No, but Apple and MS both consider the increased visibility and growth in user count from being "featured" in their marketplaces as a nice bonus for the developer. If I were a business generating revenue from app subscriptions, I'd jump all over it.
If you are generating revenue exposure can be very useful. However if you don't already have a good business model it just digs your hole deeper. Be very careful to be sure which you are in.
It’s a frighteningly common invit^H^H^H^H^H^H exploitation providing free labour to owners of gathering places benefitting from that labour (like bars and browsers and operating systems and social networks, etc).
It's not an iron-clad given that the musician provides value to a venue.
Musicians who are confident they can bring business to a venue negotiate with confidence and get paid.
Those who play for free are ones who don't have that confidence.
What you accept is what you cost. That's the market rate.
How about this argument. Say I have a restaurant. Typically that means there is some landlord, and I pay them utilities and rent in exchange for using the space. Now some guitar-strumming, crooning ape wants to perform in the same space. If he and I are to be considered part of the same organization, we are on the same level of the "org chart". We are sharing the space and doing our thing. Why would I pay him anything? He should pay part of the rent and utilities. Or, why not the other way around?
Let's reverse it. Suppose a musician has a venue where he performs every night, and people come. Paying people. Suppose I want sell hot-dogs and sandwiches there, and he lets me do that. Why the fuck should he also pay me anything? He would be right to ask me to pay some sort of rent.
Now if I give the hot dogs and sandwiches for free, so that many more people come, and those people pay to get into this music venue, then there is a case that I'm increasing the business, and doing it out of my pocket. Still, that is my problem; I shouldn't be doing such a thing. Maybe I know what I'm doing! Or maybe I'm trying out new product to see how people like it or whatever (market research).
Context matters: It's a very different dynamic, depending on who approaches whom.
If the venue owner does the approaching (as in the context of the post raising this sub-thread) like Apple, Microsoft or Google approaching extension developers) it's questionable.
If the musician (or the extensions developer) approaches the venue owner, it's an entirely different story.
One has exploitation written all over it, the other not so much.
The context of the great-great-...-parent post suggests the exploitative version.
> How about this argument. Say I have a restaurant. Typically that means there is some landlord, and I pay them utilities and rent in exchange for using the space. Now some guitar-strumming, crooning ape wants to perform in the same space. If he and I are to be considered part of the same organization, we are on the same level of the "org chart". We are sharing the space and doing our thing. Why would I pay him anything? He should pay part of the rent and utilities. Or, why not the other way around?
Owners are allowed to do a lot of things that would be considered exploitative in an employment relationship: they can work excessive hours, below minimum wage, etc.. If they're a genuine owner getting their share of the upside, it's fair enough.
> Now if I give the hot dogs and sandwiches for free, so that many more people come, and those people pay to get into this music venue, then there is a case that I'm increasing the business, and doing it out of my pocket. Still, that is my problem; I shouldn't be doing such a thing. Maybe I know what I'm doing! Or maybe I'm trying out new product to see how people like it or whatever (market research).
You're not allowed to do form relationships that are indistinguishable from illegally-exploitative employment, for the same reason you're not allowed to run the shell game even if you do it 100% honestly. You'll find a lot of similar rules around charities that don't make sense on the surface, but are the only way to have a regulatory regime that protects people: you're not allowed to volunteer for or donate to the same organisation you work for, volunteers aren't allowed to be paid, volunteers can't do the exact same activities that they do for the charity but for a non-charity business...
As the other commenter said, the venue owner should pay the musician in the context provided by the parent poster, because the venue owner is the one asking the musician to play at their venue. Context matters.
The situation being called out, is the very situation that flows from your hypothetical restaurant owner's contemptuous disregard for the "guitar-strumming, crooning ape".
If a venue representative passes a hint to some musicians that a free space for jamming is available certain days of the week and certain hours, with some sound equipment and possibly an audience, is that an invitation which obliges them to pay the musicians? Certainly not.
The one thing that makes the context different is if the venue wants very specific musicians, and all of their choices are pros who expect to get paid. The venue can't get any of the musicians it wants without paying and that's that.
If a venue is not picky about musicians, it can easily get free ones. So many free ones that if three of them cancel, it can still call a fourth to come over.
Your analogy only works if in the first case it's the musician who pockets the entry fee. Or, in the second, the payment for the food. The second, you specified they didn't (you “sell” the hot dogs, i.e. presumably pocket the payment yourself). The first is usually not the case.
But the implied flow of money doesn't follow from that.
Suppose I own an empty space with a little stage, a PA sound system, and some 100 chairs. I put a down payment on this place, paid for equipment and upgrades and have to pay property taxes, utilities and mortgage. If nothing happens there, I lose money out of my own pocket. I intend for it to be a music venue. I meet the definition of a music venue owner.
Some musicians have contacted me and would like to have a concert there.
Should anyone pay anyone? Who should pay whom?
How is this for logic: "A house isn't a home without a family! If you want me to move into this house with my wife and three kids to make it a home, you're gonna have to pay me!"
For a couple projects and apps I worked on, exposure in one of these stores would be worth a decent amount of engineering effort. You can convert that exposure into users, marketing "buzz", validation of the apps worth to third parties, etc.
This isn't universal, of course. But not all payment comes in liquid form!