The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

It's actually a fantastic security feature for the average user, so it doesn't worry me that much.

sure, and it's big news on outages@outages.org. (which used to be just fiber cuts but has evolved into 'major webapp down' notices, too.) - the idea behind outages@outages.org is to notify network operators when services that may impact them are down. The idea is that if my customer is complaining about things being slow to boston, well, if I read outages that morning, I might remember a fiber cut that would explain it. I guess the same could be true if my customers were complaining about not being able to get to twitter.

(personally, I'm in the camp that gets irritated when "random webapp is down" messages are posted to outages@outages.org. I don't care that twitter is down. I've chosen my customers well enough that they don't complain to me when something that is obviously not my fault like that happens. But, I am only one person, and the majority have spoken; I won't fight it. I will whine a little, though.)

News.ycombinator is not about outages, and really not about network and systems operators. Most of you use IAAS or PAAS. Though so far, I've seen a lot of tolerance for interesting network and systems operator stories.

But yeah, "x is down" is... not an interesting story. "X went down earlier today; here is what happened" sometimes is.

>Besides, HN comments are a lot of times more insightful and interesting than the link. We might have gotten a Twitter engineer commenting on what was going on or something else interesting.

I think uninteresting articles ought to be voted down or flagged or otherwise gotten rid of. If the comments are more interesting than the article, then it's an uninteresting article, unworthy of the front page link.

>Why is Google Talk down, which affects a fraction of the users, on the front page but Twitter is being actively censored?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

In that particular case he was lamenting the App Store approval process and how much it alienated developers. Here we are 3 years later with no change to that policy and no slowing down the App Store juggernaut.

As a consumer I am completely for sandboxing for myself and for other consumers. In a world where malware is increasingly a problem sandboxed apps will become the norm. That's the reality we live in. Sandboxing being a requirement means that I can fairly safely install anything from the (future) Mac App Store.

The OP correctly points out that certain system utilities cannot be sold this way. He is correct but consider the alternative: to not require sandboxing means no one will bother implementing it. Of course Apple could make effort to promote apps that do (or hide apps that don't) but this puts a considerable education burden on the consumer. I'm with Apple on this one: it's simpler and better this way.

Now paid upgrades I have mixed feelings about.

On the one hand paid upgrades can produce the wrong incentive on the developer: I've seen good apps go from 18 month major version upgrades, to 12 months to 6 months with no reduction in upgrade price. I've also seen old versions abandoned for pretty lame reasons.

IMHO having all users on the same version is better for the developer and the consumer. It makes support easier. It creates a consistent experience.

But on the other hand I do feel like there is a place for paid upgrades.

Are in-app purchases a possibility here? I honestly don't know what's possible with the Mac App Store here.

I think developers do get too concerned with turning a user into a perpetual revenue stream however. This is really an old business model that is somewhat outdated.

Steam provided the first evidence of this that I can recall. Some years ago they started selling older games for $5 and under. In some cases IIRC the revenue for discounted sales exceeded release date sales at the premium price. More: [1]

The iOS App Store produced and continues to produce further evidence that lower prices and a higher volume can often be a better result than selling the "old" way (higher price, fewer units, which typically also involves paid upgrades).

Often content producers (and I include developers who sell software in this) don't always know what's best for them. This all sounds remarkably like Netflix in many ways. Netflix has provided a means of monetizing old and less popular content yet Hollywood seems to view them as the enemy.

Perhaps another model worth considering is to start the price of your app low and as it improves and gains popularity, steadily (and predictably) raise the price.

Has anyone tried this? Did it work?

EDIT: sandboxing goes beyond "malware". I increasingly don't want apps making arbitrary changes to my system. Some may be what I want but most won't. This includes things like forgetting to untick the checkbox that installs some browser toolbar to (on Windows anyway) apps making arbitrary (and sometimes wrong) changes to local policies, registry entries, etc (so the Mac equivalent of that).

EDIT2: as a consumer, I want to buy through the App Store. Apple has my payment details. I have a common place to get updates. When I buy from a third-party site I have to deal with:

1. Registration;

2. A payment gateway that may or may not work;

3. Despite an automatic payment a human may need to email me a license file and/or download link that in some cases has taken days;

4. Whether or not to trust your site with my information; and

5. A completely separate process for updating.

So anecdotally as one consumer, if your app can be on the Mac App Store and isn't I'm simply not buying it with very few exceptions (eg I'd still buy Photoshop even if I don't want to).

[1]: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_de...