I vividly remember the brief gold rush when the app store first launched. Indie devs were making millions of dollars just by charging a few bucks to download their app. Things have changed of course. The market is over-saturated, and the floor is always zero dollars. But IMO, it's should still be worth the price of a coffee to have a really good app that is valuable to you. https://alcove.website/@mambocab/112288654684745718
@polotek It did feel like we all decided that the price of seeing an ad was just fine, and that for many developers (in mobile especially) that ongoing revenue was incredibly convenient.
I am always willing to pay for software and see the request for payment as a fundamentally healthier exchange.
Just as a personal example. I would pay many dollars for a time management app. Todo list + calendar. There are a lot of these that want to solve my problem. I'm sure several people will recommend something when they see this post.
But I think the related problem with paying for software is finding something that works for you personally. I've tried lots of apps already. I understand a lot about why different things don't work for me.
It has become more concrete for me in the context of learning about ADHD. There is lots of research about why my brain has specific challenges with time management. And that has led to specific recommendations about what kind of system might work better for me. But then I go explore different software solutions, and they are not designed for my needs.
For the record, I think ad-supported software is fine. It turns out advertising is important. You need a wide range of people to find your app.
The problem with online ads is that the whole ecosystem frequently gets out of control due to greed and how easy it is to propagate. Like some of us remember the 90s and early 00s when the web was literally unusable due to popup ads. https://dotnet.social/@poppastring/112288732820597479
On a related note, a lot of work-a-day devs don't wanna talk about how advertising is actually what puts money in their paychecks. If you ask them to reflect on their part in enabling the system that everybody complains about, they get really upset. https://social.polotek.net/@polotek/112287757400993385
@polotek there is a lot to it. I pay for multiple of the software i use and i have no problem for that.
Part of the problem for devs is that we are used to being part of a system (Procurement) that made paying for software so hard that we invented a whole ecosystem to not deal with Procurement. We lost the payment aspect too, but it was a sacrifice we accepted.
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