Connect IQ Monetization System vs own payment system - increase in sales?

SzymonP said:

It is suprising that the payment system works only for new devices 

flocsy🤠 said:

Yeah, we'll never know why. Probably the OS checks something. Maybe paid apps are being signed by Garmin before you down load them to prevent side losing them to another device.

That's not "why", that's "how". I think when SzymonP said "it is suprising that the payment system works only for new devices", he was referring to Garmin's decision for it to be that way (monetization is restricted to newer devices), not the technical details of how the restriction is accomplished.

Yes, it sucks that apps which used to be free may crash once they are changed to use Garmin Pay, but I don't think that's what he was talking about. Besides, the docs on monetization do say that once an app is changed to use monetization, existing users are asked to either pay or stop using the app (I think the actual wording is closer to: they have pay if they wish to continue using the app). (The details of how the user would be forced to stop using the app were always fuzzy, but I guess now we know.) This does contradict some earlier talk about how users could just choose not to upgrade and thereby continue to use the last free version of an app, but oh well.

Anyway, just my 2 cents, but I don't think the restriction itself it's surprising at all. Seems to me that in recent years, Garmin has chosen to move away from supporting older devices, and this decision looks like one of the ways that Garmin is focusing on newer devices.

e.g.

- System 7 (and beyond) only supports CIQ 5 devices (which includes devices which were formerly CIQ 4). Old CIQ 3 devices have been abandoned (in the sense that they no longer get CIQ updates). Recall the entire "System X" scheme was created in the first place so that CIQ could roll out releases which had new features for both old CIQ 3 devices and newer CIQ 4 devices

- The forums for all devices older than a certain age were suddenly archived. (This is *not* something that had previously happened on any kind of rolling basis - it looks like like at some point, "management" just said "archive the forums for all devices older than X years / Y date.)

- Monetization is only for newer devices (except for Fenix Pro Series, which is the oldest group of devices supporting monetization, especially when you consider it's the only group of monetized devices which is on CIQ 3 and not CIQ 4/5)

Speaking anecdotally, I know a lot of fast runners who still rock an FR235 or FR920XT, or did so until very recently, including a guy who literally won a 5 miler. 

I think at some point Garmin noticed that people were holding onto their watches for 10+ years, and decided to take steps to discourage that. Obviously they won't go so far as cutting those devices off of Connect (I hope), but I can def see why they'd limit CIQ monetization. It's kind of a win-win afaict: either users don't care about CIQ / monetized CIQI apps so it doesn't bother them either way or they do care, so they have additional motivation to get a new watch.