[glhaynes]

I don't get the hate for in-app purchases of this kind. It's just like the shareware model that used to be popular: lots of people get absolutely free usage/enjoyment out of the base product and then, those who specifically want more, can pay—in this case a very small fee—for it. One constantly hears people clamoring for more choice, for example, to pay for just the cable channels they want. So what makes this model "annoying nonsense"?

[kenperkins]

I think because some class of people wonder if a $5 app would better perform. I think it's hard for 53 to succeed that way however, because you have a finite number of users.

By making features an in-app purchase, they effectively monetize users going from version 1 to version 2, and so on. If you used the up-front payment model, new versions of the app would have to be a different app to continually monetize it, which would have a number of it's own problems.