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Comment by kalleboo | Hacker News Reader

As a developer, Apple is heavily, heavily pushing us to adopt subscriptions, even for apps where it makes no sense. We get contacted by developer relations folks several times a year, they even dragged us to a seminar to espouse the joys of subscriptions. We do a camera app.

All we want is clearly-marked trial versions (not "free apps with in-app purchases", users think that's bait-and-switch and give you 1 star reviews), and upgrade pricing. Apple refuses to adopt those.

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Subscriptions always make sense because it aligns developers costs with customer usage. Small developers were dying trying to support apps forever on one time purchases. Subscriptions enable developers to be compensated for maintaining and upgrading their apps.

Trial versions are a bad user experience.

Upgrade pricing would be nice, but fir most apps isn’t really necessary since subscriptions solve the same problem in a better manner.

I would be much happier paying to upgrade on my own terms than being held hostage every month with subscription fees. Subscriptions add up fast and for most things if the app is good enough now I don't care too much about continuing support.

And even if subscriptions are small, the hassle of tracking them adds up fast too, because each subscription is an unnecessary relationship with a third party, a relationship I don't want to have. When I buy bread, I don't enter into a relationship with the baker or the supermarket. I want the same to be true of software.

I refuse to use them, even when it pushes me back to the default apps that came with the device.

Customers hate subscriptions, and small developers don’t like them much, either, because they create the expectation that the app will be upgraded very regularly.

This expectation is fine for companies like Adobe, who are going to be cranking out a new version on a regular basis. But it’s onerous to a smaller developer.

My understanding is Apple is now discouraging developers from using the subscription model unless their app has periodic new content / updates, but I haven’t confirmed this yet.

-Wil Shipley

Charging for upgrades creates perverse incentives as well, Adobe before they switched to subscriptions was a good example of that. Every new release had a ton of features to encourage people to pay for the upgrade. Few of these features were of much value.

At least with a subscription you are incentivised to keep existing users happy.

I think the key takeaway that is that the process of selling applications lacks flexibility. Subscriptions, paid upgrades, one time fees and ads all make sense in some situations. It depends on the type of application, the developer, the business, and the needs of the customer. I would prefer if Apple just got out of the way completely but since that can’t happen, they could at least offer more options for developers to choose what method is best for them and their customers.

> Few of these features were of much value.

Then why were users upgrading?

The same reason people started buying cars with fins in the fifties. Clever marketing made people think they need to upgrade to the latest and greatest.

I don't quite believe that this was the case for Adobe, though. Cars are status symbols—people want ones that look cool so they can show off too their peers. No one (well, very few) is showing off their copy of Photoshop.

Subscriptions only make sense for apps which you are using on a regular basis and where you would expect frequent updates or a regular service provided by the app developer. I am not willing to pay regular subscriptions for an app, which I might not use for a longer period of time. With upgrade pricing, you can decide whether you want new features/maintenance, or just keep continue to use the old application. Which is especially important with respect to your data. With a subscription model you might effectively loose access to your data once the subscription runs out. With the paid upgrade model, you retain access to your data, even if you don't regularly use your app.

It is another problem of the Apple universe, that applications often stops working some time after no update, because Apple keeps breaking old applications. This is one reason which locks me out of Catalina.

How on earth are trial versions bad user experience? My #1 wish when I browse an app store would be to look for apps (especially games) that offer trial versions. I don't want to try games that shove ads down your throat or monetize through in-app purchases, I won't pay for a subscription for some mobile game I just play to pass time waiting for something, but I'd like to try the game before I pay for it since lots of games I tried were a lot less fun than I thought from the store page. Trial versions would be perfect.

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