Subscription models only make sense for an app/service that have recurring costs. In the case of Lemmy apps, the instances are the ones with recurring hosting costs, not the apps.
If an app doesn’t have recurring hosting costs, it only makes sense to have one up front payment and then maybe in app purchases to pay for new features going forward
Isn’t app development a recurring cost? It’s not like you just work on it for a bit and just forget about it once you got a version out. Especially if it’s using a service (lemmy) that is still in development and is constantly changing.
Preach. Not sure why this is so hard for folks to understand.
App development isn’t and never has been an one-time done deal. Devs always do the work to fix bugs, add new features / requests, upgrade to new platform / API etc. If they do this for free that is at their will but they are burning their own time / money one way or another. To demand a developer to run their business a certain way and mandate their business model is just mind-blowing to me.
I get the distinct impression that everyone bitching about the fees are people that have never had to develop for end users and maintain the fucking thing.
Yep, and it’s even worse for mobile apps because people are so used to the terrible dollar-per-app model, despite the fact that these mobile apps are actually THE software they use everyday.
Apple and Google don’t care, they get 30% cut regardless whether the dev makes $100 / sale or $1 / sale at higher volume. But it was a good strategy to shift the power over to the iOS and Android platforms because the perception is, dollar-per-app devs can’t be that important, right? And they’ll never get too big.
Ongoing development IS an recurring cost.
I have zero problem with people trying to get paid for their work, often it is the only feasible way to dedicate enough time to the project.
I’d prefer open source sure, but I’m not all that opposed to small/individual projects not going that route. Especially when it’s not a critical service and there’s an abundance of FOSS choices
Personally, I don’t need yet another subscription service.
That being said, I’ve used Sync for years (Pro, so just ad removal, one time fee.), and just paid again for ad removal. I did this because I enjoy the app, and appreciate the effort that goes into creating and maintaining it.
I have no qualms about paying a person for quality work.
And then making money tracking you too
Tracking is for ads only, when ads are disabled then so is the tracking.
Link is broken
I think there’s something wrong with lemmy.world, this is the post. The developer posts to confirm the tracking is turned off. Sorry the direct link didn’t work.
https://lemmy.world/post/2538321
Edit: a federated comment link: https://programming.dev/comment/1561763
It’s wild what lemmy.world has done. If your referrer is lemmy.world itself, a click off their web page, it loads the comment. But if you come from another lemmy instance or just put the link directly into your browser address bar, they reject it with ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE - I can’t recall having seen a website do this to try and prevent attacks.
I also have the same problem… BUT it happens if simply try to open a comment on a new window using the link.
several people have confirmed it… I haven’t seen them explain how exactly, but they seem convinced it is causing crashes so they blocked it. Lemmy is practically in the realm of voodoo PostgreSQL at this point. Since April or May it’s been scaling very poorly as data gets added.
Which there is no way to verify as the app is closed source. So it’s just a speculation.
You’re the one speculating. You can analyze your network traffic to ensure it disabled, and as people have done and verified that it is disabled. Those are standard Google Ad trackers. Any app with ads has them, like Sync for Reddit did and Sync for Lemmy does.
You can always download the APK and decompile it. Closed source does not exist in real world.
If I understand correctly, every sync feature that requires the subscription (and cannot be purchased by a one time fee) requires the sync dev to run a constantly online server. Translation makes calls to translation services that cost money, push notifications require a push server since Lemmy servers don’t include support for it, etc. Removing ads doesn’t cost sync ongoing cash which is why you can get it for a one time fee.
Seems reasonable to me.
All apps have a recurring cost if the dev is continuing to develop the app. At the scale these apps are working the labor the dev puts in in the most expensive part. Plus Lemmy is continually updating so to keep the app working the dev will need to continually update.
Everyone wants a constant revenue stream, app devs aint unique. And also like everyone else, they charge what people are willing to pay. Price is never about cost.
I don’t really get how everyone focuses on the ad-free feature as if it’s the only thing that Sync Ultra provides. It also provides text recognition in images, translation in-app, (both requiring constant server work) and will eventually support push notifications (again requiring server work). On top of that, LJ has stated he wants to work on this app full-time, which is only possible if he earns a living from it.
