51–60 of 98 posts
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A cut of what?
Amazon's money.
"What is the payment structure between Amazon and me? Amazon pays developers 70% of the sale price of the app or 20% of the list price, whichever is greater."
https://developer.amazon.com/help/faq.html#Sales, Payment and Tax
That's clearly the bit the author was referring to as being deceptive: in public they state that developers will always get at least 20% of the list price (which leads some people to think developers still get paid when their apps are listed as free), but in private they ask developers to take 0% of the list price when they promote the app as the "free app of the day."
If Amazon is correct, though, this promotion should mean that post-promotion sales are higher than pre-promotion sales. But the chart ends on the day of the promotion. Though there's a little text about it, I'd be curious about more detail on how things are shaping up afterwards.
Either way, up to them of course, but it feels a bit extreme to me to abandon ship because of agreeing to an unsuccessful promotion and because they're behind in features vs. the Google market.
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Your entire response is conjecture. He readily admits he bought into the 20%, got and clarified the 0% offer, debated and went for it. He shows the 54k number as a way of reinforcing the bait-and-switch they are using to lure people into the market, not as a way to say 'i should have been paid $x'. You say 'Amazon gave that company an incredibly aggressive marketing campaign for 1 day' but let me tell you what i see.…
campnic, I appreciate the response. I'll try and address each thing you mentioned. -------------------- but let me tell you what i see. 'Amazon is building their market on the backs of apps by giving them away for free.' -------------------- This company's app uses a simple software model. You pay $1.99 and you get their app. Your comment decries the entire Amazon model as benefiting them and not the developer. I don…
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Generally it seems like you're expecting the OP to take on your perspective without really taking his perspective seriously. Just saying you have a "core belief" that waiting longer would help doesn't really seem like a fair point. Why don't server/support costs matter? Why does it have to be that it's more beneficial for these guys to have their software on 100k more devices than not? Why should all business models…
That is a fair point, I don't think the OP's complaint about the 20-to-0 switch was invalid, but I do skip past it to try and look at what kind of benefit can be squeezed from their current predicament instead of scorching the earth and walking away. Thank you for the feedback.
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That is a good point to bring up. I don't think that study and those results apply here verbatim because this is more the Groupon model than the "cheap service" model. I am, for a VERY limited time, getting a product for free. The perception of value is much higher (because of the time limit) than if I were downloading an always-free product or a really cheap product. I think the success of Groupon, effectively using…
Except that reality doesn't bear out your position. So far, I haven't seen you give any evidence, other than your feelings or what you think, that things are the way you say they are. I have visited the FAD page right around midnight pacific (when the free app is revealed) every day since it was first introduced in March. A few apps start with no rating, but most have 4- to 5-stars. By the end of the FAD promotion (t…
I will concede that point as everything you pointed out are solid arguments against it and well reasoned.
Thank you for the detailed reply.
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Amazon's money.
Amazon's didn't make any money either, it was a free app. I doubt your average downloader thought for one second about the relationship between Amazon and the developer. They saw free, they downloaded. Who other than the app developer and Amazon care one bit about the financials of the deal? When I see a great sale in a store I don't care if it's the store or the manufacturer taking a hit.
Consequently, many people are under the impression that when the download the free app of the day, they are doing the devs a favor and earning them 20% of their list price, and I have absolutely seen people in public forums run around advertising when an app from a dev they like is a free-app-of-the-day, telling people to help support said developer by downloading the app even if they don't really want it because said developer will receive some financial support from the download.
The fact that all of the above is bullshit and that Amazon has been secretly negotiating that down to 0% of the list price with the admonition that the developers cannot tell anyone they aren't getting the 20% everyone thinks they're getting tends to indicate that Amazon is aware of this confusion and exploiting it for their own gain.
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Lets say you are right, the dev is saying "omg look at teh numberz i lost 100 thousandz salez" Note: Sales did not pick up after the free app sale. Therefore that free app sale was actually a waste of time. Furthermore their app requires a server to run, since its not a subscription-based app the server is 100% on their backs. They now support 100,000 unpaid customers with a server, and ALL those customers are going…
> Amazon further moved by reducing the price of the app for 3 days without consent and modified description of the app. Both of those actions were consented to in the agreement the company entered into with Amazon.
Amazon always reserves the right to do whatever they want period. Its not your product, you are now an amazon employee with the right to quit.
What I got from this blog post is that they made an uninformed decision, and ended up with an unexpected result that pissed them off from the perspective of "lost sales". The email from Amazon clarified there were no money to made and sure enough, no money was made. The added costs of the server is unfortunate and justifiably something to be upset about (especially if you weren't accounting for it), but I have to poi…
Luckily they got mostly positive reviews, however most apps have their reviews and comments trashed. I've seen great, 5-star apps go down to 2-stars because of people who downloaded it because it was free, didn't know what it did, then didn't like it and give it a 1-star. Others give 1-star because amazon screwed up and charged them, others give 1-star because it doesn't work on their device (even the description wil…