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Day One gives itself a "Premium" service
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 3, 2017 at 10:17 PM
I think you’re right Paul. I’d add that a lot of current users probably feel like the whole thing was a bait and switch. Buy the apps and get free synch. But now the free synch is kind of precarious. Yes, you can keep using DayOne’s current version, but you know one of these days you’ll be forced to upgrade for some reason. Not to mention, they’re introducing the “Premium” version as if it is something new and better. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty much the same as what we’re supposed to get simply from buying the MacOS and the iOS versions. That also feels a little underhanded.
Just my 2 cents.
Steve Z.
Paul Korm wrote:
The blogger at MacDrifter.com wrote a little piece about the Day One
>situation here:
>
>http://www.macdrifter.com
>
>Gabe Weatherhead wrote:
>>I have greater concerns about Day One’s ability to survive as a
>business. My impression is that the subscription model is a move to stay
>profitable. I don’t think this will be a magic bullet. Customers simply
>don’t want to pay the price for top-tier self sustaining apps on iOS,
>especially when the full annual cost of $50 is spelled out in black and
>white. As the reviews for Day One show, this change will forever sink
>their ratings in the App Store. Ratings matter even when the reviews are
>nonsense (which all of the new Day One reviews are).
>
>A bit of a cheap shot to declare all reviews nonsense—seeing as there
>are (today) 96 negative ratings since the new pricing was announced, for
>an app that before that announcement received five star ratings almost
>universally. The reviews might not be elegant, but their sentiment
>seems universal.
>
>I think the blogger missed the point. It’s not that “customers simply
>don’t want to pay the price for top-tier self sustaining app”. That
>sentence is hard to parse for sense. The real point, I think, is that
>customers don’t want to pay the **same** price year after year just to
>retain access to their own data, with only minimal improvements to
>functionality. The promised Android version, for example, is not
>likely to entice a lot of iOS users.
>
>I don’t think the discomfort expressed by the negative ratings, and
>elsewhere, can be laid up to annoyance about paying subscription fees.
>Instead, I think it is annoyance about essentially buying the same app
>year after year for the same price. Customers aren’t chumps—and,
>worse, they despise being treated as chumps. Customers know that once
>development is complete on a core product, it normally doesn’t cost the
>same to maintain the product and even expand it year to year. And they
>know if the developer does nothing but collect fees and produce little
>in return, the developer is merely grabbing economic rents. That’s why
>the reaction is negative, in my opinion.
Posted by Dellu
Jul 4, 2017 at 03:47 AM
I am sorry, this is the page:
https://dellu.wordpress.com/2017/07/02/switching-from-day-one-to-macjournal/
or, just the hazel rule: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w5w597lz3emwyp8/ExportFolder.hazelrules?dl=0
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 4, 2017 at 09:17 AM
I’m afraid I concluded I’d have to abandon DayOne a little while ago. It’s always been a nice app, but recent updates have started to show signs of featuritis and the sync problem I mentioned earlier is slightly alarming. Having said that, it is difficult to know what to replace it with. There are quite a few not-very-good journal equivalents out there, but like others in this thread, I’ll probably end up using a notebook-style app to continue keeping a regular record. Currently it’s Outlinely. Bear would also be good, and I’m delighted to hear it can import DayOne, but I don’t like Bear’s limitation to tags only (even though the nested tags approach is a big improvement). I’d much prefer a folders+tags model. Oh, and folding. But hey, it’s still early days.
Posted by Hugh
Jul 4, 2017 at 02:13 PM
I suppose the question that the Day One case raises in my mind is this: is there a more generalised crisis in the micro-economics of running macOS/iOS developers, or do the developers seeking to switch to a subscription revenue model simply want to get a little bit richer, sustainably? (Not a motive to be disparaged if they can achieve it and also make consistently good applications, in my mind.)
Posted by Luhmann
Jul 4, 2017 at 02:52 PM
The developer of Pleco had a good twitter thread on this a few days ago. He argued that Apple doesn’t want developers to charge for version upgrades because that will mean that people might put off purchasing a new phone that might require an upgrade due to the extra cost of upgrading all their apps. For this reason Apple prefers developers adopt a subscription model, that way anyone paying a subscription will not worry about hardware or system upgrades as they will always have the new version. So it makes sense from Apple’s perspective, but from the user’s perspective I think a lot of subscriptions can get out of hand quite easily. I’ve already installed an app just to keep track of all my subscriptions!!! In Day One’s case, however, I think they just handled the shift poorly. In addition to bugs, they also terminated a feature many people relied upon (sync via iCloud or Dropbox) without really adding any significant new features, and then started promoting Premium using very vague language that left existing users unsure about the future of the product. Personally I don’t mind supporting developers if they are providing a service I can’t get elsewhere, but Day One has been rather buggy for me and the new end-to-end encryption has never worked. If they can iron out the bugs I might stick with them, otherwise I’ll look for an alternative…