- 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.
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Muzei - a free wallpaper changer on f-droid
It has many sources for images, like NASA APOD, masterpieces, NatGeo, Ghibli and others.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are infinite list of things and services that are way too expensive for me to even consider buying but I also don’t go around complaining about them. Move on guys… If you want free wallpapers you can try one of the other 9000 free wallpaper apps available. This is recreational outrage.
Who would pay for this?
Marques has a decent chunk of his fan base that’s…kinda rich? That’s the only thing that can explain why he reviews supercars and expects people to use their phone without a case. So if he’s directing some of that fan base’s money toward artists, I’m all for it, assuming the profit sharing is reasonable (and I have no reason to believe it’s not).
I mean, I’m not going to pay that sort of money on a wallpaper (I almost always use photos of family or friends anyway). But if the people who buy it like it, and the people who sell art for it are treated well, you go MKBHD.
I use my phone without a case too, phones don’t break that easily. I even dropped it on stone tiles once when I missed my pocket and it only got a few scratches on the side from that.
If what others have said about there being a solid orange wallpaper, I have questions about the art
I feel this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but if you want unique wallpapers, consider paying an actual artist, instead of an influencer
If I want a unique wallpaper I go on a walk in the great outdoors and take a picture
most unique things outdoors are photographed already
So it makes sense to spend $50 a year on some pictures of those things that are already photographed?
I’m not sure how many times the things you’re taking a picture of has been photographed matters even slightly.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Avoid sites like Fiver, though. Lots of AI bullshit pretending to be real art.
Even before the flood of AI bullshit Fiverr really, really sucked for the human artists, creatives, coders, and other freelancers employed through the platform.
I made a Fiverr account once for my art services. I deleted it within an hour of creation after reading how much money they would steal from my commissions.
I don’t think that’s going to be an unpopular opinion around here. Maybe a little tricky in the logistics of distinguishing between an artist and influencer and finding an artist who you like and can pay for a phone background, but other than that you’re not going to find many Lemmings saying “no, pay an influencer!”
Apparently one of the wallpapers is just solid orange. It’s called “Orange”, is labeled as “abstract”, and is labeled with a copyright.
It’s a solid orange rectangle.
Anish Kapoor strikes again
Maybe it’s inspired by Rothko
The artist spent a lot of time on that!
Months to get that perfect shade of orange.
It costs $49.99 per year (or $11.99 per month)
Why in the hell does the monthly price end with you paying 280% more than the yearly. That is such an absurd discount I don’t even know why someone would pay at all for this app but more so I want to understand where the price justification is and who came up with this plan.
To be clear I support artists and more than welcome a platform for them to share and sell art if they wish… I don’t get why it needs to be a subscription service and I don’t see how such inflated charges are going to help artists as it’ll just discourage large numbers of people wanting to support them.
Probably because you can pay for a month and download all the wallpapers and cancel.
Short version: there’s an $80 bread maker with 5 features, a $120 bread maker with 12 features, and a $475 bread maker with 14 features.
The $475 bread maker only exists to make the $120 version look like a bargain.
Also the nature of a wallpaper app, maybe you just want to plop in get a wallpaper and scamper off into the sunset.
Matter of fact for the $50 a year price I could sign back up for a month twice a year and still come out on top.
But in the end you get more feature for a higher price. In this case it’s the same app for different prices depending on time frame… not to mention the app has no purpose beyond finding a wallpaper so it only really has 1 feature.
The point is not whether there are more features. The point is to give you an incentive to go yearly, and in this case it’s a huge “discount” even though it’s in no way worth the monthly cost. The monthly plan isn’t meant to sell you the monthly plan. It’s meant to make the yearly plan look good.
I want to understand where the price justification is
The justification is that people should be yearly subscribers when they can more easily forget to cancel it.
I started to get worked up but then i remembered I don’t particularly care. He’s in it to make bank, not necessarily sell you a quality product. If he were, he wouldn’t be selling a wallpaper app.
Yeah it seems like a weird thing to get mad about. No one is forcing anyone to pay this guy for his wallpaper app. Keep watching his videos if you enjoy them or don’t. The wallpaper app seems as inconsequential as his DBrand shilling. I watch his reviews every year and I’ve never bought anything from DBrand lol. Mostly because the products look like shit tbh.
That just about sums it up.
Wasn’t he also behind the redline icon pack (which I do actually like) but yeah subscription for something you can easily find your own images or even just ask an AI to make.
Subscriptions aren’t something I’ll ever buy into software wise and if they are offering an actual service it better be worth the money and give me more than an image.
