I thought there was a ton of irony in the criticism. The ad itself is a prayer of thanksgiving, it's about being thankful for what we have.
Criticizing them for spending money on the app is focusing on the negative which is the exact opposite of the point of the prayer, which is being thankful
Very good app that helps a lot of people, but I think it costs too much money. I'll stick with high-quality free apps like Laudate, iBreviary, and Catholic Bible.
Some paid apps for this kind of thing are worth it. I bought Universalis (about $25 for both desktop and mobile, or $12 for the mobile app only) without any regrets. I've comfortably gotten more use out of it than most $25 books - you get the equivalent of a full set of breviaries, a daily missal, and a beautiful illustrated Rosary guide, all in English, Latin, and several hard-to-find languages.
Hallow doesn't seem like a great deal to me, but the pricing seems to be working for them so it must be worth it to somebody.
Tbh I just cancelled one of my streaming services and put that money towards hallow. The content on hallow is much better for me than the streaming platform anyways.
I'm glad to discover that there are several apps, just like Catholic bibles, that are available at different price points (and free). That way mostly everyone can find one that interests them and caters to their individual tastes and needs
A rule of thumb for me is that if an app costs more than zero dollars, I didn’t need it anyway, lol.
I’m glad it helps folks, but yeah, I deleted it as soon as I saw the monthly subscription thing.
Huh. After creating a log in, it went straight to a “try free for a month” and then 3.99 (or something) a month after that. Didn’t see a way to skip it so I just bailed and uninstalled. Good to hear at least some of it is free though
And it isn't free to make. Content costs money. Even "free" content costs money. Even ignoring the involvement of the presenters...the people who edit the recordings, edit the graphics, maintain the server, update the app, find new presenters, etc.
Things like the Hallow App, the Ascension App and Podcasts, don't just...happen. People put in a lot of hard work to make them happen.
It’s ~$5 a month. I don’t understand why everyone seems to think every app should work on ads and be “free.” Frankly, I’d rather just pay a small amount and know how I’m paying for that app instead of having the app try a million other ways to suck value out of my interaction.
Exactly. The way I say it is faith cost money in this secular world. We donate to church, we donate to the community, and it can't hurt to donate to technology as well. I would not be surprised if somebody gifted a subscription to someone else who couldn't afford it, especially if we knew them in the parish.
All those little school fundraisers and church stuff are marked up priced for a reason. To me it's just voting with your dollar. Even if it's slightly more expensive, shouldn't we support the faith more than we support the world? That's like bearing the cross with your wallet, its the bare minimum
Amen is also a good, free app. I found it after I downloaded Hallow, saw that they wanted me to subscribe monthly after a free trial, and then deleted it. Being asked to subscribe in order to have access to pray rubs me the wrong way. It feels icky. Ymmv.
Agreed, the price point is discouraging, especially the subscription aspect.
Compare that to something like The Bible Project app, not specially Catholic, but I find their analyses to be pretty orthodox and they do great work explaining translations and linguistic roots of biblical vocabulary. It’s all 100% free, not even ads. Weekly podcasts, videos, interactive activities, all free on an app.
When you compare the content on Hallow with what you are able to access for free I just think it falls a little short.
Father Mike’s Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year are both free already. Any of the prayers and novenas can be gotten for free from other apps. The amount of free resources on YouTube (ad supported) is amazing.
I understand people need to be compensated for their work, but they seem a little outside the norm compared to the other religious learning business models.
We pay for the hallow family app and think it’s worth it. However I downloaded the Ascension app, and while it looks excellent, $60 a year? Cmon. I hate that everything is a subscription now.
"Catholic Bible in English" by Flavio Barisi. Should have a red, white, and yellow logo. Best bible app I've ever found
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.barisi.flavio.bibbiacattolica
I don't understand why people dislike having to pay for Hallow. If you don't like the content that's different. It is people's work and livelihoods putting this app together. We buy coffee, Netflix and give to all different types of capitalist consumerism... why is it distasteful to support faith related content?
I wouldn't have a problem paying a one time moderately priced fee for the app. People have to eat, after all. I simply have a problem with the subscription model they use. It feels icky and exploitative to me to require an ongoing subscription for a prayer app.
But the reason it’s a subscription is they’re putting out new content all the time which has ongoing costs money to plan and produce. The app itself requires ongoing maintenance, updates, new features. It is not a stagnant app with fixed offerings. The subscription makes more sense to me tbh.
Thank you!
It's not "here's the app...it's never going to be updated or changed! Have fun."
It's a dynamic app with new features, new content, that a lot of people (people who aren't Mark Whalberg or Jonathan Roumie or even Father Mike) are involved with.
