[zeptonix]

The developers have a lot more risks (the product never gets built, the product at its end isn't compelling, the founder moves on to something else and/or there never is any follow-through). The marketers are being asked to help take something that already has been built and make it take off. I think his point is a valid one that this isn't something you often see, which does run a bit counterintuitive to what you'd expect especially since commission-based structures are so common generally in sales.

[Veen]

One of the issues is that sales generated by a salesperson are a lot easier to attribute than sales generated by marketing. Let's say that, as a content marketer, I write an article for a client's blog that is widely shared. The article increases mindshare for the product, helps to establish the brand, and makes a material difference to the number of sales over the next year. But how does the business attribute those sales to me so that I get my commission? Many of those sales will not be from people clicking a CTA on the blog article, but from people who remember the brand and make a purchase weeks or months later. It's not even as easy as it seems to attribute sales to PPC or other forms of advertising.

[nickfromseattle]

Developers building products that noone uses is the status quo.

There are likely hundreds of thousands, or millions of developer built apps with no users.

Just because a product was built does not meet the only thing left is marketing.

In fact, I would rather have great marketing than a great product.

A lousy product with revenue can be iterated on more quickly than a great product with no revenue.