Is subscription software a good thing or not?

Posted by Paul Korm
Jun 10, 2016 at 01:02 AM

Apple is making changes to subscription pricing for software—all app types in the App Stores can now be sold as auto-renewing subscriptions, with geographic variances in pricing and more discrete pricing tiers, and a bigger cut of revenue for developers in years 2 and beyond—i.e., when the subscription is renewed

https://www.macstories.net/news/major-app-store-changes-announced/

Good thing or bad thing? My automatic reaction is “bad” in most cases. I buy a lot of software, and can think of no application for which I would pay the same price two years in a row—or longer. I’ll admit that my reaction is of the “never been this way, why change?” variety. It remains to be seen how developers make pricing decisions now. If an app was $25 (actually, $24.99) before auto-renewed subscriptions, will that developer price it at $24.99 annually, or $12.99 annually, or something else.

If software has an ongoing value, it’s perhaps difficult to argue that the developer shouldn’t enjoy ongoing rents. But the thing that will make that palatable is whether the developer will make an ongoing effort to enhance and improve the software.

Anyway, it’s a new world and it will be interesting to see if this pricing expands to other markets (and OS’s) outside the App Store.

What do you think?