As someone who buys a lot of apps this is very disappointing. Things that would make me buy MORE apps (demos, upgrade pricing, better support) are still not in the app store, meanwhile the one pricing model I detest (subscriptions) is being added.
I suspect I'll be buying far fewer apps if there's a mass movement from a purchase model to a subscription model among app developers. I'm perfectly happy to pay $20-30 for an app (even a simple app) if it provides value and I'm happy to pay for major upgrades or additional content/features, but I won't pay $20-30 a year just to maintain the ability to launch an app on an ongoing basis.
In addition, after years of terrible search in the app store, coupling search improvements with search-based ads is just a kick in the shins.
I think the mindset change that needs to happen is this:
Apps are a service.
I would actually prefer to pay developers of apps that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the app. If an app saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the app entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.
There aren't many apps that can save you 1000/year. I keep hearing this, but that's nonsense. If a "service" is not producing money and isn't saving you time allowing you to produce money, then it's not worth paying for.
Yes, I have subscriptions for IntelliJ IDEA, for Dropbox, for FastMail and for a DigitalOcean VPS. All these are producing money for me. But the list ends here. Because here's the thing: $5/month here, $10/month there and pretty soon we're talking about serious money. Not only that, but as soon as you stop paying for whatever reason (eg temporary financial problems) you're out.
Of course, with our oversized salaries, we stop noticing that $5/month for a passwords app is actually expensive. And that's actually a good example because a passwords app at least has some utility.
More importantly, subscriptions are immoral because the end result is robbing users of any sense of ownership. And as a software developer, you no longer feel compelled to innovate, to improve, in order to convince users to upgrade. I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership.
1) You're absolutely right: Pricing matters. If I charge you $10/mo for my app that sends you a text message every time there's a full moon, that would be way too expensive and you'd be well within your rights as a consumer to spend your money on something else. As far as I'm aware, Apple will not force you to subscribe to any apps.
2) "... subscriptions are immoral..." Bullshit. And you don't "own" software you buy and pay for once. Operating systems change. Companies and developers come and go. If you value a piece of software, then you value the developer and should desire that they maintain and improve the app.
What is moral is creating a system by which software developers can support themselves by creating products that are useful to the community. I'd say the App Store is currently broken in that regard (with a few high-profile exceptions). If popularizing subscription-based pricing will help fix that, I'm all in favor.
Subscriptions are immoral, but not for those reasons. It's an immoral business model because its success is based on bilking people -- cheating them into paying for 'service' when they don't want to.
The mechanism is simple: the slight inconvenience of cancellation prevents a huge number of users from cancelling as soon as they want to.
This is why getting your customers to set up automated and recurring payments is the pot of gold everybody wants (not just in software).
You don't have to intend to bilk people if you do subscriptions; it's inherent in your business model.
Try putting a confirmation screen in your app that makes the user press "Renew" each month before the app charges them again. That would move you toward the moral end of the spectrum, but it would gut your sales.
A $2 per month subscription, even if totally unneeded, is not something most busy people can find the time to deal with cancelling. Pretty soon a year has gone by and your "service" has provided zero value to them but you've ripped them off for $24.
(For clarity: I don't mean you personally, and also I do work in subscription-based software. I just don't have any illusions about it and it makes me feel icky.)
Quite obviously biased and overstated. Many subscription models have nothing to do with tricking people or making it hard to cancel and many customers of those continue to pay knowingly and willingly and appreciate the convenience of agreeing to this up-front instead of manually renewing multiple services each month. For example, my water provider. My Netflix subscription. You cannot just ignore this because it doesn't fit your model. The immorality is the trickery, not the subscription.
> many customers of those continue to pay knowingly and willingly and appreciate the convenience
Yes, I fully agree.
> Many subscription models have nothing to do with tricking people
I don't agree with this, at least for auto-renewing subscriptions; that's my point. Every piece of software sold on auto-renewing subscription has some significant number of subscribers (as a percentage of its total number of them) that don't actually want it.
That is true regardless of what the publisher intends or wants.
Obviously, the exact percentage will vary a great deal, depending on the product.
Water is an example of something where that percentage would be low — presumably, almost everybody wants their water to stay on.
Netflix, not so much; I myself once paid for Netflix for months, perhaps years, without using it once, and without wanting to keep it on "just in case". I was just too busy to cancel it the few times I thought of it (until I finally did).
Netflix is not on the sleazier side of the spectrum, though; it's quite easy to cancel.
There are, however, a lot more disgusting sleazy fuckers out there like the Wall Street Journal, MyFico.com, and Comcast, than there are Netflixes.
P.S.
As a bonus, here's my Second Law of Subscriptiodynamics:
The total difficulty in cancelling an isolated auto-renewing subscription always increases over time.
> I don't agree with this, at least for auto-renewing subscriptions; that's my point. Every piece of software sold on auto-renewing subscription has some significant number of subscribers (as a percentage of its total number of them) that don't actually want it.
Some SaaS providers make unused subscriptions free of charge (Slack AFAIR), others auto-cancel them after a period of inactivity. This obviously only works if the provider has knowledge of whether a subscription is used, but it shows that the flaw is not inherent with subscriptions.
Other than that: I have quite a couple of pieces of software that I bought at pretty much full price and never really used. Is that immoral as well?
Detecting non-use and waiving all charges in that case? That not only nullifies all moral/ethical/assholiness problems with the subscription model, it is practically heroic.
Why is it the company's responsibility to determine if a user "really wants it" or not? If the subscription is live, the assumption is that the service is desired. Personal accountability.
BTW, can I interest you in a franchise opportunity? We at "Veidr's Payday Loans" are always looking for local owner-operators who understand "personal accountability".
I don't understand your point. If you're incapable of cancelling a subscription...maybe you shouldn't be subscribing to things? But that's up to you, bro; don't count on others to do it for you.
> Try putting a confirmation screen in your app that makes the user press "Renew" each month before the app charges them again. That would move you toward the moral end of the spectrum, but it would gut your sales.
I like this experiment. If I had to bet, I think you're right that it would reduce revenue.
OTOH, to be fair, try this approach in the old-fashioned model... take the standard (large) transaction up front, offer a lifetime money-back guarantee (a very moral policy, to be sure), and then put a launch dialog in your app with two buttons: "Refund Now" and "Continue Using".
I predict one would also see reduced revenues by taking what could be considered moral high ground in the non-subscription model.
> your app with two buttons: "Refund Now" and "Continue Using".
I wonder if a service could actually function based on this idea. Sure, eventually all the initial money would be refunded but while you had it you profited by investing it in a fractional-reserve manner.
Your comment sounds a bit like all subscription based services only work because of people who never cancel their accounts. I'd say this is not true.
The pot of gold that everybody wants is not because people forget to cancel the subscription, but because you don't have to acquire new customers every single day. You can provide a good product to your "fan base" for years.
I can speak only from my experience in the B2C space with a 2 bucks a month product:
It's basically prepaid. Accounts will become inactive when the payment period ends. There is no automatic renewal. The reason is precisely, because I think this is the most transparent way.
It works, it pays me a decent salary and I get to maintain the software for a long time.
Indeed, nothing wrong with that. My comment pertains specifically to auto-renewing subscriptions. Which they overwhelmingly are, nowadays, but perhaps I should have been more precise.
It sounds like you're saying that a transaction is immoral if you judge that the buyer is paying more than the utility they are receiving. Of course, that requires you to be able to estimate a buyer's utility function better than the buyer, which is a pretty weak (even dangerous) foundation upon which to base moral arguments.
Nope, I am saying tons (tons!) of people don't get around to cancelling things they want to cancel, even if technically they can do it any time. Especially when each renewal is a small amount.
And I have seen some actual metrics on stuff I've worked on, where we can tell that they haven't used the software for months... but they are still paying. I know this goes on with other products too.
Perhaps "immoral" is an overstatement, but it's certainly a sleazy business model.
Subscriptions through the App Store are easy to cancel and you also get an email reminder when they're about to automatically renew. That reduces the sleaziness quite a bit, I think.
> It's an immoral business model because its success is based on bilking people -- cheating them into paying for 'service' when they don't want to.
I'm sure that happens. But when I buy an iPhone app for a fixed price, the incentive for the vendor is to make the app look fantastic at a first glance, and then to never fix any bugs or incompatibilities. Because why bother? Everyone who notices these problems has already paid, and getting a refund is even more troublesome than cancelling a subscription. How is that more moral? As a consumer, I generally prefer subscriptions for everything that I plan to use for a year or longer (which is most software).
We'll see how Apples interface will look like. With a centralized marketplace like this they have a perfect opportunity to build interfaces to work against this, the question is if they will. (e.g. nice overviews, options for time-limits, notifications for not-used subscriptions, ...)
Yes, this is something where Apple's own interests and the customer's might be aligned.
Even just having a central place to cancel subscriptions is significantly better than having to do it individually -- and Apple almost certainly won't allow developers to get too obnoxious with the 'customer retention' hoops we need to jump through to actually cancel.
> What is moral is creating a system by which software developers can support themselves by creating products that are useful to the community
Speaking as a developer - what kind of entitled, self-important thinking is this? No one owes developers a decent lifestyle or a liveable income. I can't wait till some idiot sells a subscription to a calculator or flashlight app - I say to them GTFO! The app 'industry' is not the first one to deal with product saturation, but somehow we do not have Dishwasher subscriptions (thank goodness).
> "... subscriptions are immoral..." Bullshit. And you don't "own" software you buy and pay for once. Operating systems change. Companies and developers come and go. If you value a piece of software, then you value the developer and should desire that they maintain and improve the app.