If those features aren’t interesting to a user, there’s always the one-time ad removal option (I’ll admit which is a bit pricey but per OP’s post, is a one time fee and not a subscription).
Yeah how dare them try to make a salary out of their labour. OUTRAGEOUS!
The thing I really don’t understand, and what is really starting to annoy me, is that you don’t have to use it.
I used sync for years. I even bought the pro version to get rid of ads. When I saw the price for the new app I decided that I didn’t want to pay that and moved the fuck on.
I understand why the price was what it was. This is how this person makes their living. I don’t want to pay what they’re charging and that’s that. Complaining about it seems childish, and now I realize I’m complaining about people complaining.
All of this is nonsense.
I mean, if you want updates or fixes for bugs that’s on work that occurred after you paid? Or are you suggesting we go back to the old model of super expensive software that gets sunsetted in a few years anyway?
Development costs money. When you buy an app, development doesn’t stop. What kind of nonsense are you peddling here? How do you have such a rudimentary understanding of work and effort and how they all cost money?
As much as I support the developers’ right to profit off their work, I also cannot afford to have everything in my life turn into a reoccurring payment model.
Then don’t. Free version barely has any ads and has 99% of the functionality. Y’all a bunch of babies.
I’m not talking about this one specific application. I’m talking about the trend that everything is taking.
One thing in isolation isn’t bad. “ItS oNlY $xx.99/yr” after all.
But when stepping back and looking at the trend you see a different story.
It’s only $10
It’s only $15
It’s only $30
It’s only $5
It’s only $50
It’s only $100
It’s only $60
It’s only $3
It’s only $1599
It’s only $130
It’s only $45
It’s only $99
It’s only $200
It’s only…You can use interest rates to convert between stocks and flows of money. If the prevailing interest rate is 5%, a thing will produce 5%, or 1/20th, of its actual value every year. So you can take the annual cost of something and multiply by 20 (and vigorously wave your hands at compounding) to get its actual value.
A $10/month subscription costs $120/year, or $2,400 over 20 years. So it’s equivalent to a $2,400 purchase.
You can also think of it as, you need to set aside $2,400 in investments to pay for your subscription, e.g. in retirement. Or, if you ditched your subscription you could afford to borrow $2,400 more to e.g. buy a house. Or, you as a customer are the same value to the business as $2,400 in capital, minus whatever they have to spend to make the thing.
You should think a lot about a $2,400 purchase.
Exactly, and that’s why I dropped Amazon Prime and most other subscriptions.
Yeah, packages taking a few days longer is annoying, but I also don’t feel obligated to keep shopping at Amazon to “get my value.” I miss some shows, but I can buy them for less than the yearly cost of the subscription, and most can be replaced with content at other services.
I still have two streaming subscriptions: Netflix (kids love it, I watch it while folding laundry) and Disney+ (wife and one kid loves it). I spend $20/month total for both (have discount for D+ through credit card for the legacy plan, so it’s like $7-8 net), and neither have ads.
And that’s pretty much it for subscriptions. Sure, I have my city utilities and whatnot, but those aren’t really optional unless I’m willing to go off-grid, and from my math it would take many years to pay off (not sure it will depending on how markets go), and I’d likely have a worse experience.
Other services:
- Spotify - I buy what I want, and YouTube + ad blocker for one-offs
- Audible/Kindle - local library
- apps - haven’t found anything that I can’t replace with open source apps
- gym - I have a municipal gym that I pay for yearly, no auto-renew; it has a pool as well that we use enough to be cheaper than the daily rate, so I see it as a bulk discount, not a subscription
- gaming - I buy games as needed, most of them on discount/bundles
- food delivery - I pay for Costco, but we do most of our shopping there and it’s way more convenient than other discount stores (e.g. WinCo/Aldi); we save far more than we pay for it, so the $130 or whatever we spend for the membership is nothing vs the value we get
- phone - we’re on no-contract phones, and for two lines, we pay $30-ish/month; my wife is on Mint ($15-20/month), and I’m on Tello (~$10/month); we buy phones outright (wife has iPhone 11 I got for $500, mine is usually $200-300 every 2-3 years)
- Patreon/Twitch - I don’t have any, but I do donate/buy merch from time to time to support my favorite creators (usually smaller, I don’t donate to any larger orgs)
We just got two cats, so maybe I’ll end up getting a Chewy membership or something, but we’ll try to avoid that.
