What is the most useless app that you have seen being given as a subscription?

For me, I tried a ‘minimalist’ launcher app for Android that had a 7 day trial or something and they had a yearly subscription based model for it. I was aghast. I would literally expect the app to blow my mind and do everything one can assume to go that way. In a world, where Nova Launcher (Yes, I know it has been acquired by Branch folks but it still is a sturdy one) or Niagara exist plus many alternatives including minimalist ones on F Droid, the dev must be releasing revolutionary stuff to factor in a subscription service.

Second, is a controversial choice, since it’s free tier is quite good and people like it so much. But, Pocketcasts. I checked it’s yearly price the other day, and boy, in my country, I can subscribe to Google Play Pass, YouTube Premium and Spotify and still have money left before I hit the ceiling what Pocketcasts is asking for paid upgrade.

Also, what are your views on one time purchase vs subscriptions? Personally, I find it much easier to purchase, if it’s good enough even if it was piratable, something if it is a one time purchase rather than repetitive.

    • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      JetBrains ran aground of this years ago when they introduced a subscription model for their (excellent) software. People (rightly) lost their fricking minds when they heard that if they cancelled their subscription, they’d lose the ability to continue using the software they’d already paid for.

      So JetBrains went back and reworked their system so that a cancelled subscription would continue to have the rights to install all the software that existed up to the day of cancellation. Effectively meaning that if v3 came out the day before you cancelled, you can still install and use v3 10 years later.

      • Pechente@feddit.deEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        JetBrains comes to mind as one of the fairest subscription services I know. It also get cheaper the longer you’re subscribed, incentivizing you to to stay subscribed. It’s both smart and user friendly.

        The worst one is probably Adobe.

  • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Duolingo. Why can’t I just pay $100 or whatever one time? Languages don’t change to the extent that it needs to be a subscription.

    • mettwurstkaninchen@feddit.deBEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      There really should be a free and open source alternative for Duolingo. I know that there is Librelingo, but that is currently only doing Spanish for English speakers.