Sadly, all apps 1) non-consumable & non-perishable and 2) most apps are utilitarian and can't really be improved - if they could be, subscriptions wouldn't be necessary as developers would depend on people buying the improved versions as in every other. If Nike sold you an indestructible trainer (including non-wearing sole) that you could buy tomorrow, would you rather buy it outright or pay subscriptions in perpertuity?
> No one owes developers a decent lifestyle or a liveable income.
If the developer cannot make a living by creating an app (or any other piece of software for that matter), why would they bother creating it at all?
> If Nike sold you an indestructible trainer (including non-wearing sole) that you could buy tomorrow, would you rather buy it outright or pay subscriptions in perpertuity
This is not a great comparison. As was previously mentioned, software like requires updates to continue running correctly (new OS versions, bugs, etc) while a shoe does not require any changes or maintenance. If the shoe fits, then you wear it and that is that. You can do nothing to it and it will continue to work as a shoe forever (especially, if it is indestructible as in your example). However, if you paid once for a piece of software and then do nothing to it for a few years, the chance of it running correctly on your device is close to zero.
People should be paid for creating and maintaining software.
> If the developer cannot make a living by creating an app (or any other piece of software for that matter), why would they bother creating it at all?
If you're trying to make a living doing X, and you can't, then don't do it anymore. There are tens of thousands of apps that did not need to be made, yet were (no doubt the first step of someone's get-rich-quick scheme). If there is a need, the need will be met, eventually, by someone, and if it is truly a "need", people will be willing to pay money for it.
As others have mentioned, requiring updates to run correctly is actually a fault of the underlying system, and the change therein.
> People should be paid for creating and maintaining software.
This "should" is really nebulous. By whose standard/ethics? What belief system led you to believe that you were guaranteed to be paid for your work (software or otherwise)? You get paid when you sell something. You can create the shit out of lots of things and maintain lots of things, and not see a dime for your efforts. Software is no different -- you need to create something that will SELL and be profitable.
These two things do not go hand in hand. Creating and a necessity of maintenance are not necessarily the case. Remember when software used to be sold on CDs? You bought and were able to use the software for your given operating system, and for the given time that it had no bugs. There were no other guarantees, and I don't think there should be today.
If something in your app breaks, release an update and either release it for free, or charge for it. There is no need for me to pay you forever -- your certainly won't be releasing updates forever.
It's obvious why companies want to move everyone to this model though -- much easier to setup recurring incomes, and once it's ingrained in the culture, people won't remember a time when you bought a piece of software and you actually owned it.
Maybe this will be a chance for F/OSS to make a resurgence? Once people get tired of paying for Office 365 and their Flappy Bird subscription, they'll start looking for software that they can truly own
I like your customer-oriented point of view. Because ultimately, it's not about the developer, but about the customer. A few points I want to add though:
> As others have mentioned, requiring updates to run correctly is actually a fault of the underlying system, and the change therein.
Theoretically yes, but this changed from the customer perspective as well. Whereas a few years ago, it was a sign of quality software that no updates were required, it's now a sign of an app that is unmaintained. No updates is a negative signal and thus, updates are mandatory to be perceived as high quality software and to a certain extend, to prevent 1-star reviews.
> If there is a need, the need will be met, eventually, by someone, and if it is truly a "need", people will be willing to pay money for it.
"If there is a need, the need will be met, eventually." Period. The rest of the sentence isn't always true. People aren't necessarily willing to pay money for it and there are other revenue streams ("pay with your data").
> As was previously mentioned, software like requires updates to continue running correctly (new OS versions, bugs, etc)
.. not really? There are only so many bugs to fix (and are they really significant enough to be a major hindrance anyway?), and bit rot is a platform problem, not an application problem.
And even then, shouldn't users be able to choose whether the "upgrade" is worth it?
They do get to choose whether the upgrade is worth it. They can stay on an old version and system that it works with, or they can move to an app that has a business model they like better. Subscriptions are adding options, and that's great.
It's a temporary option though. As soon as you need to restore a new device and you don't keep the apps backup, you will get the latest version. If I were to bet, I'd say not many people keep a backup of their current apps' versions.
The problem with subscriptions is that it allows the app maker to potentially not maintain and improve their app while still earning money.
I've been employed by companies (who I've now left) where the management explicitly wanted to move to subscription for this reason: not having to keep adding new features to get customers to buy new versions. (apps were desktop software).
That's not to say subscription doesn't make sense - but it's not a complete win for everyone.
Yeah, that's what's nice about IntelliJ products. You can stop subscribing and are left with a perpetual license for the current version you are on. It provides protection for the stagnation issue you are talking about.
Last I heard, IntelliJ actually gave you a perpetual license for the version 12 months behind the current one when you stopped subscribing - with no guarantee it'd even open your current project files. See https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2015/09/18/final-update-on-t...
> You can stop subscribing and are left with a perpetual license for the current version you are on
Yeah, we (IntelliJ subscribers) had to fight[1] for that[2]: before there was an outcry, JetBrains had planned to brick[3] your IDE the moment your subscription lapsed.
This is the one thing that sold me on recently switching to one of their products. I absolutely refuse to pay Adobe's subscription because I don't get a perpetual license ever.
The other issue with Adobe's shift to subscriptions that upset many is that you absolutely did not need a subscription for Lightroom and Photoshop for most users. The small incremental changes were not needed by many, and if a new feature came along worth paying for they would upgrade. This was very forced.
Sure, charge a subscription for Creative Cloud but taking software that worked fine without a subscription, tacking one on under the guise of perpetual updates and killing access if they stop paying stinks of doing what is best for the business, not what is best for the customers.
This x1000. Just because a piece of software has a subscription does not mean that you automatically lose access to that software if you stop paying. The developer of the software can choose to handle a cancellation any way (s)he deems appropriate. They could cut you off entirely, or they could leave you on the version you have forever with full access, or they could remove features which rely on their servers, or......
On the other hand, the problem with making money from selling upgrades is that it encourages the app maker to bloat their software with useless features to justify the price of the new version.
Operating systems change, and companies/developers come and go, but not all software really needs ongoing maintenance, and some of it really can work indefinitely. I still have DOS games I legally purchased in the 1990s that run fine today. Why shouldn't that be true of mobile games? If the company stops updating the game, fine, but I should still be able to play it in 5 years if I bought it. Or at least, legally be able to; if it stops working for technical reasons, fair enough. I think the shift away from that is more to do with business models than technology— even book publishers have been trying to move from a sale to rental model.
Funny you mention DOS games, which are one of my earliest examples of bit-rot. A lot of them stopped working with win95/98, and the rest are gone with 64-bit windows. DOS Box can help but there was a period of time when computers were too slow to emulate a DOS machine quickly enough.
> Funny you mention DOS games, which are one of my earliest examples of bit-rot
The other option is bit-rot and some form of DRM (the only way to enforce subscription) which would make playing the games an impossibility, even with emulators. It's clear to me the non-subscription/non-DRM option is the better one: even with subscriptions, no publisher will last forever.
Most of my DOS software ran fine on a Windows XP laptop in 2003 (sometimes with the addition of VDMSound to handle FM synthesis emulation). That same laptop will run most of the remainder quickly enough in Dosbox.
I've also got a desktop with tech mostly circa 2000. It's got DOS and Windows 98 on it. Among my collection, I haven't found anything that I can't get to run.
The hole that I see is during the time shortly after Dosbox's release when its compatibility with software would've been low and before they optimized for speed. It'd be closed up somewhat if we could send the current Dosbox source code back to 2002 ;-)
Me, Personally? I have a Pentium 3 desktop running Windows 98, with a GeForce 4 video card. It's also got a Sound Blaster 16 video card. I consider it my machine to cover an era from the 80s to about 2002, when I can't run the software anywhere else. Actually, I mentioned that machine in my last post.
An example piece of software: Rayman 2. I had trouble running it under Windows XP, 7, and Wine in Linux. It won't run in a VM because it requires (I think) DirectX 7 and hardware acceleration. It's a flawed example, though: it's had a few re-releases, including a compatibility fix by GOG for modern Windows versions.
A more recent example: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It'll run on more recent versions of Windows, but has trouble with having over 2GB of RAM (or was it 4?) available. Some lovely group logged the system calls and developed a binary patch to allow it to run on modern systems. This illustrates another option: banding together as a community and doing what the publisher won't (or can't).
A lot of the posts in this thread (including yours) seem to elevate convenience to the level of a technical requirement. At some high-90s percentage of coverage, that isn't a problem for old software. Every once in a while though, you have to do the inconvenient thing.
Immoral or not, what is being said is: If I were to buy software X and place it on a box I control, without access to the internet, I expect it -- and its bugs -- to work forever. Ruling out time issues (y2k or similar), I expect notepad.exe (for example) or grep to work forever. I can extract from it all the use I am able to.
> If you value a piece of software, then (...)
No. Just no. If I value X, I value X. Don't try to con me into doing something else. It is "I value X because something.", not "I value X because I want something else to happen in the future." (in this case, maintain and improve the app). I may want to donate, or buy future products from the same developer, just so I can support him. But if I just value X, no further action is implied.
> As far as I'm aware, Apple will not force you to subscribe to any apps.
True. In the same way nobody will force you to pay taxes. You are not forced to pay taxes. But you are punished if you don't. You are not forced to use this app model, but you are punished if you don't. (if the current model of buying apps completely migrates to a subscription based one).
>> Apple will not force you to subscribe to any apps
No, but if the marketplace shifts to 90% of developers using subscriptions in their apps (essentially replacing the existing in-app purchases model), then it was facilitated by Apple as the "preferred" model for monetization.
