Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#21

Post by bluetidepro » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 7:59 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #17

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. And that is why I say it's a gamble I don't really want to take on a social networking app (no matter how nice th…

> That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. 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. Y'know, in about a year. The idea that a measly $20 is too much to pay for months of eng…

> 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 measly $20 is too much to pay for months of engineering and design work up to now, let alone going forward, is utterly absurd.

That is their decision to make this bet. 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 actually the opposite. It's absurd to assume that just because someone puts engineering and design into a product, that it automatically makes the product worth X price.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#22

Post by n9com » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:00 PM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #15

Funnily enough I wonder if they would have gotten more flack if they had just auctioned off the 100,000 licenses and see what the market would handle? I suspect they may have gotten more than $20 each and there would be less complaining as it's a totally transparent process.

This probably makes more sense and they wouldn't have needed to give up a 30% cut to Apple.

Right now, I don't see how they will be able to continue to update the app once they hit 100,000 users whilst preventing the app from being purchased by new users via the Mac App Store. In order to offer updates via the MAS, your app needs to be available to sale to new customers.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#23

Post by reaganing » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #17

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. And that is why I say it's a gamble I don't really want to take on a social networking app (no matter how nice th…

> That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. 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. Y'know, in about a year. The idea that a measly $20 is too much to pay for months of eng…

It could break much sooner than that. All Twitter would need to do is cut off access to it, like they just did with [Tweetie](http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/10/11/rip-tweetie-for-mac-w...)

I think we can expect third-party clients to be allowed for a while more, maybe even a year or two, but who knows.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#24

Post by jug6ernaut » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:12 PM UTC

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

CyberMonk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? I'm really glad we have companies like Tapbots, Panic, etc., pushing against the "race to the bottom" trend with app prices that we've seen lately. Good apps are HARD to do, and there's no reason they shouldn't command a price commensurate with the effort involved.

> Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. And that is why I say it's a gamble I don't really want to take on a social networking app (no matter how nice th…

If $20 is a "huge risk" for you, you probably shouldn't be buying any frivolous software.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#25

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:20 PM UTC

n9com wrote: post #22

jusben1369 wrote: post #15

Funnily enough I wonder if they would have gotten more flack if they had just auctioned off the 100,000 licenses and see what the market would handle? I suspect they may have gotten more than $20 each and there would be less complaining as it's a totally transparent process.

This probably makes more sense and they wouldn't have needed to give up a 30% cut to Apple. Right now, I don't see how they will be able to continue to update the app once they hit 100,000 users whilst preventing the app from being purchased by new users via the Mac App Store. In order to offer updates via the MAS, your app needs to be available to sale to new customers.

They could just raise the price to $1000 once they get close to the token limit.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#26

Post by jakejake » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:20 PM UTC

LeeUmm wrote: post #3

I thought it would be at the $9.99 price point, like Sparrow was. I am surprised by it being $20, but I understand given the limitations and will purchase it. What happens to the tokens when people pirate this app? Does it count towards their limit?

How I would think that it should work is the client downloads your token when you register the software. If you decide to share your license, the more people who use your token, the more likely that token will hit the 1,000 per day / 350 requests per hour limit on the twitter API. If you were to post your registration info on a sharing site you could effectively make that token useless for you and everybody else who was trying to use it.

If somebody figures out how to trick the registration to get free API tokens on the other hand, that would be really bad for the company.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#27

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

utopkara wrote: post #13

The limited number of tokens argument for inflated price doesn't make sense for standalone apps. It is very much possible that people get their own developer tokens from twitter. Perhaps, you could provide a lower price tier for such cases.

Developers aren't their target audience.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#28

Post by kaisdavis » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:24 PM UTC

n9com wrote: post #22

jusben1369 wrote: post #15

Funnily enough I wonder if they would have gotten more flack if they had just auctioned off the 100,000 licenses and see what the market would handle? I suspect they may have gotten more than $20 each and there would be less complaining as it's a totally transparent process.

This probably makes more sense and they wouldn't have needed to give up a 30% cut to Apple. Right now, I don't see how they will be able to continue to update the app once they hit 100,000 users whilst preventing the app from being purchased by new users via the Mac App Store. In order to offer updates via the MAS, your app needs to be available to sale to new customers.

That's incorrect. I believe I heard this via Cable on John Gruber's 'The Talk Show,' but you can still have an app in the MAS and provide updates even if the app is not available for sale.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#29

Post by deveac » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:25 PM UTC

They say their plan is to both release it for profit and continue to support it, all under the constraint of a limited number of user tokens provided to them by Twitter.

I wonder if they considered a subscription option instead of a one time payment. A lower subscription price (say a dollar a month) might have sounded good to users psychologically, kept a revenue stream going for the stated future development, and offered the potential for recapture of user tokens as users drop out of their ecosystem over time for whatever reason, which they could then convert to revenue again.

I really have to imagine that they at least considered it, -I'd love to know why they decided against it.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#30

Post by nicholassmith » Thu, Oct 18, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

I really want to buy it, and I don't even mind $20 that much but given that they've got so few tokens I'm actually going to leave it for someone who uses Twitter on the desktop way more than I would. I think it's a reasonable price given the situation.