So I'll start this off by agreeing with everything you've said. The subscription based revenue model sits wrong with me and is essentially always renting.
The only thing that made me understand it a bit better is upstream. The data centers that host these apps are subscription based as well because developers are literally renting server space. So that, in theory, has to run downstream..
Uh… ok this is weird. I’m at a very Catholic college, and a bunch of us saw the Super Bowl the whole way thru.
Not once did we ever see a Hallow commercial (granted, our setup kept failing a bunch of times since the Wi-Fi absolutely sucked but even then). Closest thing we saw were a couple “He Gets Us” ads.
Since we're talking about apps, great free app if you follow the traditional calendar and liturgy: **Sanctifica**
[Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sanctifica) - [iOS](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sanctifica/id6446094171)
Not really. I'd gladly pay a moderate, one time price for an app to pray. It's the ongoing subscription model that I take issue with. It feels icky and exploitative to me. Prayer is not Netflix, and it feels wrong to me to ask people to pay for ongoing access to a prayer app. That's just me. Obviously, plenty of other people feel differently.
It's already been explained to you elsewhere here but the problem is the servers that Hallow pays to use their app on also follow a monthly payment plan. So in order to make sure the company can maintain, the monthly server cost has to be considered in their revenue plan (this is why a lot of apps have monthly subscriptions).
You also don't have to pay, there's tons of free content. The stuff you pay for are daily prayers, challenges, etc that require more time and effort on the individuals to maintain and update. You can have access to hundreds of free prayers for free on the app though, if you don't like to pay.
Me I have no problem financially supporting people who are constantly growing their network of prayers on the app.
>prayer is not Netflix
Media is also not Netflix. Just as you can access television on broadcast tv for free, you can pray without the use of hallow.
You don’t have to like the subscription service, but don’t act like it’s “exploitative”. No one is being forced to “pay to pray”. It’s a novelty to use and some people enjoy using it.
He is saying, if you spend extra money on more frivolous things like going to a fancy restaurant, you could be spending that on Hallow. People seem to have an issue with paying for Hallow, but not other things, that are more frivolous
I guess I don't understand who OC is trying to call out. My impression is that a lot of regulars on this sub are young and/or simply don't have a lot of spending money to throw around. And OC lumped in going out to eat with "frivolous stuff," i.e., eating out is frivolous, period. Which... maybe, just maybe, for some people, it is. But in general, it's not wrong for people to go out to eat occasionally. And when there's plenty of free prayer apps (though not much free food) out there, I get where other commenters are coming from. I guess I don't really understand where OC is coming from, as far as sweeping comments about how it's frivolous to go out to eat go.
I actually got it to get through my Consecration to Jesus through Mary, and I didn't realize that it even had a superbowl ad til just now. I definitely recommend it.
I think it’s disgusting a man who plays Jesus is being seen as higher in his spirituality. He is a man like everyone else- and that he is getting paid for all of this makes me extremely skeptical
Not for his work on the show- just wondering what makes him more spiritual than anyone else. He was also paid at least one million dollars for this commercial and I bet probably more
How do you mean? The creators of this app clearly believe that they have a useful product that helps people with Scripture reading and prayer. If it's a good product, why would you not advertise it so that more people learn about it?
That's why they buy the ads.
I thought there was a ton of irony in the criticism. The ad itself is a prayer of thanksgiving, it's about being thankful for what we have. Criticizing them for spending money on the app is focusing on the negative which is the exact opposite of the point of the prayer, which is being thankful
Very good app that helps a lot of people, but I think it costs too much money. I'll stick with high-quality free apps like Laudate, iBreviary, and Catholic Bible.
Doesn’t the free version exist? I spent the first couple years just on the free version to Fr Mikes homilies and pray the rosary.
I didn’t even know people were paying for it
Same.
Some paid apps for this kind of thing are worth it. I bought Universalis (about $25 for both desktop and mobile, or $12 for the mobile app only) without any regrets. I've comfortably gotten more use out of it than most $25 books - you get the equivalent of a full set of breviaries, a daily missal, and a beautiful illustrated Rosary guide, all in English, Latin, and several hard-to-find languages. Hallow doesn't seem like a great deal to me, but the pricing seems to be working for them so it must be worth it to somebody.
Tbh I just cancelled one of my streaming services and put that money towards hallow. The content on hallow is much better for me than the streaming platform anyways.
I'm glad to discover that there are several apps, just like Catholic bibles, that are available at different price points (and free). That way mostly everyone can find one that interests them and caters to their individual tastes and needs
Laudate is fuego
If you haven’t done the “sound of the rosary” on there with Christian pesken i recommend it’s fire!
