#EDITED TO ADD CONTEXT:
The developer has responded quite a bit in the comments here, and has made adjustments to the free tier feature set based on my and others’ feedback. See more info in this update thread: https://lemm.ee/post/12353243
If you’re reading this post after update 1.0.7 I suggest you skim these comments and that update thread before forming an opinion.
#ORIGINAL POST:
I like this app a lot, I can tell there’s been a ton of love and hard work put into it.
The strategy for monetization leaves a bit of a sour taste though.
For one, nobody wants another subscription - and $30 lifetime for a brand new app is a huge asking price compared to, say, Apollo, which was $5 or so (with a subscription tier for things that actually made sense to buy due to recurring cost).
But this app is paywalling basic stuff like a comment jump button (everyone else has this for free), content filtering, video scrubbing, and various other things that have no recurring cost to the developer.
My recommendation, take it or leave it, if you want my money make it a reasonable one time purchase for things that don’t cost you money (under $10 imo, $5 would’ve been an easy sell).
If you want to justify a subscription model you are gonna need to build features that justify it - push notifications, stuff like that.
@evgiz@lemm.ee has already put in $30 worth of work for me imo. These comments comparing this to apps with huge development teams are hilarious.
Which apps are you referring to? Apollo was one guy, Sync is as well
Procreate. A well established application. And isn’t sync like $100+?
Ah, hadn’t seen people mention procreate, although in general I think it’s fair to reference other well-known apps at similar price points when trying to make a point about the value of $30.
I don’t use Android so don’t know what sync’s pricing is
I disagree. An animation app from a well established company that created procreate is an in the bag sale for a ridiculous number of users. We shouldn’t be looking at penny pinching at every corner when it’s coming to helping Lemmy grow. That’s just my opinion though as I was more than willing to pay just from the energy and response time from evgiz. I still cycle between apps and web ui’s.