I'm in the same boat as others in the comments. I am willing to pay a subscription for the 2-3 pieces of software that are absolutely core to my daily habits. Beyond those precious few apps, no developer deserves a monthly subscription from me - and they will never suck one out of me. I'm sorry, but too many solo developers think that creating a single app should earn them a $200k/year salary. I've known a couple of these people who think that a single app they worked on for 3 months should set them up for lifetime retirement. The expectations are unreal, and will never be fulfilled no matter the monetization scheme used.
And if the marketplace shifts to 90% subscription apps and users don't want to pay it, then you'll see the marketplace shift again. We may not see it from our perspective, but the pay-once model is not sustainable for many apps - either they'll lose you, or you'll lose them.
>> if users don't want to pay it, then you'll see the marketplace shift again
My pessimistic opinion is that within Apple's walled garden, the consumers don't get to choose. If the majority of apps go the subscription route, they will succeed because there is no alternative. Average users won't stop paying because it's subscription; in the grand scheme of things, I suspect my refusal to go along with that model puts me in the minority.
I'm a huge fan of Apple hardware/software, but the App Store is not something I ever expect to operate on a set of ideals I agree with. The day they came out with in-app purchases, I figured the days of a model designed for someone like me will never happen.
I run a niche B2C SaaS with a monthly fee. This lets me maintain the product for a long time. If it was a one-off payment, I probably could've closed shop by now. Thing is, all niche products with tiny markets (say, a few hundred or a few thousand users) won't be able to survive in the long run without subscriptions.
Anything *aaS is a perfect candidate for subscription. Most other things aren't. Why should you pay recurring fee for what can easily run on your local machine? On the other hand, the $1 price on AppStore for most apps is ridiculously low.
The line is somewhat arbitrary between SaaS and self-hosted. How many software products must truly be SaaS from an infrastructure point of view? Few I'd say. But there are other advantages of SaaS, for both customer and developer: No installation required, no updates to install, easier to maintain from a developer perspective.
The hosting cost are virtually nonexistent. I pay 150 bucks a month for a server which handles thousands of users. I don't understand why you'd call this a mess. It's a win-win in my case, since I serve a tiny niche which currently wouldn't be provided with a good solution at all if it wasn't for my subscription based software.
At some point, done is done. If you can't get users to buy your upgrades anymore, then that might be a sign that it's time to move on?
It's pretty crazy that people expect to be able to pay themselves indefinitely from charging the same people repeatedly without any improvements to show for it.
Only if the rest of the ecosystem doesn't move. If the OS stays the same, APIs, platforms, and the hardware. Then yes, you're eventually done.
See, I guess a lot of this discussion stems from what specific examples people have in their mind. Yes, there is obviously software that is done at some point, that doesn't require updates, that can be run forever and is good enough for most people.
And there's software that is essentially useless after a few years if you don't upgrade to the newest version.
Offering paid upgrades or providing a SaaS are often the same thing, with slightly different billing schedules. Try to use Microsoft Word 2000 in 2016. The software you bought once and "owned" is of no use in 2016, where businesses email .docx files around. I think software ownership is a myth. Almost every product comes with a best-before date.
I think the market will reflect precisely this. Some apps will keep one-off-pricing, because it fits the nature of the app. Other apps will use subscriptions. If a subscription-based app doesn't provide enough value to its users, someone will come, make a better product with a lower price point and that's it.
> It's pretty crazy that people expect to be able to pay themselves indefinitely from charging the same people repeatedly without any improvements to show for it.
I agree, but my assumption is that the software gets continuously improved, because that's what's expected. If software is subscription-based and doesn't appear to be maintained, people will complain and stop using the service.
> And you don't "own" software you buy and pay for once.
What else could ownership possibly mean at that point?
The thing that's missing from the app store isn't subscriptions, it's service contracts.
* I go down to the store and buy a toaster -- I now own that toaster. Now I don't expect the toaster to last forever, but if the toaster breaks or simply stops functioning after a year I have both contractual and legal recourse to have my toaster replaced or refunded.
* When I buy a Windows license I know that I am paying for a guaranteed X years of support.
* If I buy an app I'm paying for... well that's the thing, I don't really know. Some apps it's indefinite, some apps it's until the VC funding runs out, some apps it's until the dev is bored with the project, etc.. Worse, since apps are all thin clients now when that support ends the app is useless.
> What is moral is creating a system by which software developers can support themselves...
Don't kid yourself, no morality went into this decision from Apple's side or any Dev that chooses this monetization path. This is about what people think they can get away with.
I think the central point worth debating is this: A customer has a reasonable expectation that a one time purchase guarantees them that an app will continue to function and be maintained^1 for either the lifetime of the service or the lifetime of the device on which it runs^2.
^1 Not necessarily any new features, just continuing to function.
^2 Depending on whether the app is a service or not.
Regardless of whatever semantic "morality" you're going on about, this guy is an example of a lost customer. His money won't be going to your "favor" and it does no one a service if no one is buying it.
The way I look at it is you own the app like you own an apartment but you're paying homeowners association fee to keep the grass trimmed, pathways painted and the pool maintained.
> I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership.
I applaud your idealism, but with this attitude, you might as well not buy any apps at all. When you buy an app, or TV show, or pretty much anything digital in 2016, you're purchasing a license, not the thing itself. You don't "own" anything.
Even if you can download the app you buy in 2016 in 5 years from now, what are the odds that it still works on whatever operating system is still available, on your 2016 hardware? What good is ownership when you can't even use what you own?
I expect everything on my phone to be throw-away, beyond the life of that specific device (with the possible exception of the things that I've got as apk's and can sideload). I expect a thing on my PC to be available as some form of install medium that I'll have free access to while the service it came from is still running, and that I'll be able to install from that medium when the service goes defunct. The exception to this is most games...but I only pay prices similar to what I would've to rent it from Blockbuster for a couple days, so I don't feel to bad about the long term rental.
I pay subscriptions for a few TV-related things (Netflix+Amazon for me, DirecTv for the wife). If I really expect to want to watch the shows at some point in the future, I'll buy a copy. If I buy them, it's on a medium that I can format-shift at my convenience and get to run on arbitrary devices (which usually means DVD and the subset of Blurays with released keys).
> What good is ownership when you can't even use what you own?
I've never run into this in a practical sense, but it's an excellent point in the theoretical one. I keep around enough old hardware and software to make it a non-issue.
Fair enough. I suppose as long as there are mainstream high quality non-digital alternatives then we should take those. I agree nothing I have digital rights to is "owned" by me.
It's not like asking "ah don't like coal or nuclear power? Go live in a cave."
> ore importantly, subscriptions are immoral because the end result is robbing users of any sense of ownership. And as a software developer, you no longer feel compelled to innovate, to improve, in order to convince users to upgrade. I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership.
Sure as long as you also accept that you are not owed bug fixes it updates. If you however believe that with system upgrades you should get corresponding app upgrades, then it starts to sound more like a service. I like subscription because I want developers to treat this as a service: support, fixes, features, etc.
> Sure as long as you also accept that you are not owed bug fixes it updates.
"Bug fixes" and "updates" are both too broad. If a feature is broken enough that an advertised feature of the software doesn't work, or in the case of something criminally negligent on the developer's part, I'd consider myself entitled to an update to fix the issue. Either that or a refund for whatever amount I paid for the app (or potentially damages, if I could prove them negligent).
New features and functional changes should be available as an upgrade, perhaps with a discount over buying a new copy of the software.
I'd expect the app not to break over minor OS updates, but major versions changes are always a less predictable.
> I'd consider myself entitled to an update to fix the issue. Either that or a refund
If a company publishes an app and then goes out of business, and then years later the platform shifts out from under that app such that it no longer works, do you feel like you deserve a refund? If so, who do you expect to pay? The platform gave your money to the developer; the developer ceased to exist. Neither one has "your" money any more.
I'm not talking about years later. I'm talking about an immediately obvious shortcoming that manifests on the platform supported by the product at the time of purchase.
If I buy it and they're out of business 5 minutes later, then I guess I should've been paying more attention to who I give my money to.
I think you've got it backwards. Adobe supported running CS6 on various platforms. The platforms weren't (and aren't) the ones doing the support.
At this point, no one supports CS6. The fact that you can use it on some particular desktop platform is partially a consequence of their past support, and partially because the platform hasn't "shifted out from under" the application yet.
> At this point, no one supports CS6. The fact that you can use it on some particular desktop platform is partially a consequence of their past support, and partially because the platform hasn't "shifted out from under" the application yet.
I don't think that reflects reality. I would suggest taking a look at the internals of AppKit and other critical paths, you'll discover they are very aware of the applications linking into them.
There aren't many Apps that can save you $1000 a year because there is no money to make them, because people aren't buying $100 software packages on the AppStore.
> More importantly, subscriptions are immoral because the end result is robbing users of any sense of ownership.
I don't know why people allowed this transition from software ownership to subscription to happen (although they really weren't given the choice). It's ridiculous that the customer is giving away his MS Office ownership in exchange for the marginal improvements that MS has been doing in the last couple of releases.
Most people here on HN (me included) would benefit from this development but I agree with you: subscriptions are immoral.
PS: IntelliJ IDEA it's great but it is ridiculously expensive imho.
IntelliJ IDEA is crazy cheap if you're being paid as a software developer or have developers on your payroll.
I wish there was more software like it that can just instantly make all my developers more effective. The cost is so minuscule compared to what it actually costs to keep a developer's butt in the chair, I'd be a complete idiot to try to save a few bucks on the tools they use.
