Apps that shouldn't be Subscriptions
Apps that shouldn't be Subscriptions
What is the most useless app that you have seen being given as a subscription?
For me, I tried a 'minimalist' launcher app for Android that had a 7 day trial or something and they had a yearly subscription based model for it. I was aghast. I would literally expect the app to blow my mind and do everything one can assume to go that way. In a world, where Nova Launcher (Yes, I know it has been acquired by Branch folks but it still is a sturdy one) or Niagara exist plus many alternatives including minimalist ones on F Droid, the dev must be releasing revolutionary stuff to factor in a subscription service.
Second, is a controversial choice, since it's free tier is quite good and people like it so much. But, Pocketcasts. I checked it's yearly price the other day, and boy, in my country, I can subscribe to Google Play Pass, YouTube Premium and Spotify and still have money left before I hit the ceiling what Pocketcasts is asking for paid upgrade.
Also, what are your views on one time purchase vs subscriptions? Personally, I find it much easier to purchase, if it's good enough even if it was piratable, something if it is a one time purchase rather than repetitive.
A watch face for a smart watch.
This one guy made a really popular Android Wear watch face that mimicked the Pixel lockscreen. It only cost a few bucks, and people loved it. Due to some personal things in his life, he had to sell the app to a new developer to make ends meet. The new developer then started charging something like $7/WEEK subscription for a watchface that he didn't even develop in the first place, and runs entirely locally on the device so it's not like he's maintaining any servers or anything.
Absolutely absurd.
There’s only two reasons an app should be a subscription.
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The app requires constant server connection that is an active cost to the developer.
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The app requires constant updates for maintaining functionality/ relevancy.
There are a few subscriptions I pay for (Nabu casa for one). There’s real merit in the subscription model, but it should only be about 1% of things not 80%.
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Any app that doesn’t require any backend to function.
If you ask for a subscription for an app without the need to support a backend… I won’t subscribe. I’ll find something else.
Mostly anything else is fine.
Though, if it’s something like a Note-Taking app where the cloud infrastructure for backups and sharing would cost pennies and you’re asking more than $1 a month, I’m out. Looking at you, Evernote. $64 a year to replace the built-in Notes app? No thanks.
Mobile games for kids are the worst. Those and any self-help mental health apps.
It’s $10 a month to access the features of a basic game that runs on the local device, or the subscription renews weekly, or you can get a 7-day free trial after which it charges you for the entire year. And in the latter case, you usually have to sign up for the free trial before you are allowed to see ANY content.
A cheap subscription makes sense for some things, especially those using cloud based resources. But so much of that business model seems to rely on making money by screwing people that forgot they were paying you.
It used to be entirely free and the vast majority of its tablature was uploaded by community members for free.
The app used to be a one-time purchase. Thankfully I did purchase it back then and they grandfathered me in with a lifetime pro membership, but I can't blame the people who would never want to use the site/app when they've effectively paywalled a ton of community content.
Software as a Service is only a value when the service offers you something that the software on its own cannot do; otherwise it's just rent seeking.
Paying for cloud storage, for continuous content updates (especially news), or a server to process or generate content that can't be done on my device, all fine. Paying for a messaging service to pass my messages to others, or for a game to maintain servers for multiplayer play? No problem.
But a subscription to remove ads? Your app doesn't need an external server to do that. That's rent-seeking. Same with a subscription to unlock widgets or some third-party connection.
A subscription for regular software updates are right on the line for me. In a sane world, the software package you purchase would be provided with some amount of security updates, but you wouldn't have to pay any extra until you decided to purchase the next version for new features. You know, like it was until Adobe decided to upend the industry. (Incidentally, it's weird that Adobe has gone from being the poster child for rent seeking in software to one of the more reasonable companies that's doing software as a service. I still hate that there's no way to get their software without a subscription, but at least they are providing some form of continuous value in the form of continuous updates, as well as fonts and stock images and such.)
On the other end of the spectrum you have something like Minecraft, where my ($20? I don't remember) purchase from over a decade ago is still receiving regular content updates for free, multiple times a year, with no subscription needed. I can pay a subscription fee to get an online realm for myself and my family, but I don't have to because I can also just set up and operate a server myself. More than reasonable.
One-time purchase. If I'm buying something, I want to own it. No compromises. Luckily basically every software that I use is free and open-source so I don't have to worry about that. If I can't find a particular software for a niche usage, I make it.
The best subscription model I have seen so far is for the JetBrains products. They call it the perpetual fallback license.
Quote: "A perpetual fallback license is a license that allows you to use a specific version of software without an active subscription for it. The license also includes all bugfix updates, more specifically in X.Y.Z version all Z releases are included."
