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Comment by rtkwe | Hacker News Reader

You could approximate it with extensive feature flagging to disable/hide new features for people with old "versions" of the app.

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Working Copy on iOS does this _brilliantly._

> The features you unlock are permanently available and any other pro features added the next 12 months after purchase are also permanently available. After one year new pro features introduced will be locked until you purchase a upgrade. Even if you do not purchase a new unlock after 12 months, the app will still be updated with improvements and bug-fixes.

https://workingcopy.app/manual/purchase

Yes! I was going to comment the same, it's a very reasonable model from a developer who makes great software. I recently within the last year switched from the Blink shell to his app "Shellfish" as it's become a daily part of my workflow when using my iOS devices. I highly recommend it if you like workingcopy.

sounds like a nightmare and a half given enough time.

Oh yeah I didn't say it was a great option but it's AN option and could be managed so long as your features are relatively self contained modules.

Major websites such as Airbnb have dozens to hundreds of feature flags which they use to run A/B experiments.

And so there is plenty of software available e.g. LaunchDarkly to help simplify the process.

there's a difference between temporary feature flags which eventually go away and permanent ones. say you build a new feature that has some overlap with an existing feature flagged one, and you unify some of the UI for it. now you have to always check what the UI looks like with one feature flag, with both, with none. as time goes on this gets worse, and maybe 3 or more features start overlapping in some way. If you're just using feature flags for A/B tests, this is manageable, but over time it can get really messy.

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