10 hours ago
Nothing says an Essential Space premium tier could be in the cards in the future
In the interview, Pei describes the code we found as 'zombie strings' that were left there during development. He adds that in its current form, Essential Space will remain free. However, he doesn't rule out the possibility of a premium tier being added in the future:
So I think that's what happened, somebody got their hands on an older version of the APK and they decompiled it and saw that there [were] some strings related to charging for Essential Space. That was never in the production software, it was just like zombie strings we had there for while we were developing it.
But I think at the same time, we've not been that great at communicating. We saw the feedback and the questions and we didn't really tell people what's coming. But I think since then, we've clarified that, at least the current scope of the features, there won't be a charge. There might be a premium tier in the future. I think most smartphone companies are also developing a premium tier.
For us right now, Essential Space is pretty bare bones. It's like in a preview mode. We think it's probably 10% done, [with] 90% left to build. If we're going to charge, it has to be some substantial value that people can get out of it and not just the current product.
