Kind of orthogonal to the article, but I feel the iOS App Store's subscription mechanism is how online subscriptions as a whole should work. There's a unified predictable way to start subscriptions, and more importantly, a unified predictable way to stop them. I don't have to jump through hoops to stop a subscription, and the UI is clear on when recurring charges will occur next and for how much. I would love it if banks let me unilaterally cancel subscriptions just as easily on my online banking page.
This is actually kind of ironic, because Apple's refusal to allow for paid upgrades to pay-once software is actually a major driver of developers switching from pay-once to subscriptions. It's way easier to convince customers to buy a subscription to a piece of software than it is to convince them to buy an _entirely new app_ with a new version number on it, then migrate all their data, re-organize their device so the new version is in the same spot, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the Apple subscription interface, too, but I wish it wasn't the only reasonable way for devs to monetize ongoing work.
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Kind of orthogonal to the article, but I feel the iOS App Store's subscription mechanism is how online subscriptions as a whole should work. There's a unified predictable way to start subscriptions, and more importantly, a unified predictable way to stop them. I don't have to jump through hoops to stop a subscription, and the UI is clear on when recurring charges will occur next and for how much. I would love it if banks let me unilaterally cancel subscriptions just as easily on my online banking page.
It almost makes the Apple tax worth it. Almost.
This is actually kind of ironic, because Apple's refusal to allow for paid upgrades to pay-once software is actually a major driver of developers switching from pay-once to subscriptions. It's way easier to convince customers to buy a subscription to a piece of software than it is to convince them to buy an _entirely new app_ with a new version number on it, then migrate all their data, re-organize their device so the new version is in the same spot, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the Apple subscription interface, too, but I wish it wasn't the only reasonable way for devs to monetize ongoing work.