Forced Upgrades

Posted by Simon
Jun 13, 2019 at 08:39 PM

satis wrote:

>
>Simon wrote:
> >>Apps are more expensive now than ever before.
> >Simply saying “apps are more expensive” is overbroad and incorrect. In
>2009 the average price in the App Store is $1.39 for games and $2.58 for
>all apps, and that average has dropped every year since the App Store
>was opened in 2008. As of 2018 9 of 10 apps in the App Store are free or
>freemium, and the average prices are $1.01 and the average game price is
>$0.49, according to Statista. The popularity of cheap/free apps (led by
>the cheapness of customers) has driven down prices over the years, and
>this is something any developer on any platform can attest to.
> >

You know what they say, “there are lies, damn lies and statistics”. Many “free” apps are not actually free and have fairly hefty IAPs or extremely intrusive ads or collect all your data and sell to the highest bidder or a mixture of the three. Stats on prices are too simplistic. In terms of the end user, most I know attest that software is more expensive on their monthly budget than it has ever been. Again, I know others have quoted prices, “back in the day”, but development cycles were further apart and the quantity of software purchased by the average user was not nearly as high as today. Plus most users did not upgrade with every new version. OS’s could run two or three iterations between upgrades as could applications such as Wordperfect or MSOffice. All these options are disappearing. I would happily pay for a stable Tiger OSX rather than the beachball version of today. Plus devs are now selling beta versions allowing the customer to pay to iron out the bugs, some of which never get fixed.

In this endless debate (which I started and apologise for!), my personal experience is that it is costing me more now than it did before. That is my bottomline. It feels a bit like things were in the day of post (you know, the envelopes you put stamps on and send off). You knew once that letter was sent it was at least 3-5 days before you had to deal with that again. With the advent of email the reply comes when you sleep the same day. Software use to be purchased, used for a good while, upgraded at your leisure, costs where manageable, but now this has all gone. It’s push push push, spend spend spend. Of course you don’t have to, but in the CRIMPing world you always feel there’s a better piece of software around the corner! Someone once said that it was better to use a few programmes well than have many that gain occasional use. Perhaps CRIMPing has a lifespan after which one loses interest realising that that one app we’re all looking for will never materialise, or maybe cost finally catches up with each of us or that in the myriad of apps we can no longer find the information we need!