Right... and 5$ is hard to pay when your a teenager, just because you don't have a credit card yourself.
iTMS cards are purchasable at every 7-Eleven and nearly every major supermarket, Wal-Mart, Meijer, Target or what-have-you in the USA. You can buy Xcode with $5 in nickles if you have access to a Coinstar machine.
Let's be realistic, the hardware demands are much more serious than $5 on an iTunes card. The problem here is the message Apple is sending.
Outside the USA, what do you do?
I probably wouldn't working in the field today, that's for sure.
Selling your parents on a single $99 purchase is a lot easier than trying to sell a $5 purchase every week. 'Tis just the way it is.
jarin below mentions he wouldn't hesitate buying his kid Xcode for $5... that only works if the parent is in the field also. How many, say, accountants or lawyers would buy their precocious coder-child a bunch of tools or understand the importance of it?
Today, a teenager would say, "What's a paper route?"
So not only did that lead to me being a programmer for a living, I got some negotiation skills out of it too.
You can get Visa gift cards at the convenience store for $10. If a teenager can't find the motivation to scrounge up 10 bucks, they're going to have a hell of a time learning how to program.
You can get Visa gift cards at the
convenience store for $10.
Many successful hackers were brought up in places where $5 is nothing to be sneezed at, and the dance of getting-that-$5-into-Apple's-pocket can cost you more than that in time and effort alone.
Also, "Many successful hackers were brought up in places where $5 is nothing to be sneezed at".. so fucking what? The revenue they bring to the table is immaterial. They don't matter to a large company.