Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We're not paying enough for apps

news.cnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#61

Post by batista »

pagekalisedown wrote: post #8
wallflower wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a software company. One of my friends there adamantly refuses to pay for software (he is still waiting for a proper unlock for the iPhone 4S). Talking with him about paying for software (yes, reminding him that his salary comes from people paying for software) reminds me of talking with my Republican-to-the-core friend about Global Warming. He just refuses to budge on his "values". I remember once doing a c…

I don't understand your argument about the $10 check. Sounds like you're looking a gift horse in the mouth.

No, sounds like his neighbor was el-cheapo.

That said, would you gladly accept a SICK gift horse?

That you would then have to take care off as it dies and or spreads its decease to humans? If not, then better LOOK at the gift horse's mouth (which is an old heuristic to judge it's general health).

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#62

Post by Vivtek »

suresk wrote: post #24

I find it a little odd that he spent so much time haggling over a $50 tool that is obviously providing a lot of value to him. The response from the vendor (about it being hard to make money to pay his developers when selling a fairly niche tool) resonates with me, though. I built a fairly specific-use tool on the side last year and started selling it on the Mac App Store. I found that prices weren't very elastic, and…

people think I'm some big company selling this software

I'm convinced this is a significant insight. Most consumers are trained to assume that they're always buying from Megacorp and that cheating and complaining is perfectly valid behavior.

Back when I was landlording, I had a HUD tenant who was a total pain - until she found out that her rent minus my mortgage was about twenty bucks a month. She had just assumed that as a property owner, I was rolling in cash. After that, she was pretty nice.

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#63

Post by dedward »

wallflower wrote: post #14

> Rafe reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. The classic idea of how easy it is to criticize someone's work without having a full appreciation of how hard it is to do the work (because he does not do it himself) It is one thing to write about a startup, another thing to build a product/build a customer base.

sure. but its silly to argue about what the " correct " price is in any transaction.

the correct price is the one the buyer and seller both freely agree to and come away happy with. simple as that. there are no other factors.

if the seller is selling too low and cant paynhis staff, thats his mis management. not something to talk about publicly. if they are succesfully selling the app at a high price and people buy it, and the seller treats his staff liks rock stars thats fine. nobody ripped anyone occ. there is nomneed to justify price, other than closing sales.

go watch carpet negotiations in morocco, i saw a guy pay 3000 usd for a nice rug, and a student pay 50 usd for the same size and type lof rig, same store. (all hand made so cant say they were the same). so what was the rug worth? to rich guy it was worth 3k because he went to morocco and got it himself, blah blah. to the student it was worth it because he negotiated the sales guy down from 5000 usd to 50 usd. in both cases, moreso in the latter, the salesman negotiated as if it were an art form, and in the end, made the point thAt once the parties avree on a price and close the deal there are no regrets. he wss happy he sold one rug for a huge amount of cash, and happy to sell one. henaply to a student who would appreciate it more. in both cases he made money, And we have. o ide what he true production cost is.

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#64

Post by JoeAltmaier »

dedward wrote: post #63
wallflower wrote: post #14

> Rafe reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. The classic idea of how easy it is to criticize someone's work without having a full appreciation of how hard it is to do the work (because he does not do it himself) It is one thing to write about a startup, another thing to build a product/build a customer base.

sure. but its silly to argue about what the " correct " price is in any transaction. the correct price is the one the buyer and seller both freely agree to and come away happy with. simple as that. there are no other factors. if the seller is selling too low and cant paynhis staff, thats his mis management. not something to talk about publicly. if they are succesfully selling the app at a high price and people buy it…

Mostly true. Then there are situations where the buyer is in a bind, has to pay whatever is asked. They don't go away happy, believe me.

Its called scalping, or gouging, or blackmail or whatever. Consider buying a car, or health care, or insurance, or gas, or cable service from your monopolistic bloodsucking local cable king.

Makes me want to go live in a cave.

