[cooldeal]

The bottom 80% of apps split just 3% of the revenue.

From http://www.fastcompany.com/1792313/striking-it-rich-in-the-a...

Developer Daniel Markham calls iPhone development “App Store Roulette,” and Andy Finnell of the software studio Fortunate Bear cautions against hoping for App Store success. “You’re betting a lot of this on luck, and the odds are stacked against you," Finnell says. "You’d have better odds playing slots at a casino.”

Indeed, as much as app development has been called a gold rush, there is an equally loud theory that it operates more like a casino.

“The closest thing I’ve seen to a ‘business model’ for marketing iPhone apps is to advertise like crazy until you get into the top 50,” says David Barnard of AppCubby. “Once you’re there, the top 50 list will start generating its own buzz...But that’s not a business model, that’s like rolling the dice at a casino.”

[felipemnoa]

It is the same with other industries: Music, Movies, Theater, etc. Nothing is for sure. Not sure why we are singling the AppStore. There have been $100 million (USA) movies that have flopped. Most ventures will flop and only a few will take all the revenue/income in any industry.

[dagw]

There have been $100 million (USA) movies that have flopped.

The one difference is that a lot of people still made good money on that flop.

[chapel]

The gold rush moniker is really apt when used to describe the app store. Mainly because only a few, very few ended up rich, while most did not. The people that made the most, were the ones providing for the miners, and again, Apple and people making tools for people to make apps are making a killing, while only a few app makers are making anything substantial.

[sskates]

It's not as if creating a webapp is a more certain path to success. I'm certain that the bottom 80% of webapps split less than 1% of the revenue.

Is there any platform out there where you're guaranteed to make money just by showing up?

[danssig]

I don't really like this attitude. It strikes me as a built-to-flip style of business. I'm personally not planning to get rich from one app, but rather I want to create a bunch of apps that serve various markets. Hopefully, at some point, I will capture enough market that I can quit my day job. But I don't expect any of my apps to ever be top 50 anything. Rather I'm hoping they're each one of 10 (first page) that come up when you search for a specific task.

[jonhendry]

"The bottom 80% of apps split just 3% of the revenue."

I doubt it's any different with software sold at Best Buy or Target or Amazon. I doubt that it has ever been much different.

[comedian]

Now that I think about it, Android has 3X (or whatever) the market share of iOS, and no one seems to be making a ton of money from Android (except Google), the future for Android developers is pretty grim if you ask me.

[ootachi]

10 seconds was all it took to refute your claim: http://www.intomobile.com/2010/12/03/angry-birds-android-1-m...

[sixtofour]

Ah. I'm going to get my son up early tomorrow, talk him out of college and in to Android development. Or basketball star, I'm not sure which.

[enobrev]

It can be argued that your son could do quite well as a developer without a college degree and without having to be a star.

[sixtofour]

Not to disagree with you, but ...

It astounds me that there are still jobs for developers. I'm not talking about SV stars, I mean the hundreds of thousands of programmers writing CRUD apps around the country. That is eminently moveable, and if the stereotypical code quality of the stereotypical foreign outsourcing shop is sub par, it's not because they don't have the same brains as we do, it's merely because a) they haven't caught up with us yet (they will), and b) they haven't captured that work as primary developers yet, they're still learning to take that work by being (at the moment) sub contractors.

Japan after World War II, for example, broke into the market by making "cheap plastic crap" and motorcycles. Then better plastic crap and small cars (remember the Honda 600?). Then really good plastic crap and really good cars, and now that pie is divided among many more people around the world, including "our" pie.

Why will software be any different? It takes no resources except a brain, a computer and a connection. The whole world has the same quality of brains and computers as we, and their connection quality is often much better and cheaper than ours.

[billybob]

"Why will software be any different? It takes no resources except a brain, a computer and a connection. The whole world has the same quality of brains and computers as we, and their connection quality is often much better and cheaper than ours."

It takes one more resource: communication. Custom software development is quite different from motorcycles. If you need custom software development, and your business is going to depend on the result, outsourcing that effort to another country, especially across cultural and maybe language barriers, can be a disaster. You need developers who understand your business and the expectations of your customers.

In fact, take your argument and apply it to every other position in a company. Only a few of them, like sales, truly require an in-person presence, yet companies don't outsource most of them. Are they crazy, or are there good reasons for that?

[mqqq]

College is still useful. Basketball is a real longshot.

[sliverstorm]

Times like these, I wish I could vote you "Insightful"

[comedian]

Angry Birds.

Ads.

[cpeterso]

Does Google make money from Android?

[sskates]

They get a 30% cut of any app purchase. They don't get any cut from 3rd party advertisers though.

[metachris]

I think I've read that they're distributing part of that 30% to their partners. But Google is really making money of _every_ new internet-connected device at one point or another via AdSense.

[bookwormAT]

Since Android is a defensive strategy to keep competitors from controlling the platform below Google's services, you could say that Android secured all of Googles current and future earnings. That's a lot of money.

[comedian]

Do you truly believe this? Do I really have to explain the difference between a casino and the app store?

[StavrosK]

No, one is a place where you bet lots of money and hope you get a large enough return, but usually lose it all, and the other has free drinks.

[comedian]

No wonder you lost all your money. some people like you "hope" while successful people make things happen. Don't blame the system for your failures just because you're not good enough.

[mdonahoe]

Are you an actual comedian? Or is your username your only joke?