This article misses the elephant in the room: Apple. For years after the App Store launched, developers asked for an integrated way to provide upgrade pricing to help support major upgrades. Instead, they usually had to resort to creating an entirely new entry in the App Store. How many customers were lost because they didn't know they had to go back to the Store to download a separate app named Thing 2? And how many then felt ripped off that they didn't get a discount after having previously purchased Thing 1?
After years of being asked for upgrade pricing, Apple instead introduced and then started pushing developers to embrace the exact subscription model we see today. Unlike paid upgrades, a subscription guarantees recurring revenue not only for the developer, but for Apple themselves.
It's not just Apple - Microsoft may have led the way with the switch from 'purchase' of Microsoft Office Suite to 'leasing' where you had to pay for a yearly fee to maintain access. That's when I decided to learn Linux and installed LibreOffice.
In the older model, you could purchase hardware and associated software and even if the company stopped supporting either, you still had a basic working system that might last for ten years or more with care. You could still send email, type up documents, send to a printer (that's a whole other story now), and have a useful functional tool, even if a lot of the web would stop working over time.
Now it all seems to be about accelerated obsolescence, ensuring products have short lifetimes to force consumers to adopt the latest products. Backwards compatibility gets dropped, deliberate strategies are introduced to force anyone wanting a banking app on their phone to upgrade to the latest model, etc.
My solution has been to switch over to Linux for almost anything computer-related, except for some business things where you have to interact with the Apple/Microsoft world. Unfortunately mobile phones are much worse and you need to keep updating the mobile phone well before the hardware fails, and even there I occasionally contemplate dropping the smartphone entirely... Can't wait for full Linux-on-mobile.
Typical Tim Cook strategy. I mean, who am I to judge Tim Cook. I assume in-app purchases work similarly to in-game purchases, meaning a very small amount of customers contribute the vast amount to revenue. One reason I believe this is that these apps cost ridiculous amounts of money for what they are. Notes app monthlies, Bunch of face filters for a yearly subscription, and so on. In the short term this increases revenue for devs and Apple. However, I do think that this strategy could backlash for Apple if the app ecosystem (a differentiating factor at some point) becomes less and less attractive. All of my paid apps are Mac exclusive. If they change to subscription then I am out. This also means my lock-in to Mac diminishes.
I like this Apple policy. It seems scummy to charge for minor updates and if some App maker constantly has to revise their program and re-publish it under a different name it discourages charging for minor updates.
Some 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 doesn't seem to be the case at all. Very small number of people actually pay in full for the apps.
What's worse than subscriptions is ad-ridden apps. I love hyper casual games for example but I can get no joy from these anymore because they are overflown with ads, the experience turns into torture. I don't want the ad based model to be the answer too.
Maybe there could be other models like trial purchase where you get an old school trial version and pay to continue using it. I think actually there's nothing stopping you to implement this but it doesn't solve the problem of need for continued payments for continued support. Maybe the AppStores can implement something like version limiting and you can ask for a payment for upgrading to the new version.
In the grand scheme of things, the subscription model is the best option at this time. People say that subscriptions are devils act but that's also how viable businesses are created.
>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 schedule, or if they don't then they don't lose anything they already have, they merely don't gain the new features. Which in turn is one of the few truly hard direct bits of incentivizing feedback, developers don't get money "by default", but must earn it each time.
I struggle to understand how suddenly it's like the entire idea of upgrades seems to have vanished. Why would a one time payment mean updates forever for free? But why would it mean subscriptions either?
Edit: Maybe if there is anyone truly to blame as the root of this evil it's Apple for being massively hostile to updates in the App Store for reasons that I will never understand either. That really sucks and probably forced subscriptions on the general population more than any other single actor. For that reason alone I really hope to see alternative stores forced on them by law.
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.
> Some 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.
This. While justified, so many apps messed up the switch to subscriptions.
We recently switched our app Genius Scan to a subscription model, but tried to do it The Right Way: users who had purchased the pro features automatically got subscribed to our Plus plan for life.
New users will have to subscribe though, as it's the only way to be sustainable.
We also introduced a new plan, Ultra, with more advanced features. This way, we still get a chance for long time users to support us if they upgrade to the Ultra plan.
My biggest issue with App Store subscriptions is that I'm effectively only renting the software, as opposed to buying into future updates. If I cancel my subscription to a JetBrains IDE or the database client I use, I get to use the most recent version I paid for forever. Those are more like auto-opting into paid upgrades, which I'm totally fine with.
