Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash | Hacker News Reader

Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash

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36 pointskickofline32 comments

> Apple sells highly profitable devices and makes its apps free, but locks you into a proprietary ecosystem.

Apple does sell a number of software products for high-ish prices: Final Cut Pro (as well as add-ons Motion and Compressor) and Logic Pro are paid-for software.

But the another thing (which is fascinating to me, given the audience of HN and the tone of the comments here) is that part of the purpose of the ecosystem lock-in is to get users to pay indy devs for software.

Now, yes, Apple does take a cut. But that aligns them with devs in terms of getting users to open their wallets. The iPad still has no calculator app. But there are plenty of paid ones in the App Store. Apple gets an extra $0.30 and the indy dev gets $0.70 because iPadOS lacks a built-in calculator[1]

I predict that the european experiment will ultimately prove to be a failure for paid apps. If you look at the commentary from users and developers about why they like the changes, the things they like are completely orthogonal, even if they sound the same. Developers like that they won't have to pay the "Apple Tax" because users can side-load. Whereas users like that they don't have to pay developers because they can side-load.

I hope I'm wrong.

[1] Except the one in spotlight.

> Developers like that they won't have to pay the "Apple Tax" because users can side-load. Whereas users like that they don't have to pay developers because they can side-load.

The killer app for jailbreaking/sideloading on Apple's handheld gaming system is ... running unlicensed games?

So basically similar to jailbreaking/sideloading on Nintendo's handheld gaming system?

Perhaps one difference may be that popular iPhone games are "free to play" with intrusive microtransactions, while Nintendo games (especially first party) cost more up front but avoid microtransactions. Also iPhone games tend to be "live service" while many Nintendo games can be played offline (or on a LAN for games like Mario Kart or Smash.)

iPhone game developers may be able to leverage online DRM schemes in "live service" games to block unauthorized players of sideloaded games.

> But the another thing (which is fascinating to me, given the audience of HN and the tone of the comments here) is that part of the purpose of the ecosystem lock-in is to get users to pay indy devs for software.

The group of indie devs is not a homogeneous group. For example, there exist "hacker-type" indie devs who love to write software that subverts Apple's rules and/or adds functionalities that Apple does not like or restricts.

Yes, and they are quite vocal and not afraid to shout down the other type nor to use the downvote button. Unfortunately I'm afraid their shenanigans will undermine the market and ecosystem of those who would like to make a living from writing quality software.

C'est la vie.

Part of the problem (I believe) is people who want to have their cake and eat it too. If that worked in real life, the government could simply pass a law that cake shall cost $0 and no-one would go hungry ever again. Apple's ecosystem imposes restrictions on developers, but also brings benefits. Sometimes in real life you have to take the bad with the good.

The calculator example doesn't explain anything since iphone has a calculator, Mac has one, and there are also free calculator apps, so how is the alignment driving open wallets?

I'm sorry, but if "supporting indie devs" means "having to pay for basic computer functionality like a calculator" I don't care about supporting them.

> I’m not sure why, but we seem more willing to spend money on good fruit jam than on good software. I notice that I spend less on personal software than I do on groceries and many basic things.

Because you can die without groceries and suffer a lot without other basics unlike with personal software?

> Consider its cost per use

Just pick a better metric (like mortal cost per non-use) and it will make sense.

The point isn't where you live or die. The point is that we are willing to spend more for a good product, when that product isn't software (I don't think that is true) he wasn't saying "we buy jam but not software" he was saying "we are willing to spend more money on artesian jam than on good quality software"

No, what he was saying is directly in my quote, and it directly compares "groceries" and "basic things" to sofware. Good jam is compared to good software.

I don't think you will die if you buy cheap jam — at least not quickly. The choice people make to buy higher quality jam isn't a function of life or death. It seem related to a perception of value, which good software doesn't seem to evoke for the vast majority of people.

Do you think you will die if you don't buy "groceries and many basic things."? Is it an issue that all "personal software" doesn't evoke enough of a perceived value compared to those two categories?

Yes, it seems uncontroversial to say you will eventually die if you don't eat food... And it seems uncontroversial to say that eating higher quality food will help you live longer. Quality food deserves your hard-earned cash too.

The relationship between health and software is less tenuous than it may seem. We spend so much of our time using software — it can have a significant effect on our health. See studies that explore social media use and its relation to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, etc.

Big food and big software are similar in that they are cheaper to mass produce, more effective to advertise at scale. As such many people are trapped into assuming there are no alternatives. You may never develop an understanding of what it is you're being fed.

It absolutely does, but that doesn't change the fact that the "fair price" of an additional copy of that software is still its marginal cost of production, which is zero.

Which is why funding the R&D part of any product of such nature has always been so annoying. Today it seems we've settled on Patreon and the like for the individual-scale projects.

