> Every one-time price is a gamble, where somebody is betting on something. It's a way to close your eyes and pretend ongoing costs do not exist.

The gambling goes both ways. Your $1 subscription price is betting that you can convince each user to keep on paying that subscription forever, their $24 lifetime price is betting that customers are going to churn after a year on average.

Your gamble is perhaps slightly safer, in the sense that if subscriptions fall so too do the ongoing costs. But there is a floor to costs (i.e. you need to keep paying your team), so both approaches are pretty dependent on the sales funnel bringing in new subscribers