For an iOS app, if I cancel my subscription I'm left with nothing. It really sucks, because a lot of the software I use is not a service in any sense, but the App Store model forces it to be so.
Few years ago I bought a drive partition manager tool for windows. I only used it a few times over the years. Recently I installed a new primary drive on my gaming machine. Downloaded the latest binary from the vendors site and tried to put in the license key. Nope, wouldn’t activate. So i contacted their support and their response was that I had to pay the new yearly subscription to use the latest version. So I asked if they had the installation binaries for the version I had originally purchased which did not require annual subscription. Their response, “they no longer provide install files for the non-subscription version.” If i can find the original installer somewhere , they will activate the license as a one time courtesy.
There is absolutely no way I’m going to pay an annual subscription for software that I do not use often or everyday.
This is a perfect example of subscription abuse! It costs that company nothing (except storage, which is cheap) to host old binaries for those that have licenses, even privately (for people who can prove their purchase). They don't even have to support the outdated software. They're just being greedy.
The article says the author has no solution to propose.
I do have a solution to propose. Accept subscriptions, but be very selective about the apps that you use. It's what I do — I happily pay the subscription fees, because this is the only way to sustainably maintain an app. And I'd much rather have a few really good apps than a plethora of half-baked ad-ridden garbage.
In other words, I don't have "subscription fatigue", I have "app fatigue": I don't want too many apps, but the ones I do want, I'd like to see maintained over the long term.
> I happily pay the subscription fees, because this is the only way to sustainably maintain an app.
No, it's not. Sustainably building an app requires revenue. Whether that revenue comes in the form of a subscription, a one-time payment, or multiple payments in return for updates does not matter to the developer. There's this idea that people are idiots, not knowing that they're paying more if it's a subscription. If that's your business model, you're screwed, because it doesn't work that way.
What makes subscription-only even worse is that it's a big burden to keep track of subscriptions and, if you decide to cancel, putting up with all that BS. I spend far less on software as a result of subscription models. I don't have time to play those games.
> And I'd much rather have a few really good apps than a plethora of half-baked ad-ridden garbage.
Subscriptions 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 higher risk.
I would much rather have 20 apps that I pay $10/mo/ea for than to buy one new $600 app a quarter and hope the developers I bought from years ago still care about me even though they will never make another dime.
Oh, you want apps to be one-time purchases for $20 with a useful lifetime of 10 years? Then subscriptions aren’t the problem, you just want $0.17/mo subscriptions, which are unlikely to be economically viable either.
> Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run.
This is incorrect, as evidenced by the entire history of software development before the App Store, as well as software now that is sold outside the App Store.
When developers can choose their own business model, outside the constraints out the App Store, they overwhelming do not choose subscriptions. Indie devs outside the Mac App Store still largely follow the traditional upfront paid with paid upgrade model.
The subscription model was started mostly by BigCos such as a Adobe and Microsoft, who had a monopolistic market share for their software suites and thus could bleed a captive audience for almost unlimited amounts of money.
The ahistoricalness of the claim "subscriptions were always the only viable business model" really bothers me. It feels like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Cupertino Complex?
Let's call it what it is: software rental. Long-term rental is almost never a good deal for consumers over ownership.
> 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.
This seems ridiculous to me, as a developer. Improving your product over time is one of the most important ways you can expand the target market of your product. I mean, why do you think Apple keeps making a new iPhone ever year? Were they going to keep expanding their market by still selling the 2007 model of iPhone in 2023?
I don't agree with your assertion on upfront purchases. If you sell a product people get good value from, you need to meaningfully improve that product to sell it again to the same user after improving it.
Many people are perfectly happy with old versions of software - they don't need the new improvement, so they don't buy it. If anything, subscriptions somewhat disconnect the feedback of improvements, right? Users have to subscribe to use your software, and most of the time they'll do it whether you make your software better or not, unless there is a direct competitor that is easy to switch to (or becomes so superior they overcome inertia).
I agree that in theory, a subscription is not necessarily bad - but most of the time people are happy with some set of features, and do not necessarily need a continuously improved product. In that sense, subscriptions are forcing people to spend more money on software improvements they may not need. I guess this is probably good for software developers, but bad for people in general (This applies more to tools than a continuous service that requires significant maintenance to keep up to date anyway, I suppose). The problem is companies attempting to turn almost everything into a subscription, even those that don't need significant regular updates or maintenance.
