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Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

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Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#71

Post by jdminhbg »

xiaoma wrote: post #61
danilocampos wrote: post #35

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could. They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.

> "Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could." I wish there were a way of identifying people like you online and charging more to capture some of that consumer surplus :)

Looks like there is a way: Make a great product and sell it for a premium price.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#72

Post by smackfu »

toyg wrote: post #51
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.

That's what I said in comments on the page -- they could have gone for a mix of eBay and Humble Indie Bundle: offer what you want, and the best 100.000 get in. Tweetbot is currently 2nd in the Top Paid and Top Grossing store charts, behind only OSX Mountain Lion . Those $1.4m will be in the bank in a few days . People didn't balk at the price one bit ; I thought about it for a few minutes, and then went f#ck it, it's…

Well, who knows how well the top grosser on the Mac App Store is really doing? It's not the iOS App Store. It seems to generally be dominated by Apple apps.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#73

Post by wissler »

danilocampos wrote: post #35

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could. They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much.

No, it's $20 because they decided to price it at $20, and they decided to price it at $20 for the reasons they stated.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#74

Post by utopkara »

briandear wrote: post #27
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.

You'll find plenty of them when you come to HN to talk about your product.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#75

Post by xiaoma »

jdminhbg wrote: post #71
xiaoma wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could." I wish there were a way of identifying people like you online and charging more to capture some of that consumer surplus :)

Looks like there is a way: Make a great product and sell it for a premium price.

The rub is that "a premium price" means something a little bit different to each customer.

Unless you price it so highly that only one person in the world will pay for it, you're leaving consumer surplus on the table. Clearly that's not a good solution though, since you miss out on all the slightly more price sensitive customers.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#76

Post by jlmendezbonini »

ruswick wrote: post #64
jlmendezbonini wrote: post #42

Quickly skimming through the comments turned to be somewhat informative. Note that some are partial quotes from larger comments. The ones that I found more interesting are: - "The same price as my operating system. Later guys, it’s been fun." While I understand his/her reasoning I disagree because it's a very deceiving comparison. - "I love tweetbot, and I know tapbots won’t care, but I can’t afford to buy $20 for so…

I don't think the "I'll pay anything" guys make valid points. Most people do not judge the reasonability of a price on the amount of work that is put into a product. (Nor should they.) When one purchases something, they ought to evaluate the value of a product solely on the utility that they gain from that product and how that compares to the utility and price of similar products. Tweetbot is working against the prec…

>When one purchases something, they ought to evaluate the value of a product solely on the utility that they gain from that product and how that compares to the utility and price of similar products.

I wouldn't say is that simple. I think it depends on WHO is buying WHAT. For example, if I'm buying a pillow...yes, I'll buy the cheapest one available. If I were buying a watch, no. I'd be more than happy to pay over $10,000 for a watch (insane ah? if I could just convince the wife...) Why? because a different set of criteria come into play and the utilitarian aspect (telling time) loses importance (heck a $5 Casio can be more accurate sometimes). Things like the engineering behind the construction of the watch, the history of the brand, the materials used, etc, become purchasing decisions factors. The point is that for some it's worth $20 or more because it's either beautiful, stable, etc, or they might just like Tapbot as a company.

>Tweetbot is working against the precedent set by other apps in this regard. It yields near-negligible utility over free alternatives and competes in an ecosystem dominated by free apps. (If anything, it yields less utility over others, because once the token threshold is met, it will in all likelihood become abandon-ware.) Thus the value of Tweetbot— and of software in general— goes down. >The work put in by the developers has no weight in determining the price. The market's tolerance, perception of value, and willingness to pay is the only factor. Even if I spend 10,000 hours making a great latte, it's unreasonable that I charge $1m for it because my competitors are selling a similar product at $4 and the increase in utility of my latte versus theirs is likely not enough to warrant the increase in cost to the consumer. Their logic is flawed and is totally incongruous with the most fundamental concepts of economics. Commerce is a quid pro quo, not a charitable donation.

And yet...I'm confident and I really hope they sell enough copies to make a good profit out of a great product.

>You really can't fault them for price-gouging: Everyone loves money.

I truly disagree with this statement. It's not about greed. Come on, they even took the time to explain to their users why they had charge more than they had initially planned.

>As for me, I won't be buying TweetBot. It's more money than I can reasonably afford. Even if it weren't, it's price simply outpaces it's value to such an extent as to be unjustifiable.

Look, you wrote it more clearly than me: it's about "perception of value". Some users think it's fairly priced, others that it's too high, and some that they could even charge more.

By the way, I won't buy it either...too expensive...for me ;)

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#77

Post by bsg75 »

bitcartel wrote: post #36

Once upon a time you didn't have to justify your pricing. Thanks App Store.

Why is the pricing of this an App Store issue?

I prefer Yorufukurou over over the other clients I have tried, and its free on the App Store or the developer's site.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#78

Post by MatthewPhillips »

jlmendezbonini wrote: post #76
ruswick wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the "I'll pay anything" guys make valid points. Most people do not judge the reasonability of a price on the amount of work that is put into a product. (Nor should they.) When one purchases something, they ought to evaluate the value of a product solely on the utility that they gain from that product and how that compares to the utility and price of similar products. Tweetbot is working against the prec…

>When one purchases something, they ought to evaluate the value of a product solely on the utility that they gain from that product and how that compares to the utility and price of similar products. I wouldn't say is that simple. I think it depends on WHO is buying WHAT. For example, if I'm buying a pillow...yes, I'll buy the cheapest one available. If I were buying a watch, no. I'd be more than happy to pay over $1…

Marginal utility is not just about functionality utility. It simply means how much utility you derive vs. the next best thing. For some, a $10k watch is worth it, as it gives them convidence and increases their social standing. TapBots is betting on people deriving $15 more value than whatever the $5 app is.

The value is not all about how well it does Twitter. Many Mac users will buy it so that they can talk about it with other Mac users. That's part of marginal utility as well. TapBots has won the respect of Mac opinion makers, and that respect is cash in the bank.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#79

Post by cynix »

msbarnett wrote: post #70
ruswick wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value is determined not by the amount of work put into it, but by the precedent set by the market. So long as there are free and sub-$3 clients, $20 is anomalous. What gets me most about arguments like these is that you are pulling numbers out of thin air. You assert that $.99 is too little for an app, but provide no context nor any evidence to support that. Give me a number that demonstrates the monetary value to th…

> Value is determined not by the amount of work put into it, but by the precedent set by the market. directly contradicts: > If everyone else is charging $2 for their apps, yeah, $20 is too much. Let this sink in: Tweetbot for has been out for less than 24 hours. It is already #2 in sales and #2 in Mac App Store revenue. The market completely disagrees with your latter statement . What you're seeing here isn't that $…

> Let this sink in: Tweetbot for has been out for less than 24 hours. It is already #2 in sales and #2 in Mac App Store revenue.

To be fair, Tweetbot only has to sell 1/10 as many copies as those $2 apps in order to beat them at the sales ranking.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#80

Post by lostlogin »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #69
Encosia wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter can't enforce a "consistent experience" on third party clients, meaning they can't be sure that promoted tweets, accounts, and other forms of generally unwanted advertising will show up in timelines that aren't rendered with Twitter's own code.

They can revoke access for clients that don't comply with the display guidelines. They probably don't want to be in the business of policing 3rd parties like that, but they have the power if they want to use it.

Yes. Additionally, blocking access past 100k also stops one client from being the-tail-that-wags-the-dog too. Imagine a dispute where Twitter faced blocking the chosen mode of access to a significant percentage of users, or caving to the client owner.
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