Carbs and Cals app moves to subscription model

[Lucyr]

Just a thought, but ...

Just on Google pay it says 100,000+ downloads
That means somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 as they are the Google 'steps'
Plus the IOS apple version users ...

So let's assume (I would say very conservatively), that there are 100,000 active 'users'
That amounts to £3.6 million per year (a one off lump sum of that much would keep me happy personally)

That's a lot of money to run an app, and it could easily be 3 times that amount - but then maybe £10M/year isnt a lot these days?

I could well be completely wrong in my estimates tho

Are you assuming everyone that downloads it subscribes? A lot will go for the basic free plan not the subscription option.

 

[Kopiert]

If I buy an article, whether it's a loaf of bread or a piece of software, then it is mine, I have purchased it and can do with it as I wish.

As far as software is concerned this is absolutely not true. You don't buy software, you license it, and you certainly cant do want you want with it. Read the EULA thing you agree to before you install software. You can't sell it, you can't change it, you can't decompile it and compile it as something else you cant take part of the code and use it somewhere else etc . Software engineers can and do remove you right to use software.

 

[Kopiert]

Just a thought, but ...

Just on Google pay it says 100,000+ downloads
That means somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 as they are the Google 'steps'
Plus the IOS apple version users ...

So let's assume (I would say very conservatively), that there are 100,000 active 'users'
That amounts to £3.6 million per year (a one off lump sum of that much would keep me happy personally)

That's a lot of money to run an app, and it could easily be 3 times that amount - but then maybe £10M/year isnt a lot these days?

I could well be completely wrong in my estimates tho

The conversion rate is likely to be well south of 10%

 

[Barfly]

As far as software is concerned this is absolutely not true. You don't buy software, you license it, and you certainly cant do want you want with it. Read the EULA thing you agree to before you install software. You can't sell it, you can't change it, you can't decompile it and compile it as something else you cant take part of the code and use it somewhere else etc . Software engineers can and do remove you right to use software.

OK so maybe "as I wish" is a bit of hyperbole. I have no wish to disassemble the code and re-use it in any other form. If I so wish I can dispose of it intact and sell it on in a secondhand market, there is no legal sanction against that.

There are also new laws that have now come into effect in both the UK and the EU that override many of the provisions of the EULA.
This is primary legislation enacted to reduce the carbon footprint of modern life, and enshrines the rights of end-user consumers to information and spare parts availability for all products hardware and software for a minimum period of 10 years.

 

[Barfly]

It’s about the developers time rather than the information being freely available. If they spend time working on keeping the app up to date, and people are willing to pay for the convenience of having the app, then yes people should pay so they can take a decent wage. I wouldn’t expect to work for free so I don’t expect others to.

I could not disagree more. If there is value in an update then it can be offered as another single time purchase, that way there is a choice.

 

[Essex]

@Kopiert @Lucyr
Well, I take that back then

 

[mikeyB]

If, as TW says, the subscription cost is £39 a year (I've never used the App) that to me seems perfectly reasonable. I pay almost as much as that (in monthly instalments) to keep Microsoft Jigsaw free of adverts so that my grandson can play with it when the family calls round. It's the price of a pint of beer in a pub per month. And you get any updates or mods for nothing.

I don't doubt that people who use a computer to access the forum keep an anti virus program running on it, for which you pay an annual subscription for the regular updates.

Anyway, if it's a question of whether it's worth it, that question applies to how useful it is in your life. And if you can't afford it just stick two quid in a piggy bank each month and use the free stuff until you can, if you really need it.

Don't forget, maintenance of these apps to make them work on different operating systems - Android, iOS, costs money and expertise, as does updating them. The creators are not a charity, and people have to be paid. You would soon object if the App was littered with adverts that you had to wait through before accessing it. This is the real world, get over it or opt out.

 

[Essex]

Each to their own, but it doesn't have to be that way:

I have used Bitdefender free for years without any viruses:

Free Antivirus Software - Download Bitdefender Antivirus Free

Download the free Bitdefender antivirus software to effectively scan and clean your computer. Enjoy basic virus protection totally free!

www.bitdefender.co.uk

Top 21 alternatives to Microsoft Jigsaw for Windows 10 for Windows

Find the best programs like Microsoft Jigsaw for Windows 10 for Windows. More than 21 alternatives to choose: Magic Jigsaw Puzzles, Jigsaws Galore Fr

microsoft-jigsaw-windows-10.en.softonic.com

(although included in Win 10 Defender could be enough for most)

Cant vouch for the all their suggestion, but my daughter loved the Tuxmath and Tuxtype ones when she was a nipper:

Top 21 alternatives to Microsoft Jigsaw for Windows 10 for Windows

Find the best programs like Microsoft Jigsaw for Windows 10 for Windows. More than 21 alternatives to choose: Magic Jigsaw Puzzles, Jigsaws Galore Fr

microsoft-jigsaw-windows-10.en.softonic.com

Tux paint as well

Tux Paint

tuxpaint.org

Lots of good educational type but fun games all her friends use(d)
https://www.friv.com/