>> 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).
SaaS and thus subscriptions makes sense when the software itself is offering a service. The example I always use is office365, or Gsuite. They offer storage, email, and online access to the office suites and email. It's "value add" over just paying a tax for the privilege of running code, and is imo a better proposition than having to pay outright for a static version of the tools.
The same is true for like Salesforce or other big name SaaS.
What rubs me the wrong way is when what are effectively utilities try and market themselves through a subscription. There were a couple image processing tools posted here recently that effectively just did some image transforms, and they wanted a subscription fee. I don't think that's a reasonable model, there is no reason why I'd want to pay a recurring fee for what amounts to a neat script. I think there's currently much of trying to cram utility software that doesn't provide a service into a service model
> whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue
Only very rarely do I want my software to “improve over time”. That’s code for feature accumulation, which is essentially a negative for existing users but helps publishers expand their market.
Generally, there’s something I want to do. I find software that does it in a way I like. I want to have that software, exactly as I encountered it, so that I can do the thing that I want to do in the way that I want to do it.
Changing the interface every 18 months to accommodate the 217 new and irrelevant-to-me things it does is not usually what I was looking for.
Occasionally, there is a specific new thing I want to do and I go looking for software that does it. If it’s from a publisher whose work I liked previously, I’ll likely turn to them first and will decide if I like what they’re now selling.
But again, that’s me and my goal looking for software when I need it. Adding new noise to the thing I paid for (or am paying for) is almost always a nuisance and inconvenience that removes value from my prior choice.
> Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run.
This is not true. One particular problem is that developers no longer have to compete with their "n-1" release, which means a product can regress but the customer is locked in regardless. Especially if proprietary data formats or some kind of cloud storage is involved.
I think your last paragraph has a lot of merit. It’s that subscription costs are too high. Netflix and company are a completely different animal because there’s content involved; I’m talking about non-professional non-content apps. Obviously .17 is too low, but often I feel that 3 or 4 would be more appropriate than the 12-20 standard. Especially when the paid app only offers 20% more utility than the free app. But I’m no business major.
Nice reasoning but the truth is probably simply that subscriptions generate way more money.
Also because not a few ppl forget to cancel their subscriptions.
> Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run.
In theory, maybe. In reality, I doubt it. Personally, I don't feel my interests are very much aligned with, or even cared about by, subscription software developers.
> I would much rather have 20 apps that I pay $10/mo/ea for than to buy one new $600 app a quarter and hope the developers I bought from years ago still care about me even though they will never make another dime.
Here's the thing, though: in that latter case, even if the devs no longer care about you, you still have the software, and it still works. Conversely, subscription devs may "care" about you until they get bored, or get acquihired, or run out of money, etc. and then suddenly you no longer have the software. Or they'll start making some silly or abusive changes, and then you'll be wishing the devs no longer cared.
This is to say: there's a risk attached to subscriptions (or, put another way, extra value in one-time purchase model).
Also, too little is being said about the other cost of subscriptions, which does not show up on the sticker price: each subscription is a business relationship. A relationship I need to keep track of, and which regularly reminds itself on my existence (unless the vendor is making money on forgotten subscriptions - then it stays perfectly quiet) - costing me time, effort, and occupying my memory. Importantly, it's also a relationship I don't want to have in the first place.
When I go to a grocery store to buy some bread, I want to... buy some bread. I don't want to enter into a relationship with the bakery, or their supplier. Today, I get the bread, they get the cash, and that's the end of it. Tomorrow, I may come back to the same place, or go somewhere else. It's the same with software: I may pay once, or top it up repeatedly, but all I care about is software - I don't give two damns about the company making it, or other products they have. I never, ever want to think about them. Subscriptions force me into such relationships. I have a limited capacity for them - my phone operator, utility companies, HOA, etc. are already enough.
Going back to the bakery example, theoretically I do enter a relationship with a seller every time I buy something from a physical or on-line store - a relationship I can use to e.g. get my goods fixed or my money back if something is wrong with the purchase. However, this is fully covered by consumer protection regulations, which means I can safely ignore those relationships - they literally reduce to "keep a proof of purchase, read up on relevant procedure when the vendor fucks up". Subscriptions would be nicer if they worked this way too.
