It's an annoying ever growing trend. Even with apps you paid a few years ago for $3-5 bucks, you had the full version, everything was smooth.
One app in particular I bought for my iPad is "Plotaverse," this is (was) a fun app where you take a photo and you can create an animated version of it. The more they updated this app in the past few years, the more of a total mess it became. I was playing around with it a few nights ago, the lag in this messy UI has made the app almost unbearable - and when I clicked on one of the tools, the pop up ad for "Subscribe to Pro Version.....bla blah" and it froze the app up, I lost the progress I was making on the photo. So why would I pay more for this? SMH!
What a serious turn off!! I simply refuse to pay-subscribe to anyones app! Some of these are 2 bucks a week, 4 bucks a month. Give me a break!
My Hi-Def Radar app was one - best radar app I bought way back in 2011. Then came the subscription version, the one I bought lost many features (lighting strikes, detailed radars, etc). I ended up deleting that new version, was able to load up the far better previous version...and made sure it never updated. (WeatherSphere made that version unusable a few months later...so you were forced to update to the recent version.)
BUT after months of 1 star reviews, dropping the 5 star rating way down - they - WeatherSphere - did bring back some old features, including lighting strikes. Still want you to pay for more features, but it works fine without some goofball subscription.