This seems to be the model I've witnessed with many apps over the years. Free at first to get traction and users, then ads, then pay one time fee to get rid of ads, then subscription to keep using the app.

Then there are those that wouldn't even pay a single fee and get upset at the thought as everything should be free.

The part that is upsetting is the contributions the early community made is monetized when they were ~~they~~ there for the benefit of the community.

I do see there are costs to maintaining and updating these apps so I can understand a need to keep revenue flowing for these future costs. The one time payment is a hell of a deal for years with updates to accommodate the revisions needed for each system update let alone functionality improvements.

In the old days we would buy software for our PC and that was it. There wasn't really any updates or further support for newer versions of Windows. The software would become very insecure or just stop functioning altogether with enough changes to windows.

It's hard to find the right balance. I know I only want to pay once, or heck never, but I want these upgrades and updates too.

All of them

Might be a slightly unpopular opinion, but Volumio (software for a raspberry pi to run it as a headless audio system). It's good, it's relatively well maintained and works. But paying 7,50 a month for this software to get multiroom audio, Tidal integration and some other stuff is ridiculously expensive. That's nearly 90 euro a year and the only thing that is actually an addition server side is syncing settings across devices and the Tidal integration (requires license fees iirc).

And sure, I can't buy multiroom speakers for that kind of money, but damn, is it expensive.

I'm a big fan of the way Plex does it. I paid like 100 dollars a decade ago and all my apps stay up to date forever

What's great about it is that it's optional and not forced on you. I'm a Plexamp power user so it makes sense to me with my expansive music collection

I generally hate them in consumer-targeted apps. Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with the model. Devs have to keep the lights on, especially if there is a cloud service behind the app. It's all about what pricing model they set. However, pricing is hard. A lot of companies really screw this up right at the start. I also think a lot of businesses cannot resist the temptation to boil the frog and ask for more and more over time, until their pricing is way out of alignment with value delivery.

Don't remember the name but there was a magisk module manager that had ads and didn't even install the modules. Just downloaded them after an ad. It asked money for removing ads

There's was a scanner app that I loved, for Android. Turned into a subscription, even though most people use it less than once a month and even though the app was basically complete and never got updates.

No app should be a subscription

Companies are using subscription models because it has proven to be far more profitable than a one-time purchase. Why sell the product to each person just once when you can sell it to them over and over again? You no longer have to constantly develop new products and versions, and you now only have to maintain your existing product.

And it works because people buy it.

a VR app called "Supernatural" that was a fitness based beat saber clone

Adobe CC. They've added new features recently to justify a subscription, but it's still not that good of a pitch. Some editors will have offline PCs so that their software doesn't get fucked up by anything (SUPER common in music), so having a subscription model works against professional users of their software.

Apps that provide server time either synchronizing data and storing information or providing an api to bring info to the device.
Data intensive apps like windy can charge whatever they need, now MF like Strava pushing an $79/yr for routes is about BS.