{"id":17903,"date":"2017-05-04T16:55:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T20:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=17903"},"modified":"2017-05-10T14:30:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T18:30:58","slug":"software-pricing-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/04\/software-pricing-damage\/","title":{"rendered":"Software Pricing Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Gemmell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Has Apple created a huge market, in terms of potential customers? Absolutely. It’s just done so at the expense of its platform-invested developer community. Judging by the company’s value and income, it was a very wise move, and you can justify it on that basis if you choose. But don’t ignore the reality of the situation. Apple is not a benevolent entity; your human-centric partner in aesthetics and ethos. If that was ever true at all.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

For developers who target the Mac, the last segment of the glass-and-aluminium Cupertino hardware line-up to still have plausibly sustainable economics, there’s only one course of action: pray that Apple remains disinterested.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

See also: Paul Haddad<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2017-05-05): Wojtek Pietrusiewicz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I also tend to feel that developers themselves are partly to blame. For example, many years ago App A launched at $9.99. A few months or years later, competing App B comes along, but it starts out at $4.99. After a while, App A starts a 50% sale (and often doesn’t raise the price again). App C comes along at $0.99, followed by App D, which is free with in-app purchases. That’s the trend that I have seen for many of my favourite apps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For sure, but I think a lot of this is because the App Store is designed to encourage it.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2017-05-06): See also: Rene Ritchie<\/a>, Colin Cornaby<\/a>, Ben Oberkfell <\/a>, McCloud<\/a> (2<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

Update (2017-05-10): Riccardo Mori<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The brief pre-App Store period when Apple promoted the creation of Web apps for the iPhone, and later the early offering of so many low-cost and free apps from third parties, strongly reinforced this idea in the eyes of most consumers; that these apps were simply low-value additions designed to extend their iPhone’s functionality. ‘Mobile apps’ were not viewed as regular software packages, but something smaller, lighter, etc. This, in turn, didn’t justify having to pay for these little apps more than one or two dollars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Gemmell: Has Apple created a huge market, in terms of potential customers? Absolutely. It’s just done so at the expense of its platform-invested developer community. Judging by the company’s value and income, it was a very wise move, and you can justify it on that basis if you choose. But don’t ignore the reality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,101,31,1380,30,39,1381],"class_list":["post-17903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-business","tag-ios","tag-ios-10","tag-mac","tag-macappstore","tag-macos-10-12"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17903"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17963,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17903\/revisions\/17963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}