- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, faced backlash over his new wallpaper app, Panels, due to its high subscription cost ($49.99/year) and concerns over excessive data permissions.
Brownlee acknowledged user feedback, promising to adjust ad frequency for free users and address privacy concerns, clarifying that the app’s data disclosures were broader than intended.
The app, which offers curated wallpapers and shares profits with artists, aims to improve over time, despite criticisms of its design and monetization approach.
New “LOOK I AM RICH” app.
I hear you, but I hear the money counter MORE
I hear you, but it was worth a try.
Paying for ANY wallpaper is just silly, much less a subscription model.
The only time you should pay for one if it’s an artist you want to actively support and/or thank for that specific work.
For the last 30 years, they’ve been trying to charge for dumb shit like wallpapers, screen savers, mouse cursors.
Who are these people who buy them? And what’s wrong with you?
ringtones baby
Crazy Frog itensifies
When toy story came out, i saw this toy story pc game. I put all my money together just to then find out that it wasn’t a game, it was a cd rom with like 12 wallpapers on it.
Paying for wallpapers is just not justifiable to me, especially when there are so many sources that offer high quality wallpapers for free, from apps to dedicated forums to simply online search.
It’s cool for people with lots of extra cash I guess. I like that 50% of profits go to the artists.
That said, I am certainly not one of those people with extra money to spend on wallpapers. Seems like we’re not the target demographic.
Maybe that’s part of this guy’s problem here. His channel has a broader appeal than the app, so the people outside the app’s target demographic got irritated.
“I hear you”
Corporate PR phrase detected. Product mentally blacklisted
Yeah, you last part us on point. This is for smaller demographic while the subscribers of his YT channel is more average tech enthusiasts.
Muzei - a free wallpaper changer on f-droid
It has many sources for images, like NASA APOD, masterpieces, NatGeo, Ghibli and others.
Walpy is also pretty good. Has various categories and credits each wallpaper′s author.
Haven’t watched him in forever. Has he reached full money grab?
Wow I had no idea the subscription was that much. He mentioned it in a video without saying the price and I still wouldn’t do it.
Wallpapers on phone are useless because apps are always full screen.
Who would pay for such thing?
No sane individual is going to pay for a subscription for phone backgrounds.
That is absolutely a stupid business idea and the people who came up with it should be publicly shamed.
I’ve not looked into it, but it’s probably pitched as a feel-good way of supporting artists.
You think it’s new? It’s have already done by so many people in Android community. Like Widepaper, Wallfever, Wallbyte etc. These all apps are paid. People actually pay for Wallpapers.
I think buying an app for a couple of quid that has a good curated collection of wallpapers, a nice UX, etc. is a completely fair price to pay for the convenience. I like supporting devs. I fail to see the stupidity.
A $12 monthly subscription is an entirely different beast, though.
Or even a market that let you just buy individual wallpapers as you want them, like how you used to be able to buy individual tracks in itunes instead of a whole album.
A subscription model is a bit silly.
Remember when people paid for ringtones? Doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid, especially as a subscription, but people do stupid things and other people take advantage.
And Ringback tones too. For when people called you, so they could listen to your favorite song instead of the ring of the phone while waiting for you to pick up.
I forgot about that! And most songs sound like ass when you hear it over a phone, especially before whatever they did in the last decade to make voice calls more clear
Homie spreads apple propaganda like aids, he’s an awful tech influencer
MKBD covers all major manufacturers at this point. Unless you want him to say that Apple sucks, don’t see what the complaint is?
What? He’s in the pocket of all the major OEMs. He’s had zero credibility for years because of this, but he’s never been more deferential to Apple than he has been to Samsung or Google.
deleted by creator
I’ve never liked this guy, he just always felt like a smarmy asshole each time I tried to watch him and he shilled Apple stuff way too hard for my liking. Blocked his channel and several channels that collabed with him and was mostly able to ignore his existence. Doing something shitty like this kinda adds confirmation to my perceptions of him. What an out of touch douche move.
50/50 cut is borderline predatory. It should be 30/70. It feels like marques is so out of touch with common people.
30% is still predatory imo. Especially for a glorified marketplace with an image delivery system.
He is fronting money for development. Which is not cheap.
Once dev cost stabilizes, I would love to have a better split for artists.
Dev cost is less than you’d think. And lowering costs when you make an app that’s meant to generate money for you? That will never happen.
Spoken like a true non-developer.