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Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

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Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#51

Post by macappthrowaway »

m11a wrote: post #38
chime wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network effect. I already have a Patreon account hooked up with my payment info. I subscribe to 10-12 different people I like. Adding one more is trivial. Signing up for a whole new service with payment info for a single content creator is a lot of commitment.

What about if you use PayPal or something, and it isn't a website? You're linked to say, www.chime.com/subscribe, which sets up a payment on PayPal via the API and redirects the user to authorise under the hood. You login with your PayPal account (same as entering Patreon credentials on Patreon), confirm, and you're redirected to a simple thanks page. You can then manage your subscription via PayPal, as you can with…

Any time I read about a developer saying that a service would be "trivial to make", to save the poor user that last 5% in fees, I think of DropBox.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#52

Post by macappthrowaway »

wild_preference wrote: post #7

Ads in desktop software are dead. Also, just think of the amount of serious, transient eyeball traffic you'd need which sounds like an unlikely demographic for a Mac app. Especially if you think these same people would be interested in your Patreon. You'd basically have to burn all goodwill to make a few pennies off them. The only reason ads make a little money on mobile is because of the lack of adblocker penetratio…

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I've never seen ads in desktop software, and I don't want to go that route. I was thinking more like Vue.js (as mentioned elsewhere here), where companies could pay to have their logo on the webpage as a supporter of the project. Plus I could offer them things that companies want, like better support, better integration with whatever (weird legacy) systems they use, etc.

Are there examples of individuals using IAP as a reliable revenue channel? It sounds reasonable but while I've heard few reports of people using Patreon/donations/sponsorships, I've heard no reports of anyone successfully using IAPs as their primary revenue stream.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#53

Post by tinus_hn »

JshWright wrote: post #23
tinus_hn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Patreon doesn’t take a percentage out of that..

Why wouldn't they...? Shouldn't they be compensated for the service they provide?

They don’t provide a thousand times as much of a service as they would if the donation was $2.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#54

Post by macappthrowaway »

sfaruque wrote: post #41

Have you considered contacting the people behind Setapp ( https://setapp.com/developers )

Yes, I've considered asking them how developers make any money with their system. They collect $9.99/month (or less), and you get a fraction of that. There's 200+ apps. Their webpage is notably lacking any concrete numbers or policies (like how many users they have, what their take is, or how they compute your share), but I just don't see any way this could amount to much money for developers.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#56

Post by macappthrowaway »

soylentgraham wrote: post #27

If you're trying to make a living from the app (I don't think the post is too clear), I found my only success with a unity plugin was to release it for cheap/free to build users and charge for new features at freelance rates. People who REALLY need features are businesses or projects who have money and usually a deadline. At one point I was making maybe 1k/month from sales and 3k in feature inplementations. (Helps th…

> If you're trying to make a living from the app (I don't think the post is too clear),

Agreed, I was ambiguous on this point. It would be nice to make a living from it (of course!), but I've got other apps in my brain that need building, and other types of work that I do, so it's not necessary. I don't have all my eggs in this basket.

Let's say: in order to be more than a hobby, a program has to be financially self-sustaining. For some software, that can mean enough to spend 10 hours a week on it, and for other software, it might mean enough to hire a team of 50 people to work on it full-time. Below about 10 hours/week, though, and it starts to lose the ability to be called self-sustaining. There's just not enough hours to take on significant work.

> I found my only success with a unity plugin was to release it for cheap/free to build users and charge for new features at freelance rates.

This is a great and helpful data point.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#57

Post by macappthrowaway »

golergka wrote: post #17

What's your primary motive in making the app open source? Personally, I would open-source 90% of the app (for example, it's core functionality in console form), but still leave it so you still have to buy the GUI packaged version from the store or easily set up your own build environment. It would mean that a developer can easily run your app for free, fork and fix issues, but a typical user has to pay - so you retai…

Interesting question. I'd say there's several benefits that I see, and I'm not sure of their relative priorities.

- Be able to develop in the open. Every problem I have (like for StackOverflow) requires me to fully extract an MCVE -- and half the time, extracting a feature causes the problem to go away, for no apparent reason. It would be a big help to be able to just say "with open-source project X, I tried doing Y, and it fails with Z".

- Be able to use many of the online tools that are free for open source.

- Let other people help, if they want (including porting to other OSs, which I will probably never have time to do well).

- Let people use pieces of it in their own projects (like as libraries).

- Longevity. Closed-source apps basically all die, eventually. It would be great to be able to give users confidence that it won't just disappear if I get hit by a bus tomorrow.

I agree that the "open-source it, and keep a paid version in the app store" sounds very appealing, but my worry is that it only takes one developer to set up a build environment and compile it, to remove all of my revenue stream.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#58

Post by gustavorg »

tenryuu wrote: post #18
gustavorg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one for example: https://www.patreon.com/YandereDev Used to profit $5000 one year ago.

Used to sure, kid stopped using his time to develop games and just started streaming in his free time. I only know people who consider this guy a joke now

That depends on which subreddit are you reading. The correct one is /r/yanderesimulator. The other one is just haters. If you check the devblog you can see there are currently real and tangible development.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#59

Post by JshWright »

tinus_hn wrote: post #53
JshWright wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they...? Shouldn't they be compensated for the service they provide?

They don’t provide a thousand times as much of a service as they would if the donation was $2.

I'm sure Patreon's credit card processor is just as benevolent as you expect Patreon to be...

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#60

Post by tenryuu »

gustavorg wrote: post #58
tenryuu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to sure, kid stopped using his time to develop games and just started streaming in his free time. I only know people who consider this guy a joke now

That depends on which subreddit are you reading. The correct one is /r/yanderesimulator. The other one is just haters. If you check the devblog you can see there are currently real and tangible development.

I don't use reddit, I personally know people that worked on the game
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