Comment by Deceptichum@quokk.au on Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app

Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, faced backlash over his new wallpaper app, Panels, due to its high subscription cost ($49.99/year) and concerns over excessive data permissions.

Brownlee acknowledged user feedback, promising to adjust ad frequency for free users and address privacy concerns, clarifying that the app’s data disclosures were broader than intended.

The app, which offers curated wallpapers and shares profits with artists, aims to improve over time, despite criticisms of its design and monetization approach.

$50 a year for wallpapers or I could go to wallhaven and get millions for free?

The “shares its profits with the artists” part is relevant here.

It would almost be cheaper to commission an artist frankly.

For a single piece sure.

I presume the idea here is that you have access to their full library. Personally, I fail to see why I would change my wallpaper enough to warrant even a free app to change it, let alone 50 bucks.

Almost is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Nah it’d be cheaper to commission the artist for a dozen or so pictures for 45 bucks:

First you need to blow some ungodly amount of money on breaking the time/space barrier… Then travel back to the 1920s and find a starving artist. Then pitch him 45 bucks for some art. Easy! 45 bucks to them is like 800 of our today dollars.

Sarcasm aside- it seems people really are disconnected on how much a commission or art costs. Sure you can buy prints reasonably priced but any commission that isn’t a speedy doodle is going to clock in a helluva lot higher.

If you know an artist doing commissions that cheap they are depressed, desperate, or want to fuck you.

Could just commission someone on Fiverr for an original artwork

One piece digitally drawn in an hour or two maybe. Otherwise it is likely premade, generated, or not their source. Yeah- if you are talking backgrounds for a phone they could be more abstract or start with a base but for 45 bucks? That buys you an hour or two of that artists time- three if they like the idea or you.

Fiverr is the worst. They enable abusive clients to find victims, and AI con artists to find marks.

So that sounds exceptionally awful. You have any more info on that?

But that’s the best type of artist

… why are they always so goddamn hot.

Just use a free wallpaper app and pay a random artist 25 bucks

I’m an artist who has uploaded many of my works to wallhaven entirely for free online, alongside the games I put out and any other creative venture I’ve pursued over the years.

That part is problematic not relevant.

okay, cool, but I am going to assume you don’t speak for all artists.

No one speaks for all X.

Did he disclose an amount?

5% to artists is very different than 40% to artists.

Or is he adopting the Spotify bottom line?

Only pay artists after X downloads and only pay a few cents after thousands of downloads and use the rest for profits

It’s 50%, which is honestly quite low

50% is quite decent and is 20% higher than most other “decent” services including physical stores. Building and keeping an app up to date with ever changing content requires at least a part time developer which is expensive.

Well the baseline is that most wallpaper apps, which don’t pay artists afaik, charge like $5 a year, so if you’re gonna charge me 50, I expect 90% to go to artists

This. Hell you can generate literally endless wallpapers for free.

The wallpapers are nice but the website is hideous and unusable.

Edit: typo

Typo, my bed

(intentional this time, it’s late)

the website is hideous and unusable

huh?

Used it on desktop, had to create account, even after that kept giving me errors that i need an account…

Use Muzei and either curate your own collection or pull in one of their pre-made ones.

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Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app(www.theverge.com)

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