I build apps with subscriptions (like https://homechart.app) and this is why I offer a lifetime subscription/one time payment. To me, the monthly/yearly option gives users more of an "extended trial" option, and they'll hopefully see that it makes sense to just go lifetime.
One problem I have (perhaps self inflicted) is that I do not offer my lifetime subscription on app stores. 30% is a huge cut of what is effectively my TCV, and I'd rather they use my web payment processor vs raising the lifetime subscription to cover the increase hit. I think this creates friction to conversions, but I don't know for sure.
I do think subscription-based creates better quality software as you are (in theory) having to prove your software is still valuable everytime a customer renews. But too often this just results in redesign churn without any net new features/benefits.
> I do think subscription-based creates better quality software
Maybe compared to pay-once. But the pay-for-every-major-version model that used to be common also provides an incentive to improve, while avoiding redesign churn: the amount of sales you get is directly correlated to how much better your new version is. Meanwhile with subscriptions you mainly have to update the design to attract new customers, your old customers are stuck paying unless you become worse than your competitors.
In-app purchases (free-to-play) are largely a separate issue although they share some of the same ongoing "Is this worth it?" fatigue.
But I'm just super-wary of subscriptions. I mostly don't have the discipline to re-evaluate all my subscriptions every month and then have to agonize over those I get some value from but is it worth $10? And usage goes up and down. So my default is mostly to just say no.
If I find a product useful and a 1-year subscription is available and doesn't feel expensive I will subscribe, then cancel renewal on it. This forces me to reevaluate if it is worth it every year.
I don't think the App store currently respects this law as the advertised price is not the total price for the advertised functionality when InAppPurchases are required to unlock them.
On my iPhone at least, if I scroll down the app store listing to the app details and expand the IAP section it shows a list of all the IAPs the app offers. The names don't always reveal what they unlock, but sometimes it's clear they are just voluntary donations.
I think the requirement means something else: If a consumer purchases a product, they cannot be charged more than the declared price, e.g. by adding VAT or "handling fees" during checkout. The price must be transparent up-front.
If you download a free app from the App Store that has some obscure in-app purchases or subscription, that's not a problem either, because you didn't purchase anything yet.
That's a really "proprietary software " point of view. You pay the developers, the price they decided, and you expect bug fixes and new features. As pointed, this model has many limits. I really prefer the free software one, where I am free to try, use, contribute, so then I can estimate myself how worth is a software, and give an appropriate one time or regular donation. This model is so much better.
Perhaps this is preferable to the user, but if you consider it from the developer's POV, almost no users will contribute meaningful "donations", so it stops making economic sense to follow the latter model you suggest unless the project is an altruistic hobby.
Kind 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 banks let me unilaterally cancel subscriptions just as easily on my online banking page.
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.
The problem with "subscription models" isn't "subscription models" per se, it's greed.
People aren't showing aversion to "subscription vs non-subscription models", they're showing an aversion to greed, and businesses not treating them as a valued customer, but as a resource to be milked until either the resource dries out or the business goes bust.
In the original definition it used to be that a "subscription model" meant a win-win situation for both the user and the business: the business gets some sort of pledge that the customer will continue purchasing the recurring product or service in question because they are a loyal customer, in exchange for extra benefits (typically a discount, or some sort of extra goodies or support).
Now we have the reverse situation: greedy companies treat subscription as their "main" business plan, hoping to milk as much money as ephemerally possible without necessarily valuing their loyal customers, offerring either no non-subscription alternative, or a highly crippled or ridiculous alternative to coerce you into subscribing just to get the "base" product "at least once".
It's become the software equivalent of hardware companies coming up with "bullshit consumables" that serve no real purpose in a device except forcing users to keep paying after a purchase (this is super common in biomed devices!).
People know a greedy model / bullshit service when they see one. As a result, they put off using it as much as they can, and when they finally succumb with a heavy heart and subscribe because they need the "base" product that should have been available without a subscription, they retaliate in other ways that harm the business (e.g. single star reviews, password sharing networks, etc).
There are several pieces of software I would gladly buy if only I could, but I've gotten to the point where when it gets to the subscription fee page I go find something else. Especially in the case of rarely used and nice to have software I am not interested in paying in perpetuity for something I may only use a few times a year.
The big underlying factor is that so many software prices are artificially low because they're subsidized by collecting and making money off of users' personal data.
Unlike with physical goods, users don't know any "objective" ways to judge the fairness of software pricing. So they see (monetarily) free software everywhere and think that good software is cheap to make.
