[iscrewyou]

I paid for Pocket Casts back in the day. When they switched to subscriptions, they grandfathered me to the Pocket Casts Plus as a lifetime user.

I have access to the web app and it syncs the podcasts as well as the play position.

Are you referring to something else?

[Karsteski]

I didn't get grandfathered in. I never saw whatever notification or email they sent out. I only saw last year that that was what happened, and by then I was obviously too late. Obviously, having paid for an online product and having it stolen from me is something I will never forget.

[bestham]

No one stole anything from you. An online service you are not continuously paying for is not a service where you are the customer.

[nl]

Wow. That's a new take on the old trope "if you aren't paying you aren't the customer".

It's obviously untrue. For many services the marginal cost of supporting a paid user on an ongoing basis approaches zero.

I'd imagine this is one. They presumably store some subscription and profile data and that's about it.

[bestham]

But each added user should not only cover the marginal cost but alt least the average cost. If we disregard that there can be several tiers of users and price models, it might stand to reason that each user at the least on average have to bring in as much money as they cost the service to serve. Many customers brought this up when Maciej Cegłowski had a fixed price model for perpetual Pinboard, he just bushed this off but has since come begging oldtimers for more money. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s tiresome to have the same journey with every service you want to depend on. This is a trait of the VC world of “we figure out profitability after we have all the customers”.

[mrobins]

Respectfully disagree. An obligation to maintain a service in perpetuity for no revenue becomes a huge unfunded liability.

What if the app falls out of favor and new marginal revenue can’t cover fixed costs?

What if the business wants to innovate in a way that dramatically changes its cost structure (maybe introduce a feature that requires a usage based license)? Sure you can gate older users but how long do you have to maintain a separate set of features for them?

Obviously it’s the apps responsibility to make a fair deal with users and stick to terms offered. Sure some companies can make a model that amortizes an upfront payment effectively over decades. In reality though, all that really matters to a company is new cash that pays expenses. If you’re not contributing to that at some point you are no longer the customer.

[jeremy0x4a]

If I remember there wasn't anything that needed to be done on our end, if your account qualified it was just done. Is it possible you have more than one account?

[iscrewyou]

Sorry that happened. I have same feeling about vsco. Paid for the presets back in the day and now they are behind a log in screen and subscription.

[dtrizzle]

Looks like the people who are grandfathered in are people who paid for web access. If you purchased the Android or iOS app (like me), you are not grandfathered in and do not get a free plus account.

Source: https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2019/09/18/major-new-update/

[nataz]

Huh, first time I ever saw that. Makes sense, I paid for the Android app not the web app. Still, wish I would have known this earlier. I may not like it, but better than being ghosted.

That said, I distributed remember themes and icons being a thing in the paid app which isn't available under the new model unless you subscribe.

[reustle]

> When they switched to subscriptions, they grandfathered me to the Pocket Casts Plus as a lifetime user.

iirc we were only grandfathered in for 3 years.

[tapoxi]

they fixed that and made it permanent.

[nxte]

really? my 3 year period just ended and they asked me to pony up.

[tapoxi]

https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2019/09/19/we-heard-you/

I'm still on my lifetime plan, maybe open a support ticket?

[tunnuz]

Same.