[llm_nerd]

They literally released this as a commercial service for $2/month. That they removed fees temporarily while it was completely broken does not make my statement of absolute, verifiable, incontestable fact a "strawman".

History isn't rewritten because they lost.

[borski]

Fair enough. I don’t disagree they saw it as a way to make some money.

I took your comment to imply that as a result of charging, their goal in fighting Apple was to “get back to charging $2/mo” which is a pretty surface-level statement. Their goal is to get iMessage on Android phones. I honestly doubt they’d care if they were the ones who eventually did it, as the main thing they eventually plan on making money off of is Beeper, not Beeper Mini.

[dylan604]

If this was any where near the truth, they would not have started charging at all. It would have been released as a free app to gain traction, and then start charging money for it. They fact that they started charging on such a slippery app shows it was a cash grab

[JoshuaRogers]

Based on my reading of their post where they announced it was free…

> We’ve made Beeper free to use. Things have been a bit chaotic, and we’re not comfortable subjecting paying users to this. As soon as things stabilize (we hope they will), we’ll look at turning on subscriptions again.

… and based on my reading of their jobs page …

> *How will Beeper make money?* > > We charge our users a $10/monthly paid subscription service. Our pricing model allows Beeper to deliver a great product and service, while eliminating any need to profit by monetizing user data.

… and the affirmation of that on their homepage …

> Our business model is simple - we build a great app and earn money from those who find value in it.

… I’m not sure where the narrative that their goal was anything other than to make money is coming from. They’re a business with a potentially useful product and full-time salaried employees.