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Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

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Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#61

Post by xiaoma »

danilocampos wrote: post #35

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could. They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.

>"Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could."

I wish there were a way of identifying people like you online and charging more to capture some of that consumer surplus :)

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#62

Post by abbott »

Twitter does not want to provide the opportunity to empower 3rd parties to become so large that they have to acquire them.

After tweet deck, this has become the driving principal. If twitter restricts platform usage, then they don't have to worry about that happening again.

That is the answer.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#63

Post by joelhooks »

eykanal wrote: post #8

There have been many discussions here on Hacker News about the risks inherent in building your product—and hence livelihood—on top of someone else's platform, over which you have no control. Unfortunately for Tweetbot, this sort of complaint will possibly strike a chord with the almost negligible minority that would read a tech blog, and of those, an even smaller and more negligible minority will actually complain to…

They have several products. Sure, TweetBot has them more flush with cash than they would have been otherwise, but they are crafty and intelligent. So Twitter is strong arming one aspect of their business. I suspect TapBots will be OK.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#64

Post by ruswick »

jlmendezbonini wrote: post #42

Quickly skimming through the comments turned to be somewhat informative. Note that some are partial quotes from larger comments. The ones that I found more interesting are: - "The same price as my operating system. Later guys, it’s been fun." While I understand his/her reasoning I disagree because it's a very deceiving comparison. - "I love tweetbot, and I know tapbots won’t care, but I can’t afford to buy $20 for so…

I don't think the "I'll pay anything" guys make valid points. Most people do not judge the reasonability of a price on the amount of work that is put into a product. (Nor should they.)

When one purchases something, they ought to evaluate the value of a product solely on the utility that they gain from that product and how that compares to the utility and price of similar products. Tweetbot is working against the precedent set by other apps in this regard. It yields near-negligible utility over free alternatives and competes in an ecosystem dominated by free apps. (If anything, it yields less utility over others, because once the token threshold is met, it will in all likelihood become abandon-ware.) Thus the value of Tweetbot— and of software in general— goes down.

The work put in by the developers has no weight in determining the price. The market's tolerance, perception of value, and willingness to pay is the only factor. Even if I spend 10,000 hours making a great latte, it's unreasonable that I charge $1m for it because my competitors are selling a similar product at $4 and the increase in utility of my latte versus theirs is likely not enough to warrant the increase in cost to the consumer. Their logic is flawed and is totally incongruous with the most fundamental concepts of economics. Commerce is a quid pro quo, not a charitable donation.

I don't, however, believe that such a high price is a knock against TapBots. They are permitted to charge whatever they like. You really can't fault them for price-gouging: Everyone loves money. The desire to get more of it is something that is not only reasonable, but is lauded in a capitalist economy. I find it doubtful that many people think ill of TapBots for their pricing. Rather, the issue lies in the fact that their app does relatively little yet has an incredibly inflated and anomalous price that deviates from the norm. The motives are reasonable, but the price isn't.

As for me, I won't be buying TweetBot. It's more money than I can reasonably afford. Even if it weren't, it's price simply outpaces it's value to such an extent as to be unjustifiable.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#65

Post by erode »

danilocampos wrote: post #35

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could. They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.

So you didn't objectively weigh the reasons it is worth your money, at all? You are the worst kind of user.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#66

Post by beedogs »

Encosia wrote: post #45
danilocampos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reasonable. And I agree it's odd. Why should Twitter care if 20% of their userbase is on third party clients with an experience that's not on-brand, if those clients pay a per-user fee? One explanation: not all users are created equal. It could be that the 20% who use third party clients are more/most engaged. Lassoing them back into the fold could have some strategic benefit.

Twitter can't enforce a "consistent experience" on third party clients, meaning they can't be sure that promoted tweets, accounts, and other forms of generally unwanted advertising will show up in timelines that aren't rendered with Twitter's own code.

