After purchasing my Galaxy Note 3, I did what most people do — I loaded all of my favorite Android apps. One of these was the paid app Weatherbug Elite, which I had originally bought for the G1. Unfortunately, it is no longer supported or in the Play Store — the only available version is the unpaid (and ad-riddled) version.
I hope this doesn’t signify a trend. However, now that most Android apps and games are free — with either ads or in app purchases — it doesn’t surprise me to see paid versions of other apps going away. After all, the developer of WeatherBug, Earth Networks, would like a constant stream of money coming from the ads versus not making a dime from someone like me who bought the app 6 years ago.
While I don’t like the fact that an app I paid for is no longer there. In this case, I loaded the free Android app anyway, as I have not found anything that comes close to what WeatherBug has done for me for so long. The sad part is if they decided to have users pay again, I would do it; I liked the ad-free version enough that I would pay for it again. Instead, I get ads for things I don’t care about and probably wouldn’t buy.
What would you think? Be it Android Apps or iOS apps, if an app you had paid for disappeared from the app store, would you switch to another app entirely? Or would you load the ad-supported free version of that favorite app that had served you well for many years?