[statictype]

I'm surprised that people are making this argument here on HN. Pricing has nothing to do with how many months a developer spent on an app. The consumer doesn't and shouldn't care about it anymore than a developer should care about how much effort someone took to earn and spend those five bucks.

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).

[olivercameron]

Why is that not a legitimate justification? The vast majority of the world's population charge a monetary fee for their time, so why is this any different? The guy put a lot of effort into making an app, as such, if you like the app, you now reward him for that time by paying him.

[statictype]

You have a good point. Only thing I can say is that products are typically priced on what the market for it will bear. That's why enterprise crud apps or office productivity apps may sell for more than a game which may have required more effort from more skilled people.

[tomjen3]

Suppose that it turns out that he had outsourced the development of the app - as long as you get the same app, should he charge less?

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?

[olivercameron]

Yes, it's only $5. A good cup of coffee is only slightly less than that, and it takes all of minutes to create. It's not like we are talking about $1000 enterprise software here.