[prepend]

I get annoyed by these things too based on some sort of perceived cost/value of the feature being available and implemented, but paygated.

Id rather just have a “donate $6 to help dev” in app purchase as it seems more authentic.

However, maybe there are really people who think dark mode is worth $6. Kids raised on Roblox seem to have no ethical issue with paying $5 for a digital hat that is just flipping a bit.

[spiderice]

It isn’t flipping a bit, it’s designing an entire free to play game, getting millions of users, designing a hat, then flipping a bit. And about a million other things not mentioned.

[jallen_dot_dev]

Not to mention pretty much anything these days can be reduced down to "flipping a bit." As a software developer I flip bits for my employer, and in exchange, they tell my bank to flip some bits in their DB.

[satvikpendem]

Indeed, the sort of reductionistic argument that the GP is making is simply too simplistic to be useful. It's like saying making a chair is just rearranging atoms and therefore it should be free as well.

[prepend]

The difference is that making a chair involves labor and atoms. Enabling a digital hat involves neither.

If a wizard could magically duplicate chairs, I’d have the same argument. Why charge $5 for something that costs $0 to replicate.

The design of the hat and the system to run it costs something. The design of the chair and the workshop to build it costs something. Those are fixed costs. It’s the marginal cost that is very different.

I’m not even against charging people for digital hats (I paid $5 after all), I’d just rather companies be more straightforward. Id rather pay $60 for a game once and not be microtransactioned.

Id rather pay $6 (or not since I don’t like this app) once than pay to enable features that clearly cost nothing or very little to implement.

App makers can charge whatever they like. And potential customers can complain about how much it sucks trying to convince app makers to build in a way I think is better for society (ie, straightforward prices for things rather than income streams from payments). But I could be wrong.

[prepend]

That particular hat is flipping a bit. Designing the game is a separate cost.

I played many a game that cost $20 and had thousands of hats so there’s many successful business plans that don’t involve free to play and then charging $5 for flipping a bit to enable my character to have a hat.

[kumarm]

>>donate $6 to help dev

No other profession probably degrades themselves as much as developers. If his app is worth it, people would pay or else they don't.

No developer need to beg for money if they are good at their craft.

[satvikpendem]

Agreed, no one who sells chairs will make them for free then ask for a $X "donation." But somehow people think devs should make their own stuff free too and ask for donations. If you like the product at a given price, buy it, and if you don't like either, don't buy it, same as any other good.

And people will pay $60 for physical items but balk at $0.99 apps and digital goods, it's strange.

[prepend]

Id rather also pay for the software. My point is charging $6 for dark mode is still “begging.”

I like the shareware model where people pay what they can, or what they perceive the value to be. I don’t think this is begging.

Programming is kind of unique because the marginal cost of production is near zero. I think this is a feature, not a bug and why it’s possible to have single person dev companies that are quite lucrative.

[satvikpendem]

People who offer their labor as shareware will tend towards making 0 dollars. That's just the reality of it, if people don't have to pay, they won't. If you want to make money, you should...charge people money.

[prepend]

That’s not true at all. Check out id software. They made gobs of money through shareware.

And of course there’s lots of open source developers who are excellent and donate their time with only expecting $0.

[coin]

> that is just flipping a bit

The bit is flipped at runtime or compile time. In the old days you'd pay for an upgrade and get a new binary with the feature compiled in. Nowadays the feature is compiled in and gated at runtime. In the end it's the same.