[offtotheraces]

This is going to be a disaster - Bending Spoons is not a good actor:

“let’s talk about Bending Spoons’ business model. The basic concept is very simple:

- Find a solid app that someone else built and buy it from them (see Splice (acquired from GoPro) and 30 Day Fitness)

- Optimize the monetization of said app (by implementing from scratch or fine-tuning existing subscriptions), thereby driving higher lifetime value (LTV)

- Take that higher LTV and use it to bid on expensive ad inventory (on Google, Facebook, Apple Search) where you can acquire more users (aka drive more downloads) - i.e. leverage performance marketing for growth

- Convert those new downloads to paying users

- Massively ramp revenues and cash flow by combining the new users + the better monetization

- Use the new cash flow - plus the debt from those lovely Italian banks - to fund the next acquisition

- Lather, rinse, repeat

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business model. What differentiates Bending Spoons, though, is how they do it.

Remini - Bending Spoons’ new app that the press is gushing over - is $10 a WEEK. And Splice, the app that started it all? That’ll set you back a cool $5/week.

Does anyone really think it’s appropriate to pay $10 a week for a photo editing app?”

https://open.substack.com/pub/impassionedmoderate/p/ryan-rey...

[paxys]

None of what you wrote makes them sound like a "bad actor". All of these are good things for a failing business. Why shouldn't a photo editing app be $10/week? If you don't think you are getting that much value out of it then don't subscribe. Yet there is probably a group of power users who will gladly pay that amount. Evernote needs to be catering to them, not the millions of users who will endlessly complain but never spend an actual dollar on their services.

[offtotheraces]

This is a common response. unfortunately it doesn’t hold water: the average lifetime of a paid user of Splice is somewhere in the 7-10 week range (source is confidential).

What super users of editing products do you know that only stay 10 weeks?

None. What’s actually happening is Bending Spoons is exploiting the App Store’s ease of payment and dark patterns to trick unsuspecting users into enrolling in a super high priced subscription without their knowledge.

[piaste]

> without their knowledge

I've never had an iPhone so I'm not familiar with these dark patterns. Are you saying it's actually possible to get an Apple user to subscribe without clearly displaying the payment amount or frequency?

[joshstrange]

> Are you saying it's actually possible to get an Apple user to subscribe without clearly displaying the payment amount or frequency?

Both are displayed by a system-controlled modal but even with that there are many stories of people not realizing/noticing the frequency. Apple has forced developers to place the frequency more prominently on their info screens but it's only helped so much. I have a hard time seeing a legitimate use for a weekly subscription other than to trick users. I almost think that Apple shouldn't allow that frequency or they should have extra vetting/restrictions/alerts for users. I know Apple sends out an email before they charge a recurring subscription (or at least I've gotten them for my yearly subscriptions) but maybe a push notification on the phone/tablet (that you could disable per-app) would be a another way to help prevent this type of fraud/scam.

[svnt]

They are the abuser that benefits from the lock-in. Evernote has gradually made it harder and harder to export (50 notes per try, not everything makes it out) and now they exit to these guys.

It’s the worst of the post-VC models. Seems like they have been positioning for this for a while.

[gombosg]

Ahh, good to know. I jumped ship with a full ENEX export to Joplin about 4 years ago. Haven't looked back since then, although my needs are simple, not power user-like.

[pqs]

You can export full notebooks now. Also you can use Legacy for the exports.

[Karunamon]

I see this complaint a lot and it never really made any sense to me. If something is a scam it has to do with the delivery or the advertisement of the product. But the pricing? No. It is not possible for the price of something by itself to render something a scam. If it costs too much it costs too much, this does not imply malfeasance on the part of the seller.

[offtotheraces]

I agree - it’s about how the developer communicates (or in this case obfuscates) the price to the user. Check out the substack link and you’ll see screenshots of how Bending Spoons does it (it’s highly misleading).

Generally I’m of the opinion that consumers are responsible for their own choices; but Apple has allowed bad actors to exploit the availability of weekly subscriptions and prey on suspecting users.

