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Comment by pmorici | Hacker News Reader

That sounds like an amazing offer. who wouldn't want to trade a one time free or 99 cent payment for recurring revenue.

Well you have to split that $10/month with all the other apps that the user accessed that month(on average). So it's quite likely that your somewhat successful app wouldn't even reach the 99 cents anymore let alone 99 cents per user.

Right - and now further imagine that your app is actually making decent money before the introduction of the subscription model (like Taylor Swift does off records). How pleased with this arrangement are you going to be? I'd posit not very.

This is a pretty successful model in some countries: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/kddi-smartpass/

It says it is limited to 500 apps so compared to 1.4m in the app store less people to spread the money around to. It also sounds like they removed the option of using the Android store from this quote "saying that consumers would get confused if there were two app stores — Google Play and a branded KDDI store". So there really isn't the option of their users going to a different system.

Of course, music works completely differently. I have many albums that I only listened to ten times or so. In the old model, they have still received a fair share of $10, in the new model, not so much. I can easily understand why artists want to opt out.

I am also not sure about Apple's model for the distribution of subscription fees. But e.g. in Spotify's model, it is largely large acts benefitting from indies, rather than the other way around.

http://lit.vulf.de/spotify-so-little/

That link perfectly describes my concern with subscription systems. If Apple distribute the royalties calculated per-user rather than based on (total royalties / total number of listens system wide) I'll move over from spotify, as it will reward the bands I like more than the current system.

I like that spotify pays royalties from free accounts, I dislike that I am effectively subsidizing this as a premium user. However, at the moment I am more comfortable with this than apples '3 months no royalties' system.

Another interesting point is that for a music subscription services, there is very little keeping users tied to one provider - all I need is the ability to export my playlists. I wonder if spotify's revenue will collapse for 3 months, but if they can be better than apple, they can get it all back 3 months later.

You aren't subsidizing anything. You are paying market price for a product. The seller does bizdev how they choose.

Technically true. I think for the arts this is something of an unusual case I'd describe more as an emotional than a financial transaction. I'm paying for something that I could easily get (illegally) for free. My allegiance is to the music and musicians, not to apple, spotify or anyone else providing distribution, as such 'supporting the type of music I like' is a very strong selling point, (not strong enough for me to use Tidal though!)

I presume Apple are trying to establish differentiation through the 'radio' service, but since the baseline market requirement is the ability to listen to practically anything all-you-can-eat, it'll be hard for them to achieve it there.

It might help prevent crap-tastic apps on the store because it changes the incentive structure. If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app, the incentive on developers would be to maximize engagement time, which might be a good thing for users. For paid apps such a scheme would be a problem since it would likely reduce income, but as a way to get money to fund free apps, not a bad idea actually.

> If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app

And think of all the cool new laborious, overcomplicated, and time-consuming UI designs we could look forward to!

Great just more apps for me to not use... It's not like people won't try to make nicer, simpler interfaces like they already do.

> If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app

Then what stops shady slot game app developer from keeping his app running in the background 24/7 and trashing the commons (or private garden, I guess)? Technical solutions can probably go a decent amount of the way, but there will always be a work-around...

Time spent in an app is certainly not the best measure of value. Ideally, a user could be given some flexibility to 'upvote' subscription payment allocation to apps that have the most value to them.

How do you measure time spent "in-app"? Does the app have to be in the foreground or merely running in the background? If it has to be in the foreground then how does that help apps that mainly run in the background such as RunKeeper? If it's allowed to run in the background and still get credit then won't that create an incentive for battery-draining crap that users struggle to shut down?

You're missing the main thrust of the hypothetical (arguments about how "amazing" the offer is aside):

> Apple simultaneously announces a 3 month free trial for all App Store accounts, and states that it will be making no payments to developers during that trial since users are not paying for it.

That's a terrible offer no matter how you cut it.

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