Comment by publicfig | Hacker News Reader

Comment by publicfig | Hacker News Reader

I'm really disappointed by the amount of support he has gotten for this. He has directly mislead consumers into buying a product with an intent of support, and then immediately pulls it and forces the user into a difficult process with Apple to reclaim that money. Anyone that is unsuccessful in the process will have their money go directly to the developer. I understand the possibility change of heart, but that doesn't change the fact that every action of this matches what would happen in a scam, other than the fact that I truly believe he didn't set out to intentionally scam users. He really should have thought about this before releasing the app, and I feel like the support he's getting will convince him or other developers that this is at all a decent move.

I think Apple should be at least overly cautious any time he attempts to release another application. I know many developers that would have been effectively blocked for less, but he has the fortune of being in good with Apple so I don't see that happening.

I think you're forgetting the fact that this application still works. Sure, when iOS 10 is released it may break - but the same could be said for any now-abandoned app.

It's a shame but he gave people notice (instead of just stopping development) and recommended people request refunds. This is nowhere close to being a scam.

This isn't an ordinary application. Ad blocking applications live and die by their blocklist. Many people purchased this application with the implied assumption that the blocklist would continue to be updated for the foreseeable future.

Without an updated blocklist, this app will quickly become useless.

Ghostery is providing the blocklist, not Marco.I doubt they are going to stop anytime soon as they also have a browser extenstion that relies on it

Doubtful.

"The app is completely my code, using a copy of Ghostery’s tracker database hosted on my server that the app periodically checks for updates."

So since he's abandoned the app, and broken his agreement with Ghostery, I'd assume he'll no longer be receiving an updated database from Ghostery.

He confirmed on Twitter that it'll keep being updated for the foreseeable future.

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/645060381778571265

While that's true, keep in mind that not everyone who bought Peace know who Marco Arment is. I don't even think he released the app using his name.

Customers who bought the app only because it was the top app in the App Store at the time have no way of knowing the developer stopped supporting the app. They're screwed in the long term because they'll think they're using an ad blocker when they don't.

I think the smart way to go about this would have been to make the app free and let users know via the interface that the app will no longer be updated and users should ask for refunds. I realize this could make the app even more popular since you make it free, but I think this is still a better way to let users know about the future development of the app.

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