Reoccurring bills are also subscriptions. Like rent, food, electricity, gas, water, etc.
I guess, but they’re a lot less optional and more useful.
I own my house, so I don’t pay rent. My mortgage is below inflation and expected investment returns (it’s even below risk free investments like CDs), so I actually make money by not paying it down.
Replacing gas/water/electricity/food with fixed cost items is more expensive. Electricity is the easiest, and going off-grid would cost $20-30k initially with a really good deal (assuming I DIY a lot of it; a lot of this is the battery backup), which if invested in the market would yield $1200-1600 the first year @ 6%. I only pay $50-100/month for electricity, so I’d pay more to generate it myself vs investing that money. The same goes for gas, water, and food, mostly because of the land requirement (need trees for heat, large plots for growing for, well access, etc). These items benefit from economies of scale, so it’s absolutely worth paying based on use.
So it goes both ways. Some subscription-type things are cheaper long term, such as a Costco subscription or natural gas delivery, and some are likely more expensive, like paying for heated seats or many streaming subscriptions.
Microtransactions started with horse armor in oblivion. The fact that people can’t see the clear trend with things like this is directly one of the causes of constant enshitification
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Again you’re missing the point.
This is the future of everything.
That’s one possible future. Or you could go out of your way to not get subscriptions.
I have two digital subscriptions, Netflix and Disney+, and I’m considering cancelling them.
For music, I just buy what I want to listen to. I watch far less TV shows now because I find them very repetitive and low quality. I don’t watch many TV shows because I find video games and books more satisfying. And so on.
If a car requires a subscription, I’m not going to buy that car. If a TV comes with ads or a subscription, I’m not buying that TV. And so on. Unfortunately, the subscription model is very popular, but if enough people push back, alternatives will continue to exist.
I’m trying, but I see this going the same way as MTX in video games.
Yet there are still a ton of games without MTX.
I can count on one hand the number of games I’ve played with MTX in the past year, and I’ve played dozens of games in that time. MTX is mostly in big AAA MP games, so I just don’t play big AAA MP games.
In the last year, I’ve gotten a lot more into indie and AA gaming, but I still occasionally play AAA games. If a game obviously has MTX, I don’t play that game. There’s plenty more to choose from.
Vote with your eyeballs and your wallet and support companies that don’t do that nonsense.
There’s one thing you’re forgetting; most applications aren’t just code-and-forget anymore. Updates need to be made to fix security issues, adapt to newer versions of the API, etc.
Much as I liked Sync for Reddit I’m not willing to participate in subscription pricing for something like this, nor am I willing to pay a breathtaking $100 for a lifetime license or a still high $20 for ad removal. Keeping it in perspective, Sync is an Android app that provides nothing more than a nice UI for lemmy.
It will take some time for the number of Lemmy users and Sync customers to ramp up. IMO the dev is trying to quickly replace his lost Sync for Reddit revenue by charging excessively high prices for Sync for Lemmy. He’s lucky so many of you want to pay him but I, for one, will pass on Sync and use other apps with more reasonable pricing.
This comment was written on Infinity for Lemmy which is working just fine.
$16/year for ultra seems pretty reasonable to me.
It’s no win scenario for developers. While you’re ok with “one up front payment and then maybe in app purchases to pay for new features going forward” there’s a whole other slew of voices who are going to complain about being nickled and dimed.
Given those choices (and other factors), as a consumer I prefer the subscription model. If nothing else, it lets me forecast my expenditure and continually re-assess the cost/value proposition of the application in question.
