What is this horrid trend of iOS Apps becoming subscription based?

While browsing apps and games for my iPad Pro, I saw a disturbing trend. Why are apps going to a subscription model? It’s been awhile since I seriously went shopping for apps, so this was annoying.

I found rudimentary word games with a weekly subscription for coins.

I found coloring books with a weekly subscription to use the app and work on images.

Apps that required a subscription to access servers rather than storing data locally.

LiDAR apps with a monthly subscription to export objects.

Everything is turning into In-App Purchases which is infuriating.

What’s going on here? This is a scam and these developers should be ashamed.

Offering an In-App Purchase so people can demo your app is perfect.

I’m all for a single purchase that removes ads.

I’m all for a small fee ($0.99-$1.99) to access new levels or content that is optional.

But what in the hell is going on where developers feel they deserve a $99 annual fee to play a word game? Have you gone mad?

This is a complete scam. And I do mean scam.

I’ve seen dozens of apps with $4.99 as the in-app purchase. No issue there, until you read the fine print. It’s a $4.99 per week subscription. You want to charge people $260 a year to access an iOS app?

This was for a PDF annotation tool. There is nothing about annotating a PDF that justifies a subscription model. As a one time fee of $9.99 it could be considered expensive. As a subscription it’s literally a ploy to rip people off.

Who in their right mind feels that is a legitimate and fair price to charge for their app? Even Adobe isn’t that ridiculous! Ok, maybe they are, but people shouldn’t try to outdo their crazy.

There is no justification for this kind of pricing. I disagree with software subscriptions in almost all cases. I have yet to hear a valid argument supporting it. Developers need to sober up. More to the point, Apple needs to reign in this subscription nonsense. Better yet, remove it all together. Sure, they get a steady revenue stream from saps who get scammed, but it tarnishes the value of the iPad and iOS.

Scam subscriptions are no better than software laced with spyware and malware stealing your credit card information. The App Store is supposed to protect people from getting ripped off. Apple, you’re better than this.