| What's really depressing is that Apple's App Store revenue (whatever its source) comes from basically having strip mined a thriving freeware and shareware community. They did at least wait until CNET clear-cut the VersionTracker rainforest, but still. Three years ago, a hobbyist could make an app in their free time, put it out there for cheap or free, and see what happened. If the app was any good, what would happen could easily be that they made a livable income off of their creation. Today, that hobbyist has basically three options: 1. Pay Apple $99/year for the privilege of showing their creation to the world, and release it through the App Store. Feel their enthusiasm for the project drop as they go through that tooth-pulling process, but expect that it will all be worth it since the App Store will at least give them some good exposure. Watch as it doesn't. 2. Pay Apple $99/year for the privilege of showing their creation to the world, and release it on their own. This is a lot like the old days, except that now Apple is taxing you, and the old tools for spreading the word have largely starved. 3. Don't pay Apple a dime and release the app unsigned. Explain on the download page that the end user will have to edit their security preferences to allow unsigned apps. This looks sketchy to users, and now our hobbyist is suspected of being a criminal. |
Consider all the other activities that people do as hobbies that have absolutely no possibility of even breaking even. Some of these require expensive equipment, fees, time. Getting set up to develop for iOS, even allowing for the cost of buying a Mac, compares well to what else you could be doing.