$30 to read RSS feeds? Really?

[divigation]

So Times dropped today. Its an extremely slick RSS reader designed beautifully in that OS X sort of way that most of us love. But it costs $30. Talk about asinine. NetNewsWire is free, NewsFire is free, Google Reader is free. Am i missing something that makes slickness worth $30? It has no functionality that is not available elsewhere for free, and already proven and tested mind you. It touts that it doesn't lack any features that the others have, but I just don't get it. For $30 you get to have your feeds look pretty, like a newspaper. Oh but wait, I have tons of RSS feeds including the news because I don't want to read the newspaper. I am all for beautiful apps and was somewhat interested in Times just because the screenshots were really slick, but $30 is just moronic. I think it should be $50 at least, if you have $30 to blow on sheer aesthetics, then you have $50 and that extra twenty will help make up for the fact that the majority of users who are into Mac slickness aren't going to drop $30 on a reader that brings nothing to the game.

/endrant

[lonnie]

I agree. I know this guy states he's been secretly developing this for a year and a half - and I'm sure he didn't expect NetNewsWire and NewsFire to up and go free while he was working on it. But all that aside, I don't care how nice it might look I doubt I'd spend $30 on it. We'll see.

[Yuiichi]

You pointed out the major problem with Times divigation - it doesn't seem to have a way to handle many RSS feeds at once. Although I don't have all that many, I still think that it would be a hassle to look through them like it was a newspaper. Novel idea, but I think that's all that it is - a novelty.

[baseballboy828]

It's a classic delicious generation app. It's prettier than its competitors, lacks the power of competing products, and is overpriced. NNW was $30 when it was shareware. If it still was $30, I'd much rather have a more powerful app in NNW than a slick app that's missing features for the same price.

[philbowell]

I agree with most of what's been said. It is an innovative approach to RSS reading, but I can't really see it having much use for someone with more than a few feeds. It also seems expensive. I was about to drop $30 (£15) on NNW before it went free, but that's because it offered syncing of feeds with multiple Macs. If Times was to offer that then maybe it would be an understandable fee.

[Ziggamorph]

I really like Times. I'm using it in addition to NNW, and I think it's great at what it does. I can scan through a lot of feeds, seeing if there is anything I want to read, but I don't feel any compulsion to read EVERYTHING. The best thing is I've been able to cut down on my NNW subscriptions, which saves me a lot of time.

[wantedcreative]

I have been using the demo of Times since Friday. Usually when I use a demo of a product I can tell by the end of the first day if I'm going to buy it or not.

For some reason I just can't decide with Times. I'm torn because I like the way it works, I like that it is trying to do something a little different. However, it's lacking so many basic features that at times I can't even understand why I am using it.

I think if I purchased times today it would be based on future potential and not merit, for $30 I just can't take the risk that it will turn out like some of the other delicious generation apps and just be forgotten by the developer a month from now.

It's a cool concept but I think I'm going to have to wait till version 1.5 or even a 2 before I plunk down my money for it.

[beley]

Times looks pretty slick, but when I opened it for the first time it ran for about 30 seconds and died. Opened it again, same. I don't know if it just didn't like one of the other programs that were running or what. I'm going to give it another try with nothing running to see if I can get it to work.

I don't mind plopping down $30 for an RSS reader. I see RSS as a productivity boost and a better RSS reader increases my productivity even more. Before RSS readers, I'd actually browse around to my favorite blogs and news sites, reading latest articles. Now I can skim headlines and read the articles I want - it saves me a ton of time. The better the reader, the more time I'd save (I assume).