[giantg2]

At least they aren't charging $100 per year to be a developer like Apple does. I would have liked to make my apps multiplatform, but it just doesn't make sense at that price.

Edit: It's great to see that this platform likes downvoting people who release their software for free. Profit matters above all else. I guess next you all will tell me my job is worthless and I suck at life because I make under $100k.

[pier25]

I had a free app on the Mac App Store with no ads. Last time I checked, it had an average of 60 downloads per day. Not much, but I guess it was valuable to some people. I still use it almost daily.

After a couple of years I decided it didn’t make sense to keep paying $100 to Apple every year just to host a small free app.

[sidlls]

If it doesn’t make sense at $100/year, your apps just don’t make enough to matter to your budget at all anyhow.

[giantg2]

Of course it doesn't make money - it's free. It doesn't have ads either.

[withinboredom]

I'd love to see that if your app was free with no ads, you didn't have to pay for a dev account.

[MajorBee]

Presumably this would result in a flood of "free" apps that are nothing more than facades for scams (e.g. a fun personality/quiz app -- look ma, no ads! -- that makes you reveal your secret questions and answers).

Maintaining the integrity of an app store is a very non-trivial task, and building an entry barrier in the form of developer fees is one way of doing it. Not saying this is the only solution or even a particularly good one, but every solution will have its share of unintended consequences and exploited armor chinks. Making dev accounts free for no-ads would be an interesting experiment, though. I'd support it for science!

[withinboredom]

Ha, that's a good point, though I think if Apple were to implement something like it, there would be a ton of rules. Perhaps banning network requests from the free app (no saas, no tracking) or limiting it in some way from being abused.

[edoceo]

Same, help my FOSS projects out!

[manigandham]

This discussion is about how the vast majority of apps don’t make any money. What needs to make sense for that completely arbitrary fee?

[askafriend]

The $100 a year ensures that trash doesn’t litter the App Store and also supports the ongoing development of tooling and management of the store (manual review, Xcode, documentation, distribution, APIs like Metal, etc).

If you’re not committed enough to releasing something with >$100 in value or not committed to releasing something high quality, the App Store doesn’t need you or your app - period.

As a user (and as a dev), I like this. The bar does not need to be lower.

Also if you look at a platform like Unity, the Hobbyist license is $25 a month and the Pro license is $125 a month.

[macintux]

> The $100 a year ensures that trash doesn’t litter the App Store

As an Apple fan, I really wish that were true.

[MomoXenosaga]

I think that if you were to round up 100 people off the street and take their phones they all have more or less the same apps on them.

90% of what you find in the app stores of Google and Apple is fluff.

[heavyset_go]

> The $100 a year ensures that trash doesn’t litter the App Store

And yet I found a half of a dozen Chinese knockoff BonziBuddy clones on the Mac App Store.

[briandear]

If $100/yr is too much, then it’s very likely your app isn’t profitable. A person doesn’t say “I would sell my product at Target, but spending money on gas to deliver it to their distribution center is too expensive.”

Literally, it’s $8.33 per month to be a part of the Apple Developer program. If your app isn’t making that much in a month, then your app isn’t very good or you’re bad at business. No disrespect intended, but $8.33 as a cost of doing business is so trivial as to not even be worth mention.

[quesera]

I pay $100/yr to keep a few free apps (no in-app purchases, no ads, no commercialization attempts at all) in the App Store. I get emails all the time from people who want to buy the apps and ruin them.

I've been doing this for about ten years.

Now, my development time is worth a lot more than the accumulated $1000. But it's free time, and I volunteer it.

I also recognize the value of $100/yr as a "bozo filter" to Apple. But every year when they auto-bill me, I read the email and think about how it also excludes lots of good people from participating in iOS development.

It'd be great if there was a "NCA" class of app. No commercialization allowed. Always free, never ads, no in-app purchases ever. If all of your apps are NCA, your developer fee would be waived. This is probably too complicated for an Apple product though. :) And I think alternate App Stores or side-loading would be a net negative for the platform. So I pay.

[hertzrat]

I read a few years ago that only about 0.01% of Android apps make enough money to cover development costs. It isn’t the end of the world if there were slightly less competition driving down peoples revenues

[withinboredom]

But it does mean that your app needs to make $8.33 a month, whether via ads, in-app purchases, cost of the app, or all of the above. On Android, an app doesn't have a floor. You could make a free app, with no ads, and not have to make any money.

[robertlagrant]

I think this is an over-attribution of this cost. Even if you release the same app for nothing, and that cost went away, your overwhelming cost would still be your time, and the value of that time. $8.33/mo isn't even a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.

What it does do is pay for all the app store infrastructure, IDE development, etc etc, so your choice to release something for nothing doesn't externalise those costs on others.

[fomine3]

It's cost but sometimes it's fun for developer and makes resume/GitHub/fame good. Paying $100 isn't fun or good for anyone.

[robertlagrant]

The same reasoning applies for time and money. It's all the same. $100 + $10000 worth of time to make resume/GitHub/fame moves. The $100 is minimal.

[manigandham]

Most apps don’t make any money, in fact that’s what started this particular thread. Many apps are also free.

And $8/month is not trivial for billions of people. Consider yourself fortunate that you’re not one of them, but it’s useful to have a more global perspective when discussing the accessibility of a major platform.

[giantg2]

Or maybe I released it as free software.

[sidlls]

Application software such as this shouldn’t be free. It hides the true cost to developers from consumers and, if they’re ad supported hooks into one of the most insidious, malicious systems we’ve ever devised.

I won’t work on free software. I have too much respect for myself, my family, and my colleagues to do that.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> I won’t work on free software. I have too much respect for myself, my family, and my colleagues to do that.

This is a strange attitude for me to see on HN, considering how much most of us love FOSS.

I can understand saying you don't have the time, or simply aren't interested, but to frame it as having "too much respect for myself" seems arrogant and spits in the face of the people who have written major software used in servers around the world.

[giantg2]

They were simple apps made for learning and to improve my resume.

I happen to like FOSS. It's voluntary after all. I have a bigger issue with how the industry interviews and assesses employees.

[heavyset_go]

> Application software such as this shouldn’t be free

Who are you to tell someone how they should or shouldn't spend their free time?

[sidlls]

I’m offering an opinion about providing software for free, not trying to dictate the use of anyone’s time.

[tapirl]

> If your app isn’t making that much in a month, then your app isn’t very good or you’re bad at business.

Yes, many indie developers are bad at business, but they made good apps. Their month sells might one or two. They pay the $99 to Apples per year just to prevent their apps from being removed App Store.