[gnicholas]

It sure is burdensome to maintain an app that constantly needs updating. But isn't this an appt that could be updated infrequently, once the basic functionality is in place? That could be sustained by a low-cost subscription ($10/yr?), or possibly even a one-time charge of $20 or something.

[StreamSphere]

Indeed, just maintaining it isn't very complicated, but finding features for which users would be willing to pay $10/month seems complicated to me, as the play store is very competitive.

[moritonal]

I should expand. Let's take two worlds, one where you charge nothing, and one where you do.

In the first, I get an app, but you get nothing but a pat on the back. I enjoy something, you don't, eventually you get resentful seeing thousands of people using what you built so you decide to make money off it. At this point, it doesn't really matter how you do it, either with ads, subscription, or secret dark-web stuff, you'll change the game and your users will not trust you as an author and just uninstall the app.

In the other, you charge a one-off £4.99. This is really quite small, but I now know the author gets some value from me and we've entered into a understandable contract. You are in the same place as before, but now ~$4.99 richer, which is nice. In the future, you make a bit of money and want to make more money. So you can now raise the price which will affect only future users. You can now also produce other apps, which I'll also look at those and think, well, the first app was good, I'll try those because I trust the author.