A subscription to a mobile game that gives more gold when buying gold
Beside mentions of Jetbrains license model, I would like to mention the license model of a note taking app called Agenda[1].
It has a subscription wherein the customer retains the software and all of its functionality even after the subscription expires. One may resume the subscription down the line if they see a new feature worth having.
The creators of the app liken it to a magazine subscription wherein the customer retains the magazines even after the subscription lapses.
From my own experience of using it, I purchased the license for a year back in 2021 and let it lapse as I did not find the any of the new features to be worthwhile. I still keep an eye on their updates as it is my daily driver.
In all fairness to Pocket Casts, the yearly cost in the US is $40, which is about the monthly cost of the three things you mentioned together. If your country gives you yearly Google Play Pass, YouTube Premium, and Spotify Premium for less than $40 US, that’s a fucking steal.
In all fuck you to Pocket Casts, Basic App functionality like folders shouldn’t be behind a subscription. I can understand a one-time unlock fee for app functionality or ongoing subscription costs to cover cloud storage and sync capabilities. I cannot fucking understand why folders would cost me $40 US a year.
Subscription only makes sense if there's an ongoing service, e.g. processing in the cloud, cloud data storage, etc.
Apps that don't need to be subscription:
- Camera apps like Halide or Filmic Pro, wtf
- Any todo / habit apps, the 'cloud' part is usually iCloud / Google Drive
- Notetaking apps, e.g. GoodNotes, wtf
- Duolingo, mainly because the contents of some lessons are outdated (missing audio, etc).
Microsoft Solitaire on Android. The ads were driving me nuts so I went to pay for the app. If I recall they wanted almost 10 bucks a month for that shit. Deleted, forgotten, until now.
YouTube is a weird one, personally. Why shouldn't it have a subscription based service like any other streaming network? Because the content is not created by, funded by, or even necessarily supported by YouTube.
It would make more sense for the subscription to be put upon uploaders to host the content, since their business is hosting the files, not really the content itself.
Now, if they had a better or at least more transparent way of giving the creators a truly fair cut of the monetary gains earned through their videos I would have nothing against YouTube Premium aside from hating that a completely free service has to move to a paid service.
Only subscriptions that make sense to me a cloud based ones that can't function at all without access to the internet due to not being able to retrieve content needed to function. Examples that come to mind are netflix and spotify, since even though you can download content to watch or hear offline you need internet to retrieve new content. Means there are hosting costs, and I'm basically paying to not host all that content myself.
But, anything else doesn't make sense to me. If app wants to charge again then they can do another version release, and let people keep using the old version if they want while stopping updates for it. I don't do subscriptions.
The problem with one time purchases is that you might be investing time in an app that later will go out of business. Keeping an app up to date requires real constant work, before you even think of adding features and fixing bugs. People got used to paying 2 bucks for an app and keep it forever. That's completely unsustainable.
But yeah, sure, some companies push it.
If the app needs a server component, a small subscription is justified. If it doesn't, then a subscription isn't justified.
If the subscription is optional, and it gets more frequent updates & support, that might be ok too as long as you can choose to just keep the product as is (and the product isn't riddled with bugs)
Pocket Casts has a server component that makes sense you have to pay for, and for the most part the only things you don't get with the free version are the server stuff and a little bit of cosmetic stuff. $40/year for 20GB is a little steep, but the fact that they charge for it doesn't bother me.
With the exception of the folders; that doesn't make sense to me being a Plus-only thing.
All that being said, I bought the app before it went free, so I am grandfathered in to a lifetime Plus plan; but if that hadn't been the case I would not be paying for a subscription today.
This seems to be the model I've witnessed with many apps over the years. Free at first to get traction and users, then ads, then pay one time fee to get rid of ads, then subscription to keep using the app.
Then there are those that wouldn't even pay a single fee and get upset at the thought as everything should be free.
The part that is upsetting is the contributions the early community made is monetized when they were
theythere for the benefit of the community.I do see there are costs to maintaining and updating these apps so I can understand a need to keep revenue flowing for these future costs. The one time payment is a hell of a deal for years with updates to accommodate the revisions needed for each system update let alone functionality improvements.
In the old days we would buy software for our PC and that was it. There wasn't really any updates or further support for newer versions of Windows. The software would become very insecure or just stop functioning altogether with enough changes to windows.
It's hard to find the right balance. I know I only want to pay once, or heck never, but I want these upgrades and updates too.
I generally hate them in consumer-targeted apps. Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with the model. Devs have to keep the lights on, especially if there is a cloud service behind the app. It's all about what pricing model they set. However, pricing is hard. A lot of companies really screw this up right at the start. I also think a lot of businesses cannot resist the temptation to boil the frog and ask for more and more over time, until their pricing is way out of alignment with value delivery.
