Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/08/15/apple-is-pushing-developers-toward-subscriptions/
The App Store drove the price of apps to nearly zero, but it took Apple nearly a decade to respond to the problem by enabling in-app subscriptions. Kif Leswing at Business Insider shares the story.
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If Apple ever mandates subscriptions for all iOS apps, I WILL be joining those jailbreaking their iDevices.
I refuse to patronize vendors who require subscriptions only.
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The proper solution is to allow app developers to charge for updates. Subscriptions suck, and suck, and suck…
A perpetual licence model works well for feature-based software, but not for service-based.
-Al-
Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/08/15/apple-is-pushing-developers-toward-subscriptions/
The App Store drove the price of apps to nearly zero, but it took Apple nearly a decade to respond to the problem by enabling in-app subscriptions. Kif Leswing at Business Insider shares the story.
I don’t have a subscription to Business Insider so I couldn’t read the original article. Until very recently, they were 100% ad based, so I think it’s safe to assume that the corporation likes this business model whether the author does or not. I’m not a gamer, so I can’t speak about that segment, I see more and more news, fashion, technical, b2b, etc. companies have moved to subscription models over the years, and this has accelerated over the last year or two.
Although it’s not run through the App Store, TidBITS seems to be chugging along quite nicely since they started selling subscriptions a few years ago. Though I used to look in at the Business Insider site very regularly, and I do read their articles regularly on Apple News, I’m not going to subscribe. Profitability is about the biggest, and rapidly growing, problems developers face; Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. have been devouring larger and larger shares of ad budgets and are devouring more and more of the time users spend online. They are facing an extremely aggressive and growing enemy in Amazon, who has greatly expanded its advertising offerings, eating up more and more revenues from advertising based companies every second.
My guess is that Apple isn’t twisting anyone’s arm, their arms are probably being twisted by developers. Microsoft, Adobe, etc. switched to subscription models long ago because people stopped regularly upgrading. One of the reasons why rival publishing companies who thrived for decades in print banded together to form Texture is that the subscription/newsstand distribution model became unsustainable; it’s probably the big reason why Apple bought it. The growing vulnerability of broadcast TV is the reason why Disney is launching subscription based services, and Apple Music and Spotify are devouring music radio.
The proper solution is to allow app developers to charge for updates. Subscriptions suck, and suck, and suck…
The App Store does allow for, and facilitates, upgrades, downgrades and crossgrades, as well as for free trials. It makes it easy for subscribers and developers to manage:
I have enough subscriptions just so I can watch tv or movies. I probably miss out on some nice software but paying for a subscription for every piece of software I have is a pain in the @$$ and over the long haul, costs too much.
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The problem I have is too many apps add artificial cloud/service features, just so they can switch to a subscription model (i.e. 1Password). Often they remove existing features just to make the new ones work.
Apps that are naturally service-based I don’t have a problem with the subscription model, as supporting those features does cost the maker monthly fees per user.
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This is absolutely correct. It is also true that some of us, myself included, just cannot afford to pay over and over for subscription-based applications. In particular, our aging population continues to produce increasing numbers of people on fixed incomes. It is difficult enough to deal with inflation. Inflating software prices via subscriptions would make it more so.
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When you agreed to use subscription based software products that utilize you own data, you are committing to lifetime funding of a company so long as you wish to access it. Essentially you are not purchasing a product but committing to continuous stream of revenue to support the company for the ‘privilege’ of using the a product. That amounts to, is that you becoming a venture capitalist for the company without receiving any return on your investment. That is why I refuse to use any subscription based products.
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At some point, I predict you will be forced to, as the practice is expanding by leaps and bounds. So at some point most of the quality service software will be subscription only.