You can view the subscription/purchase debate as a second-order effect of people just not wanting to pay much for software, because they think that's what it's worth.
Agree with the author regarding subscription abuse.
I am still furious about Readdle's decision to make removing their built-in "Sent with Spark" call-to-action signature in Spark locked behind a subscription. Sure, I could afford the subscription, but no, I won't support subscription abuse like this.
Apple's gotta rein it in at some point. Will they? Probably not unless the EU forces them. But it'd be cool if they did.
Generally, I am okay with subscriptions, as they are clearly more economically viable for developers than shrink-wrapped software was.
Large corps love subscriptions. The platforms they create impose this upon developers too. I get very exhausted with the never ending stream of payments and T&C updates. Moving to the desktop has been a way out, the other has been clubbing subscriptions and outright cancelling even those that seem useful but have lower functionality alternatives in favor of having better control over my finances.
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Subscriptions also come with much increased mental overhead: I have to decide if it is worth the commitment every time the app comes up for renewal.
In addition, as the article points out, your price point has to compete with the 10ish dollars I give Spotify every month and for which I get hours of use every day. Can you compete with that?
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.
Last year I tried to buy a mahjongg game for my iPad. My requirements:
No subscription
No hoarding my personal data
Updated in the last year or so
I couldn't find a single one. They're all subscriptions, slurping up personal information, or not updated in a very long time so they can continue to fly under the radar and not report what data they're selling about me.
I'd pay $20, maybe $25 for an app the just let me play a simple tile game. But greed rules the app world.
Yeah, this is sad. I even see apps which ask you 20€ per year OR 100€ for Lifetime. This is nonsense. I don't mind paying for a subscription if: there are major updates being delivered with a concrete roadmap and a service which i need to use everyday. Otherwise I'm not interested and i dont see the point of offering subs.
Apple plays a major role on this by motivating Developers to use subscriptions, now there are subscriptions for everything!
more fair alternative to subscriptions probably is 'pay as you go' model which used by mobile carriers and some games developers. Do you need to use calculator app often? -just buy enough 'credits points' and if you won't need using app anymore is no need to pay anything until your credits is gone and would be new need for app usage again.
cglong|3 years ago
After years of being asked for upgrade pricing, Apple instead introduced and then started pushing developers to embrace the exact subscription model we see today. Unlike paid upgrades, a subscription guarantees recurring revenue not only for the developer, but for Apple themselves.
photochemsyn|3 years ago
In the older model, you could purchase hardware and associated software and even if the company stopped supporting either, you still had a basic working system that might last for ten years or more with care. You could still send email, type up documents, send to a printer (that's a whole other story now), and have a useful functional tool, even if a lot of the web would stop working over time.
Now it all seems to be about accelerated obsolescence, ensuring products have short lifetimes to force consumers to adopt the latest products. Backwards compatibility gets dropped, deliberate strategies are introduced to force anyone wanting a banking app on their phone to upgrade to the latest model, etc.
My solution has been to switch over to Linux for almost anything computer-related, except for some business things where you have to interact with the Apple/Microsoft world. Unfortunately mobile phones are much worse and you need to keep updating the mobile phone well before the hardware fails, and even there I occasionally contemplate dropping the smartphone entirely... Can't wait for full Linux-on-mobile.
wafriedemann|3 years ago
blibble|3 years ago
I just buy nothing at all from the app store
yeah I'd like a night sky app, happy to pay a one off fee (even $20) and for upgrades
but not a monthly subscription
gnicholas|3 years ago
Actually, Apple would get more revenue the other way. They only take 15% on subscription revenue after the first year.
steponlego|3 years ago
mrtksn|3 years ago
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 doesn't seem to be the case at all. Very small number of people actually pay in full for the apps.
What's worse than subscriptions is ad-ridden apps. I love hyper casual games for example but I can get no joy from these anymore because they are overflown with ads, the experience turns into torture. I don't want the ad based model to be the answer too.
Maybe there could be other models like trial purchase where you get an old school trial version and pay to continue using it. I think actually there's nothing stopping you to implement this but it doesn't solve the problem of need for continued payments for continued support. Maybe the AppStores can implement something like version limiting and you can ask for a payment for upgrading to the new version.
