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Show HN: Patterns – Habit Tracker App

apps.apple.com

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Re: Show HN: Patterns – Habit Tracker App

#14

Post by simonbarker87 »

Lovely looking app, well done. I hope you're able to build enough of a business around this to keep the updates and improvements flowing.

To those complaining about subscriptions, it's the only viable way to build a business around an app now (even one small enough to justify hobby time spent on it when it's not so fun any more).

Why?

1. Customer acquisition cost is sky high, after the initial release bump, getting new users is a trudge and expensive, the amount people are willing to pay for a one off is too low to make most apps viable.

2. Software isn't one and done, even a little app like this needs annual updates to keep inline with the OS.

3. Users say they don't want new features, but they do, to do that the dev needs to be incentivised to keep working on it.

4. Subscriptions = better software ... because the dev gets to keep working on the app.

5. They allow indies in to the market, bigger companies with enterprise offerings and more routes to market can charge one and done, free, ad supported etc. Indies need regular predictable income, subscriptions provide that.

The people who say "give me a lifetime price" are really saying "give it to me free". Even those who do land up paying the inflation adjusted correct price for it based on what you paid back in the day (seriously, look at the inflation adjusted price for the one and done software from 20 years ago, it's laughably expensive compared to a few bucks a month sub) land up costing the dev money in the long run. Any established indie app developer (especially if they have server costs) who offered lifetime regrets it after a few years.

Re: Show HN: Patterns – Habit Tracker App

#15

Post by diimdeep »

vapidness_is wrote: post #13
pknerd wrote: post #9

does anyone know the Android alternative? Or I request author to make one

I use https://conjure.so/ it's by far the best habit tracker I've found

Free - Up to 5 Habits; $9/month - ;

I can not imagine world where I pay this much for checkbox app.

Re: Show HN: Patterns – Habit Tracker App

#16

Post by vapidness_is »

tsurba wrote: post #8

Like others said, subscriptions suck, and especially since there are apps like ”Habit List” (which I use) that have a one-time payment of only 6€, I’ll rather use that. It should not be a complicated app to make and maintain. The yearly Apple developer payment sucks but that is not my problem.

I think subscriptions are great especially for solo projects like this. They align incentives between the developer and the customer and can support maintenance and feature requests. If it's a one off payment I'm worried the app will die and not be supported.

Re: Show HN: Patterns – Habit Tracker App

#17

Post by mirzap »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #5
sneak wrote: post #2

Thank you for not including surveillance in the app. I’m buying it to show my support for this decision, even before I know if I will use it or not. Edit: spoke too soon. It seems to hang on “Loading pricing plans…” so I can’t seem to. It’s good you offer a lifetime plan (the only way I would buy it) but subscriptionware is repulsive. Please consider just not using subscriptions.

Expecting not to have a subscription for a mobile app in 2023 is not realistic. For an app to be available on the app store, even if no features are added, needs to be regularly maintained. That maintenance has a cost. If you want to have an application with no maintenance, just side load an app file and be done with it.

A lifetime with 1 year of free updates is an optimal model. You buy a "support package" of one more year of free updates to receive future updates. You can continue to use it for a lifetime, but don't expect lifetime-long updates for a fixed price.

However, devs must build an app with feature flags in mind from the start (or at least from the point of introducing a lifetime plan).

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