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It's not free, it's now a subscription for people who already paid. Tapatalk did the same thing recently. It is a trend that once "Premium" paid apps plateau in

It's not free, it's now a subscription for people who already paid. Tapatalk did the same thing recently. It is a trend that once "Premium" paid apps plateau in users they go subscription ("free"). No doubt we will start seeing ads etc. The alternative is apps being sold to shady outfits that inject spyware. For example Cheetah Mobile bought QuickPic and when Chinafire sold SuperSU to a American-based shell company. If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened.

rstuart4133 7y ago
> If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened. I prefer the subscription model myself. If you don't renew the subscription you get ads, or whatever happens now. Updates fix security issues, and enable Android's API to move forward. Not having them because you didn't pay would create a large base of software obsolete UI's, buggy software with security issues which will create huge problems down the road. I'm not surprised Google doesn't like the idea.
Tepix 7y ago
Twitterific did the same thing. It's fraud. If they want to make a new subscription based product they shouldn't force existing users who paid for an ad-free version to upgrade. GoodReader demonstrated how it can be done right.
dirtyid 7y ago
>The alternative is apps being sold to shady outfits that inject spyware. For example Cheetah Mobile bought QuickPic and when Chinafire sold SuperSU to a American-based shell company. Pocketcast was bought by NPR, This American Life, and some other radio stations which makes this pivot more confusing. No more public radio donations from me anymore.
- pkulak 7y ago
  Hey now, don't get all bitter so quickly. Public radio and television are still some of the last journalism left in this country.
  - dirtyid 7y ago
    It's more annoyance that US Public Media has enough resources to acquire and influence software decisions. There's also things happening behind the scenes in regards to podcast standards that doesn't sit well with me. Plenty of other independent and domestic (non US) media to support. At least I know players in smaller markets will actually bias their resources for content.
fencepost 7y ago
The versions that are probably 90+% of their user base are now free instead of a one time payment. That's probably not as big as it sounds because a lot of the people who might purchase the app have already done so. The (less featureful) browser and desktop apps are subscription, but unless people want the new features they probably won't see huge revenue from those for 3 years when the subscriptions for people who already bought start expiring. I'm not sure, but the desktop app is probably a wrapper for the web app - as someone who bought the Windows Phone version, their native app was barely MVP level. Edit: also where is all this about ads coming from?
cepp 7y ago
I, in the past, made a purchase in the application which enabled the use of the web-player (maybe 4? Years ago). Today, I received this email from them: > We wanted to do the right thing by you though and since you've paid for the Web Player in the past, we're giving you 3 years worth of Pocket Casts Plus at no extra charge. You don't need to do anything to claim this, it's already been applied to your account. This means you can continue doing all the things you currently do, and take advantage of our brand new Plus features. I think this is definitely the right way to handle prior paid customers. Unlike Airmail (oof) they’ve offered a subsidized service for the older users.
amunir 7y ago
It's better than just becoming subscription-based, though. The paid features are now free and the subscription-only features are new.
- awill 7y ago
  Not true. The webapp was purchasable for $9. Now customers will lose access after the 3 year grace period, and it will only be usable by subscribers.
  - amunir 7y ago
    Oh, you're right! "We aren't locking any existing features behind a paywall." misled me. Hmph. Now I'm feeling tricked.
chipotle_coyote 7y ago
If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened. This is a takeaway that I think is really important that a lot of people miss. The problem with the "new" model is that it's created a double-whammy of much lower prices in absolute dollars than we were paying ~15 years ago for software and an expectation that once you've paid that low price, you should get upgrades for free forever. The plateau you mention is, of course, why that can't actually work: most apps don't grow their userbase at a steady rate, they get bursts of new users when new versions come out -- and usually fewer and fewer new users for each new version. If every customer represents one and only one point of revenue -- and that point is a third or a fourth what you'd have charged for the same amount of engineering work under the old model -- this is a death spiral. Under the "old" model, PocketCasts could easily have been a $20–25 program with $12–15 upgrades when new versions came out every couple of years and it wouldn't have seemed unfairly priced at all. Under our glorious new model, the only way to match this is with subscriptions. And people hate subscriptions. Nobody works out the math to see whether the subscription model actually costs them less than the old upgrade model, they just have a visceral reaction to it. I get the frustration with any company that charges that low one-time fee, implicitly (or even explicitly, as PocketCasts apparently did!) promises free lifetime upgrades, then goes back on that promise some years later when it proves unsustainable. At the same time, is going out of business or shutting down that product really preferable?
- ajsnigrutin 7y ago
  If you buy a software (eg office 2003) you can still use it after a year, after office 2007 comes out, and 2010, etc. and even today. It doesn't have all the new features, but if you just need it to do "one thing" it works. Buying a subscription plan might be cheaper than buying all those versions/upgrade, but why buy if the "first" version still does what you need? This is of course from the users standpoint.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    It's a reasonable question -- and I'd consider it another argument for the "paid upgrade" model not to have died. That makes it possible for users to hop off the bandwagon, while still providing some level of recurring revenue from existing customers for developers. I'm not sure how to really address that in a subscription-based world, although PocketCasts seems to be pursuing a pretty good approach here: you can use the app for its core functionality without subscribing at all, and the subscription price is pretty reasonable. If you want Office 365, where the cheapest price is $70/yr, the calculation might well lead you to "let's see if Apple Pages or LibreOffice can do what I want instead."
verisimilitudes 7y ago
If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened. If the people who purchased this received the source code as Free Software, that would've also solved this issue, don't you think?

rstuart4133 7y ago

> If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened. I prefer the subscription model myself. If you don't renew the subscription you get ads, or whatever happens now. Updates fix security issues, and enable Android's API to move forward. Not having them because you didn't pay would create a large base of software obsolete UI's, buggy software with security issues which will create huge problems down the road. I'm not surprised Google doesn't like the idea.

