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I'm surprised to not see a lot of one-time payment web apps. With my side project - https://gifmemes.io (shameless plug), I've experimented with Google Adsense and in a month, it made on about 5 % of what I got from one-time watermark removal payments, so I've turned it off. I've thought about experimenting with subscription as well, but just found it too repulsive for that kind of project.

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One-time payment for web apps doesn't work for 2 reasons (1) web apps have recurring costs (i.e. hosting, but also any updates are released for 'free' since it's really hard to pin a user on the specific version they 'bought'), (2) developers want recurring payments. there's less barrier to entry if you can sell your $1000 software for $50/mo instead.

I cannot fathom why one time micro payments are not at least commonly found. I would have no problem paying my a newspaper or magazine say 20-50 cents for 24 hours of access. Id probably end up spending >€30 a month across several publications (if it could be done in one click). But monthly? Recurring subscription? No and no.

So I pay nothing. And get mad about the dire content, ad tracking, and state of the internet.

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