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#65

Post by dedward »

msutherl wrote: post #23

There's an interesting ethical question here. If you charge more for your app, you may make the same amount of money and save on support costs, but you're also denying less wealthy people access to a good tool. It's much like, for instance, the clothing business. Some low-end luxury brands sell clothing of comparable quality to what mass-market brands offer, but mark up the price. This means that only wealthy people…

ethical? its straightforward free market principles at work. especially if similar quality clothing is available cheaply. finding a way to et people with more money to buy your brand even though its basically the same as the cheap one is just cine if you can do it.

ethics only come in when we start talking serious quality of life issues, like healthcare and food.... otherwise its all branding and marketing.

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#66

Post by rmk2 »

To be fair, I think some people might not have this problem, but from nought to fifty is quite a steep rise.

If I find a free app that does what I need, that is very nice. However, at a pricepoint of 50$, I have to think twice. Whatever I pay (I am a student) basically goes out of my monthly living allowance, which means out of my food money.

I have around 400$ (300€ really) a month for food and everything else after rent went off, 50$ is a significant part of that. I live several days off of that amount of money.

So in order to be worth spending this much money on an app, it sort of has to be essential. At that pricepoint, for me at least, the question is not "do I feel like shelling out that money that otherwise would have been used for nothing", the question that arises is "is this worth cutting a significant chunk out of my food budget for this month?".

It's a nice thing that many here don't have a problem like this, but generally saying that we just don't pay enough seems to be...arrogant.

For people, the calculation between necessity and price is necessarily different according to what they earn, but a lower price will more likely fall into more people's "impulse buy"-range.

A piece of software might be good and do the right thing, but the question for me (and maybe for the author just as well) is: is it necessary enough to warrant spending this much.

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#67

Post by scotty79 »

infiniteburp wrote: post #56
scotty79 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He says he wants and needs the app, it's worth the money but he still didn't pay? That's not a very convincing argument. Even if you want, need and can, doesn't mean you should. Personal purchases are almost never about economy but always about psychology. You buy to feel good afterwards. If high price spoils the pleasure for you then you are better off not buying even if you need, want and can afford. Similarly lo…

However ... if we adjust prices lower, people buy more. If we set prices higher, people buy less. Sellers price their product to maximize their profits.

I'm just saying that it's entirely possible to fulfill all economics perquisites for the purchase and still not make the purchase because we just plain don't like the price and won't feel good after paying it.

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#68

Post by icebraining »

jwr wrote: post #49
icebraining wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't count the number of times I had to copy a URL into a file on Dropbox, or Notational Velocity, just to be able to paste it into an E-mail being written on my laptop right next to my main machine. Why? ssh othermachine 'pbpaste' | pbcopy Bind that to a launcher and/or key shortcut. Instant shared clipboard!

It's cool, but it's another thing one has to do beyond cmd-C. Why not just have a proper shared clipboard plus keyboard/mouse sharing in a multi-computer, multi-monitor setup?

Automatic keyboard sharing is just a small step away from that, but that seems really annoying to me. I'd rather control when I want to share.

Why not just have a proper shared clipboard plus keyboard/mouse sharing in a multi-computer, multi-monitor setup?

Because if you don't need keyboard/mouse sharing that's just bloat running on your machine, because you become dependent on yet another utility that may be discontinued or receive a crappy update at any time, because it's less flexible (can I share only on demand?), less portable and it costs $50 that would be better spent on blackjack and hookers (or whatever you do for relaxing).

Re: We're not paying enough for apps

#69

Post by paulhauggis »

cageface wrote: post #32

But I still wasn't ready to part with my $50 for this little utility when the price point in my head was $0. And when there's so much great stuff in the App Store for $4.99. This is exactly the problem with the app store. People have an idea in their heads of what an app is worth, no matter how much work it took to produce it. Price is completely decoupled from cost and from sales volume. This is like saying a Lambor…

This has been my point for years about piracy and things like the app store.
Post reply on HN