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Reading the story, to call this "ransomware" is a bit of a stretch. Reminds me a bit of those spam websites that would tell you that you had a virus on your mac

Reading the story, to call this "ransomware" is a bit of a stretch. Reminds me a bit of those spam websites that would tell you that you had a virus on your machine, and prevent you from navigating away using Javascript. The biggest "scam" I see on the app store is the lack of guardrails for subscription apps. Even the most basic apps now want you to "subscribe" to their app for $X/mo. There are the obvious scams out there (Icon pack that charges $99/week subscription) but my real gripe is most apps now, even those that are seemingly offline and don't have ongoing costs for a developer, also have a subscription. Like sorry dude, I'm not paying you $2.99/month to use an OFFLINE notes app.

WA 5y ago
> and don't have ongoing costs for a developer Which app doesn’t have ongoing development costs? Do you accept that your one-time fee offline app will stop working one day out of the blue with the beautiful message "the developer needs to update this app", because Apple deprecated an API used by the app?
makecheck 5y ago
An app of any size could need: - web hosting - $99/year fee (also to Apple) - having to spend time re-fixing things you already did, that broke because Apple likes to update its APIs or release new devices with unexpected new requirements - eventually buying entirely new hardware when Apple obsoletes something (and eventually, they threaten to deny app updates or kick you out of the store if, heaven forbid, you can’t update your screenshots to match the latest devices or whatever) - additional hardware to test sufficiently to know you have released something that is stable for more people than just the developer - and, uh, frankly, a continuous need to eat and be sheltered and pay bills if this is actually your job In fact, almost any cost I can think of is in some way a continuous thing. What’s actually broken are the notions that: - somehow software should be cheap (it is not cheap to make) - somehow paying an outrageously small one-time fee means infinite updates and no real costs after that (see above)

WA 5y ago

> and don't have ongoing costs for a developer Which app doesn’t have ongoing development costs? Do you accept that your one-time fee offline app will stop working one day out of the blue with the beautiful message "the developer needs to update this app", because Apple deprecated an API used by the app?

makecheck 5y ago

An app of any size could need: - web hosting - $99/year fee (also to Apple) - having to spend time re-fixing things you already did, that broke because Apple likes to update its APIs or release new devices with unexpected new requirements - eventually buying entirely new hardware when Apple obsoletes something (and eventually, they threaten to deny app updates or kick you out of the store if, heaven forbid, you can’t update your screenshots to match the latest devices or whatever) - additional hardware to test sufficiently to know you have released something that is stable for more people than just the developer - and, uh, frankly, a continuous need to eat and be sheltered and pay bills if this is actually your job In fact, almost any cost I can think of is in some way a continuous thing. What’s actually broken are the notions that: - somehow software should be cheap (it is not cheap to make) - somehow paying an outrageously small one-time fee means infinite updates and no real costs after that (see above)