Firing Shots, fixing a broken industry
The app marketplace has taken thousands of small, useful ideas and turned them into permanent bills. A tool that should cost a few dollars now wants a monthly payment. A simple feature becomes a “premium experience.” Software you use occasionally starts charging rent as if it were providing an essential service every day.
Worse, some apps sell you the problem and the solution. A step tracker charges a yearly fee to count the steps your phone already records, then builds a system of streaks, penalties and tokens around that number. Miss a day? Buy or earn something so the app will pretend you didn’t. The tool stops serving you and starts managing you.
When a journal app asks for $99 every year so you can write down your own thoughts, something has gone wrong. Your words are yours. Your steps are yours. Your records, routines and private information should not become leverage for another recurring payment.
Some software genuinely needs a subscription. Servers cost money. Live collaboration, licensed content and ongoing human services cost money. But too many ordinary utilities have copied that model simply because recurring revenue looks better on a spreadsheet.
Simpliq is our answer. We’re building focused apps with clear prices, no required Simpliq account, no advertising profile and no monthly Simpliq rent. Buy the complete experience once and receive updates for the supported lifetime of the app.
Subscriptions, Journal, Steps and Proof are only the beginning. Each one has a specific job. Each one should feel like a tool you bought, not a bill you adopted.
This is our line in the sand: useful software, a fair price and no rent.