[flakes]

> People will happily spend $5 for coffee but have an existential crisis when asked for a $1 app.

I think the key here, is that when you buy a coffee, you're reasonable sure of what you'll receive. You know coffee, you probably know the store, and although not all coffee shops are great, it's likely going to be good enough.

When you buy a random one dollar app, you spin the wheel, and the odds of that wheel landing on anything useful to you is extremely low. You have no way of telling if the app is the result of honest hard work, or the result of a cookie cutter build made from some user on fiverr.

So for me, it's not existential crisis, but an exhaustion from past annoyances.

[foobiekr]

All of this and then subscriptions and other fees (visible up front or added later).

Apple really screwed up by not making subscriptions/fee apps visible up front until later in the same so the whole thing has a seediness to it.

[perilunar]

Depending on your hourly rate $1 is only a couple of minutes of your time. Probably less than the time it takes to find the app, download, install, and try it out. I'm not going to sweat $1 versus free when it comes to apps.

[withinboredom]

The issue is the shady shit allowed. Like spend $1 to get the app, only to find out it requires a $5 a week subscription to actually run. I’ve actually run into that.