for all of the above tools relative to the overall cost of keeping me as an employee. Yet I could only do a fraction of my output without those tools. Maybe there is another way other than subscription, but the old model isn’t it.
I make an app. From 2016-2017 it was a pay once product. You purchased it and received updates for a year. After that year, the app still worked but no more updates.
This was successful but it wasn't so profitable that I should quit my day job working as a developer for somebody else to pursue this product full time.
In early 2018 I decided to switch to a subscription model. Now users could subscribe monthly or yearly. At the end of their subscription period (if they cancelled) the product would still continue to function but in a diminished capacity.
This enabled home users and hobbyist to use the app but professionals, businesses and enterprises would need to pay to make the application fully featured for their use cases.
This transformed the business entirely. The revenue stream generated by subscriptions exploded. Remember in the past you had to buy the software up-front and you would receive a year of updates. That meant there was some sticker shock due to a high price.
But when I introduced subscriptions it enabled users to feel more comfortable about trying the service out knowing it only cost the price of a coffee. And once they used the app and saw how useful it was, many of them stayed as subscribers.
My yearly churn rate for monthly subscribers as of today is 8.44% Meaning for every 1,000 new users who subscribe I retain 916 of them after their first year using the product.
Changing to a subscription model allowed me to quit my job working for someone else and work on this full time. The consistent revenue the subscriptions generate allow me to more easily access credit and plan for the future. My wife and I are lucky enough to own a house and a car already with no mortgages or car payments but if we did being able to show the bank a consistent income would help immensely with obtaining those things.
At the end of the day making good apps that people want to spend money on is not easy. If it was, every person on this planet would be a developer. You're paying someone else to do all the hard work for you and I think throwing them a few bucks for an app you use very often or that enriches your work or life is money well spent.
As some other posters have said, software has been undervalued for a very long time. Often due to companies subsidising one software product they make with another. Skewing peoples perception of a software products worth due to them going after market share to stifle competition in many cases.
Just my perspective as a developer. I know for sure some of you will disagree with what I've said and that's okay I just ask that you keep your replies to me civil, I am a human being after all.
This was successful but it wasn't so profitable that I should quit my day job working as a developer for somebody else to pursue this product full time.
In early 2018 I decided to switch to a subscription model. Now users could subscribe monthly or yearly. At the end of their subscription period (if they cancelled) the product would still continue to function but in a diminished capacity.
This enabled home users and hobbyist to use the app but professionals, businesses and enterprises would need to pay to make the application fully featured for their use cases.
This transformed the business entirely. The revenue stream generated by subscriptions exploded. Remember in the past you had to buy the software up-front and you would receive a year of updates. That meant there was some sticker shock due to a high price.
But when I introduced subscriptions it enabled users to feel more comfortable about trying the service out knowing it only cost the price of a coffee. And once they used the app and saw how useful it was, many of them stayed as subscribers.
My yearly churn rate for monthly subscribers as of today is 8.44% Meaning for every 1,000 new users who subscribe I retain 916 of them after their first year using the product.
Changing to a subscription model allowed me to quit my job working for someone else and work on this full time. The consistent revenue the subscriptions generate allow me to more easily access credit and plan for the future. My wife and I are lucky enough to own a house and a car already with no mortgages or car payments but if we did being able to show the bank a consistent income would help immensely with obtaining those things.
At the end of the day making good apps that people want to spend money on is not easy. If it was, every person on this planet would be a developer. You're paying someone else to do all the hard work for you and I think throwing them a few bucks for an app you use very often or that enriches your work or life is money well spent.
As some other posters have said, software has been undervalued for a very long time. Often due to companies subsidising one software product they make with another. Skewing peoples perception of a software products worth due to them going after market share to stifle competition in many cases.
Just my perspective as a developer. I know for sure some of you will disagree with what I've said and that's okay I just ask that you keep your replies to me civil, I am a human being after all.
You're using software bugs to justify a subscription model?! Surely you jest. Double the price of a one-time cost.. I don't mind, I'll pay it.. really.
But russell is right..
.. no, just.. no.
This subscription garbage is why I'm glad I learned how to write my own software. If subscriptions get to be too big a thing, more and more users will learn to write their own software and greedy developers will end up shooting themselves in the feet. This is a slippery slope.
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