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.
Apparently one of the wallpapers is just solid orange. It’s called “Orange”, is labeled as “abstract”, and is labeled with a copyright.
It’s a solid orange rectangle.
Maybe it’s inspired by Rothko
The artist spent a lot of time on that!
Months to get that perfect shade of orange.
Anish Kapoor strikes again
I feel this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but if you want unique wallpapers, consider paying an actual artist, instead of an influencer
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Avoid sites like Fiver, though. Lots of AI bullshit pretending to be real art.
Even before the flood of AI bullshit Fiverr really, really sucked for the human artists, creatives, coders, and other freelancers employed through the platform.
I made a Fiverr account once for my art services. I deleted it within an hour of creation after reading how much money they would steal from my commissions.
If I want a unique wallpaper I go on a walk in the great outdoors and take a picture
most unique things outdoors are photographed already
I don’t think that’s going to be an unpopular opinion around here. Maybe a little tricky in the logistics of distinguishing between an artist and influencer and finding an artist who you like and can pay for a phone background, but other than that you’re not going to find many Lemmings saying “no, pay an influencer!”
$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.
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.
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.
If you know an artist doing commissions that cheap they are depressed, desperate, or want to fuck you.
But that’s the best type of artist
… why are they always so goddamn hot.
Could just commission someone on Fiverr for an original artwork
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?
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.
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
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.
This. Hell you can generate literally endless wallpapers for free.
The wallpapers are nice but the website is hideous and unusable.
Edit: typo
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…
Which side?
Typo, my bed
(intentional this time, it’s late)
Good night😴
It costs $49.99 per year (or $11.99 per month)
Why in the hell does the monthly price end with you paying 280% more than the yearly. That is such an absurd discount I don’t even know why someone would pay at all for this app but more so I want to understand where the price justification is and who came up with this plan.
To be clear I support artists and more than welcome a platform for them to share and sell art if they wish… I don’t get why it needs to be a subscription service and I don’t see how such inflated charges are going to help artists as it’ll just discourage large numbers of people wanting to support them.
Short version: there’s an $80 bread maker with 5 features, a $120 bread maker with 12 features, and a $475 bread maker with 14 features.
The $475 bread maker only exists to make the $120 version look like a bargain.
Also the nature of a wallpaper app, maybe you just want to plop in get a wallpaper and scamper off into the sunset.
Matter of fact for the $50 a year price I could sign back up for a month twice a year and still come out on top.
But in the end you get more feature for a higher price. In this case it’s the same app for different prices depending on time frame… not to mention the app has no purpose beyond finding a wallpaper so it only really has 1 feature.
The point is not whether there are more features. The point is to give you an incentive to go yearly, and in this case it’s a huge “discount” even though it’s in no way worth the monthly cost. The monthly plan isn’t meant to sell you the monthly plan. It’s meant to make the yearly plan look good.
I want to understand where the price justification is
The justification is that people should be yearly subscribers when they can more easily forget to cancel it.
Probably because you can pay for a month and download all the wallpapers and cancel.
Who would pay for this?
Marques has a decent chunk of his fan base that’s…kinda rich? That’s the only thing that can explain why he reviews supercars and expects people to use their phone without a case. So if he’s directing some of that fan base’s money toward artists, I’m all for it, assuming the profit sharing is reasonable (and I have no reason to believe it’s not).
I mean, I’m not going to pay that sort of money on a wallpaper (I almost always use photos of family or friends anyway). But if the people who buy it like it, and the people who sell art for it are treated well, you go MKBHD.
Im not rich and I use my phone without a case and watch some of those reviews.
The app is a bad idea with a bad deal for artists.
Im not rich and I use my phone without a case
I guess you could also have fairly sticky hands.
and watch some of those reviews.
Yeah, sometimes I do too, if only for the novelty of it. But they’re certainly not for us.
The app is a bad idea with a bad deal for artists.
Citation needed. Do you have any data on the app’s profit share structure? Because at the price they’re charging, if they’re passing on a decent share of it to the artists, it sounds like it’s not a bad gig.
Fifty fifty is what MKB said was the split, which is a predatory figure. Apple charges less and people are up in arms about their predatory practices.
I dont know what the sticky hands comment means.
Wallpapers on phone are useless because apps are always full screen.
Who would pay for such thing?
I started to get worked up but then i remembered I don’t particularly care. He’s in it to make bank, not necessarily sell you a quality product. If he were, he wouldn’t be selling a wallpaper app.
50/50 cut is borderline predatory. It should be 30/70. It feels like marques is so out of touch with common people.
30% is still predatory imo. Especially for a glorified marketplace with an image delivery system.
He is fronting money for development. Which is not cheap.
Once dev cost stabilizes, I would love to have a better split for artists.
Homie spreads apple propaganda like aids, he’s an awful tech influencer
He is quite harsh on Apple for someone who gets exclusive access. In this video he is talking about how nothing has changed, barely considered an update and that the new things dont even come with the phone.
There are infinite list of things and services that are way too expensive for me to even consider buying but I also don’t go around complaining about them. Move on guys… If you want free wallpapers you can try one of the other 9000 free wallpaper apps available. This is recreational outrage.
My phone has a camera… i can set photos as wallpapers…
I got a Note 2 at launch and was showing it off at work to people interested in it.
someone asked about the background and where I got it. said I took it and left it at that.
took the pic of the top of my bathroom trashcan while dumping some toxic waste.
pic is the same trashcan now, like me it’s a bit dented, dirty, and doesn’t open as well as it used to. but, it still works.
No offense but I wouldn’t pay $49 for that. Maybe $48.75, but not $49.
$48.99, the lowest I’ll go for you my friend
Wow I had no idea the subscription was that much. He mentioned it in a video without saying the price and I still wouldn’t do it.