The Tattooed Nonna 🦫
When did everything start being subscription. Maybe I just want to buy a thing. Maybe I just want to watch one thing. Maybe I just want to listen to one thing. Maybe I don't need 1463578 regular payments coming out of my account on payday
Gary :party_porg:@Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk I’ve noticed recently that this is one of the things slowly pushing me from macOS/iOS to Linux for stuff I do at home.
I used to be quite happy to make a one-off payment on the Apple App Store for a piece of software that did the job I was looking for. But, as more and more software moves to a subscription basis, I look for FOSS alternatives on my Linux laptop. I don’t even have an Apple laptop at home any more because of this 🤷♂️
Gary :party_porg:@Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk as I understand it, this is largely Apple’s fault, too, encouraging developers to move to subscription models for software on the App Store.
Neil Brown@WiteWulf@cyberplace.social @Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party
I suspect that there are multiple factors:
* regularity of income
* people being willing to pay less and less for software, making it less and less sustainable for developers
* people complaining that they paid £3.99 last year, so why do they have to pay "again" for the next major release
* grumbling that the developer has not implemented the features that they wanted fast enough
and so on.
Gary :party_porg:@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk @Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party your third point reminds me of how Cocoatech responded to complaints when Pathfinder went subscription. They offered a “one time” purchase option for slightly more than the cost of 12mos subscription, but that only got you updates for that mayor version, and there’s a new major version every 12mos 🤨
Sabrina Web :privacypride: 📎
@WiteWulf@cyberplace.social @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk @Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party yes, that's basically a subscription that doesn't renew automatically. Which means that you pay yearly, but whenever you want to end the subscription it's really hassle-free, with no dark patterns