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Open Source Apps (2013)

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Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#11

Post by Pulcinella »

nategri wrote: post #7

As a counterexample, Dark Sky is one of the few apps I pay for that has an endless array possible alternatives. The last time I looked all substitutes were ugly, clunky, bloated by ads, or all of the above. I pay so I don't have deal with an inferior experience in a frequently used app. So, while the details of what an app accomplishes may be easy to replicate... maybe there's always room for a premium experience?

Indeed I would say that with an app like Dark Sky the value is almost entirely in the experience, in a way.

The data is provided by the government for “free” but weather.gov is not as well designed and presented as Dark Sky and other weather apps.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#12

Post by acover »

Can a monthly subscription support a collection of open source apps?

Netflix style. Maybe give donors the option to vote on features. I am interested in testing if there is a market for this. I've started writing clone android apps without the ads and freemium.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#13

Post by jbob2000 »

xxpor wrote: post #8
jbob2000 wrote: post #6

This applies to a very, very narrow segment of software. If I have to run a server, then yes, I do indeed have costs. And those costs go up the more popular my app gets. And if the app gains any kind of serious pickup, I am going to need a client service team to handle all the bull crap people will be flinging my way. (Seriously, how many open source projects die because the maintainers get sick of managing the issue…

If your costs are servers, your marginal costs are still $0 for the app itself. IMO, you're better off with a $0 app and a subscription model, than capturing the revenue once when someone purchases the app.

You are technically correct - yes, an app is not the server it is deployed on. But practically speaking, if I saw a spike in my traffic and got hit with a huge bill, I'm not going to say to myself, "gee, it wasn't the app's fault the server got really popular...".

I think you missed my point that this article applies to a very, very small category of software. As soon as you have a subscription model, or any sort of payment structure, now you need an accountant! Those guys don't work for free.

It's like, calculator apps and notepads that this philosophy applies to.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#14

Post by scribu »

acover wrote: post #12

Can a monthly subscription support a collection of open source apps? Netflix style. Maybe give donors the option to vote on features. I am interested in testing if there is a market for this. I've started writing clone android apps without the ads and freemium.

> Can a monthly subscription support a collection of open source apps?

Kind of. In the WordPress world there are several companies that ask you to pay $50/year to get access to their entire portfolio of themes and plugins.

In theory, you’re only paying for support, since the code has to be licensed under the GPL.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#15

Post by ken »

acover wrote: post #12

Can a monthly subscription support a collection of open source apps? Netflix style. Maybe give donors the option to vote on features. I am interested in testing if there is a market for this. I've started writing clone android apps without the ads and freemium.

It might depend what you mean by "support", but in general, I don't see it.

For a non-open-source example, there's https://setapp.com/, but nobody has been able to explain to me how the economics are supposed to work. They're bundling thousands of dollars of software for $10/month, and then paying creators based on usage. Instead of $50 (a common price for these apps), once, developers will get a fraction of $10, repeatedly.

You'll break even if someone uses your app 1/2 of the time (of the Set) for about a year. If they use more apps or don't subscribe that long (which are pretty much the main reasons to use this), you're worse off.

Bundling, open-source, subscriptions -- at the end of the day, users simply don't want to (directly) pay what it costs to create software.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#16

Post by ppeetteerr »

There are too many counter-examples for this to be true:

- Microsoft has been charging for years for Office before getting into the recurring payment model. The reason they got into the recurring payment models is that most office software requires server support and server support is a recurring cost

- There may be future competition but let's not forget that software still costs money to develop. ie. if an entrepreneur sees a market with 2-3 strong providers, they will hesitate to enter in direct competition. And why would they, their profit margins will be minute in comparison to the cost of building the software.

- The market may have software that is so good, that to catch up, competing players would have to spend years building the software (see point 2)

An example of this is Linux. It is free but it's rarely used by non-IT professionals. One can argue that Windows is effectively free these days, but it still charges a license and the price of a laptop is still affected by having Windows installed.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#17

Post by acover »

ken wrote: post #15
acover wrote: post #12

Can a monthly subscription support a collection of open source apps? Netflix style. Maybe give donors the option to vote on features. I am interested in testing if there is a market for this. I've started writing clone android apps without the ads and freemium.

It might depend what you mean by "support", but in general, I don't see it. For a non-open-source example, there's https://setapp.com/ , but nobody has been able to explain to me how the economics are supposed to work. They're bundling thousands of dollars of software for $10/month, and then paying creators based on usage. Instead of $50 (a common price for these apps), once, developers will get a fraction of $10, re…

I think it is about lowering the price to increase users. The user experience is also improved as you just install and go.

Thanks for the info.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#18

Post by kazinator »

> Because all PCs ran Windows on top of Intel chips, there was no differentiation, and prices dropped.

Umm, no. PCs ran Windows on top of expensive Intel chips with little competition.

The lack of differentiation caused the prices of much of the other stuff that goes into a PC to drop.

And ironically, that other crap, like network cards and whatever, going into PC's, is differentiated.

That doesn't help because it's not differentiated in a way that the user cares about.

If processors were differentiated they way network cards, keyboards or mice are differentiated, it wouldn't make a difference, except making PC's even cheaper.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#19

Post by makecheck »

Apps don’t “want to be free”; customers want to try before they buy and there are not a lot of sane options presented for doing that in App Stores.

Why the hell isn’t there a simple “download now, pay if you keep more than 4 hours” kind of option, for example? Why no simple “upgrade to version 2.0 for 50% off” option? There are lots of common scenarios that app stores should provide, saving developers from having to hack special purchases into the product. Worse, stores basically don’t distinguish between those types of purchases and the many, many scams so after awhile potential buyers equate “any in-app purchase = scam” and that option disappears. And on top of it all, good, reputable apps can eventually be updated with scammy features that you never used to have.

Terrible app search engines. Terrible browsing with unchanging top-10 lists. Terrible monetization options. Endless garbage apps competing for space. Yet 30% comes off the top unless apps are free. So they’re free, and you get mostly ads.

What a complete waste of potential in the app ecosystem right now.

Re: Open Source Apps (2013)

#20

Post by detuur »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #16

There are too many counter-examples for this to be true: - Microsoft has been charging for years for Office before getting into the recurring payment model. The reason they got into the recurring payment models is that most office software requires server support and server support is a recurring cost - There may be future competition but let's not forget that software still costs money to develop. ie. if an entrepre…

You've answered your own implied question. The price of MS Office is still high because it's in a category of its own, with no competition in sight. But all it takes is one well-motivated competitor to achieve feature parity and that would be the end of MS Office's cash cow position.

MS is already offering Win10 basically for free. Not because of competition, but because it doesn't cost anything to make it free. They can risk changing their business model without being forced to throw money down a hole.

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