Yes, you are the only one, because you've misunderstood.
> Most bugs don't come with their own updated alert text. It sounds a bit more like they had planned to switch to a different trial method and enabled it earlier than they expected?
No, the bug was simply that the trial period ended after 15 minutes instead of the intended 15 days.
> Or maybe a "rogue" employee added the feature as an experiment and didn't tell anybody?
There were no employees. At the time this happened, the company consisted entirely of the 3 cofounders. In fact the bug, that is, the shortened trial period, is what allowed the company to grow and hire employees, although the company is still relatively small.
(1) For the first 15 days, you could make recordings of any length.
(2) After 15 days, you could use the app for only 15 minutes.
(3) If you paid, then you could once again make recordings of any length.
The bug was that "15 days" in (2) accidentally became 15 minutes, so that after only 15 minutes of trying the app, you were limited to using the app for only 15 minutes, which of course would happen the first time you used the app.
Perhaps you're confused because there were two factors both with a value of 15.
"After 15 days, Audio Hijack will nag you to register at launch and will quit after 15 minutes. Additionally, the recording feature will be disabled."
"Instead, from day one, the app was limited to 15 minutes of recording."
My brain didn't make the jump from "the app quits after 15 minutes" to "the app is limited to 15 minutes of recording."
> The bug was that "15 days" in (2) accidentally became 15 minutes
My understanding was that the 15 days became zero. If 15 days became 15 minutes, then depending on implementation it could run 30 minutes of first run? Or could be identical. Hard to know.
But, my reading is that the 15 day timer broke, allowing the other timer to take over, not that days became minutes.