Only if users choose to let it happen. There are plenty of options right now and users need to explore and use them and just say no to subscription software. As example LibreOffice is a free, viable competitor to MS Office and very popular in Europe that is in use by governments and some sizable corporations. Subscription software only benefits users in one way which may not be of an advantage for some. That is keeping current with the latest update. Subscription software turns users into company investors with no return on their investment. It discourages innovation as once a company reaches the point of profitability from subscriptions, they have no incentive to fix bugs unless the problems causes loss of existing users and no incentive to add features or usability for the same reasons, again, unless users get fed up and abandon the product. The subscription paradigm allows companies to cut staff once they reach profitability as there is no longer a need for a large marketing presence or developers and cutting staff will increase profits. Tech support can also be cut to the point of product abandonment. Subscription software offers no guarantee of costs to the user as there is nothing to stop a company from raising the subscription cost other than again, loss of users. Subscription software forces users to update to the latest version even if the update has significant bugs, features the user does not which to have, or changes to the user interfacing that requires retraining, or performance and compatible issues with their computer.
With subscription software, when the user dies, their heirs must now purchase the subscription for access to the deceased papers, financials and writings. As such the heirs must now literally pay the price of the deceased decision to support subscription software. And what happens if the company folds? The subscribers may lose access to their own data forever.
With subscription software, instead of the user becoming the manager of the application, they now become its slave.
The bottom line, in my opinion, the only one that wins with subscription software is the company producing it. Everyone else is a loser.
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Agreed. Which is why people like you should continue to speak up about it. And users should realize they have nothing to gain by switching to such a lock-in model. If enough people resist this money grab, it will go away. Or at the very least, enough alternatives will remain available.
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I guess this means that I am an investor in TidBITS, which I am happy to be. The return on my investment is outstanding editorial, and a community of experts that dispense excellent advice and challenging opinions. Can Adam & Co. compete with Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, or even MacWorld, etc. for ad dollars?
One of the people you can thank for the rise of subscription models is Steve Jobs. He, very brilliantly, started giving insanely great Mac software, the iWork suite, iPhotos, iCloud, Garage Band, etc. and their updates, away for free. John and Jane Q. public stopped shelling out $$$$ once or more a year, doing mega damage to Adobe, Microsoft, etc. Equally brilliant and highly damaging to Apple’s major competitors was the App Store and iMusic. It is a big reason that turned Apple into becoming the world’s most valuable company when not that long ago it was just about given up for dead.
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I’ve spoken with quite a few developers who have moved to subscription-based models and one of the common themes that comes out is that the subscriptions make it clear who their customers are, and they’ve doubled down on serving those customers.
So, within the boundaries that different developed may do a better or worse job of serving their customers, I’d argue that a subscription model benefits customers in a big way.
The other two common software business models are the expensive with infrequent paid upgrades model and the cheap with free upgrades model.
When you pay quite a bit for software, as we used to back in the old days, the developer makes a good amount from that first sale. But unless the developer can maintain a steady number of new sales (which is difficult if not impossible), at some point they have to put out a major update and charge for it. That’s fair, of course, and customers win because the developer has to make the update attractive enough to be worth the upgrade fee. However, it’s a hard business model for many companies because the revenue is extremely spiky, and one misstep means the end of the company. That’s how we lost Now Software, for instance—they simply took too long to release a major update and it wasn’t good enough when it did ship.
The cheap model that became the de facto standard for the iOS App Store is just horrible. Customers theoretically win by getting cheap software, but the only way developers can make money is by attracting new sales, which means that as soon as you’ve paid for the app, the developer doesn’t care about you at all, because they’ll never earn any more money from you. They have to keep chasing new sales all the time.
Subscriptions have an obvious problem, which is that people can pay only so much per month for apps, but as far as aligning developer and customer interests, they’re pretty good.
I disagree entirely. Lock-in make me as a customer unfree.
My interest is aligned when the guy trying to make a living knows he has to have me convinced on features/usability. Is that hard for him? Sure. IMHO exactly the way free market capitalism should be.
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When you have to submit spreadsheets and documents to clients, bosses, co-workers, friends and family and they don’t render or line up properly because the recipients have MS Office, this is not a good solution.
Which is true in a subscription model, since at any time the software doesn’t meet your needs, you can stop paying. If you pay a lot up front, it’s harder to walk away from that investment when the developer shows they’re uninterested in meeting your needs.
No, I can’t. Because in most the case of most apps, I’m locked in. I can only stop paying if I’m willing to lose my data.
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Well that’s bull. MS offers one-time purchase for Office.
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