people seriously had the balls to whine about this app going free?

while trolling the tech blogs I frequent, I came across
this story
and for your sanity, I post it below. Comments, etc. to follow.

State of Touch Typing – Fleksy goes free
by fleksy on 15/2/2013
Fleksy was first released on iOS in July 2012. As we turn Fleksy into a free app 8 months later, we feel we are starting an exciting new chapter in our story, and we take some time to explain our decision.
Fleksy started from our own frustration when typing on today’s touch-screen devices – a frustration shared by two thirds of smartphone users today. Right from the start, we felt that typing was one of the functions that made smartphones feel not so smart.
We set the bar really high – a typing system that is so intuitive, you don’t have to always look at the screen to type. Just as you do on your laptop. And thus Fleksy was born.
We looked for a market to launch our technology to – a group that we felt would most benefit from our inventions, and arguably a group of users that would challenge us to keep innovating until we deliver on our promise. So we launched an app for blind users.
In a space of a just a few months, our users have propelled us from an accessibility app to being recognized as a mainstream technology and one of the biggest innovations to come to mobile devices in a while.
Firstly, we want to say a big and honest thank you.
We have always seen our keyboard as a universal technology, and as something that can help millions of users be more productive in their daily lives. We are today very happy to see that we are well on track on this mission, and we are working hard to integrate our technology in the next generation of hardware and software to come.
We realize that a good virtual keyboard is something users expect to be integrated on their device and be available in every application. This is by far the biggest request from our iOS users, and one that we can unfortunately not provide until each platform we target supports such functionality.
In our effort to bring Happy Typing to even more users, what we can do is make Fleksy on iOS free for everyone. We feel that making Fleksy part of the daily lives of many more people will help us continue to showcase how smartphones can be made both more accessible and useful for everyone.
Your App Store reviews, tweets, feedback messages, support, and advocacy can help us achieve this. Please, keep it up – there’s even a button in the app to do that!
We will continue to innovate and research, as well as support and update the Fleksy iOS app in the way you’ve come to expect from us. We stay fully committed to the iOS platform.
And as a final thought, we wanted to thank all those users who have downloaded and purchased Fleksy to date. We would have not been able to create or support the technology without your help, let alone expand our efforts to bring it to the hands of many more users.
If you haven’t experienced eyes-free typing, try Fleksy. We think you will never look back.
Thank you, again, from all of us here in San Francisco.
Happy Typing!
The Fleksy Team

OK, so let’s move on to the responses.
I’m apart of the
VIPhone
mailing list hosted on
google groups
and when the blog post I posted above is mailed out, this andy person replies with the following, and I quote the message for you.

—–Original Message—–
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andy Baracco
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 1:46 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Fleksy is now free
This is the kind of thing that really pisses me off.
Andy

I replied to this fool, basically telling him the following, in list form.

  • companies have the right to make there apps free
  • what right do you have to complain about an app that’s gone free that you had to pay for?
  • if people like yourself hadn’t supported this app, weather at it’s original price of $15, it’s sale price of $9.95, it’s then reduced perminant price of $4.95 and the odd sale for $1.99, would the app have then gone free? a big fat no!

in summary, nock off the complaining, it’s unwarranted, and unnecessary.
I bought this app at a reduced price, as I caught a sale, would I have paid $15? Now that I’ve used it so much? Yes. Did I initially think it wasn’t worth the price? I’ll honestly say I did, but after I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase it, I wouldn’t live without it. Will I complain that my support made this app free? Absolutely not. It’s the nature of the beast, and people need to remember this.
Thanks for reading.
Have a great night all.

1 thought on “people seriously had the balls to whine about this app going free?”

  1. You’re absolutely right. I’m glad to have supported them and happy for what they’ve been able to do. And if the next step is managing to make themselves an available keyboard in all IOS apps, all the better. I’m not exaggerating one bit when I say that without Fleksy, I wouldn’t find my iPhone nearly as useful as I do. It’s made things so much easier and more pleasant. It would have been a bargain at twice the price.

    Reply

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