Ask HN: Refund cost of iPhone app for user x if you sell 2x?

3 points·amichail··6 comments

Would this encourage people to buy more iPhone apps and tell their friends about them?

Would it be considered gambling?

If the app is any good it should sell through personal recommendation. Why add a "tacky" promotion that (to my mind) says "dump this app on two acquaintances and you get you money refunded" - message feels entirely negative to me.

The idea is that if you are the 1000th person to buy the app, then you get your money back if/when the 2000th person buys the app.

you might want to rephrase the question then, cuz i thought the same thing other posters did.

i think its interesting enough that it could boost the pr on your product or help create an early rush to put you in the top lists, but if i bought an app using that model i wouldn't really be motivated by that fact alone to recommend it to anyone. for me the usefulness and how much i like the app would still way out-trump any need to get my money back.

if you are going with the idea tho, it might be better if there was a 'reward' aspect not just a refund. like 4x = u get paid 1x or something. refunds are frankly not too exciting especially for an iphone app.

You mean the nth user gets a refund when the (2n)th user buys? As n approaches +inf.0, the incentive approaches zero. So it's likely to encourage early adopters, and not latecomers. But usually (I believe) the early adopters need no extra motivation. So the question is whether (sales/2) in this scenario is greater than (sales) in the usual scenario.

Would it be considered gambling?

For the buyer, or the seller? :) It sounds a bit closer to MLM than to gambling ...

Why?

Perhaps developers would make more money and users would discover more cool apps.

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