Pretty much everything that you pay for you can find in free (not just no money - see FOSS below) versions

'Adobe Lightroom'

digiKam

www.digikam.org

darktable

'Evernote'

Joplin

Joplin, the open source note-taking application

joplinapp.org

'Photoshop'

GIMP

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor

www.gimp.org

Adobe Illustrator - Vector drawing

Draw Freely | Inkscape

Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows desktop computers.

inkscape.org

Microsoft Office

Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

Free office suite – the evolution of OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx. Updated regularly, community powered.

www.libreoffice.org

Google Chrome
MS Edge

Download the fastest Firefox ever

Faster page loading, less memory usage and packed with features, the new Firefox is here.

www.mozilla.org

Even for my research work:

There is even free CAD stuff:

LibreCAD - Free Open Source 2D CAD

FreeCAD: Your own 3D parametric modeler

FreeCAD, the open source 3D parametric modeler

www.freecadweb.org

In the stats part of my research I was put onto 'R' which all the Uni researchers now use instead of the very expensive commercial stuff

R: The R Project for Statistical Computing

www.r-project.org

instead of Mendeley or MS OneNote

Zotero | Your personal research assistant

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.

www.zotero.org

Excellent app for editing PDF's (no Adobe!)

FREE PDF Tools to Merge, Split, Encrypt, Rotate, Crop, Header, Watermark, Image to PDF, PDF to Image...

PDFill FREE PDF Tools to merge, split, reorder, delete, encrypt, decrypt, rotate, crop and reformat PDF pages, to add information, header, footer and watermark, to convert images to PDF, PDF to images or PostScript to PDF, to delete, flatten and list form fields, to scan to pdf, to create...

www.pdfill.com

etc etc etc

At home, I use everything free and open source - I just dont need to pay for software
Actually I would and do pay (see below), its not just the paying, its the ever omre efficient machine of syphoning off all of the resources of the world into the hands of a ridiculously small percentage of us who are obscenely rich, and now we are beginning to wake up to the fact that they are not only breaking all the laws but also destroying the planet.

Every so often, especially if I use it a lot - I donate so that this type of 'for the better' thing doesnt die (or get scoffed by a big fat corporate monster until we only have one big evil overlord, ooooopps! nearly there)

Imagine if loads of people got together on the internet and made software and maintained it for themselves and humanity in general without charging a penny...
Then many projects would have thousands of the best devs in the world working for free ...

Free and open-source software - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You dont even need windows:

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

Download Ubuntu Desktop | Download | Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an open source software operating system that runs from the desktop, to the cloud, to all your internet connected things.

ubuntu.com

And dont believe anyone who tells you these days that you have to be tech savvy to use any of the above

And I can tell you that a community forum is 10 times better than a commercial 'support desk'
Surely that is evident from this site?

Yes, I am a 54 year old naive teenager at heart

But, yes, it appears at face value to be easier to just stump up

EDIT - I realise that I should say that not all the above is 100% FOSS, but you dont have to be totally FOSS

 

[Barfly]

If, as TW says, the subscription cost is £39 a year (I've never used the App) that to me seems perfectly reasonable. I pay almost as much as that (in monthly instalments) to keep Microsoft Jigsaw free of adverts so that my grandson can play with it when the family calls round. It's the price of a pint of beer in a pub per month. And you get any updates or mods for nothing.

I don't doubt that people who use a computer to access the forum keep an anti virus program running on it, for which you pay an annual subscription for the regular updates.

Anyway, if it's a question of whether it's worth it, that question applies to how useful it is in your life. And if you can't afford it just stick two quid in a piggy bank each month and use the free stuff until you can, if you really need it.

Don't forget, maintenance of these apps to make them work on different operating systems - Android, iOS, costs money and expertise, as does updating them. The creators are not a charity, and people have to be paid. You would soon object if the App was littered with adverts that you had to wait through before accessing it. This is the real world, get over it or opt out.

Mikey- you just don't get it, it isn't the money as far as I'm concerned, it is the principle. I am well aware updating costs money, but that should be part of the business model of the developer, to price the product accordingly. If it was a one off cost of £100 I would willingly pay that if I thought there was value for me in it. I don't give a hoot about the Apple or the Microsoft rip-off universes, I am prepared to pay for what I use up front with no monthly fees. I use linux and android exclusively, therefore no need for anti-virus or any of that other rubbbish. My personal tailored firewall keeps me and mine safe.

