Apple’s App Store revenue fell in September
cnbc.comThe article indicates that the majority of the revenue drop came from people spending less on games.
What isn’t addressed but seems logical to me is that as inflation rises and overall consumer spending declines, smartphone users have less appetite to indulge in subscriptions for nonessential software.
My work recently supplied me with my first iPhone. Browsing the App Store I was shocked that nearly every popular app used a subscription model. Subscriptions for Twitter apps? Camera apps? Note taking? Someone could easily pay more in subscriptions to apps than it would cost to subscribe to the New York Times!
The subscription model is undoubtedly a boon to developers but it’s a costly splurge to users during a looming recession. Maybe we’re reaching the apex of SAAS for discrete apps - the center cannot hold forever on this business model.
You are correct. It’s been almost 2 years since the lockdown. During that time, I downloaded apps like crazy. Maybe 500 apps.
They all offered me a free trial, I took it.
Mistakes where made, due to apple auto renewal, my card was charged ~$1,000 within that month. Luck for me. Chase bank detected all as fraud and blocked the card. I disputed the $160.11 for the apps that “force billed” and won the case.
I have downloaded close to 1TB worth of data on my iPhone. To delete all these apps will take hours. To cancel the subscription isn’t easy. Apple designed it in a way, for each app you download. You have to manually go into settings and cancel it.
Imagine downloading 500 apps in one month. No way I’m i manually disabling auto renewal.
Thanks to PayPal, I created an account that literally has zero dollars that apps can auto renewal and fail.
I did the math. Total cost of all the apps subscription since 2019-2022 on my device.
$57,060.01.
Glad PayPal is blocking these automated renewal. Because I’m not going to manually cancel ~500 apps.