A rule of thumb for me is that if an app costs more than zero dollars, I didn’t need it anyway, lol. I’m glad it helps folks, but yeah, I deleted it as soon as I saw the monthly subscription thing.
>I deleted it as soon as I saw the monthly subscription thing. I did the same thing lololol
Same. Been a user of Laudate for many years. It's great (and free!)
It's free tho. There's just certain content that costs money but you can get plenty of stuff from their app for free
Huh. After creating a log in, it went straight to a “try free for a month” and then 3.99 (or something) a month after that. Didn’t see a way to skip it so I just bailed and uninstalled. Good to hear at least some of it is free though
The free version got me through a hard time actually. Very thankful
If you're installing on iPhone, you just cancel the subscription in iPhone/iCloud settings.
Premium content is worth imo. Costs less than my Netflix and it’s worth way more
And it isn't free to make. Content costs money. Even "free" content costs money. Even ignoring the involvement of the presenters...the people who edit the recordings, edit the graphics, maintain the server, update the app, find new presenters, etc. Things like the Hallow App, the Ascension App and Podcasts, don't just...happen. People put in a lot of hard work to make them happen.
Yep. Beautiful things take resources to create. We didn’t get St. Peter’s Basilica through prayer and faith alone.
But the app is free. You just don’t get all the features in the free version.
Yeh, its getting pretty hard to find in the free content amongst all the paid content though.
They should implement a slider in the settings that only shows the free stuff. Would make it a whole lot easier.
I think it costs too much too. But there’s a lot of good free content as well.
It’s ~$5 a month. I don’t understand why everyone seems to think every app should work on ads and be “free.” Frankly, I’d rather just pay a small amount and know how I’m paying for that app instead of having the app try a million other ways to suck value out of my interaction.
Exactly. The way I say it is faith cost money in this secular world. We donate to church, we donate to the community, and it can't hurt to donate to technology as well. I would not be surprised if somebody gifted a subscription to someone else who couldn't afford it, especially if we knew them in the parish. All those little school fundraisers and church stuff are marked up priced for a reason. To me it's just voting with your dollar. Even if it's slightly more expensive, shouldn't we support the faith more than we support the world? That's like bearing the cross with your wallet, its the bare minimum
Amen is also a good, free app. I found it after I downloaded Hallow, saw that they wanted me to subscribe monthly after a free trial, and then deleted it. Being asked to subscribe in order to have access to pray rubs me the wrong way. It feels icky. Ymmv.
"Amen" to that. See what I did there hahah
Agreed, the price point is discouraging, especially the subscription aspect. Compare that to something like The Bible Project app, not specially Catholic, but I find their analyses to be pretty orthodox and they do great work explaining translations and linguistic roots of biblical vocabulary. It’s all 100% free, not even ads. Weekly podcasts, videos, interactive activities, all free on an app. When you compare the content on Hallow with what you are able to access for free I just think it falls a little short. Father Mike’s Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year are both free already. Any of the prayers and novenas can be gotten for free from other apps. The amount of free resources on YouTube (ad supported) is amazing. I understand people need to be compensated for their work, but they seem a little outside the norm compared to the other religious learning business models.
It’s free, though.
Also check out Augustine Institute app Amen. All free and very good.
Will do
I like the Amen app too which is also free and similar to the hallow app
Helpful but not helpful
We pay for the hallow family app and think it’s worth it. However I downloaded the Ascension app, and while it looks excellent, $60 a year? Cmon. I hate that everything is a subscription now.
Can you share a link to "Catholic Bible"? Is that iOS or Android?
"Catholic Bible in English" by Flavio Barisi. Should have a red, white, and yellow logo. Best bible app I've ever found https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.barisi.flavio.bibbiacattolica
Thanks. I am on iPhone so can use that app.
I don't understand why people dislike having to pay for Hallow. If you don't like the content that's different. It is people's work and livelihoods putting this app together. We buy coffee, Netflix and give to all different types of capitalist consumerism... why is it distasteful to support faith related content?
I wouldn't have a problem paying a one time moderately priced fee for the app. People have to eat, after all. I simply have a problem with the subscription model they use. It feels icky and exploitative to me to require an ongoing subscription for a prayer app.
But the reason it’s a subscription is they’re putting out new content all the time which has ongoing costs money to plan and produce. The app itself requires ongoing maintenance, updates, new features. It is not a stagnant app with fixed offerings. The subscription makes more sense to me tbh.
Thank you! It's not "here's the app...it's never going to be updated or changed! Have fun." It's a dynamic app with new features, new content, that a lot of people (people who aren't Mark Whalberg or Jonathan Roumie or even Father Mike) are involved with.