I can make anything look cheap if I compare it with something substantially more expensive but that isn't the point. I think it is expensive because after shelling that amount I end up without a copy of the software that I can call my own.
It started with corporations. It's far "cheaper"—in how things appear on a balance-sheet—for corporations to subscribe to services, than it is for them to buy software at retail. "Convert CapEx to OpEx" is the keyword-phrase to chase for this. It's the same reason hardware sellers like Apple have leasing programs: they're mainly for corporations, and just coincidentally there for individuals.
Do note that the big conversions to SaaS models in recent years—Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office 365, etc.—are of products where 90+% of the revenue already came from corporate buyers rather than from individual consumer licenses. That the SaaS model also does something-or-other to drive consumer income is cute, but kind of irrelevant to the product managers who are making these business-model decisions.
It's expensive if after shelling out that amount I still don't own the software. I wouldn't complain if I could pay a onetime $500-$600 if in the end I at least owned a copy.
No. Flat out no. If I spend $x0 or $x00 for an app to create something (music, code, mechanical drawing, whatever), I darn well better be able to access my music/code/drawing at any point in the future, even if the maker of the app has gone out of business.
Many, perhaps even most, popular mobile apps have some sort of online component that will surely stop working if the business is closed. And apps made for an OS two releases back or more regularly seem to stop working if not updated. I know I've certainly got paid apps that simply do not work at all anymore.
This is not a new phenomenon. Try running a game made for Windows XP or even Photoshop 6.0 on Windows 10, it likely doesn't work even in the backwards compatibility modes. Companies like GoG.com have made it a successful business to take old beloved games and make it convenient to play on today's machines, and I'm a happy customer of theirs even though I also own the originals in many cases.
The way I see it, the software was sold to work to work in a certain environment and period of time, and I'm free to try to keep it running best I can. But I'm certainly not entitled to demand that the software developers keep supporting me forever simply because I paid once. Therefore I strongly prefer subscription models for the software that I regularly use, as it's the only model that aligns both my and the developer's incentives in the long run.
I disagree with the subscription model helping in the long run, because with a flat fee model, you at least have a chance of keeping the old version running. If I like something and the developers add new features, I'll buy the upgrades to get new features; that's how developer incentives can align with mine.
A subscription model doesn't automatically exclude running old versions after you stop the subscription, see for example the IntellIJ by Jetbrains model.
The "available in the next version" effect of one-time purchased software creates bad incentives for the developers to exclusively focus on new features even if they're gimmicks, because that's the only thing that brings in the money. As a customer, I literally cannot give them money (except gifting copies to friends) just to keep polishing what they have even if that's exactly what I'd like them to focus on.
I've found that after Adobe switched to Creative Cloud, and Jetbrains to their yearly subscriptions, I've benefited as a customer of Photoshop and IntelliJ respectively by both more rapid releases of genuinely useful features, not in big-bang releases but constantly over time, and that they've stepped up their general polish in the products. Photoshop CC is SO MUCH BETTER these days than the always buggy yearly releases of the past, because they don't have to cram 51 new crap features in every 12 months! A developer with a subscription model doesn't have the constant feature pressure, and can work on what the majority of current customers values most, and some times that is just bug fixing and polish.
A subscription that works basically like paid software you can keep plus a maintenance fee is much more palatable to me. I place a high value on being able to maintain access to my tools and creations, and prefer models (including FOSS) that permit that.
Don't I wish that were true. Off the top of my head, I know for a fact that a few of the Splinter Cell series games are impossible to run nowadays, and other games that used the same Ubi DRM too. And I just can't seem to get the original Fallout 3 working for either love or money.
As someone pointed out elsewhere in the discussion, app subscriptions mean DRM that's basically guaranteed to kill your ability to run the software once it gets old and everyone loses interest. If there aren't enough people buying old games for the publishers to keep them working, it's unlikely enough people would be willing to subscribe to make it worth their while maintaining the subscription processing.
Then use free software and make regular donations to the developer, rather than paying someone to deny you the software freedoms to A. audit the code you run B. make modifications you want, either yourself or through the services of third party developers and C. have options if the lights go out, where you can then pay someone else to maintain critical software for you.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is generally considered a bad business model, and the same easily applies to software. Free software does not need to just be ethical to be useful, it is also highly pragmatic.
What happens if a developer bumps the price of their service that you rely on from $10/mo to $100/mo?
At least if I purchase an app I can continue using it for a significant amount of time and look for an alternative. A subscription makes this much harder.
The article points out that changes in the subscription price will prompt a user to accept. If they take no action the subscription is cancelled automatically. So as a developer, changing your price could have a big attrition rate for current subscribers.
Yes, but if your customers have a lot of valuable data in your service, cancelling would make them loose that data. You can technically use this to extort money from your users. Not a viable business plan in the long run, for sure, but there are plenty of businesses that would try, I think.
Throughout the history of computing, a ton of software has been licensed under a service/subscription model. There's nothing special about the web in this respect.
You make a very important point. There was a time when the community pushed back against the idea of a web that was subscription based, similar to the cable company model.
It seems to be more palatable if we replace web pages with apps in this scenario.
On the other hand... if a subscription model will dial back the reliance on advertisement income, and by extension the privacy invasion that comes along with the advertisement model, maybe it will be a net positive.
If we continue to have excessive privacy invasions to support ad revenue and have to pay a subscription on top of that, then it will be extremely unfortunate.
EDIT: a word
I like the idea of game apps as a service - I'd love to be able to get a steady stream of games/updates for games I play regularly... I know I've gotten way more out of, say, Carcassonne than I feel I've paid, and that's for the game that has incremental IAP/DLC (as opposed to P2W which I avoid like the plague).
There are other games that I play all the time where I'd be happy to pay a bit every mo/yr to ensure content/fixes keep flowing.
I can play Carcassonne every day for 3 months in a row, dozens of games a day, but I also had 6 months without playing at all or very rarely. I bought all the extensions too. I don't think I would subscribe, I don't like this anxious urge of needing to do something because I'm paying for it. That's why I don't subscribe to cinemas or services like Netflix. I want to be as free as possible to decide what to do in my free time and having a subscription removes some of this freedom.
> I would actually prefer to pay developers of apps that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the app.
Whereas I would prefer to pay for a useful app... and then if they develop in ways that I find attactive, pay some more for the improvements.
With the subscription model, they have absolutely no incentive to ' continue to update and improve the app'
If you enjoy those services... yes? If not, feel free not to!
I love and subscribe to all of the above, they provide me with capabilites that were simply not available before, such being able to stream any song I can imagine instantly. Heck, I'd happily pay 5x the current Netflix price if it was more like Spotify in terms of coverage.
I think the mindset change that needs to happen is this:
Operating systems are a service.
I would actually prefer to pay developers of operating systems that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the OS. If an OS saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the OS entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.
> If an app saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the app entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.
Sounds like Apple is still too incompetent to care about backwards compatibility.
In a reasonable world, stuff running locally on your device would keep working, regardless of what happened to the original developers.
I've been very pleased with the subscription experience on the App Store.
The reason I usually hate subscriptions is that they are a headache remember, changing credit cards requires me to remember and update subscriptions in many different places, and providers make it hard to cancel. My experience with subscriptions on iOS has been very positive. It's easy to pay for and easy to cancel.
Personally, I would rather pay a small amount per month while being able to cancel at any time than pay a larger amount up front for something I've never tried. If the app is compelling enough to keep using, I'm happy to keep paying.
Right now you get problems like Tweetbot. It costs money to maintain Tweetbot and keep it working, and to add new features. I use it every day, I'd be happy to 'subscribe' to it.
As it is now they only get paid when I buy the app. If I keep using it for 4 years I may still expect support but they're not getting additional income.
If you don't have enough growth to sustain you, what people have to do is release a new version of the app. Maybe it's a big upgrade (like Tweetbot has done) but some companies basically arbitrarily decide "This one is new, pay again".
And even though Tweetbot is great they lose money because people who are addicted to the app don't want to pay another $2. And they spam the rating for the app with 1-star ratings.
For apps that need constant maintenance? This seems like a great idea.
If I buy Tweetbot today, and it works today, it should keep working tomorrow. If I want new features I will pay for those features, update the app or make them an in app purchase, or create a new version number and charge for it.
This is like leasing vs buying, the only difference is with your example you'll get one choice, pay the lease, or pound dirt. I'd rather buy the app once and be done, and have the choice to upgrade at my discretion, than be forced to pay yearly.
Tweetbot is kind of an edge case since they depend on a third party. A better example would be an application that does something, like a notes app, like noteability.
Every iOS app depends on third parties: Apple, since that is the platform the app runs on; any libraries or development platforms built into the app; if the app talks to a server, the server is a dependency, and of course all the dependencies the server has...
Somewhere along these lines, the software will need to be updated repeatedly: security updates, API changes, SDK changes, etc.
Software just does not stand still like we think it does from the consumer perspective. Any app in production is going to have maintenance costs and forced upgrades that will be an ongoing cost to the developer.
I grew up in a world where software came on a disc, I bought it and installed it it was mine. A perpetual subscription model feels to me like ransomware--"pay up or you'll never see your app again." But I have to admit that I know that the costs of having an app in production today are continuous.
Apple's giving developers the ability to offer trial periods for subscriptions. In their example an app that bills monthly could offer either a week or month long trial period to users.
Firstly, that's a hack. Secondly, even 48 hours is not nearly enough to evaluate complex productivity software. You might argue that the App Store doesn't have any software of that caliber, to which I would say that this could be part of what Apple is trying to address with this change.
