FTC study finds 'dark patterns' used by a majority of subscription apps and websites | TechCrunch

https://dubvee.org/post/1491587

There are a few pieces of software I use (regularly) that would continue to get money from me if they followed the old model of paying for major versions. (pay for v1, get v 1.1-1.9) with v2 being the next “big” update that you’d have to pay an upgrade fee (smaller than a new purchase) to continue on the train.

But they switched to subscription model, and lost me as an “active” customer.

YNAB is the big one I use at least weekly, sometimes daily. I am on YNAB4 until it will no longer function because I’m not paying them a monthly fee to use that product. I would have GLADLY paid for major updates/changes even if it equaled the subscription in the end. But each of those purchases would be a decision I made on whether the change had enough value for me.

Subscriptions all them to not strive for large enough improvements to warrant a version update / upgrade fee. They just run along with little or not useful changes (IMHO).

I can highly recommend you to try Actual Budget to replace YNAB, it has come a long away and has bank sync and a very usable mobile (progressive web) app now
That has been on my radar for a while. I haven’t checked it out recently. I’m sure YNAB4 will die sometime in the future, but I’m going to milk it out to the end :). There’s already a hack for android (for dropbox syncing) and hoops to jump through to get it working in MacOs. It’s just a matter of time before the house of cards falls apart.