
You Guys Are Millionaires Right? - tambourine_man
http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/you-guys-are-millionaires-right/
======
ChuckMcM
I found the comment fascinating _"People will spend hours researching a $2
purchase, browsing reviews, emailing the developer, checking online forums.
Then they will go to a coffee shop they’ve never been before and buy a $4
coffee."_

It is so true, and so weird at the same time. Why the investment in research
time for the app and the disdain for the coffee which will pass through your
system roughly 45 minutes later? Makes me wonder if they should charge $19.99
for the app and offer a 'trial version' for $4.99 which lets you see if you
want to buy it with no expiration date.

~~~
bdr
I wonder if, psychologically, it's because the game is perceived as something
you will permanently own, while the coffee is temporary. People seem to weigh
the first kind of decision much more heavily.

~~~
d_r
I'll throw out a random personal theory here. I think this is because buying
apps is a solitary activity.

As humans we are more comfortable fitting in or following. When you go to a
coffee shop or a crowded store, you're buying something because you _actually_
see others buying it. The decision-making aspect is "taken away" from you, as
it was already done by people at large. There is also the element of human
interaction with the barista. It's much easier to spend $4 this way.

Yes, at the coffee shop you also might have an immediate purpose -- like chat
with a friend. But even when I am alone, spending $4 doesn't seem like a big
investment. It feels and seems normal. And note that this doesn't have to do
with the quality of the product.

In the meantime, when you're at alone and are browsing an app store, the
burden of decision making is on you. In essence, the thought process is "am I
making a good decision? is it normal to buy something like this? do I _really_
need this?" With that, $1 can seem like quite a bit when you have time and
solitude to decide.

~~~
brc
I think there is a lot more to this, and I think you're onto something.

Buying coffee is not only a social activity, it's something that's seen as a
sociable thing to do.

Buying apps is indeed a solitary activity, and - despite the burgenoing
marketplace - is still something slightly outside of the mainstream.

I suspect there is trust issues here - the average app isn't well trusted as
opposed to the average cup of coffee - as well as exchanging money for a
virtual thing as opposed to a physical.

edit : thinking further about this - the top n listings are just like the
coffee queue. It's self reinforcing because you see other people are buying
the app, which overcomes some of the trust issues. We _all_ think - well, all
these other people bought it, must be something OK about it.

The problem this brings about is the self-reinforcing top of the market which
becomes harder for others to break into.

------
kiba
Despite briefly working in the software field, I got no sympathy because of
the way he communicates. Yes, I know how tough software development is. Yes,
free software commoditize and runs people out of business. However, they
enable the company I used to work for, develops solution that help their
client. (I got laid off a few weeks ago)

No, I don't care much about software devs not making enough money in the
banks. No, I am not rich, though I have more saving than most people my age.
In fact, they're probably in debt.

I don't feel particularly bad for writing open source software for free or
scratching my itch for free, even though I am a horrible competitor. They
probably can beat me in sales technique and make more money than I ever will.

I recognize being in the software field is an honor, a blessing. It's not
something that we have a right to be in. We die or live by solving people's
problem and then making money off of them.

I don't recognize piracy as a moral issue, but simply a business model
problem, no matter how big of a problem it is.

------
tikhonj
The whole rant against "free" software is just a straw man--the movement he
decries as a cult against charging for software isn't about that at all. The
whole idea lies in freedom: the "free as in beer" "free" is the Java to the
movements JavaScript. The name is an unfortunate artifact of the English
language.

Additionally, it's pretty clearly not an outright lie: you only have to look
at the successful ecosystem of free/open source software, and the companies
which live on it, to see that it _does_ work. Perhaps it is an exaggeration,
but it is no _lie_.

~~~
kiba
I'll buy freedom. I buy an arudino and android, and a thing-o-matic though I
couldn't afford a thing-o-matic on my earning right now.