Why do you need MORE apps? I'm a developer and heavy iPhone user and it rare for me to download apps these days. I browse the store regularly just to check out what's going on but most new apps provide little use. They let me make my face look phone. Share emojis created by reality stars. etc. I think this move will lead to higher quality apps. Developers will be able to invest more in updates and developing their product instead of abandoning it once sales drop.
What about $0.99/mo, or even $0.49/mo? My initial reaction is the same as yours, but I could see myself agreeing to $0.99/mo for some of the apps I paid $2 or $3 for. Still relatively cheap for me but would dramatically increase income for the developer.
Note that while the new rules don't let you go lower than $0.99 per subscription payment, they also allow for terms longer than a month — they can be once every two months, three months, or six months. So you could do $0.99 quarterly, for example, for $4 a year.
$0.49/month is $6/year. If I thought an app was worth $2, I'm absolutely not willing to pay that much for it.
If you're talking about an app that's a major part of your workflow for something, maybe this makes sense. But most of the apps that I've paid $2-$5 on are things that I'm only likely to fire up occasionally when I need them. Monthly fee to mark up photos or scan papers with the camera? I'll pass.
> $0.49/month is $6/year. If I thought an app was worth $2, I'm absolutely not willing to pay that much for it.
I honestly can't think of a single paid app that I use that I don't think is worth more than $2 to purchase forever. If there's an app I won't use often but professionals would use daily for years (say a house measurement app while I'm shipping for a house) I'm happy to pay .99 or 1.99 for the month or two that I'm using it, and simply unsubscribe when I no longer have a need for it. The real estate professionals that rely on the app however can pay that in perpetuity and get a better app out of the deal since it's actually making the developer money every month.
On the other hand, for an app I use every day (say Overcast) I'd be happy to pay a subscription price for monthly/quarterly/yearly use of it.
I think this will have 2 positive effects -
1) developers can be incented and paid for keeping their apps current and improved
2) the 'top paid' areas of the app store will be strongly indicative of quality, as the more people are willing to pay recurring costs for an app, the more likely it is to be good (games probably fall in a different category, but I don't do much gaming these days).
How about a VNC client for when you occasionally want to remote into your home computer? Say you use it every two weeks.
Subscription price is $5/month ($60/year) because it's a professional tool for sysadmins who use it all the time. Maybe you'd have paid $30 for it standalone, but now if you want to use it for 3 years, the price is 6x as high (and the software poofs when you stop paying).
The line between professional tools and software I'd like to use for totally noncommercial purposes once every couple of weeks isn't always clear cut, and the pricing policies on the App Store have tended to keep things at an affordable mid-range where I can buy something even if it's only for occasional use. Subscription prices seem to get priced for the heavy professional users.
The solution I'm hoping for (carrying on the VNC example) is a free tier locked to a single connection, cheap tier with 5 saved connections, and professional tier for heavy users. But you just know the net effect of this is going to be prices going up (they wouldn't be doing it otherwise), and there are frankly a lot of things that aren't worth a recurring payment to keep around.
If the subscription price is $0.49, then you're effectively able to demo the product for one month and only risk $0.49. I'd hope "delete app" = automatic unsubscribe, which would make this type of trial pretty simple.
They'd have to tweak a few other things. I often download apps on my phone and remove them soon after. A few weeks/months later I notice the app on my iPad; never launched.
Unless they're storing my data or providing me with updated content (Hulu, Netflix, et al.), I have no interest in a recurring, monthly subscription for most of my apps.
I'll pay a subscription for an app that receives substantive updates. But most apps don't need that, and they don't provide them at a monthly rate (they may provide updates that frequently, but not pay-worthy updates).
My app usage pattern is a handful of apps I use every day and a much larger number of apps that I use very occasionally (down to once a year for something like GPS Nav, an offline mapping app).
The problem with subscriptions is that it's hard for me to justify paying a recurring $12/year subscription for an app that I'll use once in that time. These kinds of apps I'm most likely to just do without if they go to a subscription model.
Even for commonly used apps, subscriptions raise the spectre of "how do I get my data out". Currently, if a purchased app stops being supported I can still open it and get at my data (until an iOS update that breaks it at least). What happens if I don't want to subscribe to an app anymore (for example if the pricing changes)? Can I export data already in it? If there's no clear export story upfront, why should I trust any of my data to a subscription app?
We aren't necessarily talking about _crucial_ data, we're just talking data. Whether it's an app the monitors my movement during sleep, or a todo app - I generated that data, and if I can't get access to it, it's a reduction in convenience.
When you put an app in the folder it will DELETE the app from your phone and store it like a symlink. When you try to open the app from the folder it will install it again for you.
Think of all the subscription money you will save!
That's where you diverge from the population. Apple needs a solution for the general problem of people not wanting to pay much for iOS apps. It may disappoint those of us who prefer spending more up front for quality, but Apple has surely determined that more people will buy more apps this way.
(By the way, you compared paying $X upfront to paying $X per year which of course is a worse deal. A more representative comparison would be $X * 0.33 per year.)
> Apple needs a solution for the general problem of people not wanting to pay much for iOS apps.
Yes! And thanks to missing app store features Apple has provided developers no way to set expectations for things like upgrade pricing. Not to mention in-app purchases which were another way to maintain the illusion of "free" apps among users.
The fact that subscription pricing is now seen as the solution is really sad because subscribing to an App is fundamentally different than buying one. In particular, transactions that used to be atomic - like buying an app or gifting an App to a friend - are now transient and come with all kinds of strings and commitments attached.
Today I could go home, fire up my 5 year old iPod touch, and still access all of its apps - and the data therein. In a subscription-based app economy I wouldn't be able to do the same after the first month!
That's a good point on gifting. I wonder how that will work, since that is actually already an app store feature.. Will there now be an option to gift a duration?
Also, it's not clear to me that apps will be disabled if you stop subscribing as opposed to just no longer upgraded. So your 5 year old iPod might still work.
But Apple already had a solution for this. The Mac App ecosystem.
The Mac app eco system was thriving despite a ridiculously small market. The indie devs focused on delivering quality applications and a lot of people paid good money. Enough to sustain many indie companies and developers.
I don't get why Apple has chosen to ignore the factors that helped make that eco system such high quality.
Edit: I want to add I am not against improving the subscription model. My problem is that Apple doesn't seem to want to add the stuff indie mac devs have been asking for years (trial periods, upgrade pricing). It would have been great if Apple did both subscription, and better purchase models (it's still possible they might once WWDC comes around).
... none of which went to Apple. So that's one business model they're not particularly keen on. It might have benefited the platform at large and drive Mac sales (unlikely -- what drove sales were always the big creative suites), but it didn't directly benefit Apple in the same way as appstore sales now do.
Apple simply doesn't want big-price shrinkwrap on iOS. 75% of the market is games where whales are nickled and dimed; that's what they want: high frequency, low-price, constant, reliable revenue.
> Things that would make me buy MORE apps (demos, …
It's been pretty much proven that demos actually sell fewer apps than no demos, at least at the price levels seen in the App Store (once you get up to several hundred dollars or higher, then presumably things change). Even at the $60 price point of AAA console games, demos have been proven to hurt sales (which is why you never seen demos of AAA console games anymore).
Demos are getting a bit redundant when we're trending towards being able to autonomously refund apps/games we don't like.
Google Play purchases have a 2 hour window to refund any app you buy, Valve give refunds no questions asked in some circumstances, after the EU and AU asked a lot of questions. AU recently ruled it illegal to refuse refunds with requirements like trying to fix crashing games or not refunding functioning titles.
A subscription keeps the developer's incentives in line. If you buy a piece of software, what incentive is there for the developer to fix bugs and security holes in the older versions?
Anyway, why would a $30 purchased app become $30/year? Nobody prices like this. Photoshop used to cost $585. Now it's $10/month. I think a $30 app would probably become $1/month.
Apps have existed with subscriptions long before now. I suspect you will still be able to buy a flashlight app for a fixed price, but maybe you'll subscribe to Hulu through Apple rather than Hulu's backend.
As someone who signed up for HBO Now and Pandora through Google's Play service in exactly this manner, I imagine this is the reason they are adding it. It's very easy. The one downside I encountered is that when my card changed and billing failed, it automatically unsubscribed me after what appeared to be a single failure, and I had to sign back up after adding my new card. That looks to be an implementation problem though.
What's new is for someone who makes a Twitter client to be able to say "You can buy TweetMaster17000, but it's a subscription that totals $6 a year. That way I can afford to continually update it for existing users."
That's not a bad thing, but it may be a hard sell to many users.
The problem is that Apple is now encouraging subscription pricing by dropping their cut to 15% in the second year. This is going to incentivize more apps to go to a subscription model if they can.
The good part of this is that it should strongly incentivize developers to make sure their subscribers are happy. Otherwise they won't make it to the second year.
I think that's only partially true. While Apple promised that there will be an easy way to manage subscriptions, at least some users will just forget that they've subscribed to something and will continue to be charged regardless of whether they are even using the app. This is especially true if they have a mix of intended subscriptions and small unintended ones.
This is part of the time-honored business model for places like fitness clubs.
I get an email every single time I am charged for a subscription, so unless you make it a habit to ignore invoice emails, you won't be likely to forget more than once.
How will this scale to dozens of app subscriptions? If I'm getting invoice emails for 10+ apps every month I doubt I'll be paying really close attention to each one.
I was already doing this with ABCMouse for a while for my toddler, paying for a subscription through iTunes, which allowed me to use the app. So this isn't new, its just now not through a iTunes subscription, just directly through the app store, which is the same account and CC anyway.
But the 2 models are not mutually exclusive, are they? Probably some apps will offer both alternatives or the one that fits the purpose of the app. Not sure why, in essence, this is wrong.