[Karunamon]

I disagree that "$9.99/week" below a continue button leading to a purchase dialog is in any way misleading.

I looked at the screenshot before reading the surrounding justification, and the understanding I got was that continuing would charge me $9.99 on a weekly basis until canceled (which would also show up in the purchase confirmation). It turns out that is exactly what happens.

So who exactly is being misled here? People who are functionally literate enough to use a smart phone and download an app but illiterate enough to not know what $9.99 a week means? I don't think that person exists. Maybe children but they shouldn't be allowed to sign up for subscriptions without parental oversight anyways.

[Manjuuu]

> is $10 a WEEK.

Paxys. You probably don't have a clear idea of what kind apps he was referring to. There are no power users in this case.

[tqi]

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

[Manjuuu]

Completely different type of applications, I remember an old thread on twitter about one useless wallpapers app being sold for that kind of money. And it was not the only one. It's a business model.

[paxys]

Not sure what "useless wallpaper" app you are talking about but I just took a look at https://bendingspoons.com/products and everything there seems pretty useful and well designed.

[Manjuuu]

That minuscule subset is well designed, yes, the rest decent BUT some of them with in my opinion predatory pricing in many cases, $9/wk to download some wallpaper or some sleep noises app. But yes, they are not the only ones doing it. If you are interested search on the appstore among the boatload of apps they have.

[agos]

if you browse Bending Spoons' site on archive.org you'll see that a few years ago they indeed sold wallpaper apps and keyboard apps for debatable prices. They had even more apps, but most of them were removed entirely from their portfolio, and some ended up in the account of Easy Tiger Apps, LLC [1], including a 4,99€/week step counting app that is a blatant rip off of a more famous one

[1]: https://apps.apple.com/tz/developer/easy-tiger-apps-llc/id57...

[nneonneo]

The really key bit is right afterwards:

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business model… What differentiates Bending Spoons, though, is how they do it.

Remini - Bending Spoons’ new app that the press is gushing over - is $10 a WEEK. And Splice, the app that started it all? That’ll set you back a cool $5/week.”

In short, they buy apps, add aggressive and practically exploitative monetization, and ride the revenue stream until it dries up.

[boole1854]

I must admit it's not entirely obvious why that business model makes them "not a good actor".

And what's with the snark about Italian banks?

[lioeters]

From September 2022:

> Italian app developer Bending Spoons has raised more than 340 million euros ($327 million) from investors including Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds and Kerry Trainor, the former CEO of video streaming platform Vimeo.

> Bending Spoons, whose apps include popular video editing tool Splice and Remini, an image editor based on artificial intelligence technology, said the money could be used for acquisitions.

> A source close to the company said former Google Executive Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt was among the investors. Other backers included Italian banks Intesa Sanpaolo and Banco BPM.

[handoflixue]

The issue is that people are at least somewhat "locked in" to whatever apps they're already using, so sudden major price increases are a bit extortionate: Either you pay us a bunch of money, or lose access to your data/workflow.

Prior to acquisition, one could reasonably expect Evernote not to announce sudden, shocking price changes, because they were trying to build a long-term brand. Now, suddenly, that's not the case.

This is made worse when the app doesn't do a good job of letting you export your data in the first place.

[Manjuuu]

> is $10 a WEEK.

[Manjuuu]

Came here to write something similar, you did it better.

I will never accept that selling wallpaper apps or something with the same level of complexity for hundred of dollars every year is an acceptable business model.

[zild3d]

> Does anyone really think it’s appropriate to pay $10 a week for a photo editing app?

Apparently yes, otherwise it would have just been a failed experiment and revert back to $X/month

Even if they charged $100/week I don't see how it makes them a bad actor. If the pricing/cancellation policies are deceptive then sure, but that is irrelevant to the price.

[sporedro]

sigh well it looks like I’ll be jumping ship to Joplin this weekend.

I’ve honestly lost hope in Evernote and just kept using it out of laziness to migrate, but I don’t like what the future holds.

[presentation]

How dare they charge money for products they own that have value.