I do believe many companies are employing this practice with freemium apps. There is something bigger happening here with freemium. At first we all called it "race to the bottom" pricing. And if felt like that. If felt like the value of our apps were dwindling to stay competitive.

But let's just look at how things were for a second. If you sold an app for 4.99 you making a promise to the consumer that you would deliver value equal or greater than your price. And you if you didn't keep that promise it was up to the consumer to get a refund or suck it up. This was largely a pre-internet thing. The internet has made distribution a non-issue. Now you can get your products and ideas out there for little to no cost.

What we are seeing is an opportunity to show initial value to our users and offer higher value at a premium. This increases the reach of our work and helps us to find those 1000 true fans. Of course, we have to nurture those relationships. It's a lot of work.

I don't think there is anything wrong with premium pricing. People are use to it still. Why aren't we just focusing on the value we bring to people and whether it's premium or freemium none of it would be an issue.

It can be done responsibly. But unfortunately, I agree it's mostly predatory.