Indeed I find subscriptions annoying too, hope the new AppStore comes with a friendly subscription management section along.
As an indie developer my single biggest gripe with the app store (after the obviously asinine review process) is the resetting of visible app reviews any time an app is updated. This is an incredibly expensive tax on shipping app updates which creates a strong disincentive to not incrementally improve your product and a strong incentive for sleazy developers to buy fake reviews when they do ship an update. I detest this part of the app store. DETEST.
The other option is for a single bug in a single release to stay in your app reviews in perpetuity. Why would you want that, rather than give prospective customers the option to look at current vs old reviews?
Also, I would quibble with your description of it as 'resetting of visible app reviews' as the old reviews are still visible, they're just one tap away...
In a high volume market like the iOS app store this behavior might be OK. It shouldn't take too long to get back a few reviews to display a N stars rating. (Just guessing, have no iOS apps in the store).
But in a low volume market like the Mac App Store it takes anywhere from a few weeks to months to get 5 reviews after an update. (Or even years in non US stores).
I made the experience that updating a well reviewed Mac app leads to a drop in sales until you get back to at least 5 ratings. (You need at least 5 ratings to display the average rating in search results and category lists in the Mac App Store).
This is a big incentive to keep updates back until it is really necessary to release them.
Yup. For that reason I've stopped releasing often and now have a beta program independent of the app store that people can opt into from the app itself.
Almost exactly one year ago, we switched Zombies, Run! - a fitness game - from being a paid app ($4-8) to a free-to-play app with subscriptions ($4/month, $20/year). Unsurprisingly, I'm delighted by this announcement, because it rewards apps like ours that provide long-term value and entertainment for our users.
Clearly a subscription model isn't for many apps - probably most apps. But it was right for us, as we've been maintaining and improving Zombies, Run! for over four years now, and every week we add new content. With a subscription model, we only get paid if people decide we're good enough to commit to over a long period of time. Since we're about helping people exercise, I think that's fair enough.
People fear that the subscription model is an easy grab for continued revenue.
I do think that Zombies, Run! is an example of an app that justifiably fits the subscription model. The continued added content makes that make sense. (I am a fan!)
I just hope subscription doesn't become the norm - I'd hate to see a calculator on a subscription model.
Yep, it works a lot better for some apps than others. To be fair, a calculator app doesn't need (as much) long term development or maintenance so I think a single payment is fine for both dev and customer there.
In light of this news, I wrote up a short post about how we made Zombies, Run! a subscriptions success:
They won't, don't worry. It will be a great option for small devs to get a sustained income, a good incentive to keep working on an app that otherwise could be neglected after the first few months. Also, Apple announce that there would be more than 200 price tiers for subscriptions. We'll have to see when it's all live but I suspect there could be subscription lower than the 99 cent baseline. At least I hope so
I don't see a reason to subscribe for apps that are one-time pay and periodic long term use. There is a fine line here that developers will have to be cautious not to cross. A lot of apps have no reason to be subscription model, but the prospect of recurring revenue is too tempting.
Edit: On the other hand, this is totally awesome for services and products that already offer subscriptions on other platforms or on the web, like online streaming, education, and as someone mentioned here, tools like Sketch.
Maybe this model is good for games, but as a predominately "Music Creation App" user I sincerely hope this "Subscription 2.0" model doesn't catch on in that arena. Paying up-front is suitable to me, and sometimes updates offer a lot (Propellerhead Figure has been through several improvement phases, for instance). I seem to recall other software trying to go 'subscription' in the music or creative arena with not-so-great public reception.
This is the main issue I think. The only way to charge users for an update is to create a new version of the app and then try to inform users about it. A subscription will enable ongoing development for apps which is unsustainable at 99¢ per download.
Or, as revenue comes in from an app, adding more features to entice more buyers, then giving existing users more features (which in turn will theoretically result in better word-of-mouth) can have a positive feedback loop.
And then your users are screwed as the app will eventually lose compatibility with the OS. You're also hoping that your next app will be successful. You're abandoning something that people use for a shot in the dark.
Also for apps which use non-trivial resources elsewhere (weather apps like Dark Sky, or compute-intensive services) that can't be funded indefinitely via initial purchase price.
What was the price of the most expensive music app you've purchased and how did you decide to gamble that much?
For most people and most apps, paying once up front is a huge gamble. Most app consumers have no idea how to get a refund. Many aren't even aware that it's an option. So, they don't buy. It's not worth risking even 99c up front. Especially because the vast majority of consumers are not interested in doing thorough research on apps ahead of time. They just want to try a bunch and see what they like.
Not unusual for me to grab something at a $9.99 or $19.99 introductory price. Have a half dozen or so. I happen to think it's a niche for music creation apps though.
Two of the most expensive apps are Auria and Gadget at about 40 EUR each. Auria has many plugin IAPs, with an average proce of 20-30EUR/piece. Gadget has a couple at 15 EUR/piece, but one can also buy other Korg apps for 15-30 EUR + IAP and integrate them into Gadget.
Auria also had an upgrade which cost about 20-30 EUR (can't remember). It's not unusual for people to pay more than 150 EUR for Auria.
Decisions to buy are made based on the developer's reputation, reviews and discussions on forums.
No, Apple should have added upgrade pricing years ago and I would gladly pay for upgrades that way. The fact that they still haven't added upgrades and are instead pushing for a subscription model rubs me the wrong way.
That's a flaw in all app stores (perhaps by design to force everyone to a subscription model someday?). For example, ImageLine's FL Studio was warning everyone that their new app will be completely different than their old app, but they weren't able to change version for their customers by the store policies, so they were asking users to be careful about upgrade.
So currently your only option is to release app2, app3 etc. without the possibility to address your customer base (offering upgrades etc.)
Subscriptions are basically renting apps for regular time periods. If forced, this would kill all indies for sure as most people would spend budget to the few main apps they need. I can also barely envision how the platform would attract creative people as it would feel like oligopoly. Frankly, with computers we have a chance to break natural constraints on availability but companies seem to be hell bent on reintroducing the same stinky approaches from the past. Why?
"Frankly, with computers we have a chance to break natural constraints on availability but companies seem to be hell bent on reintroducing the same stinky approaches from the past. Why?"
How does it help you if your potential customers avoid your software like a plague? Subscriptions border on restricting somebody's financial freedom. Imagine your plumber was forcing you to pay yearly for once/here and there using their services?
"How does it help you if your potential customers avoid your software like a plague?"
You're gonna have to show that would be the result. You'd also have to show that whatever your alternative idea is. You said you want to "break natural constraints on availability." How are you going to do that without charging per copy, or charing a subscription model? And how does your idea make more money that previous, or at least a similar amount?
"Subscriptions border on restricting somebody's financial freedom."
I am fine buying software but only if I can keep ownership of whatever version I bought. I shelved money for complete CS6 but stay light years away from CC. I bought Ableton Live Suite, but stay away from ProTools. Imagine I had to pay Nikon or Access a yearly fee for camera/synth in my studio?
I have a plenty of money I want to spend on software but only if it empowers me and not if it treats me as an ATM. For example, the old JetBrains model of buying a new major release (and keeping it forever) and then getting free updates for a year was simply perfect, both for allowing developers to love the company that treats them properly and financing ongoing development; not sure why they regressed.
I think its more analogous to your water/waste company who you pay monthly for them to remove your waste from your house. The provide an ongoing service, you don't get to pay a one time fee for it. Subscriptions provide a way for apps that have an ongoing support component to be paid for that instead of using ads.
A problem with upgrade pricins is the difference between new and old users.
Do new users have to pay all tiers of upgrade or do they get a reduced cost?
If it's the former, then the app's price keeps on rising and comes down to IAPs being better to unlock extra features you actually need without the whole package.
If it's the latter, then old users feel betrayed for having to pay the full upgrade price even though they bought the app earlier than new users.
There are pros and cons for both sides, unless I didn't think of one solution that could work perfectly.
>old users feel betrayed for having to pay the full upgrade price even though they bought the app earlier than new users.
Do they, though? Back when things like word processors were hundreds of dollars for the initial purchase and maybe half that for upgrades, it kept your users relatively happy. But when Apple introduced Pages on the app store originally, it was something like $30-40 for new versions. So I actually ended up spending less on it than I had on other word processors, but getting the same regular updates. It's free now, but I personally love the model of low reasonable price each time rather than really high first time price, and kind of high additional price when new versions come out. That initial high price meant there were a lot of programs I didn't buy when I wasn't making quite the salary I am today.
Yes, at least in my experience. There are many who expect updates and new features because they have already invested so much of their time into your free app.
You can make the argument that a certain price point justifies free upgrades within a certain period of time or to a certain level (e.g. buy 1.x and get free up to all 2.n versions), but "I spend a lot of time in your app" is not a valid reason to get more of it for free.
>I don't see a reason to subscribe for apps that are one-time pay and periodic long term use.
This. I'm a developer of such a "sporadic use" app and I don't see how a subscription model would benefit my users. And I honestly wouldn't feel too good about introducing subscription pricing to a tool someone might need once in a few weeks.
On the other hand this might be a solution to the upgrade pricing problem if one could set the subscription interval to 1 year.
Optimally priced annual subscription may work well. Again, this depends on the app's context justifying the subscription model.
One such annual subscription offer that I was totally in favor of was WhatsApp. Given the volume of use I had from the service, I would have gladly paid more. I would prefer subscription to a clean chat service instead of a free service shoving news, themes, icon-packs etc. in my face to make money.
