Why one-time purchase is always better than subscription on productivity apps?
Now there are three main kinds of productivity apps in terms of business models: totally free, purchase once and subscription. For me, apps with one-time purchase are better than subscriptions.
But what does “better” mean? It can be “more reliable” or usable in terms of almost bug free (and developers can fix them once customers report the issues), being quick to start up and perform functions, focusing on ONE problem and aiming at improving it.
Subscription: are you sure what you are paying for?
The main reason for introducing subscription is to make an app more sustainable, but the dilemma is that if the developers want to make customers pay continuously, they have to add values — like adding more and more features, changing UI, showing that they are really hard working by making thousands of improvements per month, and even changing the nature of the app. Today you pay for an orange, but what you pay for will become a banana quietly.
You can see a lot of examples, especially like Evernote which used to be a note-taking app helping users to take notes effortlessly, but it is a kind of life organizer that you will have to spend more time on working with the app.
Evernote always says they are improving by doing many things every month. Ironically they never ultimately fix the performance issue, and they never explain why they take a lot of time in, like reducing the waiting speed of some functions — why don’t you rewrite the entire code which has been so bad since 2020? Because they are confident that users don’t know much about technology, and they are doing marketing more than doing things. Users misunderstand productivity is doing more. Productivity is doing right things effectively while not counting wrong things!
Imagine when a craftsman makes a knife. What they need is to think about the best shape which can help people cut things much easier. Once confirming the design they just need to improve the quality and even durability. If the shape can’t work as expected, they will slightly adjust it towards the expectation until they are satisfied with the performance.
But they won’t add stuff which are irrelevant on it, like a torch, a screen, Bluetooth… to make customers feel like value-added. Customers just need a knife to cut something.
Productivity app developers should show people how they do things productively!
A productivity app is the same. It should be polished and finished before delivering to customers. Not half baked to steal people’s money. If developers want to add features, its nature should still be the focus, and they can’t add everything, or some basic things can no longer work, not to mention that the app is increasingly bloated.
iA Writer is a good example to demonstrate what a writing app for more than a decade. It is a one-time purchase app just doing the job of writing well at the beginning, by letting users focus on their thinking, organising and recording their thoughts. They do add features but the core nature and app performance is never disappointing. They introduce inter-linking but won’t transform their app into a kind of second brain. A library is improved which reminds users of what they are writing as well as the whole picture of their writing.
The reason why I choose not to subscribe productivity is simple: not because I am not willing to pay, but because I pay to suffer and become a product manipulated by the developers.
(Don’t get me wrong. There are rarely few exceptions like Bear app.)
How about free apps?
I didn’t put free apps into the discussion because most free apps are not totally free. For example, Apple default apps are the results of purchasing their (latest) hardwares with iCloud subscription. Some apps like Linearity Curve used to be free at the beginning for users to try. Rarely few developers don’t have an intention to make money but the apps can be surely discontinued someday. Even some open source apps can’t be totally free as they still need some money to cover the costs. But overall free apps are still better than subscription apps simply because they don’t do too many unnecessary things to make an app bloated.
What can developers do?
Yes, apps which are free and one-time purchases can one day change their business model into subscription. If they don’t, they may launch a brand new version (like from 3.0 to 4.0) asking users to pay once again. I think they should just design another app to address other life problems they concern about, and simply maintain the old app regularly in response to the OS changes. No need to discontinue.
What can we do?
No need to pursue a single app for all! Use an app you like, or an app which can effectively fix your problems.
You can use more than one app at a time, by focusing on the moment when you are using, like if you are satisfied with writing and creating. If you think other apps can help better instead of what you are using, just simply use them and you can always go back to the old apps.
Don’t consider something in the long run. It’s impossible for us to commit an app in the lifetime, or life will be too boring.
Don’t replace your apps with alternatives.
Focus on your life instead of believing that apps are magic!
