A sudden 50% price hike on Google Play?

[f1refliesss]

Hello!

I wanted to purchase the LibrePods upgrade through Google Play. When I checked last week, the in-app purchase was €4.99. Now, the price has suddenly increased to €7.49. That's a 50% price increase.

Does anyone know why the price was suddenly increased? And is the old €4.99 price likely to come back?

Thanks!

[kavishdevar]

[..] why the price was suddenly increased?

Short answer: fund development because I don't want this project to end up like a lot of other open source projects.

Long answer:

I was going to announce this a bit more formally in the next few weeks when I have everything finalized, but here's something on the general direction this project is headed. I can't give specifics because I haven't decided myself.

Until now I've been working on the app myself. Sure there have been small contributions to the Android and Linux apps, but I'd say this has mostly been a personal project. I'd like to to change that.

The project needs more maintainers. I've been getting less and less time to work on the project now that I'm in college, and I can't dedicate time like I used to- fixing small bugs here and there and making releases whenever I want. So, not only is my time worth more, but if I need this project to sustain at all, I will need more people to work on it, which would need money.

The project is fiscally hosted by Open Source Collective.

Part of the Play revenue will be going to the collective. Again, I can't say how much just yet, or if a portion of whatever the app has made until now will be transferred to the collective.

I know all this is very vague, I will be writing proper policies for payouts and revenue split (to my personal account and to the collective) as soon as I have the time.

side note: one thing I know for sure is that AI generated contributions are not welcome (for payouts, and otherwise) unless the contributor "knows what they're doing" (vague, I'm aware) or just a part not-so-important to the contribution is generated. like if somebody is implementing heart rate monitoring, the UI would be "not-so-important", and is acceptable if it's consistent with rest of the app.

And is the old €4.99 price likely to come back?

Most likely not. But, I might run discounts occasionally.

I hope that answers your questions!

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Collaborative Money Management
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