Blog 1 min read
You cannot buy a ticket for a boat that has already left
Read quickly, a delay between paying and receiving looks like a bait-and-switch. Read slowly, and notice what the thing being withheld actually is.
Top-ups land thirty minutes after you pay for them. Of everything in Last Ferry, this is the decision people ask about first, usually with the word "why" and occasionally with a stronger one. So here is the whole reasoning, written down.
The moment matters. Your balance hits zero mid-evening, the lock is up, and the top-up button is right there on it. The payment clears instantly — Google Play does its part in seconds. The credit does not arrive for thirty minutes, and nothing makes it sooner. Not restarting the app. Not paying again.
Read quickly, that looks like a bait-and-switch: we took the money and withheld the thing. Read slowly, and notice what the thing being withheld is. A top-up that unlocks the app in the same breath is not a top-up — it is an instant bypass with a receipt attached. It converts the exact moment of peak compulsion into revenue, which is a fine business and the opposite of the one we claim to run.
The delay costs us nothing and gains us nothing. The payment clears either way, so there is no cash-flow motive in holding the credit back, and no revenue lost in releasing it. It exists for one reason: the product's whole argument is that a reflex should have to pass through a decision, and a purchase made inside the reflex is not a decision.
The ferry version is shorter. You cannot buy a ticket for a boat that has already left. The fare in your pocket is for the next crossing, not the one you missed.
Two details keep the deal honest. The thirty minutes are printed next to the button before you pay — the delay is never sprung on you afterwards. And credit never expires: whatever lands in your wallet is yours until you spend it, this week or next year.