The app is technically free, but yes it is made by a single dev and it is/was his income, so it’s ad-supported.
The development is still ongoing and so some things aren’t finalized, but there is a one time payment option that will be available (something like $10) to just remove ads.
The Ultra tier which has the subscription cost (and much higher one time cost at $99) is what incurs monthly fees in this case, mostly for cloud storage for things like settings and I believe an OCR and translation API.
Ultimately, use whatever makes you happy and aligns with your principles, but there are at least a few good reasons why it is how it is.
A few points to make and answer:
The app is technically free, but yes it is made by a single dev and it is/was his income, so it’s ad-supported.
The development is still ongoing and so some things aren’t finalized, but there is a one time payment option that will be available (something like $10) to just remove ads.
The Ultra tier which has the subscription cost (and much higher one time cost at $99) is what incurs monthly fees in this case, mostly for cloud storage for things like settings and I believe an OCR and translation API.
Ultimately, use whatever makes you happy and aligns with your principles, but there are at least a few good reasons why it is how it is.