In the grand scheme of things, the subscription model is the best option at this time. People say that subscriptions are devils act but that's also how viable businesses are created.
xoa|3 years ago
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 schedule, or if they don't then they don't lose anything they already have, they merely don't gain the new features. Which in turn is one of the few truly hard direct bits of incentivizing feedback, developers don't get money "by default", but must earn it each time.
I struggle to understand how suddenly it's like the entire idea of upgrades seems to have vanished. Why would a one time payment mean updates forever for free? But why would it mean subscriptions either?
Edit: Maybe if there is anyone truly to blame as the root of this evil it's Apple for being massively hostile to updates in the App Store for reasons that I will never understand either. That really sucks and probably forced subscriptions on the general population more than any other single actor. For that reason alone I really hope to see alternative stores forced on them by law.
swatcoder|3 years ago
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.
bvrlt|3 years ago
> That said, I understand why they are doing it. It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever.
This. While justified, so many apps messed up the switch to subscriptions.
We recently switched our app Genius Scan to a subscription model, but tried to do it The Right Way: users who had purchased the pro features automatically got subscribed to our Plus plan for life.
New users will have to subscribe though, as it's the only way to be sustainable.
We also introduced a new plan, Ultra, with more advanced features. This way, we still get a chance for long time users to support us if they upgrade to the Ultra plan.
deergomoo|3 years ago
I can only assume this is a deliberate omission to push people into subscriptions.
melagonster|3 years ago
deergomoo|3 years ago
For an iOS app, if I cancel my subscription I'm left with nothing. It really sucks, because a lot of the software I use is not a service in any sense, but the App Store model forces it to be so.
ghaff|3 years ago
Or until it stops working with an OS upgrade/update.
nirav72|3 years ago
There is absolutely no way I’m going to pay an annual subscription for software that I do not use often or everyday.
nunez|3 years ago
jwr|3 years ago
I do have a solution to propose. Accept subscriptions, but be very selective about the apps that you use. It's what I do — I happily pay the subscription fees, because this is the only way to sustainably maintain an app. And I'd much rather have a few really good apps than a plethora of half-baked ad-ridden garbage.
In other words, I don't have "subscription fatigue", I have "app fatigue": I don't want too many apps, but the ones I do want, I'd like to see maintained over the long term.
bachmeier|3 years ago
No, it's not. Sustainably building an app requires revenue. Whether that revenue comes in the form of a subscription, a one-time payment, or multiple payments in return for updates does not matter to the developer. There's this idea that people are idiots, not knowing that they're paying more if it's a subscription. If that's your business model, you're screwed, because it doesn't work that way.
What makes subscription-only even worse is that it's a big burden to keep track of subscriptions and, if you decide to cancel, putting up with all that BS. I spend far less on software as a result of subscription models. I don't have time to play those games.
> And I'd much rather have a few really good apps than a plethora of half-baked ad-ridden garbage.
That's not the choice that's being made.
brookst|3 years ago
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 higher risk.
I would much rather have 20 apps that I pay $10/mo/ea for than to buy one new $600 app a quarter and hope the developers I bought from years ago still care about me even though they will never make another dime.
Oh, you want apps to be one-time purchases for $20 with a useful lifetime of 10 years? Then subscriptions aren’t the problem, you just want $0.17/mo subscriptions, which are unlikely to be economically viable either.
lapcat|3 years ago
This is incorrect, as evidenced by the entire history of software development before the App Store, as well as software now that is sold outside the App Store.
When developers can choose their own business model, outside the constraints out the App Store, they overwhelming do not choose subscriptions. Indie devs outside the Mac App Store still largely follow the traditional upfront paid with paid upgrade model.
The subscription model was started mostly by BigCos such as a Adobe and Microsoft, who had a monopolistic market share for their software suites and thus could bleed a captive audience for almost unlimited amounts of money.
The ahistoricalness of the claim "subscriptions were always the only viable business model" really bothers me. It feels like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Cupertino Complex?
Let's call it what it is: software rental. Long-term rental is almost never a good deal for consumers over ownership.
> 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.
This seems ridiculous to me, as a developer. Improving your product over time is one of the most important ways you can expand the target market of your product. I mean, why do you think Apple keeps making a new iPhone ever year? Were they going to keep expanding their market by still selling the 2007 model of iPhone in 2023?
