Is the Apple App Store a Casino?

An anonymous reader writes "Fast Company takes a look at the Apple App Store and concludes that it's a casino where most developers are making tragic losses and a tiny few are striking it filthy rich. The article discusses a new book exposing the App Store millionaires, called 'Appillionaires,' which compares the psychological effects of a hit app on a programmer to a gambler's high. One millionaire programmer explains the intense feeling of being in the top-ten: 'The App Store had established some kind of intravenous connection to my body and was pumping me full of Apple-branded heroin.' But, the piece warns, the majority of developers fail to make any return on their app."

Comments

Welcome to real world

[SharkLaser]

This is how it works. Tiny few become really rich, most barely make a living. Some better, some worse. It's not a casino, and it's not limited to app store.

Re:Welcome to real world

[grub]

If you sell your app for 99 cents, you only need sell ~144 copies in the year to break even on the $99 developers' program cost.

That's small peanuts. Even moderately cheap webhosting would cost you that much for a year.

Re:Welcome to real world

[xaxa]

Do not compare this to other software distributors. The 99$ tag that you HAVE to pay per year to have your app in the appstore make it extremely hard for anyone to be able to make a profit

If $99 is the difference between profit and loss, was it really worth trying to make any money anyway? That's 0.5-1-2 days work at minimum wage in most developed countries.

Better to put your time into a free app, and feel good about it, rather than stressing about your $99.

Re:Welcome to real world

[Bemopolis]

No, this is *actual* capitalism at work. Now, if these developers were to fail due to their greed and rank incompetence and receive an 800 billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout...