I'm building an app at the moment, and I'm thinking to myself, "do people really want another subscription, or would they be happier buying credits or something". It's a really tough question to answer, but I'm so pulled to the subscription because it's been so successful for others.
Subscription fatigue and related musings
21–30 of 123 posts
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#22Some apps that I purchased before in full, later turned into subscription based apps(giving me a year of free subscription). This made me feel bad and I lost my warm and fizzy feelings towards these apps. That said, I understand why they are doing it. It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Also, despite that people claim that they want "one time payment apps" that do…
> It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Duh? This is written in English but I genuinely have trouble making sense of your words. We had this for decades without subscriptions, they're called UPGRADES! You buy 1.x, or 2.x or whatever, and then when 3.x comes out new customers pay full price but existing ones get it at a much reduced price. But they can do so on their…
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Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Duh? This is written in English but I genuinely have trouble making sense of your words. We had this for decades without subscriptions, they're called UPGRADES! You buy 1.x, or 2.x or whatever, and then when 3.x comes out new customers pay full price but existing ones get it at a much reduced price. But they can do so on their…
It's not my English or that I haven't heard of upgrades, App Stores don't offer a mechanism to sell upgrades. That's why Im proposing it as a solution.
Yes, and that’s because developers won’t be able to support multiple versions, and they don’t want people stuck on old versions that don’t support new phones and library security updates.
In “solving” the subscription problem, upgrades create more cost, bugs, and exposure for everyone.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#24A significant problem is that the App Store just says "In App Purchases" on the App page. We don't even get a list of prices and functionality of the IAPs. In EU it is a requirement that: "When you buy goods or services in the EU, you have to be clearly informed about the total price, including all taxes and additional charges." https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pri... I don't think the App sto…
I’m in the US and I can see prices and titles of all IAPs.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#25Some apps that I purchased before in full, later turned into subscription based apps(giving me a year of free subscription). This made me feel bad and I lost my warm and fizzy feelings towards these apps. That said, I understand why they are doing it. It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Also, despite that people claim that they want "one time payment apps" that do…
> It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Duh? This is written in English but I genuinely have trouble making sense of your words. We had this for decades without subscriptions, they're called UPGRADES! You buy 1.x, or 2.x or whatever, and then when 3.x comes out new customers pay full price but existing ones get it at a much reduced price. But they can do so on their…
We had this for decades without subscriptions, they're called UPGRADES!
Exactly. I bought Panic's Nova for $99. Love it. It came with one year of updates. My year is over. But I don't need any of the new features with the new versions.
When some features are added that I need or want, I'll pay for the new version. No big deal. It may be a year from now, it may be two years from now. It works for my wallet, and it incentivizes the developers to add solid new features.
The whole idea of being drip-fed features by software developers is crazy. I'm not a junkie on the corner holding out a shaky $5 bill to my software dealer to get this month's "fix."
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#26Some apps that I purchased before in full, later turned into subscription based apps(giving me a year of free subscription). This made me feel bad and I lost my warm and fizzy feelings towards these apps. That said, I understand why they are doing it. It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Also, despite that people claim that they want "one time payment apps" that do…
It's interesting that in your thoughtful survey of alternatives, you don't consider simply challenging the assumption "and provide updates forever".
Subscriptions do indeed fund perpetual development in a way that one time purchases don't, but the implication that comes along with that is that features are to be added along the way. If you only released maintenance patches, you subscriber satisfaction would dry up really darn fast.
So now we have this model where publishers charge subscriptions so that they can keep their business stable or growing, and subscribers are demanding features be added so that they're getting value for the ever-growing total cost of ownership. And what do you get from that? Feature Bloat.
The subscription model insists that successful products need to continually grow their code base, complexity, and feature set. The idea of stable streamlined applications that do a few jobs really well and otherwise stay out of the way is very hard to sustain in a world of subscriptions.
The alternative -- which was common in the past and remains common among many (not all) game publishers now -- is to temporarily expand your team payroll with talent that produces the product, and then scale it back to warranty the product with necessary maintenance patches while your emphasis turns to growing the market through sales instead of growing the product through features. Later, perhaps, you create another related product or a successor product.
It can and does still work, and it can make for very high quality products that don't become bloated monstrosities. If subscription fatigue is making the news, I'm sure will see a resurgence of this model soon enough.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not my English or that I haven't heard of upgrades, App Stores don't offer a mechanism to sell upgrades. That's why Im proposing it as a solution.
Yes, and that’s because developers won’t be able to support multiple versions, and they don’t want people stuck on old versions that don’t support new phones and library security updates. In “solving” the subscription problem, upgrades create more cost, bugs, and exposure for everyone.
It's actually more than that. Many apps have a server component and this requires ongoing revenue and support for multiple versions of the app even if the new OS of the device doesn't break that app.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#28Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run. One-time up front purchases only reward developers for expanding the target market of their product; whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue. From a developer’s perspective, the one-time price should be the CLV of what they’d get with a subscription. For users, that means much h…
>> I would much rather have 20 apps that I pay $10/mo/ea for than to buy one new $600
Right, and that's a fair preference, as long as we understand that some people have different preferences. I'm in completely opposite camp - I'm paying ridiculous amount of money a month for apps that I use once or twice a year. I am also paying money for apps I use all the time but that I'll lose the moment I stop paying.
I have frequently rejected a $5/month app that I would've happily bought for $30, even if I know I only need it once and can cancel after a month (utility type software usually).
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#29Kind of orthogonal to the article, but I feel the iOS App Store's subscription mechanism is how online subscriptions as a whole should work. There's a unified predictable way to start subscriptions, and more importantly, a unified predictable way to stop them. I don't have to jump through hoops to stop a subscription, and the UI is clear on when recurring charges will occur next and for how much. I would love it if b…
This is actually kind of ironic, because Apple's refusal to allow for paid upgrades to pay-once software is actually a major driver of developers switching from pay-once to subscriptions. It's way easier to convince customers to buy a subscription to a piece of software than it is to convince them to buy an _entirely new app_ with a new version number on it, then migrate all their data, re-organize their device so the new version is in the same spot, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the Apple subscription interface, too, but I wish it wasn't the only reasonable way for devs to monetize ongoing work.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#30Some apps that I purchased before in full, later turned into subscription based apps(giving me a year of free subscription). This made me feel bad and I lost my warm and fizzy feelings towards these apps. That said, I understand why they are doing it. It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Also, despite that people claim that they want "one time payment apps" that do…
> Maybe the AppStores can implement something like version limiting and you can ask for a payment for upgrading to the new version
I can only assume this is a deliberate omission to push people into subscriptions.