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The web's original sin

quirksmode.org

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Re: The web's original sin

#2
"The price difference between desktop apps and tablet/mobile apps does not make any sense, but everybody pretends it does."

I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad.

The reason I use adblockers on my browsers has less to do with jus not wanting to see ads but the fact that ad servers cause terrible site performance--the responsiveness of many sites speeds up considerably when you suppress the ads.

Re: The web's original sin

#3

"The price difference between desktop apps and tablet/mobile apps does not make any sense, but everybody pretends it does." I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad. The reason I use adblockers on my browsers has less to do with jus not wanting to see ads but the fact that ad servers cause terrible site performance--the responsiveness of…

> I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad.

Yet games for handheld consoles like the 3DS and Vita, which are less powerful than modern phones (much less tablets!), sell for $30 and upwards. I have maybe a dozen 3DS games and shelled out over $200 for them. And that's somehow okay because they are Real Games™ (supposedly, I wasn't too impressed by most…). If you tell someone you spent $200 on, say, Android apps, you're going to get funny looks.

It's circular reasoning at its finest: Paying that much money for mobile games is unreasonable, therefore you only get garbage games, therefore paying that much money for mobile games is unreasonable.

Re: The web's original sin

#5
post #3

"The price difference between desktop apps and tablet/mobile apps does not make any sense, but everybody pretends it does." I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad. The reason I use adblockers on my browsers has less to do with jus not wanting to see ads but the fact that ad servers cause terrible site performance--the responsiveness of…

> I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad. Yet games for handheld consoles like the 3DS and Vita, which are less powerful than modern phones (much less tablets!), sell for $30 and upwards. I have maybe a dozen 3DS games and shelled out over $200 for them. And that's somehow okay because they are Real Games™ (supposedly, I wasn't too impr…

Actually, some people _are_ paying out that much on games on mobile, but they're doing it by way of in-app purchases rather than up-front licensing.

Re: The web's original sin

#6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad. Yet games for handheld consoles like the 3DS and Vita, which are less powerful than modern phones (much less tablets!), sell for $30 and upwards. I have maybe a dozen 3DS games and shelled out over $200 for them. And that's somehow okay because they are Real Games™ (supposedly, I wasn't too impr…

Actually, some people _are_ paying out that much on games on mobile, but they're doing it by way of in-app purchases rather than up-front licensing.

Which is the ass-backwards financing problem the author was talking about: It would be much more reasonable for everyone involved to have a clear, up-front cost structure (even Bethesda DLCs are less scummy than the average Android app's in-purchases). Yet, consumers are not willing to do that.

Re: The web's original sin

#7
post #3

"The price difference between desktop apps and tablet/mobile apps does not make any sense, but everybody pretends it does." I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad. The reason I use adblockers on my browsers has less to do with jus not wanting to see ads but the fact that ad servers cause terrible site performance--the responsiveness of…

> I'm not really into gaming, so I may have missed this, but I wasn't aware you could play games like Fallout 4 on an iPad. Yet games for handheld consoles like the 3DS and Vita, which are less powerful than modern phones (much less tablets!), sell for $30 and upwards. I have maybe a dozen 3DS games and shelled out over $200 for them. And that's somehow okay because they are Real Games™ (supposedly, I wasn't too impr…

I think I paid £12 for X-COM when it came out on iOS. It was great and totally worth every penny.

I don't really see the problem here; nobody is preventing games companies (or app makers in general) from charging more. The problem is they want to have their cake and eat it too; they want huge numbers of downloads and huge profits, and unfortunately that means they may actually have to put some WORK into it; not only in the content they produce but in determining the best price point.

But apparently, as a potential customer, thats MY fault. I think there is a misplacement of entitlement here.

Re: The web's original sin

#8
I would love to have a thoughtful, Civ-like game on my phone. Its a Samsung Galaxy 5 with a 128gig micro-sd card. I know its powerful enough, but if its out there, I haven't found it. I, and many others, happily pay for such games on PC and gaming platforms, but on phones and Web, it seems oddly taboo.

P.S. I'm not goving up my blockers on my computer browser. They aren't "ad" blockers; they're malware protection. Too many nasty or stupid sites out there.

Re: The web's original sin

#9

I've said this for years. If there had just been a payment layer built into the web browser spec, we'd be in different world. A monetizable world. It's still not too late.

"To read this content, please pay $0.01"

Yeah. That wouldn't at all be abused.

Re: The web's original sin

#10
"I’m seriously questioning the idea that all content on the web ought to be free."

It shouldn't, and it isn't. But free and good enough is going to beat any cost and better by any amount for most people most of the time.

"The expectation that everything online is free is an entitlement, an unearned privilege, on the part of consumers. There’s nothing inevitable about it."

Looking at the huge, swollen, abusive and sclerotic layers of our entertainment, publishing and news industries, I do see quite a bit of entitlement, but not on the side of consumers.

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