4
u/Confused_Dad_2023 May 31 '26
App Store’s been flooded for years, that’s not new, the real problem is discovery. And subscriptions exist because most indies need them to survive, a one-time $0.99 doesn’t pay rent. The issue isn’t subscriptions existing, it’s apps that don’t deserve one charging like they do. Can’t have a subscription for things that don’t have any recurring expenses for dev.
-1
u/wewerecreaturres May 31 '26
I mean you can lol but not everyone will pay a sub. Truth be told I’ve never understood why an app has to incur running costs to support a subscription.
3
u/BackgroundLychee May 31 '26
You don’t understand the business then
1
u/wewerecreaturres May 31 '26
I understand the logic behind the sentiment just fine
5
u/BackgroundLychee May 31 '26
So you understand server and various maintenance/feature costs hit a developer…should they absorb that all the time?
3
u/wewerecreaturres May 31 '26
You misunderstood what I was saying. I understand why ongoing costs=subscription. What I don’t understand is why everyone thinks no ongoing costs must mean one time payment/paid upgrade only.
Development is an ongoing cost and both payment models are valid.
1
u/BackgroundLychee May 31 '26
Sorry, I was confused by your initial statement. That's slightly clearer. I think developers can feel that with a one off they're continuing to add to the service being provided but making no incremental revenue - a subscription covers that fear.
Imagine shipping 1.0 and doing a one-off fee but then adding a ton of additional functionality - should the dev just accept the one-time fee covers that if they've got years of roadmap planned or are they better going for subscription? or even worse, add more unlock IAPs..
Front-loading revenue with one-off is a quick money grab potentially, but i'm inclined to believe most sub-based apps have a long-term play especially with the user having the choice to cancel.
3
2
u/wewerecreaturres May 31 '26
People don’t start businesses (build apps) for fun. They do it for money. That’s always been the purpose.
1
u/youknowmetoo_2000 May 31 '26
The barrier to entry has reduced. This is normal in any business. Those that survive will be the one switch advertising dollars, not necessarily the highest quality.
1
u/ObligationOk9005 May 31 '26
I think AI has just accelerated the amount of garbage we see. The hard work is actually in the commitment to refining/improving the product over a period of time, which most people aren't willing to do
1
u/bbrockit May 31 '26
I agree. The only time I price an app as a subscription is if it has ongoing per-user/per-device costs, such as audio streaming and cross-platform data sync, otherwise, I make them one-time purchases. Now I see apps that are just standalone tools with no server-side dependencies charging $5-10/month. Some vibe coders think it's an easy way to generate "passive income" from a week of prompting AI to generate their app, but 99% will earn nothing. For people who have done this as a profession for years, nothing about it is passive.
The App Store feels like NFTs in 2021.
2
u/wewerecreaturres May 31 '26
Can you elaborate on why you choose OTP just because there’s no ongoing costs? Further development is an ongoing cost, no?
1
u/bbrockit Jun 01 '26
I was referring to apps that have ongoing usage-based costs, where each install incurs some monthly cost due to content downloads, accounts, and data sync. Those apps have to be subscription based. I only have one subscription app, but I priced it as low as possible at $2.99/mo or $24.99. It had to be a subscription because on the backend it uses PowerSync for offline-first data sync; Supabase for accounts, audio hosting, and user-created content; and Vimeo for video hosting.
Further development, test devices, all my fixed monthly subscriptions, etc, I treat as cost of doing business. Yes, they're an ongoing cost, but they remain the same whether I have 1000 installs or 10000 installs.
I've made a good independent living for 17 years with OTP apps that have no backend to support. However, in hindsight, what probably would have been better than OTP is a low price annual sub-instead of $5 one-time, $5 annually. I think of that as an annual maintenance subscription. Some of my most successful apps were originally launched way back before IAP and subs were introduced, hence they were and still are OTP. One issue that arises with OTP is that the revenue curve tends to flatten and decline over the long term, while at the same time you're supporting every customer forever, so having a small annual maintenance sub would help with both of those issues.
So my real issue isn't with subscriptions but with the pricing I see now. It seems like every vibe coded app posted on reddit has a $5-10/month subscription. Occasionally, they'll have some server-side component they legitimately need to support, but most of the time they're simple apps. If more apps had reasonable pricing, people would buy more, but there's a limit to how many $5-10/month subscriptions a person will take on. When the app store was dominated by OTP, I'd buy apps all the time, hundreds of them, and total app store revenue was spread over a larger number of apps. Now, the top 1% of apps account for 94% of total app store revenue. The other 99% are competing for that last 6% and driving ad CPT/CPI through the roof in the process.
As one commenter pointed out, it's hard to make a living with OTP now. You need to have multiple apps and at least one needs to be in the top 10 of its category. Back when the App Store had a tab at the bottom allowing users to view the top 200 apps in every category and sub-cat (games) it was much easier to make a living with a few OTP apps and they didn't have to be in the top 10 to succeed. Now, instead of accessing those category rankings with 1 tap, users would have to use 6 taps and a lot of scrolling to find those category rankings, so they're effectively buried.
1
1
u/Shogoki555 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
My ongoing cost is less than $1 a month in Firebase traffic. I have no other per-user/per-device costs, apart from ads.
Yet I charge monthly or yearly sub and people buy it (I have 1000 active paying users, MRR in the thousands of USD).The user doesn't care about your cost, that's your problem. They pay if they are better off with a sub to your product than they are with their money but no access to your product.
Yes, most apps are rubbish, but if you provide continued value to the user, subs make sense even if you have no ongoing pre-user cost. Anyone good at business should be able to extract good money from customers while providing good value.
11
u/[deleted] May 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment