Hacker News Reader

Comment by Karsteski | Hacker News Reader

I really like Pocket Casts. I have basically used it every day since 2014.i don't really like that I bought it years ago, then they switched to a subscription model and I lost access to the one feature I cared about, which was syncing to their webapp. Always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and it really made me not want to support any more young companies.

View on HN

I paid for Pocket Casts back in the day. When they switched to subscriptions, they grandfathered me to the Pocket Casts Plus as a lifetime user.

I have access to the web app and it syncs the podcasts as well as the play position.

Are you referring to something else?

Same.

> When they switched to subscriptions, they grandfathered me to the Pocket Casts Plus as a lifetime user.

iirc we were only grandfathered in for 3 years.

they fixed that and made it permanent.

really? my 3 year period just ended and they asked me to pony up.

https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2019/09/19/we-heard-you/

I'm still on my lifetime plan, maybe open a support ticket?

I didn't get grandfathered in. I never saw whatever notification or email they sent out. I only saw last year that that was what happened, and by then I was obviously too late. Obviously, having paid for an online product and having it stolen from me is something I will never forget.

No one stole anything from you. An online service you are not continuously paying for is not a service where you are the customer.

Wow. That's a new take on the old trope "if you aren't paying you aren't the customer".

It's obviously untrue. For many services the marginal cost of supporting a paid user on an ongoing basis approaches zero.

I'd imagine this is one. They presumably store some subscription and profile data and that's about it.

But each added user should not only cover the marginal cost but alt least the average cost. If we disregard that there can be several tiers of users and price models, it might stand to reason that each user at the least on average have to bring in as much money as they cost the service to serve. Many customers brought this up when Maciej Cegłowski had a fixed price model for perpetual Pinboard, he just bushed this off but has since come begging oldtimers for more money. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s tiresome to have the same journey with every service you want to depend on. This is a trait of the VC world of “we figure out profitability after we have all the customers”.

Respectfully disagree. An obligation to maintain a service in perpetuity for no revenue becomes a huge unfunded liability.

What if the app falls out of favor and new marginal revenue can’t cover fixed costs?

What if the business wants to innovate in a way that dramatically changes its cost structure (maybe introduce a feature that requires a usage based license)? Sure you can gate older users but how long do you have to maintain a separate set of features for them?

Obviously it’s the apps responsibility to make a fair deal with users and stick to terms offered. Sure some companies can make a model that amortizes an upfront payment effectively over decades. In reality though, all that really matters to a company is new cash that pays expenses. If you’re not contributing to that at some point you are no longer the customer.

If I remember there wasn't anything that needed to be done on our end, if your account qualified it was just done. Is it possible you have more than one account?

Sorry that happened. I have same feeling about vsco. Paid for the presets back in the day and now they are behind a log in screen and subscription.

Looks like the people who are grandfathered in are people who paid for web access. If you purchased the Android or iOS app (like me), you are not grandfathered in and do not get a free plus account.

Source: https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2019/09/18/major-new-update/

Huh, first time I ever saw that. Makes sense, I paid for the Android app not the web app. Still, wish I would have known this earlier. I may not like it, but better than being ghosted.

That said, I distributed remember themes and icons being a thing in the paid app which isn't available under the new model unless you subscribe.

Exactly... I've been using Pocket Casts since forever.

I bought the full featured version and was soo happy... Until they killed it off. Now I'm on an iPhone and Apple Watch and it's ridiculous to pay to subscribe just to be able to control it from my watch. Feels ridiculous.

If they brought back even an expensive, $80 one-time purchase fee I'd be more than happy to support.

Software development in the age of mobile requires continuous development. Who is going to pay for development of new features?

I mean, that's all fine and well. Just don't sell products then take them away after because you can. Imagine buying physical goods and having the business owner come to your house and take it away because it was costing them too much. Insanity.

So should they be obligated to keep supporting their servers forever?

The better analogy would be like me expecting NordicTrack to service my exercise equipment for free forever. They aren’t going to take my physical equipment away. But they also aren’t going to keep sending me replacement parts and service techs out anytime I call them unless I keep paying the annual warranty.

And before anyone replies that it must be shoddy equipment to keep needing repairs, heavily used exercise equipment constantly has moving parts that wear down.

I think you're missing my point. I don't mind that they switched to a subscription service, I fucking hate being lied to. Given that they eventually came around to grandfathering the purchasers (who I guess had to go click a button somewhere), they obviously knew they were wrong on that front.

Don't sell products then change them afterwards. I paid for a thing. Then they made it so that the thing I purchased required more payment indefinitely. That's bullshit.

Yes, they are obligated because that's what a lifetime subscription means even if they added snotty fine print in a EULA.

And what court is going to force them to run servers forever and keep updating the software?

Federal courts, and probably state courts.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising#United_State...

And the federal court is going to force a provider never to shut down a service?

You can't Socrates your way into a philosophical win here, especially by repeating the same tapped vein of questions. A bait-and-switch of lifetime service for a fee to a monthly service for a fee for the same feature set is not some precedent setting benchmark nor a useful time spent arguing on the internet about. Some people are rightfully still upset by the switch. Let me suggest we move on since you've not realized we can agree to disagree yet.

I think you were absent when this happened years ago.

Part of their marketing was “No subscription fees” and the premium was marketed as “lifetime”.

It was a pretty big bait-and-switch and the r/PocketCasts is a good example of bad customer relations.

I'm the same. Long time paid app user, then when the switch happened I got reverted back to the free tier.

I still use the app, but like you said, it does still irk me to this day.

This must be an error. I bought it years ago and I was grandfathered for life. Get in touch with them; they are great devs, I'm sure they'll solve this.

I actually will try that, thanks

Just FYI I got in touch with them (I had purchased the app in 2014) and they told me to pay up.

I think you had to purchase the web app for an additional fee back then, to be grandfathered for life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com