Well, there are recurring costs, such as:
- App/Play store developer license - like $100/year, so not huge
- development efforts to fix bugs, implement features; even just keeping up with Lemmy backend changes is a fair amount of work since it’s constantly changing
- many development tools require hosting, such as CI/CD, so even if it’s 100% outside contributor driven, there are still costs
But those costs are pretty fixed.
Hosting an instance, however, is an order of magnitude or two more expensive. Instead of costing up to hundreds per year (not counting dev time), hosting tends to cost hundreds per month for larger instances.
So if people are continually coming to an app, I could see a fixed purchase price being different, and ads are probably enough to support it entirely on a free tier. An instance requires ongoing donations instead.
unless they changed it, play dev is a one time purchase, only apple takes a yearly fee.
I thought Play was $25/year or something, but it’s been years since I cared enough to check. If so, I guess for Android-only apps, it’s much less of an issue.
Something has gone wrong in software development where software can never be finished.
If you release an app on Google Play and never touch it again, eventually Google will pull it from the store and customers will complain that it no longer runs on new devices. Android 16 will require that all applications now do something, and refuse to run any that do not.
This is the real structural source of the constant subscription demands. Nobody is willing to commit to supporting a stable API for 10 or 20 years, and nobody will keep coming in to bump dependency versions and rewrite systems to Google or Apple’s new whims every year unless they get paid for this apparently useless work.
of course nobody is going to commit to supporting a stable API for 10 to 20 years… that’s expensive as heck and not even remotely worth it!
there’s nothing “wrong” with software development, it’s just that consumers demand new features rather than stagnation… i sure don’t want to be using a 20 year old app because we’ve come a long way in 20 years in so many regards
in 2003, windows xp was still microsoft’s dominant OS with vista still being several years off, half life 2 was about to be released, gmail was allllmost ready to release, msn messenger was still in its prime
yeah no, ill stick with rapidly changing technologies rather than sticking to that for some misplaced sense of “stability”
But one would like to be able to still play Half Life 2 today, even if Valve weren’t helpfully around to update it. One would like to be able to read an old Word document or display an old blog post along with its scripts. So either you support the old standards and, for active content, the old APIs, or you lose access to anything that doesn’t emit enough cash to pay a person to keep it current.
Did you just say progress is what’s wrong with software development? Really. Do you even know how software development works before criticizing how it works?
I think the requirement for constant progress, and the expectation that all software be able to change arbitrarily with a year or so of notice, is in fact a problem with software development.
I do software development all the time, and I find this to be an impediment to my work. I also make the kind of breaking changes that cause this problem.
Is it difficult, sure. But not being easy doesn’t mean its wrong. And the expectation is more to do with keeping a job. You can’t just let your software go obsolete. And should software really be a cash cow where you write something once and you get paid forever? Doesn’t feel right to me.
If you write a commercial program and sell it once, you are probably not going to be selling new copies in 10 years. If you keep getting paid you should indeed keep working. But if you stop working on it, it is better for the finished software to last longer.
Windows 11 has a “compatibility mode” that goes back to before XP. Android has a dialog that says that an old APK “needs to be updated”, regardless of the continued existence of the original developer or whether the user is happy with the features and level of support.
It is this attitude of “we don’t need to think about backward compatibility because we are powerful and all software has a developer on call to deal with our breaking changes” that causes software to go obsolete very quickly now. User needs also change over time, but not nearly as fast.
Compatibility mode is for software that isn’t being supported anymore. It also is a huge security vulnerability. Android doesn’t have it for a reason. Things usually fall out did too not updating the permissions to match the newer Android versions. That’s a good thing. I’m tired of developers who don’t consider security important.
And do you not agree with me? I’m confused. You’re talking about continuous development being a good thing. Are you not suggesting that is something that costs money? I don’t even know what your argument is anymore.
What’s the security problem with Compatibility Mode? Is it just that it lets you let an app run with more permissions than it otherwise has on the new APIs? Or does it turn off a bunch of mitigations?