All of them
Might be a slightly unpopular opinion, but Volumio (software for a raspberry pi to run it as a headless audio system). It's good, it's relatively well maintained and works. But paying 7,50 a month for this software to get multiroom audio, Tidal integration and some other stuff is ridiculously expensive. That's nearly 90 euro a year and the only thing that is actually an addition server side is syncing settings across devices and the Tidal integration (requires license fees iirc).
And sure, I can't buy multiroom speakers for that kind of money, but damn, is it expensive.
I'm a big fan of the way Plex does it. I paid like 100 dollars a decade ago and all my apps stay up to date forever
What's great about it is that it's optional and not forced on you. I'm a Plexamp power user so it makes sense to me with my expansive music collection
Don't remember the name but there was a magisk module manager that had ads and didn't even install the modules. Just downloaded them after an ad. It asked money for removing ads
There's was a scanner app that I loved, for Android. Turned into a subscription, even though most people use it less than once a month and even though the app was basically complete and never got updates.
Companies are using subscription models because it has proven to be far more profitable than a one-time purchase. Why sell the product to each person just once when you can sell it to them over and over again? You no longer have to constantly develop new products and versions, and you now only have to maintain your existing product.
And it works because people buy it.
a VR app called "Supernatural" that was a fitness based beat saber clone
Permanently Deleted
Adobe CC. They've added new features recently to justify a subscription, but it's still not that good of a pitch. Some editors will have offline PCs so that their software doesn't get fucked up by anything (SUPER common in music), so having a subscription model works against professional users of their software.
id rather pay a webhost a monthly fee and host most things i need myself your better of donating/buying a opensorce project /app than pay for a licensen to a company whom enforces always online apps . if possible sadly its not always an option as not all things have an alternative or a lacking
I got pocketcasts before it launched its premium tier, so I was grandfathered into it for free
I actually really appreciate the webapp and the cross synchronization, but I don't know how much I'd actually pay for it
I'm going to go with the unpopular opinion, that all apps should have the subscription support model.
Especially open source apps!
Ideally the code is open, and under GPL or a GPL.
Unless you have a device completely disconnected from the internet, there needs to be constant development, to update libraries, to get security updates, to fix rare but critical bugs. Nobody, and I mean nobody, should be running a binary that never gets updates from 10 years ago, on a device connected to the internet.
I seen a variety of approaches to supporting app development, I think a lot of the pricing is targeted towards the richest people, ignoring the vast majority of the world. For open source apps having the app itself with a nag screen, or a supported version of the app that is just a recurring donation maybe a dollar a month.
All that being said, when the subscription ends, the app should still work at the last version, and the user just assumes the risk of running older software un maintained.
(I'm aware there's ways to mitigate the risk of unmaintained software, running in a very highly protected VM for example...)
Wow… lots of people in here bashing the subscription model, but let me point out it’s maybe not as bad as you think…
If you sell a product under a perpetual license model (I.e the one-time purchase model). Once you’ve sold the product, the manufacturer has almost no incentive to offering any support or updates to the product. At best it’s a marketing ploy, you offer support only to get word of mouth advertising of your product which is generally a losing proposition.
Since there’s little incentive to improve the experience for existing customers. Your main income comes from if you can increase your market share which generally means making products bloated often leading to a worse experience for everyone.
If the customer wants support, you need to sell them a support contract. If they want updates you have to make a new version and hope the customer sees enough additional value to be worth upgrading. Either way we’re back to a subscription model with more steps, more risk, and less upside than market expansion so it takes a backseat.
If you want to make a great product without some variation on a subscription. You need to invest heavily upfront in development (which most companies don’t have the capital to do, and investors generally won’t invest in unproven software)
From a product perspective, you don’t know if you’ve hit the mark until people start using your product. The first versions of anything but the most trivial of products is usually terrible, because no matter how good you are, half to three quarters of the ideas you build are going to be crap and not going to be what the customers need.
Perpetual licensing works for a small single purpose application with no expectation of support or updates.
It works for applications with broad market needs like office software.
For most niche applications, subscription models offer a better experience for both the customer and the manufacturer.
The customer isn’t facing a large transition cost to switch to a competitor’s product like they would if they had to buy a perpetual license of it, so you have a lot more incentive to support and improve your product. You also don’t see significant revenue if the customer that drops your service a couple months in… even more reason to focus on improving the product for existing customers.
People ought hate the idea of paying small reoccurring fees for software instead of a few big upfront costs. But from a business model perspective, businesses are way more incentivized to focus on making their products better for you under that model.