Tepix 7y ago

Twitterific did the same thing. It's fraud. If they want to make a new subscription based product they shouldn't force existing users who paid for an ad-free version to upgrade. GoodReader demonstrated how it can be done right.

dirtyid 7y ago

>The alternative is apps being sold to shady outfits that inject spyware. For example Cheetah Mobile bought QuickPic and when Chinafire sold SuperSU to a American-based shell company. Pocketcast was bought by NPR, This American Life, and some other radio stations which makes this pivot more confusing. No more public radio donations from me anymore.

pkulak 7y ago
Hey now, don't get all bitter so quickly. Public radio and television are still some of the last journalism left in this country.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  It's more annoyance that US Public Media has enough resources to acquire and influence software decisions. There's also things happening behind the scenes in regards to podcast standards that doesn't sit well with me. Plenty of other independent and domestic (non US) media to support. At least I know players in smaller markets will actually bias their resources for content.

fencepost 7y ago

The versions that are probably 90+% of their user base are now free instead of a one time payment. That's probably not as big as it sounds because a lot of the people who might purchase the app have already done so. The (less featureful) browser and desktop apps are subscription, but unless people want the new features they probably won't see huge revenue from those for 3 years when the subscriptions for people who already bought start expiring. I'm not sure, but the desktop app is probably a wrapper for the web app - as someone who bought the Windows Phone version, their native app was barely MVP level. Edit: also where is all this about ads coming from?

cepp 7y ago

I, in the past, made a purchase in the application which enabled the use of the web-player (maybe 4? Years ago). Today, I received this email from them: > We wanted to do the right thing by you though and since you've paid for the Web Player in the past, we're giving you 3 years worth of Pocket Casts Plus at no extra charge. You don't need to do anything to claim this, it's already been applied to your account. This means you can continue doing all the things you currently do, and take advantage of our brand new Plus features. I think this is definitely the right way to handle prior paid customers. Unlike Airmail (oof) they’ve offered a subsidized service for the older users.

amunir 7y ago

It's better than just becoming subscription-based, though. The paid features are now free and the subscription-only features are new.

awill 7y ago
Not true. The webapp was purchasable for $9. Now customers will lose access after the 3 year grace period, and it will only be usable by subscribers.
- amunir 7y ago
  Oh, you're right! "We aren't locking any existing features behind a paywall." misled me. Hmph. Now I'm feeling tricked.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago

If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened. This is a takeaway that I think is really important that a lot of people miss. The problem with the "new" model is that it's created a double-whammy of much lower prices in absolute dollars than we were paying ~15 years ago for software and an expectation that once you've paid that low price, you should get upgrades for free forever. The plateau you mention is, of course, why that can't actually work: most apps don't grow their userbase at a steady rate, they get bursts of new users when new versions come out -- and usually fewer and fewer new users for each new version. If every customer represents one and only one point of revenue -- and that point is a third or a fourth what you'd have charged for the same amount of engineering work under the old model -- this is a death spiral. Under the "old" model, PocketCasts could easily have been a $20–25 program with $12–15 upgrades when new versions came out every couple of years and it wouldn't have seemed unfairly priced at all. Under our glorious new model, the only way to match this is with subscriptions. And people hate subscriptions. Nobody works out the math to see whether the subscription model actually costs them less than the old upgrade model, they just have a visceral reaction to it. I get the frustration with any company that charges that low one-time fee, implicitly (or even explicitly, as PocketCasts apparently did!) promises free lifetime upgrades, then goes back on that promise some years later when it proves unsustainable. At the same time, is going out of business or shutting down that product really preferable?

ajsnigrutin 7y ago
If you buy a software (eg office 2003) you can still use it after a year, after office 2007 comes out, and 2010, etc. and even today. It doesn't have all the new features, but if you just need it to do "one thing" it works. Buying a subscription plan might be cheaper than buying all those versions/upgrade, but why buy if the "first" version still does what you need? This is of course from the users standpoint.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  It's a reasonable question -- and I'd consider it another argument for the "paid upgrade" model not to have died. That makes it possible for users to hop off the bandwagon, while still providing some level of recurring revenue from existing customers for developers. I'm not sure how to really address that in a subscription-based world, although PocketCasts seems to be pursuing a pretty good approach here: you can use the app for its core functionality without subscribing at all, and the subscription price is pretty reasonable. If you want Office 365, where the cheapest price is $70/yr, the calculation might well lead you to "let's see if Apple Pages or LibreOffice can do what I want instead."

verisimilitudes 7y ago

If app stores allowed paid version upgrades this trend might not have happened. If the people who purchased this received the source code as Free Software, that would've also solved this issue, don't you think?