Panzer04|3 years ago
Many people are perfectly happy with old versions of software - they don't need the new improvement, so they don't buy it. If anything, subscriptions somewhat disconnect the feedback of improvements, right? Users have to subscribe to use your software, and most of the time they'll do it whether you make your software better or not, unless there is a direct competitor that is easy to switch to (or becomes so superior they overcome inertia).
I agree that in theory, a subscription is not necessarily bad - but most of the time people are happy with some set of features, and do not necessarily need a continuously improved product. In that sense, subscriptions are forcing people to spend more money on software improvements they may not need. I guess this is probably good for software developers, but bad for people in general (This applies more to tools than a continuous service that requires significant maintenance to keep up to date anyway, I suppose). The problem is companies attempting to turn almost everything into a subscription, even those that don't need significant regular updates or maintenance.
NikolaNovak|3 years ago
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).
version_five|3 years ago
The same is true for like Salesforce or other big name SaaS.
What rubs me the wrong way is when what are effectively utilities try and market themselves through a subscription. There were a couple image processing tools posted here recently that effectively just did some image transforms, and they wanted a subscription fee. I don't think that's a reasonable model, there is no reason why I'd want to pay a recurring fee for what amounts to a neat script. I think there's currently much of trying to cram utility software that doesn't provide a service into a service model
swatcoder|3 years ago
Only very rarely do I want my software to “improve over time”. That’s code for feature accumulation, which is essentially a negative for existing users but helps publishers expand their market.
Generally, there’s something I want to do. I find software that does it in a way I like. I want to have that software, exactly as I encountered it, so that I can do the thing that I want to do in the way that I want to do it.
Changing the interface every 18 months to accommodate the 217 new and irrelevant-to-me things it does is not usually what I was looking for.
Occasionally, there is a specific new thing I want to do and I go looking for software that does it. If it’s from a publisher whose work I liked previously, I’ll likely turn to them first and will decide if I like what they’re now selling.
But again, that’s me and my goal looking for software when I need it. Adding new noise to the thing I paid for (or am paying for) is almost always a nuisance and inconvenience that removes value from my prior choice.
AlexandrB|3 years ago
This is not true. One particular problem is that developers no longer have to compete with their "n-1" release, which means a product can regress but the customer is locked in regardless. Especially if proprietary data formats or some kind of cloud storage is involved.
comfypotato|3 years ago
Silverback_VII|3 years ago
TeMPOraL|3 years ago
In theory, maybe. In reality, I doubt it. Personally, I don't feel my interests are very much aligned with, or even cared about by, subscription software developers.
> I would much rather have 20 apps that I pay $10/mo/ea for than to buy one new $600 app a quarter and hope the developers I bought from years ago still care about me even though they will never make another dime.
Here's the thing, though: in that latter case, even if the devs no longer care about you, you still have the software, and it still works. Conversely, subscription devs may "care" about you until they get bored, or get acquihired, or run out of money, etc. and then suddenly you no longer have the software. Or they'll start making some silly or abusive changes, and then you'll be wishing the devs no longer cared.
This is to say: there's a risk attached to subscriptions (or, put another way, extra value in one-time purchase model).
Also, too little is being said about the other cost of subscriptions, which does not show up on the sticker price: each subscription is a business relationship. A relationship I need to keep track of, and which regularly reminds itself on my existence (unless the vendor is making money on forgotten subscriptions - then it stays perfectly quiet) - costing me time, effort, and occupying my memory. Importantly, it's also a relationship I don't want to have in the first place.
When I go to a grocery store to buy some bread, I want to... buy some bread. I don't want to enter into a relationship with the bakery, or their supplier. Today, I get the bread, they get the cash, and that's the end of it. Tomorrow, I may come back to the same place, or go somewhere else. It's the same with software: I may pay once, or top it up repeatedly, but all I care about is software - I don't give two damns about the company making it, or other products they have. I never, ever want to think about them. Subscriptions force me into such relationships. I have a limited capacity for them - my phone operator, utility companies, HOA, etc. are already enough.
Going back to the bakery example, theoretically I do enter a relationship with a seller every time I buy something from a physical or on-line store - a relationship I can use to e.g. get my goods fixed or my money back if something is wrong with the purchase. However, this is fully covered by consumer protection regulations, which means I can safely ignore those relationships - they literally reduce to "keep a proof of purchase, read up on relevant procedure when the vendor fucks up". Subscriptions would be nicer if they worked this way too.
candiddevmike|3 years ago
One problem I have (perhaps self inflicted) is that I do not offer my lifetime subscription on app stores. 30% is a huge cut of what is effectively my TCV, and I'd rather they use my web payment processor vs raising the lifetime subscription to cover the increase hit. I think this creates friction to conversions, but I don't know for sure.
