Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54500 readers

385 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others

Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):

💰 Please help cover server costs.


Ko-fi	Liberapay

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

298

Apps that shouldn't be Subscriptions (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

186 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Your biggest assumption is that you don't have the drive to better a product if you don't have a subscription model. It's simply not true. You can and in fact must work to better your product if you want to stay relevant in the market and drive your customer to pay for a new version of your software.

Then, you proceed by describing the positives of a subscription model. While you're not wrong about those points, you are leaving out the negatives and forgetting that every business model would have symmetrical points to be made.

There are some context in which subscription model are suited for or in fact even necessary, but the harsh reality is that now every software is turning into a subscription model only for two reason: you can extract 10x 100x more money for your customer, and you can lock-in them in order to keep them paying. This has proven to be detrimental for the quality of the softwares too: software loose interoperability and compatibility, updates are so frequent and gimmicky that they can be a problem, etc etc.