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by thijser 1019 days ago
It seems the apps starting to enforce upgrades to pro in ~February of this year.

On the AppBrain page you can see the rating nosedive from 4.6 stars (out of 5) to less than 2: https://www.appbrain.com/app/simple-gallery/com.simplemobile...

2 comments

Developer's response to several of the negative reviews complaining about their data being held hostage:

> Hey, it is just a tiny one time payment, you will never have to pay again :) lf you uninstall the paid app within 2 hours, you are automatically refunded. If you want a refund anytime later just contact us

While I understand and respect the developer's desire to monetize, creating a set of expectations and then pushing an update to require payment for accessing local data feels like ransom. Have to be careful with the trust users place in you.

Data hostage? All of these apps feature easy and painless import/export of data to an open format.
I do not have personal experience and it appears that the f-droid versions have no anti-features, but those comments at Play store were specifically talking about their data being held hostage.
> It seems the apps starting to enforce upgrades to pro in ~February of this year.

Only when installed from Google playstore.

Yeah but the price is symbolic... and maintaining app on Android, even without adding any features, requires some work to catch up on the changes made to the system
Unfortunately, the charge to my credit card would not be merely symbolic.