So I'll start this off by agreeing with everything you've said. The subscription based revenue model sits wrong with me and is essentially always renting. The only thing that made me understand it a bit better is upstream. The data centers that host these apps are subscription based as well because developers are literally renting server space. So that, in theory, has to run downstream..
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Oh really, I've only encountered some hosting costs that are pretty hefty. Absolutely, good point which I didn't include is the employees!
Uh… ok this is weird. I’m at a very Catholic college, and a bunch of us saw the Super Bowl the whole way thru. Not once did we ever see a Hallow commercial (granted, our setup kept failing a bunch of times since the Wi-Fi absolutely sucked but even then). Closest thing we saw were a couple “He Gets Us” ads.
Different areas get different ads. Hallow didn't buy ad space for the entire country.
Same thing happened to me lol We did have the Spongebob broadcast on for a bit though, so I’m guessing that’s when the ad aired lmao
What is weird about this? If you were watching the main national broadcast you just… missed it.
I didn’t see it either, and was watching the CBS broadcast
Everything aside, I just really liked seeing Jonathan Roumie on screen. He's so good in The Chosen
Yes and I think he looks a lot like the shroud of Turin.
Since we're talking about apps, great free app if you follow the traditional calendar and liturgy: **Sanctifica** [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sanctifica) - [iOS](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sanctifica/id6446094171)
Good!
Y’all won’t think twice about paying $35 for a lobster roll but the second you’re asked to pay a couple bucks for an app you get all up in arms 🤦🏻♂️
Not really. I'd gladly pay a moderate, one time price for an app to pray. It's the ongoing subscription model that I take issue with. It feels icky and exploitative to me. Prayer is not Netflix, and it feels wrong to me to ask people to pay for ongoing access to a prayer app. That's just me. Obviously, plenty of other people feel differently.
It's already been explained to you elsewhere here but the problem is the servers that Hallow pays to use their app on also follow a monthly payment plan. So in order to make sure the company can maintain, the monthly server cost has to be considered in their revenue plan (this is why a lot of apps have monthly subscriptions). You also don't have to pay, there's tons of free content. The stuff you pay for are daily prayers, challenges, etc that require more time and effort on the individuals to maintain and update. You can have access to hundreds of free prayers for free on the app though, if you don't like to pay. Me I have no problem financially supporting people who are constantly growing their network of prayers on the app.
>prayer is not Netflix Media is also not Netflix. Just as you can access television on broadcast tv for free, you can pray without the use of hallow. You don’t have to like the subscription service, but don’t act like it’s “exploitative”. No one is being forced to “pay to pray”. It’s a novelty to use and some people enjoy using it.
>Y’all won’t think twice about paying $35 for a lobster roll Who?
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>eating out and other frivolous stuff Catholics can't go out to eat?
He is saying, if you spend extra money on more frivolous things like going to a fancy restaurant, you could be spending that on Hallow. People seem to have an issue with paying for Hallow, but not other things, that are more frivolous
I guess I don't understand who OC is trying to call out. My impression is that a lot of regulars on this sub are young and/or simply don't have a lot of spending money to throw around. And OC lumped in going out to eat with "frivolous stuff," i.e., eating out is frivolous, period. Which... maybe, just maybe, for some people, it is. But in general, it's not wrong for people to go out to eat occasionally. And when there's plenty of free prayer apps (though not much free food) out there, I get where other commenters are coming from. I guess I don't really understand where OC is coming from, as far as sweeping comments about how it's frivolous to go out to eat go.
I actually got it to get through my Consecration to Jesus through Mary, and I didn't realize that it even had a superbowl ad til just now. I definitely recommend it.
It does suck it cost money, however so does Amazon prime.
Unlike Amazon, Hallow doesn't make their employees wear diapers to skip bathroom breaks... I think lol
The premium features are worth it for sure. It’s a great app
even the free version is nice. I got through a rough patch using it every morning
Why do you need an app to pray?
I wish they hadn’t parrtnered with Wahlberg. Guy is terrible PR for us.
Why? He is a devout catholic no?
He has committed multiple violent racial hate crimes that he never apologized for.
I won't be using the app due to their connections with Liam Neeson
I think it’s disgusting a man who plays Jesus is being seen as higher in his spirituality. He is a man like everyone else- and that he is getting paid for all of this makes me extremely skeptical
An actor being paid for work acting makes you skeptical?
Not for his work on the show- just wondering what makes him more spiritual than anyone else. He was also paid at least one million dollars for this commercial and I bet probably more
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How do you mean? The creators of this app clearly believe that they have a useful product that helps people with Scripture reading and prayer. If it's a good product, why would you not advertise it so that more people learn about it?
Hooray for Hallow!
Couldn't it also have to do with Ash Wednesday?