Tell HN: Why I'm ecstatic at Apple's subscription model.

The AppStore is not an easy-money kind of environment. It rewards hard work and quality, and consequently we've been able to do relatively well there. But as it has evolved it has become clear that low app prices are a permanent fixture.

So, for the past several months I've been working on moving our bread and butter app from a "Pay us $4 and use it forever" to a SaaS model. We'll make the app free, and give people 3-4 months of cloud service to go with the app. (This cloud service is a genuine value add for the app, so we're shifting models by adding a fundamental new feature. Anyone who doesn't want it will have the functionality they have now.)

Then for the ones that like our App and stick with it-- and we get about %20 retention with some really fanatical users now-- the cloud service is eventually a $1 a month subscription.

So, instead of making $3 per customer, we'll be making $8.40 per year for customers we retain.

Further, as a free app we'll get at least an order of magnitude more customers, which means if the retention rate drops by half we'll have 5 times as many long term users as we're getting now. Many people don't try our app because we're forced to collect the entire lifetime customer revenue before they even get a chance to use the app.

This is a much better model for apps where it makes sense.

Why are so many people complaining? Generally, it seems those who are complaining are not making their own product. I can understand how reselling something another person has made means tough margins. (Which makes me wonder how these book publishers are doing on Amazon where they take %70 in many cases, and only go down to %30 if they get to set the price.)

I looked at the Amazon Android Store terms the other day. They are similarly bad. The wording is vague but it looks like Amazon will pay you between %20 and %70, and they get to set the price. Which means if Amazon wants to do a $1 sale on your app to promote their store, tough for you.

But I also think the publisher model is on the way out- and I say good riddance! These are essentially middle-men and they don't make sense in the age of digital distribution, in most cases.

I used to work in the game industry for a studio with a deal with the largest independent games publisher in the country. If I make an iOS game, I don't need to find a publisher, I don't need to appease the publisher producer, or any of that crap. I've been down that road. The game industry is broken because of the power that publishers have. (Or it was broken when I left.)

I am very happy that all I have to do is just upload my product to Apple and they take care of the rest. Apple takes %30, but handles distribution, updates, customer service, taking credit cards, does a decent cross sell and will send me good marketing if I happen to get featured. That's worth %30 to me.

This is a new model for iOS apps, and it is great news for iOS developers.