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Comment by il | Hacker News Reader

People build apps because it's easy. If you're a half decent developer building an app, you _can't fail_ and that is huge. Getting people to actually pay you for something is hard and fraught with uncertainty and danger. No wonder most people choose to build apps.

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Getting people to actually pay you for something is hard and fraught with uncertainty and danger.

Just to be more explicit about these dangers and uncertainties:

  - It takes time to set up a payment system, and it's not
    nearly as fun as building the app in the first place
  - When you start charging, you take on responsibility for 
    the app, and supporting users
  - If no one buys it, you've wasted the time and money you
    put into setting up the payment system

What you say is technically true, but that's not the real reason people build apps instead of businesses. It may be extra work and not as much fun to setup a payment system, but it's not that much extra work compared to the difficulty of getting people to pay and dealing with the high probability of rejection.

someone should build an app which simplifies payment. Create an account, choose the payment option you like and here is the code you have to include in your app, byebye.

I think PayPal is like that. For the price of an extra middle man.

I have to agree. It is fun to build apps, and it does advance your skill set. The fastest way to really understand development is to try and build something. But making money from fun apps isn't easy at all.

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