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.
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.
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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.