I do think subscription-based creates better quality software as you are (in theory) having to prove your software is still valuable everytime a customer renews. But too often this just results in redesign churn without any net new features/benefits.
wongarsu|3 years ago
Maybe compared to pay-once. But the pay-for-every-major-version model that used to be common also provides an incentive to improve, while avoiding redesign churn: the amount of sales you get is directly correlated to how much better your new version is. Meanwhile with subscriptions you mainly have to update the design to attract new customers, your old customers are stuck paying unless you become worse than your competitors.
thenipper|3 years ago
Question: I couldn’t find this with a quick skim of the site on my phone. Do you have an API?
leipert|3 years ago
ghaff|3 years ago
But I'm just super-wary of subscriptions. I mostly don't have the discipline to re-evaluate all my subscriptions every month and then have to agonize over those I get some value from but is it worth $10? And usage goes up and down. So my default is mostly to just say no.
macjohnmcc|3 years ago
silvestrov|3 years ago
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 store currently respects this law as the advertised price is not the total price for the advertised functionality when InAppPurchases are required to unlock them.
jsmith99|3 years ago
kruuuder|3 years ago
If you download a free app from the App Store that has some obscure in-app purchases or subscription, that's not a problem either, because you didn't purchase anything yet.
lazycouchpotato|3 years ago
Google on the other hand only provides a range on the Play Store. "In-app purchases: $0.99 – $74.99 per item" is worthless information.
gnicholas|3 years ago
flaburgan|3 years ago
morgannewman|3 years ago
the_snooze|3 years ago
It almost makes the Apple tax worth it. Almost.
DanHulton|3 years ago
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.
tpoacher|3 years ago
People aren't showing aversion to "subscription vs non-subscription models", they're showing an aversion to greed, and businesses not treating them as a valued customer, but as a resource to be milked until either the resource dries out or the business goes bust.
In the original definition it used to be that a "subscription model" meant a win-win situation for both the user and the business: the business gets some sort of pledge that the customer will continue purchasing the recurring product or service in question because they are a loyal customer, in exchange for extra benefits (typically a discount, or some sort of extra goodies or support).
Now we have the reverse situation: greedy companies treat subscription as their "main" business plan, hoping to milk as much money as ephemerally possible without necessarily valuing their loyal customers, offerring either no non-subscription alternative, or a highly crippled or ridiculous alternative to coerce you into subscribing just to get the "base" product "at least once".
It's become the software equivalent of hardware companies coming up with "bullshit consumables" that serve no real purpose in a device except forcing users to keep paying after a purchase (this is super common in biomed devices!).
People know a greedy model / bullshit service when they see one. As a result, they put off using it as much as they can, and when they finally succumb with a heavy heart and subscribe because they need the "base" product that should have been available without a subscription, they retaliate in other ways that harm the business (e.g. single star reviews, password sharing networks, etc).
Awelton|3 years ago
caseyross|3 years ago
Unlike with physical goods, users don't know any "objective" ways to judge the fairness of software pricing. So they see (monetarily) free software everywhere and think that good software is cheap to make.
You can view the subscription/purchase debate as a second-order effect of people just not wanting to pay much for software, because they think that's what it's worth.
nunez|3 years ago
I am still furious about Readdle's decision to make removing their built-in "Sent with Spark" call-to-action signature in Spark locked behind a subscription. Sure, I could afford the subscription, but no, I won't support subscription abuse like this.
Apple's gotta rein it in at some point. Will they? Probably not unless the EU forces them. But it'd be cool if they did.
Generally, I am okay with subscriptions, as they are clearly more economically viable for developers than shrink-wrapped software was.
windex|3 years ago
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tomjen3|3 years ago
In addition, as the article points out, your price point has to compete with the 10ish dollars I give Spotify every month and for which I get hours of use every day. Can you compete with that?
radicalriddler|3 years ago
reaperducer|3 years ago
I'd pay $20, maybe $25 for an app the just let me play a simple tile game. But greed rules the app world.
lmedinas|3 years ago
Apple plays a major role on this by motivating Developers to use subscriptions, now there are subscriptions for everything!
unknown|3 years ago
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wrycoder|3 years ago
strobe|3 years ago