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Forced Upgrades
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Posted by Simon
Jun 10, 2019 at 10:02 AM
I’ve noticed recently (by that I mean the last few years!), that those devs that don’t go for subscription models to sell their software are increasingly opting for upgrade pricing only being available for a short period of time after which point you end up paying full price. I find this irksome and not supportive of loyal customers. The last one that came through like that made me drop the app entirely.
Sorry to rant, but the customer is no longer king and being relegated to a very poor servant.The long term effect of this is that there will also be no loyalty from customers to developers either.
Does anyone else have a problem with this upgrade model or is it only me?
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 10, 2019 at 10:37 AM
Hi, Simon,
I understand your point, but for me it depends on the price of the app to begin with. If the app is cheap (under $20), I am less inclined to feel a lot of pressure. (I wonder that the low-price apps are even worth the developer’s time.) But with higher priced apps, I’d find it annoying to only have 48 hours to decide if I want to upgrade.
I wonder if any of that has to do with restrictions from the App Store.
Steve Z.
Posted by satis
Jun 10, 2019 at 10:39 AM
Apps cannot be supported without cashflow attached to them, since the first flush of registrations of a new app cannot carry over indefinitely. A decade ago apps cost several times as much as they do now, and they were sometimes locked down to a specific machine. Today things have changed dramatically. With things like Apple’s App Stores, there’s no such thing as an upgrade, apps can be installed on as many computers as desired (attached to the App Store login of the purchaser), and on iOS most iPhone apps also run on iPads.
Apps that don’t have subscriptions also have higher support costs to handle users of previous, buggier versions as well as the latest ones. And those support costs take away people and money from developing the app. More, non-subscription app developers have to ‘bank’ new features and frameworks and interfaces and bugfixes as incentive to convince people to upgrade. This results in odd and unnatural development cycles, and devs dependent ever more on getting people to upgrade.
That some devs are tightening upgrade periods should be no surprise to anyone in the current environment. Not only are there more apps, more devs, easier app distribution channels, and lower prices than ever before, non-subscription apps are starting to compete with subscription apps that have lower support costs (everyone is on the latest version), faster feature/bugfix iteration (since there’s no need to bank features to sell upgrades), and a clearer development process as the devs have an understandable, dependable cashflow - compared to the chaotic, and sometimes disastrous nature of selling upgrades.
So I can’t agree with the complaint. Generally speaking, we’re getting more for our money than before. Customers were never ‘king’. And times have changed competitively.
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jun 10, 2019 at 11:04 AM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>the developer’s time.) But with higher priced apps, I’d find it annoying
>to only have 48 hours to decide if I want to upgrade.
What applications are Simon and you talking about?
I know of no higher-priced software (>$100) that gives me such a short time limit. That’s definitely not the case with Office 365, Mindmanager, Camtasia, Quark XPress, Dragon, The Brain.
Posted by tightbeam
Jun 10, 2019 at 11:24 AM
If I use software regularly and like it, then 48 hours is ample time for me to decide whether I want to upgrade. Miss the deadline? My bad.
I suppose it depends a bit on the *type* of software, too. Outliner software is such a niche that I don’t mind an additional investment to keep the developer in potatoes and pixels - provided, of course, that the software is good and the developer reliable when it comes to support and bug fixes.