When push come to shove, I'll probably stays on android even if the world
around me all use iphone just like I use archlinux everyday. Granted, I am in
the minority.

~~~
Kliment
Go for a reprap instead. We're much more open-dev and organic (organic is the
nicer way of saying chaotic and disorganized I guess). Which continent are you
on?

------
pagliara
"Then you see an app like ’101 sex positions’ or ’301 Fart Noises’ reach the
lofty heights of App Store Success. They spent a week on a gimmick and made
bank, you spent 6 months building an app of utility and are struggling."

So why not go make your own fart or sex app? There's a reason why these apps
make it to the top; it's what people really want. Sadly or not, there's always
going to be a bigger potential market for dumb, entertaining apps than your
average practical app. I'd even go so far to say there's an art to producing
the kind of apps that satisfy this segment of the market.

~~~
tlrobinson
Indeed. I spent ~6 hours writing a gun "simulator" app that's made something
like $50,000. Some of it was luck, but if you're willing to sell your soul and
you can crank out a few of these a week your chances of success are probably
higher than spending 6 months perfecting a single app you don't even know
anyone wants.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Why sell your soul and make that decision? Why not do both, and try spending
half your time creating trivial fart apps - shouldn't take more than a few
hours, right? which you need to get away from your main project that's going
to change the way I use my smartphone, etc., etc.

~~~
patrickyeon
If we're offering advice from the peanut gallery (and I'm no smartphone
developer, so I'm way up in the peanut gallery), why not spend that time on a
program that can generate trivial apps.

Extract data [legally, now!] from some source (eg wikipedia), and skin it with
some boilerplate and some generated UI elements. I think it'd be a more
interesting project to implement the more general version, and once it's
nailed down it's probably a better source of revenue too.

~~~
Mizza
This happens all the time.

------
jodrellblank
"In which I try to convince myself that my decisions are fine, despite strong
evidence to the contrary".

------
bmunro
A few interesting comments from the author:

\- Piracy of Pocket Casts on iOS is about 30% \- Piracy of Pocket Casts on
Android is about 20%

moving into Android development was a very smart (some might say lucky) move
which has enabled us to stay profitable

We definitely need to focus more, but moving into Android was the smartest
thing we ever did. We now earn more money there (consistently) than iOS.

~~~
hrabago
Can you provide more information about this? What does your app do? Do you
sell in-app, is your app purchased, or do you get revenues mainly from ads?

~~~
bmunro
These were comments on the blog post by one of the ShiftyJelly devs. I'm not
associated with ShiftyJelly.

------
rkalla
Jiggy's comment[1] about why Coffee != Apps to be spot on. Your app is an
unknown quantity, getting someone to spend _anything_ on an unknown quantity
is really really hard.

When you go to McDonald's (or anyone for that matter) do you get something
different every time, or do you get your favorite thing? Same goes for Olive
Garden or Cheesecake Factory, did you get the burger last time and the fresh
fish catch this time?

Probably not.

To some degree, those fart apps are a known quantity; they make fart noises,
so they have the advantage over your app of having their foot in the door for
everyone interested.

It seems unfair, but there has to be a strategy there for riding that wave.
Hollywood has always done it, did you enjoy Superman 7 or Harry Potter 14?

It doesn't matter, it was a known quantity and eleventeen million people went
and saw it.

It seems like SJ is being forced to learn this lesson over-and-over again[2]
and I've already shared my thoughts with you about that[3].

Your expectations of what you want SJ to do and exactly how you want it to do
it may be too tight. You guys are clearly talented and I wonder if you need
some step-back-and-get-a-better-perspective time.

Tom's comment[4] is a great example of what I mean. Does ShiftyJelly want to
get into the gun or fart-app business? Probably not... does SJ want $50k?
Probably yes.

It feels to me like there is some unexpected pivot in here for you guys to
extract; one that you didn't see coming, but one that works out surprisingly
well for you.