 

[Robin]

If, as TW says, the subscription cost is £39 a year (I've never used the App) that to me seems perfectly reasonable

It is perfectly reasonable, if you went on to the App store and were told that that’s what it would cost per year. It’s then your decision to shell out or not. The point here, though, is that they sold a product telling people it was a one off payment, and after a couple of years, said oops, no sorry, we’re going to charge you per year from now on. As Mike @everydayupsanddowns has said further back in the thread, they have now acknowledged that this was a mistake, and will make a 'legacy' App available to those who paid on the basis that it was a one -off.
Its a bit like buying a Kindle book. Yes, I know I haven’t bought 'the book' as such but only a licence to read it, but as far as I was concerned when I shelled out a fiver for it, I could reread it as often as I liked. If I’m told a couple of years in, that I’m going to have to pay an extra £1 every time from now on, if I want to reread it, despite having paid £5 for it in the first place, of course I'm going to feel miffed, and feel I wouldn’t have paid £5 in the first place had I known.

 

[travellor]

Mikey- you just don't get it, it isn't the money as far as I'm concerned, it is the principle. I am well aware updating costs money, but that should be part of the business model of the developer, to price the product accordingly. If it was a one off cost of £100 I would willingly pay that if I thought there was value for me in it. I don't give a hoot about the Apple or the Microsoft rip-off universes, I am prepared to pay for what I use up front with no monthly fees. I use linux and android exclusively, therefore no need for anti-virus or any of that other rubbbish. My personal tailored firewall keeps me and mine safe.

So, what programs run on Android Pie that ran on Android 1.
(Yes, I was on android before even Cupcake came out)
I simply bought new devices that ran the new Androids as required.
I didn't complain to Android that they weren't making all the software backwards compatible, and I didn't complain that the apps wouldn't run on the latest version of Android.
As to windows, I don't complain my Windows 3.1 5 1/4 floppys don't run on my Windows 10 netbook.
Software changes, it has a price.

 

[helli]

Its a bit like buying a Kindle book. Yes, I know I haven’t bought 'the book' as such but only a licence to read it, but as far as I was concerned when I shelled out a fiver for it, I could reread it as often as I liked. If I’m told a couple of years in, that I’m going to have to pay an extra £1 every time from now on, if I want to reread it, despite having paid £5 for it in the first place, of course I'm going to feel miffed, and feel I wouldn’t have paid £5 in the first place had I known.

I don’t see it the same as buying a book on Kindle because the book never gets updated. It does not contain any personal data that needs to be se use, it is only text not code that needs to change with a new operating system, the author does not add more chapters to the book, …

 

[Kopiert]

@Kopiert @Lucyr
Well, I take that back then

I dont like subscription based software unless you are paying for an ongoing cost within it, such as server costs. This software feels quite pricey to me. I will use the year's free upgrade plan as I already had paid for it. The thing I dislike about subscription software is that once you stop paying you either drop back down to a 'free' level which is normally pretty useless, or you get locked out. There is another model that some software houses use that I think is better. When you 'buy' the app you get to use the features available and any updates for 12 months. After 12 months you get to keep using those features you have paid for, but you will need to pay for further updates. A Mac app called Agenda used this system . I seems like a fair compromise. I do use quite a lot of free software, but I have no problem paying a developer for their time - I quite often hit the donate button. - but subscriptions for the sake of subscriptions really annoy me.

 

[Barfly]

So, what programs run on Android Pie that ran on Android 1.
(Yes, I was on android before even Cupcake came out)
I simply bought new devices that ran the new Androids as required.
I didn't complain to Android that they weren't making all the software backwards compatible, and I didn't complain that the apps wouldn't run on the latest version of Android.
As to windows, I don't complain my Windows 3.1 5 1/4 floppys don't run on my Windows 10 netbook.
Software changes, it has a price.

@travellor I'm sorry I don't see your point, can you clarify for me please? We are talking about the rip-off nature of the subscription model, not the one-off costs of buying an operating system.

 

[travellor]

@travellor I'm sorry I don't see your point, can you clarify for me please? We are talking about the rip-off nature of the subscription model, not the one-off costs of buying an operating system.

"Rip off" is always a term bandied about.

Subscriptions aren't a rip off.
I subscribe to paying taxes, I subscribe to paying NI.
I use all the services this pays for.
I buy a car, it dies, I buy another one.
Or I subscribe to a lease, and pay every month for a product that continues to work.
It's a very fair model.


And Android is definitely a subscription model, for the hardware, which is never backwards or forwards compatible.
Even free apps don't run on the "wrong" hardware.

 

[Barfly]

@travellor Thank you for your clarification. I fully agree as I previously wrote there are some subscriptions which are necessary, ie. council taxes, power water and sewage bills. My issue is with the subscription model for software as it impacts the most vulnerable members of society in a detrimental way.

Android is definitely NOT a subscription model, I don't know how you came to that conclusion. For instance, I have a 4 year old tablet that started life with Android 7, I have since upgraded to 9 and now 11 on this device, the same with many of my previous smartphones. Once a device is rooted, there are all sorts of things possible with Android.