[cageface]

But I still wasn't ready to part with my $50 for this little utility when the price point in my head was $0. And when there's so much great stuff in the App Store for $4.99.

This is exactly the problem with the app store. People have an idea in their heads of what an app is worth, no matter how much work it took to produce it. Price is completely decoupled from cost and from sales volume. This is like saying a Lamborghini and a Kia should both cost $9999 because they're cars.

Ultimately this is going to lead to a ton of low quality junk in the market. A quick perusal of the top 50 selling apps suggests we're already there.

[Tloewald]

And of course before the app store there was no low quality junk.

Frankly the problem with the app store is app discovery (something apple clearly understands). The emphasis is on (a) stuff that makes money, (b) stuff that gets downloaded a lot, (c) stuff that lots of people like. Once you go into niches it's insanely hard to FIND things. And if something looks intriguing but is expensive, there's no free trial mechanism.

If the app store fixed the discovery problem (and supported free trials) I think most of these issues would go away.

There's nothing wrong with a flood of free stuff, much of which is crap, and a ton of good cheap stuff aimed at broad markets ... This is actually a sign of progress.

[cageface]

Before the app store everybody was comfortable with the idea that software was not a generic commodity sold at a fixed price. Discovery is also a big problem in the app store, but it's orthogonal to price expectations.

[waqf]

Discovery of free apps can be accomplished by downloading all of them and finding out which ones (if any) suit you.

This method sucks, but it sucks much less than paying $2 for each of them and finding out which ones (if any) suit you. That's why they don't seem like orthogonal problems to me.

[adrian201]

This is like saying a Lamborghini and a Kia should both cost $9999 because they're cars. Ultimately this is going to lead to a ton of low quality junk in the market. A quick perusal of the top 50 selling apps suggests we're already there.

Agreed. The App ecosystem may soon become a race to the bottom.

[paulhauggis]

This has been my point for years about piracy and things like the app store.