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> The issue(s) I need the most help with revolve around generating revenues that don't involve advertising, subscriptions, dark patterns or racing to the bottom
by cglong 4y ago
> The issue(s) I need the most help with revolve around generating revenues that don't involve advertising, subscriptions, dark patterns or racing to the bottom on pricing. The AppStore model makes it very difficult to use some of the techniques that worked in the old days of shrink wrap and direct online distribution; trial periods, version upgrades and other concepts that don't fit into the AppStore buy it once and get upgraded for life.
The part that bugs me is that Apple could fix these issues but is choosing not to. Rather than adding upgrade pricing (something developers have been asking for since 2009), they added and have been pushing for subscriptions :(
- chipotle_coyote 4y agoI’m not as down on subscriptions for apps as other people seem to be. If—and I recognize these are big “ifs” here—the annual price is reasonable (which I’d roughly define as “no more than what you’d be paying for upgrades if they were amortized over a yearly basis”), and developers use this stable recurring revenue to make frequent updates to their apps on a rolling release rather than holding big features back for major updates every one to three years, I’m happy enough to pay for them this way. Granted, I’d prefer to see the ability to handle subscriptions the way Panic does for their editor Nova, in which you get all the updates as long as your subscription is valid, and if you stop paying you stay on whatever the most recent version was when your subscription expires. (This is distinct from Jetbrains’ take on this, where when you stop paying you stay on the version that was current when your subscription started.) This is something I don’t think the App Store supports, either.