People are complaining about $5? Really? Someone has put months of effort into this app, more than justifying the "high" price. If you think it's too expensive, just don't buy it.
I just bought it and think it's great (nice icon too).
I just bought it and think it's great (nice icon too).
The reason people are complaining is not that people are not willing or not able to spend $5 on a HN reading app. The problem is that people simply aren't used to it.
$5 is what you pay for a game, for an app that piggybacks on someone else's content you usually either pay nothing or about a buck.
I wonder whether or not the author would make more money from it if the app was $2.50 or $1.
I'll gladly pay the $5 though.
FWIW, I think five dollars is ok for a niche app like this but "he spent a lot of time on it" doesn't sound like a legitimate justification for it (or for any pricing).
What if has still written it but was using a special compiler which compiled Lisp to Objective-C and had only spent two hours doing it, would you still feel that it was fair you paid the same?
Failure to grasp this simple concept is costing some industries a lot of money right now.
I don't know if people are making a fuzz because it's about Hacker News, or if they just don't believe the mantra they keep repeating, when they finally have put their money where their mouth is.
Charging for this app means the developer's time is valuable; releasing it for free would suggest that s/he does it to get a job. It also means that traction will let the developer improve the app over time to the benefit of people who subscribe to the idea.
I am perfectly open to a discussing on pricing it 2.99 instead of 4.99, but I can't be bothered by the outcries to make it free.
EDIT: I just saw that the developer even released the source code on GitHub. That's about as good as it can get.
It's fine to ask a person about what sets the app apart, and how it works, when they pay for it, and because it's fun to have a developer pitch their product, as is our wont on HN. What bothers me is the immense hypocrisy when people get downright hostile like this - like some do in this thread.
If the hostile people could get their head out of their ass, they could discuss the app on the basis of whether it was a sustainable business model - not an affront to their delicate, incongruous sensibilities.