NOTE: Make the two app references at the end of the article links to the
appstore.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3285771>

[2] [http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/amazon-app-
store...](http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/amazon-app-store-rotten-
to-the-core/)

[3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2837439>

[4] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284450>

------
jasonlotito
"Very few bits of software ever written were not funded by someone."

I found this comment to be quite insightful. An interesting way to look at it.

~~~
mnutt
Interesting, but demonstrably false.

Take a look through Github or Sourceforge. Many, many of the projects are
people scratching an itch or just building something for fun. We can argue
about the exact percentage, but it's definitely more than "very few bits".

~~~
jasonlotito
Github and Sourceforge are supported via paying customers or advertising. =)

The point isn't that all software isn't paid for. Rather, that somewhere, it's
costing someone money. And I think that was the point (or at least, that's
what I got from it, which is the important part).

~~~
mnutt
I was referring to the software on Github and Sourceforge, not Github and
Sourceforge themselves.

Some software costs someone money. Lots of it is built for the sake of
building it though. You could argue that time people spend building software
could have been billable hours, but I think the author totally misunderstands
the spirit of building software for the enjoyment of it.

~~~
jasonlotito
> I was referring to the software on Github and Sourceforge, not Github and
> Sourceforge themselves.

So was I. And this software is being supported by SF and Github.

> I think the author totally misunderstands the spirit of building software
> for the enjoyment of it.

Which means nothing.

Consider Linus and Linux. Linux wasn't paid for directly, but don't for a
minute think it wasn't supported by someone's cash.

In fact, I challenge you to find me software that didn't use someone's real
money (not this billable hours thing you brought to the table for some reason)
to get developed at some point.

~~~
mnutt
I don't understand your argument that the software is being supported by SF
and Github. Github and SF didn't spend a cent to develop any of those
projects; they were created and then hosted there. If I hosted my open source
software on my Linode account would you say that it's paid because I spent my
own money to pay for Linode?

You picked one example in which someone gets paid to write software, but there
are hundreds of thousands of software projects that were written in people's
spare time, either for fun or to learn to code or to scratch their own (non-
monetary) itch.

Here's a random one from the HN frontpage last week:

<https://github.com/holman/spark>

I'm not sure whether we're arguing some kind of objectivist semantics game, or
if we're talking past each other.

------
swah
Another theory: because there is no line of folks buying the same app in front
of you.

------
erkin_unlu
a very good post, but he seemed a little confused with the open source / free
software paradigm. He must have known that open source software can be
charged, the point is that you have to share the source code you are selling!!

------
billpatrianakos
I'm so glad they wrote about piracy and made the points about how Not all
software should be free. Honestly, I'll never understand that sense of
entitlement people have. I was once in the same boat as the author, pirating
everything under the sun. Then I got a job writing code too and I haven't
pirated a single thing since. I don't sell software but I appreciate the work
that goes into it and understand that these guys lose out even if I didn't
have money to pay to begin with. The no money argument and the free marketing
arguments are bunk. The poor will save to buy if there's no pirate copy and
the majority of marketing you get from a pirated app is marketing that links
to the pirate download, not the legit one!

Excellent post!

~~~
wuster
I've been wondering if independent software vendors might benefit from some
humanizing of the sales effort. Instead of charging $2 for an app, how about
framing it as "buy the developer a taco", or for $4 "buy the developer a
grande latte". The amazing $10 app could be "buy the developer a roll of
sushi". You get the idea.

Psychologically, I find it much more satisfying to be rewarding friends &
associates with more tangible things than some dollar amount.

Does anyone know if this model has been attempted before?

~~~
brc
It flips it around to begging and belittling the time spent.

A far better proposition is just charging what you think it is worth and
advertising the benefits to the buyer. Telling the buyer you're going to get a
sushi roll doesn't assist them. Telling them they save x hours a week, or
avoid situation y - now that's better marketing.

~~~
wuster
Thanks. I should have thought about the other angle of this. Mostly I was
fascinated with the fun possibilities.

