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Apps that shouldn't be Subscriptions (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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What is the most useless app that you have seen being given as a subscription?

For me, I tried a 'minimalist' launcher app for Android that had a 7 day trial or something and they had a yearly subscription based model for it. I was aghast. I would literally expect the app to blow my mind and do everything one can assume to go that way. In a world, where Nova Launcher (Yes, I know it has been acquired by Branch folks but it still is a sturdy one) or Niagara exist plus many alternatives including minimalist ones on F Droid, the dev must be releasing revolutionary stuff to factor in a subscription service.

Second, is a controversial choice, since it's free tier is quite good and people like it so much. But, Pocketcasts. I checked it's yearly price the other day, and boy, in my country, I can subscribe to Google Play Pass, YouTube Premium and Spotify and still have money left before I hit the ceiling what Pocketcasts is asking for paid upgrade.

Also, what are your views on one time purchase vs subscriptions? Personally, I find it much easier to purchase, if it's good enough even if it was piratable, something if it is a one time purchase rather than repetitive.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I hope Arturia don't change. They are one of the most reasonable companies out there when it comes to licensing and pricing.

Licenses for hardware are a concerning trend, because it's unnecessary, and because the terms are never made clear before purchase. I suspect it's mainly there to sabotage the second hand market.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I hope they don’t change either. I wouldn’t have been surprised, or particularly disappointed, if they said they wouldn’t transfer the bonus licenses. These weren’t needed to use the device at all. The license was originally for Analog Lab 3, this was a Minilab Mk1, but they’d given free upgrades so the license I got was for Analog Lab V. Having that license meant getting a cheaper upgrade to the V Collection 8. I got a 50% off upgrade to 9 as well, and I just checked now that X is out and they’re offering me the same deal again until late January.

They did deactivate my license for 8 because I’d used it to upgrade to 9, but I think that’s pretty reasonable. You can also absolutely choose to pay the full price and keep the previous version. You can still sell and transfer it too though, and their system will happily let the new owner re-download it. They’ll let you activate the license on an offline computer too, and as far as I can tell, it’s indefinite. You could absolutely take advantage of that, but they don’t punish all of their users because there’s a chance a few are bad actors.

Honestly, in my opinion, they are the platinum standard that software companies across the entire industry should strive to be.

Oh I just remembered another thing. You can buy individual V Collection instruments without ever being worse off. The price of it will be discounted off the full collection. Then, after 4-6 instruments, they’ll just upgrade you to the full ~39 for free. I don’t think even when you could still buy the Creative Suite from Adobe, that they would let you upgrade like that.

(Sorry for the lengthy reply. Arturia is just one of the few companies out there that I will legitimately praise.)