This article is both low-effort and uninformative. TFA states they have never used the app, but there are "lessons to be learned."
I got more information about the subject by reading this comment thread.
The brouhaha doesn't really have to do with the negative reviews he's dished out over the years, but rather the brazenly low-effort cash grab nature of what he put out. A wallpaper app in 2024 has me harkening back to '06 when Verizon would sell ringtones for 3 bucks a pop.
The last sentence reads as rather entitled.
Photography and art do take skill and effort. Artists should be compensated instead of random internet commenters demanding free pretty pictures.
…that said. $50/yr with 50% margins going to running the app sounds unfair and crazy. I’d be much more comfortable if more of the slice of dough went to the artists.
Sure, artists deserve to be paid. They won't get much out of whatever this mess is because Marques takes 50%, and that's after the app stores take their 30% cut.
It reads like the authors wants to rip apart MKBHD but is withholding some of his harsher words because he's... felt bad about doing the same before? That's fine but he's doing neither here by mentioning how he's resolving to be less critical.
IMHO, MKBHD's whole schtick is reviewing things critical (or positively), the way it's presented right now as opposed to how it might pan out down the road. And for a Youtuber with an eye for attention to detail, this Frankenstein app with a $50 price tag is truly terrible. I'd say why not give him the treatment he gives others?
Somewhat unrelated, I can’t deselect text on mobile here. Once I’ve accidentally selected something, the only thing I can do is select something else.
Anyways the big consensus I’ve heard about panels is that 1) $50 a year is a poor value for most people, 2) a 50% revenue split with the artists without which there would not be an app is insulting, and 3) releasing a podcast episode to “address the controversy” and failing to discuss the two most common issues made people feel ignored and belittled.
> releasing a podcast episode to “address the controversy”
The #1 method for damage control is to try to control the narrative, mostly by completely ignoring the main criticisms leveled at them.
I experienced the same text selection bug and I somehow managed to get the text to unselect by panic tapping the very edge of the margin like a claustrophobe in a bubble.
Om Malik has been on the Internet for decades and he's writing in to ask people to be nice? Ah, the naivety.