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Forced Upgrades
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Posted by satis
Jun 11, 2019 at 11:00 AM
MadaboutDana wrote:
>Whereas I’ve just cancelled my Bear subscription. Yes, it’s lovely, but
>it’s ceased to evolve…
I never liked the look or the fonts. I wanted to like it, tried a couple of times.
>UpNote has replaced FSnotes, SnipNotes and various other note-takers
>(even though they’re non-subscription).
I’ve been playing with FSnotes, and I like it. But I don’t like it enough to replace something else with it.
>Ulysses, on the other hand, after a long struggle, I’ve reinstated. But
>then I’m lucky - I was an original user, so my subscription price is
>lower than most. If it was much higher, I wouldn’t be renewing.
I’m in that same boat, and pay $30/y instead of the regular $40/yr. But I didn’t realize you could drop the subscription and return to it at the grandfathered-in price!
Interestingly, others are getting an even better overall deal as Ulysses is included in SetApp, whose subscription periodically comes on sale for as little as $55/yr. The huge bundle of high-quality apps is so good that if I didn’t already own most of the ones I’d use in the program I’d have signed up.
Posted by Simon
Jun 11, 2019 at 12:06 PM
satis wrote:
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.
Not sure I would entirely agree. Apps are more expensive now than ever before. I remember buying Navigon on iphone for £45 in 2009 and it was way above the price of normal apps. You can now happily pay over £100 on the app store. Everyone keeps touting that upgrades on the app stores are not possible, and yet many developers are doing it through in-app purchases or bundle purchases. Where there is a will there is a way.
I’ve come to the conclusion that users are becoming more savvy to how much they’re spending each month. People say that a monthly cost of £2 is not much, but when 10 apps ask that it does make a difference. I hear more and more people talking about consolidation. As much a CRIMPing can be a joy, I’m slowly tiring of having my data strewn across apps. Dare I say it on this forum that maybe I’m beginning to suffer from “CRIMPing fatigue” as there are too many apps, too many updates, too many subscriptions and it’s becoming wearying.
Still, better check out the Aoya update…!
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 11, 2019 at 01:00 PM
CRIMPing fatigue - love it!
And yes, you’re right, there is a Windows version of UpNote.
Yes, Bear is charming. I had a lot of notes in it, in fact. But it kind of… stopped. A bit like the wonderful Letterspace, formerly one of my favourites. Maybe there’s a lot of exciting activity behind the scenes that will jolt me out of my CRIMPing fatigue just as soon as it’s announced, but currently, nah, I’m feeling a bit jaded.
However, if Bear suddenly reappeared with folders, folding, and lots of other things beginning with “f”, I’m sure I’d rediscover my enthusiasm just like that… ;-)
Posted by satis
Jun 11, 2019 at 01:10 PM
Simon wrote:
>Apps are more expensive now than ever before.
Simply saying “apps are more expensive” is overbroad and incorrect. In 2009 the average price in the App Store is $1.39 for games and $2.58 for all apps, and that average has dropped every year since the App Store was opened in 2008. As of 2018 9 of 10 apps in the App Store are free or freemium, and the average prices are $1.01 and the average game price is $0.49, according to Statista. The popularity of cheap/free apps (led by the cheapness of customers) has driven down prices over the years, and this is something any developer on any platform can attest to.
Posted by Hugh
Jun 11, 2019 at 07:30 PM
satis wrote:
>
>Simon wrote:
>
>>Apps are more expensive now than ever before.
>
>Simply saying “apps are more expensive” is overbroad and incorrect.
One has only to remember back to just before the Millenium, in the late 1990s, when no app worth having cost less than £100. WordPerfect, I recall, was £120 or more and spreadsheet apps were at least as much. Of course, £100, and $100 were then worth a whole lot more then than they are today.
Even in 2007 when Scrivener launched, its price of £35 or so was remarked upon as being unusually low compared with the prices of software already on sale in the “writing app” market. £50, £60 or even £70 was closer to the norm for that type of software. Scrivener effectively - and I suspect, deliberately - set a new, lower price-point for Mac writing applications. It worked for Scrivener - but not necessarily in the long-term for all others.
The current macOS market environment, dominated by Apple’s app stores, (I’m less familiar with the Windows situation) is about as close as one can get in the real world to what my old economics lecturer called “perfect competition”, where prices are forced down competitively to the lowest just-sustainable level. Great for consumers in the short-term. Not so great for producers - and not so great for consumers in the long-term if good producers are not able to afford to invest for the future.
So it’s no surprise to me if prices are going up - either explicitly, or implicitly via subscription. It may perforce alter consumer habits, making us pickier, but it also may help guarantee longevity for good software.