Every user isn’t just a zero marginal cost copy of the software, having a user base is taking a gamble on support requests, bugs, FAQs.

There’s a risk with a user base and having a support organization, much like the risk calculation the insurance industry takes.

A new app on Google play or AppStore needs ads to have any downloads at all (unless you already have an audience), so each download costs the developer 0.5 - 3 USD.

Some software has ongoing costs, such as support, servers, bug fixes, etc. But even in the hypothetical case that a piece of indie software has no ongoing costs, it seems fair that the creator should be at least somewhat rewarded for the value the software creates, regardless of how many copies are sold. Without this incentive we are stuck in a world where the only reason to create independent software is for the pure love of the craft, which is noble but only magnifies the advantages big tech has over indies.

Does anyone have good examples of software that meets this criteria? Or places where this type of software can be found? I love the idea here and would love to put it into practice but among the disadvantages that small makers suffer against large industry is easy discoverability for their products.

Here are some examples of high quality "indie" software that I use:

Transcribe![1] - just a good app for doing music transcription. Pull in a local audio file, slow it down, loop it, etc. Works great, no fuss. I use this for all kinds of things when practicing guitar.

Neck Diagrams[2] - the best tool out there for making various kinds of string instrument diagrams (chord diagrams, scale diagrams on a fretboard, that kind of thing). I like the software a lot and it's pretty powerful - though I'll admit I've often thought about trying to eat their lunch, as there's a few things it doesn't do that I'd like to see.

[1]: https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/download_mac.html [2]: https://www.neckdiagrams.com/

I paid for Pixelmator Pro and I like it a lot. On iPad I paid for Procreate. Both great apps for digital art (about 1/2 of my job). I wish I could have purchased these directly from their respective developers instead of an app store middleman getting a cut, though. Maybe someday.

I would argue that most of the $3-$10 apps in the iOS app store meet this criteria.

As a college student: bold of you to assume I have any money at all.

Also while I do like the software VMware and proxmox has, and I would donate to developers if I had spare money, I don't so I just keep a list for future me, and try to convey my thanks in the meantime.

On the other hand: broadcom can gargle my balls, I will not be paying them a single cent unless its my last option. They killed a good product, and are like the hug of death for acquired company's.

I would have less issue paying money if I knew the software wasn't being overinflated or money was actually going to the developers. Iv paid for solid works and other stuff cuz I see its value and use it, but it was also a good product I could as a student.

Now EDA software is insanely expensive and so my only option is openlane,so I can struggle trying to learn this hobby

Assuming you haven't exited to a barter economy you must surely be buying food? Unlike food, software can create time. Time = potential earnings. Consider a piece of software that costs less than a sandwich but the leverage it creates frees up some amount of time that earns you more than the cost of a sandwich.

Life isn't an ad, you can't monetize a random impression at any time.

Consider the software that saves you 5 min at night when you're doing some assignment - this isn't monetizable, you've go the benefit of 5 min more sleep, but you can't pay with that for the app

Converting time into money is easier for some people/professions than others. However converting less useful time into more useful time is a great thing for anyone. If an app gives you an extra 5 minutes every day, that's 30 hours per year that you can use towards something of your choice, whether it's sleep, exercise, recreation, work, etc.

Consider how much one hour of your time is worth — you are probably underestimating that number.

> As a college student: bold of you to assume I have any money at all.

Personally? Maybe not. Collectively? Maybe:

"College students are an entry-point market with over $593 billion in spending power."

https://www.refuelagency.com/college-marketing/

Part of it could be that many students have summer and/or part-time jobs, and the university isn't always successful in seizing every last dime that you make.

Thanks for pointing me toward OpenLane. I'm familiar with many of its individual components, but I wasn't aware of the overall project to combine them.

Things are looking better and better in terms of open source digital design workflows.

Presumably you would need software for course assignments as well.

> As a college student

"No man is an island." You're part of a monied collective. If not your family, the institution could foot the bill. Or, perhaps, your State. You are surrounded by and buoyed up on a current of wealth. It's not in your debit card, so what? Everything in your life is being paid for by someone.

If only there were a risk-free, low-friciton _way_ to pay for it, I'd be happy to. The only way to pay for anything now is to risk sharing your credit card number with somebody who's trustworthiness and commitment to security are incredibly variable.

> The only way to pay for anything now is to risk sharing your credit card number with somebody who's trustworthiness and commitment to security are incredibly variable.

There are a lot of people using merchants of record like Stripe and Paddle. So this isn't the biggest barrier these days

Like a store... for apps? An "App Store", if you will. ;)

That's very sweet and all, but I strongly prefer the voluntary communism of free software, and I don't leave the open-source world unless I have no choice.

Open Source != Free Software

There are thousands of companies who release open source as part of a paid product.

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