Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Arnt 489 days ago
I bought quite a few around 2012, sure, but it tapered off. I don't think I've bought any apps as one-time purchases in the past five years, it's all yearly subscriptions now. All the ones I see on my main phone screen right now are subscription-based or free.

What are some well-known apps sold as one-time purchases now?
2 comments
fencepost 489 days ago
Looking in the Play Store at "Top Paid" seems like a bunch of one-time purchases listed. I think a lot of it may be a difference between Android and iOS - Apple software seems to have a lot more subscriptions, but that's just an anecdata 'feel'.
link
Arnt 489 days ago
My 100% subscriptions in the past years is on Android, actually.

What I've heard is that one-time purchases lead to a lack of income after three years, when people expect upgrades. That's not a problem for app developers who don't plan to do any upgrades, of course.

link
fencepost 488 days ago
I'm pretty sure that both Android and iOS stores continue to lack a good "paid upgrades" mechanism and it's been a developer complaint for well over a decade. I've used a few apps that came out with upgrades/rewrites and offered either a free upgrade (if the old version was still installed) or possibly a temporary discount, but there are just as many that simply get abandoned because it's not feasible to get a constant stream of new purchasers to remain viable.

Notably I'll throw in a few things like PocketCasts, Nova Launcher, Gentle Alarm by Mobitobi, a variety of camera and gallery apps. Some of those shifted to subscriptions (PocketCasts after being sold twice), others just got shuttered.

link
genewitch 489 days ago
i dunno well known but Symfonium, a subsonic client for android is a one time purchase of $5 or so. Some games by decent developers are a single purchase, but i can't recall any offhand. Most games are freemium and there's a really bad discovery process, so i just don't play games on my phone.

i'm not in the habit of buying apps anymore. I did drop a lot of money on the wolfram alpha iOS app when it first launched (it was over $50 at the time iirc, but to hedge i'll say "adjusted for inflation")

link