One interesting side effect of this might be that reasonably priced single-payment apps might seem desirable again. If a lot of apps switch to a $0.99/month subscription, then even a $4.99 one time payment might seem ok, whereas right now it would considered expensive by most users.
One recent example on the Android side (don't use iOS very often) was an app that regularly publishes curated watch faces for Android Wear. There are literally thousands of free, user generated ones out there and I can make my own without too much trouble but I liked quite a few of the ones on this app.
Additionally, they allow designers to submit their own watch faces and share the revenue which I thought was cool. It helps combat the glut of "brand" knockoffs that fill many of the free/user-generated sites.
Originally, they offered a "pro" version that gave you access to all current and future watch faces for a subscription fee. I was not very keen on this because, like so many, I tend to forget to cancel these things when I stop using them. I mentioned this in an app review and so did many others. We requested a one-time IAP for the "Pro" version and soon after, the developer did just this.
So I paid $10 and every week or so I check out the new watch faces available for download. I like that some of the money goes to the platform and some to the designers. I like that the designs are high quality and don't include any knockoffs or blatant copyright infringement. And I like that I could just buy the full app after trying out the free options.
I've done the same with similar light-verion/paid-upgrade apps but this was the first one I'd run across that offered both a subscription or a one-time purchase.
"Part of that energy has been channeled into figuring out how to sell developers on subscription services, and not only that, but how to keep them keeping on with those subscriptions. Previously, only apps classified as news, cloud services, dating apps, or audio / video streaming apps could sell subscription content. Now it’s open to all product categories.
For the first year of a subscription Apple will maintain its 70 / 30 revenue share; after one year, the new 85 percent / 15 percent revenue share will kick in (applied per subscriber). The new app subscription model will roll out to developers this fall, though if app makers have subscribers they’ve already retained for a year, the new revenue split starts June 13th."
Also: "Apple is also going to start showing search ads for apps in its iOS App Store search results for the first time, something the company had previously resisted."
I'm frankly shocked it took them this long. They have the #1 digital real estate for such advertising, and the amount of money being spent on advertising apps (particularly on FB) is staggering.
Unfortunately, from a user standpoint, this seems to be a disincentive to improve their horribly lacking search functionality.
All I know is that their review process has gotten WAY faster and better over the last month, as in 24 hour review which has been awesome. Have other people noticed this?
I wonder if they added capacity or dropped review quality - so far we haven't seen a drop in quality and they are able to catch problems at about the same rate.
That change happened because App Store's management was transferred from Eddy Cue over to Phil Schiller. While Eddy Cue was completely deaf to developers' complaints and needs, Schiller seems to be giving a damn and he's trying to improve things. They now employ ML/algorithmic means to test submitted apps and catch simple rejection issues. I'm also pretty sure that if you have a pretty good record of submissions & approvals, they spend less time scrutinizing your app. And if you're just issuing fixes or simple changes, they don't spend any time "human testing" at all.
PS: I've come to a conclusion that whatever Cue runs, it is shit or turns to shit quickly. He's in charge of all the Apple services and they're a complete mess. I hope Cue retires or just transfers his responsibilities to someone who cares about them.
I don't think that everything he touches "is shit or turns to shit quickly". The Apple Online Store, iTunes Music Store, iCloud services, Apple Pay are all great products/servives. He took command over Maps when it was at a terrible stake, and it has improved a lot since.
However, I think iTunes, Apple Music and Siri all have weaknesses. But we can only guess who's fault that is - certainly not Cue's alone.
Also, he is employed by Apple since 1989. He must be doing something right.
Problem is that Apple's services are lagging behind their competition. Issue is that each team at Apple has their own stack. Imagine the amount of overlap that they have! They have hundreds of people who are doing the same work but for different teams. That also explains why Apple's so addicted to AWS/Azure/Google's cloud services.
And Siri's fallen further behind their competition. Don't forget, Siri was the first (major) assistant on the market and Apple had a year or two of head start on their competition. But that advantage quickly evaporated because of Apple's neglect. Siri's creators left and formed Viv because Apple lowered their ambitions and didn't give them the budget they wanted.
That's all Eddy Cue's fault since he's the one who's in charge of these teams. It's as simple as that. And just because he's been at Apple so long doesn't mean he's great at his job. It could as well mean that he's accumulated so much power that he's untouchable.
>How do they differentiate between simple fixes and more substantial changes?
I have no idea how they do it. I'm guessing it could be as simple as relying on App Store submission form information and as complicated as analyzing amount of code changes.
From the article: "Finally, Schiller says that the App Store has been speeding up app review times — to the point where 50 percent of submitted apps are now reviewed in 24 hours, and 90 percent are reviewed within 48 hours."
We've been seeing this too, with some apps being approved in <24 hours. Originally thought it was a fluke (it's happened a couple times over the past several years), but now it appears to be a regular occurrence.
Now if we could see a similar factor improvement in TestFlight beta review times...
Yep, I was really surprised when we had an app go from submission to 'ready for sale' in 4-5 hours this week. Much better than times past (when we would quote 2 weeks expected to customers).
Bleh, subscriptions. I'm fine with them if your app is offering features that require use of your servers, but it seems many indie developers are interested instead in charging for the "privilege" of running local code on your device (as with Photoshop). I'll pass.
You're right — users shouldn't expect their apps to get major updates for free. But this is a PR problem, solvable by other means. As a user, I'm OK with it. I've been using Adobe CS 5 for the past 3 years and it's still working great. Were there an upgrade path where I could pay some cash and get the latest version, I would probably do so. Unfortunately, Adobe has decided that they're not the company for me, and so I've been happily moving on to alternatives like Pixelmator and Affinity Designer. From what I've seen in the response to Text Expander's subscription pricing and other similar business model changes, I think many others feel the same as I do: that above all else, the software running on their local machine must continue to work without having to pay a bloody tax.
A text expander is not a "service", nor is a password manager, nor is an audio looper or a to-do lister. To suggest otherwise would be disingenuous. Of course, we don't know what's going to happen in response to this change yet, but statements like Gruber's "win-win-win"[1] and Brent Simmons' request for clarification[2] indicate to me that indie developers will be more than happy to adopt this model with their decidedly non-service software.
Those should be addressed by app store mechanisms for charging for upgrades. Then those who want them can pay and those who don't can ignore them.
I seldom accept any upgrades and keep old versions of apps backed-up in case I rashly do click 'yes'. I know I'm not unique; if an app works, why tempt fate by upgrading it?
Unfortunately with this subscription model everyone will have to pay regardless of whether they want those new features.
There are so many problems with the AppStore that need to be fixed and I hope atleast some are with these additions to the AppStore.
1. Fix app discovery
2. Fix app search before putting search ads. e.g. if your app name has a symbol in it searching by app name will NOT return your app in the search results.
3. App review times can be further reduced by automating the review process
Few customers realize that how much it costs to keep an app going: platform API and UI change will either break your app or uglify it. If the app is using external service, then the service API could change too and that causes a lot of work. New device models come, and you will need a lot of work in redesigning the user interface. Even if you are not adding new features, the cost is real to developers especially if the market for this app is small.
I wonder if Apple is taking more than a 50% haircut on this post year one.
Credit card fees come out of their share and those could very well account for the bulk of the 15%. Even if Apple pays nothing in payment processor markup, there is a fixed minimum "interchange" cost that everyone has to pay (even Walmart). For "ecommerce" it's:[1]
Credit: $0.10 + 1.8-2.4%
Debit: $0.21 + 0.05%
Those 10-21 cent minimums make a big dent in smaller transactions. For a monthly recurring charge of $1.99, already 6% of that goes to credit card interchange. That leaves a 9% gross margin for Apple (4% if debit).
At $0.99, Apple's margin drops to 3% on credit, and they lose money on a debit card.
Now, there is a "small ticket" interchange category that one would hope these transactions would qualify for. That's just $0.04 + 1.65%. But it says it requires a swipe, so I'm not sure. From a fraud risk standpoint Apple Pay should be treated better than a swipe, but I'm not sure if the rules have caught up yet.
Interestingly Sketch app announced today they're changing to a subscription model soon. Sketch app abandoned Apple store last December. Looks like Sketch will be back to Mac App Store this fall.
It is sad that Apple only took action now, after years of requests and complains by indie developers. Now that app boom is over, I doubt this App Store changes will have any impact.
Oh damn it. Sketch 3 owner, this is news to me. As a hobbyist, their subscription price will almost certainly not be worth it.
The reason I quit Adobe and bought Sketch was to support software that I could actually buy. Not this "Good deal for professionals, even cheaper for students, fuck anybody who just wants to use a decent art program every couple of months" model.
I'll see what I can track down on details, but I'm preemptively very disappointed about this.
EDIT: Sketch is _NOT_ switching to a subscription model. Sketch is breaking from the "paid major, free minor" upgrade schedule, and going to "rolling releases, $99 buys the app and a year of upgrades."
Personally I think that's a fair system. It frees them from having to plan new features around the major/minor release schedule, but you can still buy the software and just keep using it.
My biggest concern is going to be OS compatibility. With OS X on a yearly upgrade treadmill, if there are any compatibility issues (and there almost always are), then the Sketch upgrade is effectively not optional. That's not so different from how it is now, except there have only been two major upgrades since the original release (September 2010), so you'll be buying OS compatibility fixes more than twice as often. So I still don't love it.
> Sketch is _NOT_ switching to a subscription model.
It looks quite a bit like a subscription model to the average person. $99/year is a pretty big jump in price, but I guess they've gotten a chunk of pro market people. The whole bit about being unfair to late adopters is a bit of bunk.