Seems to me like this will be the reason Twitter fades away and dies eventually.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#67

Post by ruswick »

msbarnett wrote: post #47
bluetidepro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they stopped supporting it tomorrow, it wouldn't disappear from your device. The earliest it would possibly break would be in the next major OS upgrade. That's not true at all. Twitter could revoke their API access or something that could break it tomorrow. Yes the actual app may still be on my device but nothing says it will actually still be able to work. That is all in Twitter's hands. > The idea that a measl…

> If I were to spend years and years making the perfect toaster and I charge $1,000 for it (to pay for the engineering and design work), you're saying it's absurd NOT to buy it? It's never absurd to choose not to buy anything. But your analogy gets in the way of what is absurd. We're not talking about charging $1000 dollars (the same price as a nice laptop, a middling DSLR, or a crappy used car) for a toaster. We're…

Value is determined not by the amount of work put into it, but by the precedent set by the market. So long as there are free and sub-$3 clients, $20 is anomalous.

What gets me most about arguments like these is that you are pulling numbers out of thin air. You assert that $.99 is too little for an app, but provide no context nor any evidence to support that. Give me a number that demonstrates the monetary value to the consumer of an hour of development. You can't.

Insofar as there is no absolute value of development time— and, therefore, of apps— the only way to gauge value is based on market precedent. If everyone else is charging $2 for their apps, yeah, $20 is too much.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#68

Post by pdeuchler »

GavinB wrote: post #40
danilocampos wrote: post #35

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could. They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.

I interpreted this as largely a protest in the hopes of getting Twitter's token policy changed. It seems very odd that they can get 100,000 tokens for free but can't pay for more.

Could that be a viable source of revenue instead of advertisement?

Charge per 10k tokens or something, with the first 100k free. Make each token worth about $0.60 and you could make some serious dough via not just 3rd party clients, but also people trying to mine data, build on top of the platform etc. etc.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#69

Post by ChrisLTD »

Encosia wrote: post #45
danilocampos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reasonable. And I agree it's odd. Why should Twitter care if 20% of their userbase is on third party clients with an experience that's not on-brand, if those clients pay a per-user fee? One explanation: not all users are created equal. It could be that the 20% who use third party clients are more/most engaged. Lassoing them back into the fold could have some strategic benefit.

Twitter can't enforce a "consistent experience" on third party clients, meaning they can't be sure that promoted tweets, accounts, and other forms of generally unwanted advertising will show up in timelines that aren't rendered with Twitter's own code.

They can revoke access for clients that don't comply with the display guidelines. They probably don't want to be in the business of policing 3rd parties like that, but they have the power if they want to use it.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#70

Post by msbarnett »

ruswick wrote: post #67
msbarnett wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were to spend years and years making the perfect toaster and I charge $1,000 for it (to pay for the engineering and design work), you're saying it's absurd NOT to buy it? It's never absurd to choose not to buy anything. But your analogy gets in the way of what is absurd. We're not talking about charging $1000 dollars (the same price as a nice laptop, a middling DSLR, or a crappy used car) for a toaster. We're…

Value is determined not by the amount of work put into it, but by the precedent set by the market. So long as there are free and sub-$3 clients, $20 is anomalous. What gets me most about arguments like these is that you are pulling numbers out of thin air. You assert that $.99 is too little for an app, but provide no context nor any evidence to support that. Give me a number that demonstrates the monetary value to th…

> Value is determined not by the amount of work put into it, but by the precedent set by the market.

directly contradicts:

> If everyone else is charging $2 for their apps, yeah, $20 is too much.

Let this sink in: Tweetbot for has been out for less than 24 hours. It is already #2 in sales and #2 in Mac App Store revenue.

The market completely disagrees with your latter statement.

What you're seeing here isn't that $20 is too much given that everyone else is selling at $2.

Rather, what you're seeing is that everyone else, operating under the received "wisdom" that apps are worth less than a cup of coffee, are leaving absolutely staggering amounts of money on the table by being afraid to ignore the nonsense and ask for real value in return for their work.

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