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.

  • nicetriangle@kbin.social
    2·
    11 months ago

    Yeah the Pocketcasts pricing is stupid as hell. I’ve been having some issues with Overcast and was looking to switch but there’s no way that price is worth it.

    • Rizoid@programming.devEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      I purchased pocketcasts years ago when it was a one time fee and when they moved to a subscription model they gave everyone who purchased a lifetime pass on the subscription model but that rubbed me so wrong I moved away from it. Currently I run Audiobookshelf on my server and have all my podcasts in a library on there. Works really well and I have control over it.

      • nicetriangle@kbin.social
        3·
        11 months ago

        Yeah I’ve recently gone the self hosted route for video and may go for audio soon too, but not quite there yet. I think for now I can deal with the few minor annoyances I have with Overcast.

        What I’d really like to see someone crack is an machine learning prodcast player that can snip out ads. A few of the podcasts I like have gotten fucking insufferable for ads lately.