> It looks quite a bit like a subscription model to the average person
Not really? My problem with subscription software is that you lose access to it if you stop paying. I used Photoshop 7 for a looooong time because we didn't need any of the new features. You can't do that with Photoshop CC. Because it's a subscription.
If anything, maybe you could call it an "update subscription," but if the software works without an active subscription, then it's not a subscription. That would be like Comcast saying "If you cancel your cable subscription, you can still turn on your TV and watch reruns of whatever aired when you were a customer."
> $99/year is a pretty big jump in price
For that much money, you could use Adobe Illustrator every January, May, and September!
Its still a subscription, it just allows an indefinite unpaid period until something breaks. There is no upgrade discount.
> For that much money, you could use Adobe Illustrator every January, May, and September!
Illustrator is $19.99 per month paid monthly, so a little easier to handle but 2.4x more expensive. Illustrator has a lot more support but the difference in price just got reduced ($99 for about 2+ years versus per year).
Its about a 2x jump in price for Sketch.
I'm most saddened that neither company cares about customer loyalty in a money way.
A subscription model would definitely benefit specific types of apps (we make games and are excited at this possibility).
The easy money's already been made in the App Store; with a million+ apps it's a visibility issue. No amount of changes to the App Store will remove the problem of there being a dozen apps that already solve the problem that your app solves.
That said, a subscription model with a reduced cut could improve monetization prospects for a lot of developers, indie especially.
> That said, a subscription model with a reduced cut could improve monetization prospects for a lot of developers, indie especially.
Only if users except the model. I for one, will be removing any of my apps that move to a subscription model. I have no interest in renting the software on my phone.
> Looks like Sketch will be back to Mac App Store this fall.
If Apple adds subscriptions to the Mac App Store that is. We're still waiting for "App Analytics" on the Mac. (The stats where you can see how many people viewed your app's page in the app store and how many downloaded the app. Even though it's the same backend those stats are only available for the iOS store).
I wouldn't be surprised if Sketch left the app store in order to break away from the sandbox. It's simply too restrictive for many production tool apps.
I detest subscriptions of all kinds. I don't want to manage them. I don't want to figure out how much I'm paying out per month across all types of subscriptions. I don't want a service to manage it for me, I just don't want the cognitive overhead. I don't want to remember the terms of each subscription, how long it takes to cancel (if and when I can get through to someone to cancel it). Or the fact that I lose access to something when I stop paying. I don't want to forget to cancel it only to find I'm bound to another 6 months. Etc, etc. I could go on.
I also strongly dislike that they know that x% of users after signing up will barely use the service and it's essentially free money. I know this is why they do it, and I won't support companies for trying to take advantage of users.
the +15% more after a year is a joke. like this article mentioned - the majority of the apps are games, games after a year are usually forgotten and they make most of the revenue on their first year on the market.
about subscriptions - i don't see any reason a developer would share the subscriptions revenue with apple while they sale it for free and make in-app subscriptions.
This won't substantially change anything, given the existing power-law type distribution of app-store earnings.
When the ~app~ store debuted, I called it the K-Martization of software.
This is just Apple expanding into Rent-A-Center.
I wonder if this will further reinforce the notion of the "Dunbar's number of apps". In the sense that on a country-by-country basis, the disposable income of people could become the limiting factor affecting how many apps that users install.
If the supposed cognitive load of people for using apps is around 26-27, then is there an economic load that says that people will max at say--- $60/month--- in total app subscriptions in the US? And this number could change drastically for users in other countries based on fluctuating dollar values.
Unless there's a legitimate reason for subscription (if it's cloud based and deals with private content) the law of supply and demand will kick in, which means it will work for these particular types of apps but won't work for others because there's always going to be a competitor who will provide the same service for free.
In my opinion, the two most important features as a developer for the App Store:
1. Rolling deploys - right now releasing on iOS is scary and big bang, combined with the review process it keeps devs up at night worrying.
2. AB Testing on images and copy - you can only update this on each (scary) release, so you can't learn what works quickly.
Am I the only one exhausted by "apps"? I've gone as far as to limit myself to only two pages worth on my phone, without folders. I feel like most apps could just be the mobile/responsive versions of the existing site. Maintaining separate interfaces always leads to inconsistencies.
If Apple supported the latest standards in mobile Safari, you could write web apps that work offline and have push notifications like on Android. That's not in Apple's interest though.
Serious question, why do we need apps that work offline? Finding it hard to imagine what you can do on a computer theses days without an internet connection, besides maybe an old single player game devoid of any patches.
It's not so much that you can use it offline (though that's one benefit) but rather that it caches your assets so if there's very, very slow connection you can still use and read content. If it's something that requires the Internet to work, it can show a "no connection available" message but it still load, similar to a native app.
The goal is to avoid the "white screen of death" you get when a web app won't load.
Travel. I can still look at my ToDos, email, note, saved stories (Instapaper) on a plane thanks to offline apps. I can use it as a clock/alarm/calendar while in another country. My phone can even be used as a GPS when offline thanks to apps like GPS Nav that allow navigation using saved map data.
Always-online is a luxury of spending all your time in certain parts of the world. Baking that assumption into all apps diminishes their utility greatly.
Native app vs web. There is always features missing from one or the other, and I'd much prefer one consistent interface at xyz.com no matter the device.
What web app? Do you think every app on app store has web version?
I prefer apps, always I do not want consistent, I want good and smooth.
Web apps sucked, suck, and will suck.
Our business management app is free to use on iOS but we charge a monthly subscription to use the web client and that has been working pretty well. With these coming changes I wonder if it would make sense to start charging monthly subscription for Pro features on iOS and how users will react to that.
Apple's revisions to the App Store reinforce that they consider it a rival to the World Wide Web.
Google cornered Web search. Reaction: As they own the walled garden, Apple completely control search within the App Store.
Adwords owns Web Advertisitng. Reaction: Apple will launch paid search in the App Store.
Companies like Netflix, Blizzard, and Salesforce have direct lines to their customer's wallets through subscriptions. Reaction: Apple will launch subscriptions in App Store and take a cut from their developers.
I don't see any of this as a surprise. In fact, I see it as Apple playing to their own strengths. The web is too open a platform for Apple, and history has shown they don't succeed when they don't have control.
I won't say that I really like the idea of search ads, but I think it will be better than the current situation because it should at least reduce the amount of money that's currently spent on illegitimately gaming the search results.
Reading this discussion, I've seen several comment on the "hassle of managing all those subscriptions". But wouldn't it be the case that the app store is going to do that for you, and give you both a single notification channel and a single point of management? Isn't that the whole purpose of managing the subscriptions through the app store instead of having customers visit your web site directly? Isn't that what Apple is getting %15 to perform?
If a user doesn't renew their subscription in year 2, can they continue to use the "year 1 app" without receiving year 2 updates? Or does the year 1 app just go dark?
> All he will say about free trials and paid updates is that Apple "looks at everything. We evaluate what will be a better experience for the user, and we make choices based on that."
How are free trials not a "better experience for the user"? I just don't understand Apple's paranoia when it comes to free trial versions.
Death by a thousand cuts. All those apps that charge to turn off the ads? Suddenly you pay yearly for that. iAP to unlock those extra levels/features/etc, better pay the tax man because those will now be yearly. Apps will no longer be "upgraded" from 1.0 to 2.0 where you have to pay for the new version. No, you pay that yearly fee whether you like it or not. Sorry this isn't going to turn out well and I might just have to switch back to android where there are things like 2 hour to 48 hour return policies.
I have an iPhone 6s. Can you show me where Apple says out right that they will refund an application before 14 days? I'm not being snarky, I just haven't seen that written before.
I have to say I agree. I didn't even think they would think of modeling the store this way, though granted what they've done with Itunes/Apple Music I guess it isnt that surprising. Pretty disappoined
App subscriptions would likely lead to more cross platform portability - if I'm paying $1/mo for your app, I won't care if it's on iOS this month and Windows Mobile next month, but if I paid $10 for your app, I don't want to repurchase it on a new platform.
it's like 3 clicks to find your entire list of subscriptions and once you're there it's 2 clicks to turn off automatic renewal. Plus TFA said they're making it even easier, so what exactly is your complaint?
Apple is also going to start showing search ads for apps in its iOS App Store search results for the first time, something the company had previously resisted. "We’ve thought about how to carefully do it in a way that, first and foremost, customers will be happy with," Schiller says, adding that he believes the ad auction system in App Store search will be "fair to developers, and fair for indie developers, too."
> For the first year of a subscription Apple will maintain its 70 / 30 revenue share; after one year, the new 85 percent / 15 percent revenue share will kick in (applied per subscriber).
This is the exact opposite of what Apple should do. App startups in their first year need all the revenue they can get. After the first year, most of those companies have either reached profitability or gone out of business.
This policy is going to mean more revenue for the large, established app companies, like Instagram or Snapchat, and less revenue for any potential usurpers. They're effectively suppressing innovation and locking in any monopolies they've helped to build.
I think Apple is attempting to reward services and startups that are focused on long-term value for their users. If I create a subscription app, I want to get to that 85/15 split. So that means I need to build my business such that I'm around in a year to collect on that split and I'm providing a good enough service after a year that people stay subscribed.
In other words, I think Apple is intentionally discouraging companies that are so focused on the short game they may not be around in a year.
I suspect I'll be buying far fewer apps if there's a mass movement from a purchase model to a subscription model among app developers. I'm perfectly happy to pay $20-30 for an app (even a simple app) if it provides value and I'm happy to pay for major upgrades or additional content/features, but I won't pay $20-30 a year just to maintain the ability to launch an app on an ongoing basis.
In addition, after years of terrible search in the app store, coupling search improvements with search-based ads is just a kick in the shins.