Apps upselling subscriptions

I think there is a general shift occurring in the digital world to create more revenue to compensate for things tailing off.

Prime music being another example of edging folk towards paying more with their recent changes.

From a developers point of view, you paid a couple of quid for their effort to build V1.0 and since then have been getting free upgrades - most paid subscriptions turn off ads so they don't earn any more from you that way. Now they may have user growth flatting out but still want to get a regular income stream to pay for incremental development and generally keep the lights on which seems fair enough - if you only want to keep the original features that you paid for just don't pay.

Pretty irksome

not being funny but did you really expect a one-off payment of five pounds to cover you forever? Do the app developers not deserve to be able to feed their families? [I]All[/I] apps under active development (i.e. the ones that you can continue using in the face of OS updates, etc) incur costs for development, not to mention server costs where data/hosting is involved etc.

Yeah, feels slightly annoying as the end user but I'm afraid I'm with the developers needing paid side. It is needed.

Do the app developers not deserve to be able to feed their families

Bit melodramatic. Of course I do but with over 100 apps it's not difficult for people to keep buying subscriptions just to keep up full use of an app.
I subscribed to Spotify and knew the cost up front.

What's wrong with the previous system where developers made a new and improved version with more functionality and the charged you if you wanted to upgrade?

This is why I'm still on Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 6. I was happy buying upgrades, but I'm not paying a subscription for software I'll never own.

I see both sides of the argument but some enhanced features that are integrated into the app have been paywalled on the same app.

What’s wrong with the previous system where developers made a new and improved version with more functionality and the charged you if you wanted to upgrade?

it just wouldn't work on mobile. The situation where OS updates break an app happen way more frequently, peoples' apps would just stop working and the vast majority would blame the app developers, start leaving 1* reviews, etc, it would be chaos. Mobile apps need to be under constant development - which costs money!

Also the cost of most apps is so low (or free) that realistically I think they need to charge either a subscription or micro-transactions to make any money. Or adverts/data-mining I guess, but that would not be my preference at all!

I was happy buying upgrades, but I’m not paying a subscription for software I’ll never own.

this is just something you've got to get your head around, unfortunately. Read the license agreement for your ancient versions of Photoshop, etc. You don't "own" anything - you can't do whatever you like with it - you're just licensed to use it under certain conditions.

I just uninstalled Accuweather. Or rather I had to upgrade it and found the paywall thing.

Rightly or wrongly, most people place a low value on software (especially mobile apps) and expect it to be free or very cheap. Companies and hobby developers giving things out for free as part of the upsell business model are partly to blame for this. Some people and companies I know get a nuts amount of value from free/99p/£2.99 apps (saving measurable hours of time per week, or countable hundreds of pounds per month).

I just uninstalled Accuweather. Or rather I had to upgrade it and found the paywall thing.

what did you get instead as it been really good and accurate for me since the demise of dark Sky on android.

Companies have realised they can make far more money selling a service instead of a product.

what did you get instead as it been really good and accurate for me since the demise of dark Sky on android.

Dunno about the OP - but I use Accuwaether alongside Windy.

Annoyingly I only found Accuweather about a month or so ago after losing Dark Sky when Apple bought it.

Companies have realised they can make far more money selling a service instead of a product.

Also, if you can't see the price, then you are the product on the shelf. And with the gradual erosion of their ability to track you, you're worth less and less to them.

The one I'm always slightly surprised by though is Zwift, they know a lot about you (age, gender, location, that you can afford both nice bikes and nice turbo trainers, etc), and you'll be looking at the screen for an hour or more. Yet there's no billboards in Wattopia? Feels like a huge missed opportunity for them.

Companies have realised they can make far more money selling a service instead of a product.

Weather forecasting [I]is[/I] a service though? What use is the app with yesterday's weather on it? 😂

I use Windy on mobile and subscribe to Meteo.de on ipad.

Weather forecasting is a service though? What use is the app with yesterday’s weather on it? 😂

There are cases where it makes sense, yes. Then there's things like Adobe software and You Need A Budget where a one off purchase for the current version is no longer an option and you're required to subscribe to future updates you may not want or need.

Caher
Full Member

Over the last year or so I’ve noticed that apps I bought maybe a few years ago for say a £5 are now introducing an additional paywall to enhanced features for a regular subscription. Pretty irksome as I thought I’d bought premium. Is this the way all apps are going?
My example is AccuWeather which I bought to replace DarkSky and just introduced a subscription for enhanced local weather.

It's annoying.

However it's better than the other tactic I've been on the end of. Which is removing version 1 from the app store, and replacing it with version 2.
Version 1 carries on working, but when you upgrade your phone, you cannot reinstall version 1 since it's no longer available to download.