#EDITED TO ADD CONTEXT:
The developer has responded quite a bit in the comments here, and has made adjustments to the free tier feature set based on my and others’ feedback. See more info in this update thread: https://lemm.ee/post/12353243
If you’re reading this post after update 1.0.7 I suggest you skim these comments and that update thread before forming an opinion.
#ORIGINAL POST:
I like this app a lot, I can tell there’s been a ton of love and hard work put into it.
The strategy for monetization leaves a bit of a sour taste though.
For one, nobody wants another subscription - and $30 lifetime for a brand new app is a huge asking price compared to, say, Apollo, which was $5 or so (with a subscription tier for things that actually made sense to buy due to recurring cost).
But this app is paywalling basic stuff like a comment jump button (everyone else has this for free), content filtering, video scrubbing, and various other things that have no recurring cost to the developer.
My recommendation, take it or leave it, if you want my money make it a reasonable one time purchase for things that don’t cost you money (under $10 imo, $5 would’ve been an easy sell).
If you want to justify a subscription model you are gonna need to build features that justify it - push notifications, stuff like that.
Definitely, the one-time purchase is almost 1/10 of the monthly minimum wage in my country, wich is just too high. I really wanted to buy the PRO version to support the development and get some features, but I couldn’t justify paying so much for an app, especially in such and early stage.
I love Avelon and I like how responsive evgiz is but I won’t be paying that price. I understand that subscription models are best for the developers but as a consumer, I hate them. I’m glad that at least he took into consideration the way Lemmy works and didn’t limit account to one for the free tier.
And I don’t intend to be rude, I’ve been using Avelon for some time now and have always tried to help with the development, because I believe this is the best app for lemmy and I’m really thankful for all the time and effort evgiz put into it because it shows.
Thank you for summing up my feelings
I think we all want Avelon to succeed but this pricing model just seems wrong and I fear it will be counterproductive ☹️