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by e-dant 848 days ago
- People will happily spend $5 for coffee but have an existential crisis when asked for a $1 app. If you’re looking to make money on these things, it’s an uphill battle.

- All software is derivative. Yours included. Putting it out there is like planting a seed for more to grow, even if it’s just an AI ingesting your work.

- The last two points aren’t mutually exclusive.

Put your work out there in the clear for free, as in freedom, but paid, as in you can get paid. Just don’t expect much.
2 comments
flakes 847 days ago
> People will happily spend $5 for coffee but have an existential crisis when asked for a $1 app.

I think the key here, is that when you buy a coffee, you're reasonable sure of what you'll receive. You know coffee, you probably know the store, and although not all coffee shops are great, it's likely going to be good enough.

When you buy a random one dollar app, you spin the wheel, and the odds of that wheel landing on anything useful to you is extremely low. You have no way of telling if the app is the result of honest hard work, or the result of a cookie cutter build made from some user on fiverr.

So for me, it's not existential crisis, but an exhaustion from past annoyances.

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foobiekr 847 days ago
All of this and then subscriptions and other fees (visible up front or added later).

Apple really screwed up by not making subscriptions/fee apps visible up front until later in the same so the whole thing has a seediness to it.

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perilunar 847 days ago
Depending on your hourly rate $1 is only a couple of minutes of your time. Probably less than the time it takes to find the app, download, install, and try it out. I'm not going to sweat $1 versus free when it comes to apps.
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withinboredom 847 days ago
The issue is the shady shit allowed. Like spend $1 to get the app, only to find out it requires a $5 a week subscription to actually run. I’ve actually run into that.
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gnicholas 847 days ago
> People will happily spend $5 for coffee but have an existential crisis when asked for a $1 app.

Well, coffee does literally contain an addictive substance that needs frequent replenishing. Perhaps this is why companies like FB and TikTok try so hard to make their products addictive too.

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