That's why most startups use it. But we are bootstrapped, with my own money, and have zero plans to invest or sell. We do subscriptions because it's how OUR costs work. That's how we buy data from alllll the providers, so that's how we bill. *For right now* if Flighty is not worth $4/month for you, then we must focus on the users that it IS worth that for. We do this because at 1-2 trips per month that means $1-2 per flight, which is what we would charge anyway for "packs". So for your "core" users, it's better value, less work for the user, less work for us, our incentives are aligned, and we can buy more data and work on improving the app in confidence.
Maybe that's too candid to a fault, but that's just me, and the honest to god truth. Sure, we may do packs way down the road.
Everyone uses Dark Sky as an example
. My first app was Weather Line, before joining Apple, and then leaving to do Flighty and Weather Line 2. I was the first 3 apps to use Dark Sky's data and I know John and Adam well. Here's the thing... Dark Sky iOS app is marketing for their weather data. It's not a business. It's a marketing cost. That's why when they made Android it's subs! By my estimates, they make $1M per year revenue off the iOS app and $20M++ off the data business. Anyone else, that doesn't own the data, would make $1M revenue and maybe $50-100k/year in profits after paying data costs and Apple.
(Do you folks want answers like this, long and winding and about my/our app world, or just want me to hear the feedback and tally a vote for one-time pack purchases? Serious question.)
Let me put it back to you, if you are willing to volley a bit: If you were me, how would you charge for Flighty, with this context: Our data, server, and engineering costs are insane, let's call it $0.50 cents per flight (not true, but masking it from competitors). You can't say "decrease my costs" becuase I'm always trying to do that! How can I sell Flighty for $X up front for your entire life, while you fly 4-6 times per week?
I hope this isn't too frank. The volley back and forth I love.