Jakob Egger, who created a number of great apps that I use daily (like Postgres.app and Postico) wrote a post entitled Subscription Pricing is for Stagnating Products:
The one thing I don’t understand is why smaller companies are also trying to switch to subscriptions? Are they also suffering from a stagnating user base, and hoping to increase their bottom line? If that is the case, they are doomed — subscription pricing will only diminish their user base even faster, and won’t fix the underlying problems that led to a lack of growth in the first place.
It’s easy to see where Jakob is coming from: he’s done very well with his paid up-front model for his apps.
However, Jakob’s (much deserved!) success in his pricing model does not translate to definitive proof that paid up-front apps are the way to go.
Instead, subscription models, while not necessarily *absolut