Just Pay the Subscription

But in all other cases, or even many of the ones where it is 'necessary', the presence of a subscription is a red flag for predatory pricing. Minor ongoing work or maintenance really doesn't cost as much as the author thinks it does. Keeping the lights on and updating API calls can be covered by new sales of permanent licenses as long as the app continues to sell. But if they had to go with a subscription, the real per-user cost would probably be measured in cents per month. Maybe add a bit more for their profit margin and charge a nice $1/mo. Do you see that anywhere except the rare app by a small developer that doesn't want to price gouge? No, all software businesses want at LEAST $5/10 a month because they've run the numbers and figured out all the tricks to human psychology, and they know they can trick someone into spending 'just $5' without them internalizing that the company is charging them a ridiculous $50-100 per user per year for even the most trivial service, leaving with almost pure profit. This is why investors love anything with a subscription service.

The author just inflates the prices and adds zeros to numbers to make permanent purchasing seem dead in the water, ignoring that we had multiple decades of software development before the advent of subscription services, where those prices were reserved for big professional suites and not your everyday app or a minor service. It's not that expensive, companies charging insane prices has just shifted your perception of what's going on behind the curtain. We even had one-time purchase mobile apps briefly, and they weren't doing it for charity either. Video games that don't require external services are still overwhelmingly priced for a single purchase, and somehow they're making bank despite also having to release updates and bugfixes.

I could, but I don't because (for more broad reasons beyond of this particular app) I don't want my data storage to dictate what software and hardware I use.

And yeah, thoughtful reply to the other point. There are a few options, each with their pros and cons. I was a happy customer before the Watch integration was good, and it's nice to see genuinely new stuff land on an update. That's the perk of the subscription model, especially when I'm getting more for the same price. Which...well, we all rightly get mad when we get the same or less for a higher price!

> If you have a subscription for something, and you like it, it will change under your feet. It will get worse, and in effect, it will be taken from you.

Then I can move on and find something else. If I really think I can't, then it's probably providing me with something I find valuable enough to keep. That idea has its limits (again, I don't disagree that subscription services can be predatory) but it's certainly true sometimes.

>If the counter-point is that mobile apps will suffer, then good. I don't like or any want any mobile apps whatsoever.

Right. And if you don't like or want magazines, you shouldn't subscribe to magazines. But there's no reason to think that because you personally do not like magazines, no one else should like them and no one else can find value in them.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48846637

Despite their recent news, I do prefer the way Mullvad has done it re this: "Here's an id. If you make a payment, it funds that id.". Then you can use the id to login. They can still enforce limits like # of users, etc, but it still enables you to have an account where you can be sure the company isn't going to ignore your unsubscribe settings, send you upsells, and then leak your phone # in some db breach.