Ulysses does look like a nice app. It also looks like a nice app if you were writing a novel or something more than a journal and when you add up the costs it cost more than Day One. It's $44.99 for the Mac and $24.99 on iOS. That's basically $70.
I've had Ulysses since 2014. Since my initial purchase, Ulysses has been kept up to date with several major MacOS versions, and seen numerous updates with added features, design refinements, output options.
Yes it's one price and what's to say that next week they might introduce a subscription plan or even a new version in 7 months and you'll have to buy it all over.
1. If they picked up the rental model, which I don't think they will because they're not ***holes, I'd stick with my existing version and look to migrate my work out of Ulysses in the future.
2. If a new paid version comes out, there would be a discount, not a full re-purchase, I'm sure. So no, I'm not going to be "buying it all over"
If you've been a Day One 2.0 user you'd only pay $24.99/year so basically you are covered for the next 3 years of Premium. How many times will Ulysses be upgraded in the next 3 years at $74 a pop?
Even if they stopped updating it and it broke TODAY -- which is not happening -- I've paid $70 and gotten three years of great use out of it. And that's just so far. I quite reasonably expect to be using Ulysses for a
minimum of 1-2 more years before there's a paid upgrade -- and that upgrade won't cost the full price of the software either. You're also forgetting that companies who sell their software outright almost always give existing users an upgrade discount, particularly for those who bought right before a major paid upgrade. So your "$74 a pop" doesn't really hold water.
Since this is about software pricing, let's do the math on this so far, hypothetically, from the perspective of a new user.
- Day One Pro is $50/year for a new user. Over the course of three years, you're spending $150, and that just keeps going
forever. Over 5 years, $250. Over 7 years, $350.
- Ulysses is an outright purchase. I've used it, and seen many upgrades, for three full years and counting. It's actually conceivable I'll have used it for 4-5 years off that one purchase, but let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say your purchase gets you 3 years of use. As a new user you can buy both iOS and Mac apps for $70. Sync is free via iCloud.
$150 vs $70. Your "cup of coffee a month" pricing just cost more than twice as much just in that time span, and a whole lot more if I use Ulysses for 1-2 more years.
So yeah, I'm very happy with my purchase. Also, if they stopped updating Ulysses at this moment, I would have the option of continuing to use it
forever without forking over another dime because I OWN IT and don't rent it. Same goes for OmniFocus, another app I paid well for and have been using for years. I like to support developers who offer a fair deal.
We get it, you love Day One, and for you, the pricing is worth it, so enjoy -- but insisting that somehow this pricing model is better for the consumer than outright purchase... well the math just isn't on your side here, my friend.
Don't get me wrong, Ulysses would be a good replacement, but is it really worth going through the hassle of trading in the ease and control and specialized design of Day One that you've been using for something new?
Apples to oranges. Ulysses is a full-featured writing platform, suitable for organizing and managing multiple projects. It has customizable output styles and plugs in to things like Wordpress and exports styled text in all kinds of ways. So yeah, it's massively overkill for just writing a "journal". I endorsed it because someone else mentioned it and one
could use it for journalling, but it would be overkill to use it for just that. Again, one could use basically any app in the world for journalling, "ease and control" of Day One aside -- journalling is just typing an entry every day, last I checked.
