Paid updates would be a disaster. Can you imagine giving every two-bit developer the power to say &quot;this update costs $0.99&quot; and all they did is change the font. Your phone would be a sea of shitty paid updates. Many customers would not update their apps, and the user base would become fragmented. Customers would become wary of buying apps for fear of being ripped off by endless updates.<p>You may say &quot;ah but the good developers wouldn&#x27;t do that&quot; but unfortunately someone&#x27;s always gonna piss in the pool.<p>The current buy-once model is better. Subscription&#x2F;IAP model is better for something like this.