I’m with the parent on this. I don’t mind subscriptions if a service is provided that justifies the recurring cost. If it’s a local offline app then I don’t see it justified. Price it accordingly or at least give an option for one-time.
But yes, sub vs non-sub model is a very divisive topic. Personally would never subscribe to something like a offline local todo list
One way of looking at is that subscription software helps align developer interests with dedicated users. It's easier to retain users than it is to get new users, so developers are incentivized to build features/make improvements for existing users to keep them as happy users. In a pay once upfront model developers are essentially only incentivized to build features that attract new users.
The issue I see is that for certain apps, such as one I am currently working on and hope to publish soon on iOS, is that they do require a lot of maintenance once published even if there were no server costs. Given the amount of work I already put in it and how much more will be necessary even just to keep the app correctly running in the future, I don't really see what other monetization approach would make sense for me. Actually, I would even argue that selling an app without a subscription might (sometimes) be setting wrong or blurry expectations: if a user accepts to pay today a single time, how long are they expecting updates for? Will it only be basic bug fixes or also major new features? With a subscription, I feel like at least if they are unhappy with my app, they won't really have lost anything and can just unsubscribe, since they had basically accepted, IMO, that the money they put in my app each period of time is only for the service and potential updates in that small period of time and not future changes.
A one time cost is fine if you don’t mind the app breaking next time Apple updates iOS. There is an ongoing cost to ensuring the app continues to work.
The maintenance effort required on iOS is substantial. About a quarter of your full-time year needs to be dedicated to it.
On desktop, you can just publish your software and slowly see it age as you work on your next big release. On iOS, it ages every year at brutal pace, and your new sales will plummet while you work on your next big release, meaning your revenue crashes much faster.
Even worse, the iOS App Store has no notion of paid upgrades, and publishing a new app is basically like starting from scratch as far as discoverability goes. So when you finally have your next big release ready, it's like launching a completely new company.
Apple really wants developers to make subscription apps that ship frequent iterative changes, and other business models just simply don't work well on their mobile platform (on Android it's even worse btw).
I’m not paying for the human that made the app. I’m paying for the app, aka for an advertised thing with an advertised feature set for a specific price. If I deem the value I get for the price worth it, I will purchase the thing from you.
I will however not pay you monthly just because “the dev needs to eat too” if there is no service provided that justifies the monthly ongoing cost.
there are a lot of apps that do this though… eg. git tower. Sketch. Etc. Not saying that I like it or anything. Maybe its the combination of local first + an app that seems to be trivial (I am sure it was not but if you hear "daily planner" I think its reasonable to assume that its less complex than a git client and/or an app like Sketch).
I think someone that can afford to publish on the most expensive app publishing platform can afford food all the time. There are no poor iOS developers.
The developer fee is a business expense for anyone publishing software as an entity on the App Store. This is the same as any other expense someone might require for their profession, it doesn't have anything to do with their financial security.
I don't know, is it? The US has had Trump as POTUS for four weeks and he's already doing a lot of what was "promised" in [Project 2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)...
I think you're being downvoted because you're wrong and you're being smug about it.
>Starbucks ( ! ) just opened its first ( ! ) and only ( ! ) store in Rome a few months ago.
Uhm, there's 7 (according to Google Maps) in Milan, 2 in Turin, and at least two more someplace else (one being in Rome). Additionally, 1 of the 7 Starbucks in Milan is the only "Starbucks Roastery" in Europe.
>It goes the same for most popular world chains. You'll find UNIQLO in France or Spain, forget about Italy.
I did not know that there is a UNIQLO store in Milan ( 2019 apparently ), thanks for correcting me. The general point stands.
I wrote that there is ONE Starbucks, just opened in 2022 in ROME and that's literally a fact, I can see where you might misinterpret my sentence -- I was speaking of Rome. I do mention this is the third capital of the EU and in a G7 country and this is unusual, Starbucks being what it is. And yes, half a dozen more in all of Italy, again, proving the point. There are more in a single city in many other EU countries.
There's a dozen of them in and around Vienna, a much smaller capital also with a great tradition of coffeeshops, for comparison. But a place with much less aversion than Italy to foreign businesses.
I am not smug or care for karma / rewards / validation. I care for truth and not taking facts as opinions.
Then likely youre not talking about the same thing anymore. Usually we talk about 'men' and 'women', and assume it makes up >90% of the population. Anyone else can simply pick whichever they feel like, can't they? So if you're pre-hrt trans, what is stopping you from just calling yourself a woman? Isnt that the whole point?
The shortest route yes, but I'd rather whitelist check, because depending on your infra, there might be a lot more things that make request for the content.
But the concept is the same, server side check the ip of the request, and take action based on that check.
It isn't? There's a difference between dropping 32bit libraries from your OS (after a lot of time in which Apple clearly said "we will drop support!") and banning for using unauthorized APIs inside the MAS.
