I am turning a web-app into a mobile app, starting with Android. For a couple different reasons listed below I want use of the app to be subscription based (eg a couple bucks a year to use it). I am finding the Google/Play Store in-app subscription process a “little” daunting for my limited patience and brainpower for something that seems like it should be fairly simple to implement. I will probably end up turning to one of the third-party options (eg RevenueCat), but it occured to me that maybe hardwiring an end date into the app’s functionality was at least a possibility.

The reasons I want it to be subscription based and think an expiration date might be a good idea include: It is mostly seasonal in use so a firm expiration date of when it is not generally being used shouldn’t be a real problem; It relies on data from a lot of sources I do not control that may vanish at any time; I am the opposite of young and I could vanish or be unable to maintain at any time. By having an expiration date that is fully disclosed I would not feel guilty if I was unable to maintain or keep up with things beyond a certain point.

So I was thinking something along the lines of Excel (eg 2016, 2019, 2021) or Madden (eg every year), where I know those technically work into the future one has to purchase a new one to get all the latest.

I realize that for each yearly incarnation I would have to do some leg-work of changing app package names and creating a new app in Play Store etc. instead of just posting an update, but that seems fairly trivial compared to dealing with the Google Billing subscriptions process.

I scrubbed the internet relentlessly and saw very few mentions of app expiration dates which makes me think this maybe shouldn’t be a thing, but I don’t know why.

What am I missing? Downsides or something that is just escaping me..

I tried understanding Google Billing API subsciption docs and realized I was in over my head.