The Android permissions churn seems meant to protect people from applications: previously you could just say you need GPS, install, and then use GPS all the time. But untrustworthy apps started tracking people all the time, so Google declared that now only Google Maps is allowed to track people all the time, and that everybody else has to do a new location access ritual. If I have an old app that I trust (or wrote!) but doesn’t do the ritual, I ought to be able to convey to the OS that I trust the application anyway. The machine works for me, not for Google’s idea of what my privacy preferences are.
I don’t see how a developer not implementing new permissions models is the developer not caring about security. I guess a more robustly sandboxed app is more secure than a less robustly sandboxed app? But just because a security enhancement like that is available doesn’t mean it’s actually worth doing, and the user experience of the new system (get sent to settings to toggle on file system access for a file manager) is often worse than before.
Having new development is better for the user than not; they will get features and improvements. But having to do development to prevent the user from losing features over time is a pure cost to the developer. The rate at which it currently happens makes it unnecessary hard to do projects that aren’t shaped like commercial subscription services.
The permissions framework is a lot more than just claiming Google wants tracking all to itself. That’s conspiracy level shit. The permissions framework has undergone immense changes from earlier ones from small things like giving an app an approximate location instead of detailed to also allowing permissions to be given at the time it’s needed and to require asking every time. Did you even use older android? All the permissions were from the get-go and you had no idea how it was being used. Permissions are so much nicer and the sandboxing has evolved. Your understanding of permission changes is extremely naive and simple. Applications are much safer now than on earlier android. This is objective truth.
Compatibility mode basically means the runtime being used is a different one and any vulnerabilities that existed in that mode (not every one obviously) is now introduced. It’s why Windows XP compatibility mode requires admin rights because it’s entire authorization scheme was different and apps in that mode can do things that normally require elevated privileges. Microsoft recommends updating apps to not require compatibility mode for these very reasons. Even just the threat model alone is expanded due to the increased attack surface. I’m tired of developers who can’t take security seriously.
I think it started when software stopped being distributed physically. It’s hard to push a bunch of updates to your users when they’ve need to physically have floppies sent to them versus doing it over the network.
I remember a time when software being “Gold Master” meant it was literally written to a gold master disk, from which copies were made. With that kind of release you had to make damn sure things were finished.
The difference is that software nowadays is interconnected. Sync doesn’t exist on its own, nor does Lemmy. And if one of these links changes, chances are, that something else needs to change to keep up. You’re talking about standalone software that that exists entirely on its own. But that’s not what this post is about.
Technology moves fast. Why would you want to have an app that old, and what app is actually worth running that is that old and unsupported?
Games are a good example. One might want to publish a game and then work on the next game, not go back to the first game again and add dynamic permission prompts for the accelerometer or recompile with the new SDK or whatever. But someone also might want to play Space Grocer I before Space Grocer II-X to get the whole story.
The fewer breaking changes there are, the lower the burden of an app being “supported” is. Someone might be willing to recompile the app every couple years, or add a new required argument to a function call, but not really able to commit to re-architecting the program to deal with completely new and now-mandatory concepts.
Even on software I actively work on that is “supported” by me, I struggle with the frequency of e.g. angry messages demanding I upgrade to new and incompatible versions of Node modules. Time spent porting to new and incompatible versions of a framework is time not spent keeping the app worth using.
Games are actually a really bad example. They’re generally not written from scratch and use an engine. So there’s usually not a lot of work to keep it up to date. When they don’t make enough money from it though, they will retire it. It happens.
And Node modules? Are you kidding. The constant updates are usually security patches. If you’re properly using semver then it shouldn’t be an issue. You can either stick with the major or minor release depending on your needs. But those packages are also in your boat. Someone is developing them and patching them. They may drop old minor versions because they can’t support that many different releases. Because backwards compatibility is expensive.
Seriously, please tell me you’re at least securing whatever application you’re writing. Do you even do an npm audit (or yarn, whatever you use) and patch the findings?
Especially in web development, security is absolutely important. Sometimes yeah, you may not implement a feature. But that’s because your app lacks development resources like another developer. I’m sure it’s great to keep working on the exciting stuff like new features. But the “boring” stuff is still damn important.
