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Why We Agonize Over Buying $1 Apps
theodp writes "When it comes to explaining decision making and behavioral economics, Dan Ariely is the man. In his latest blog post, Ariely tackles the irrationality of app buying, explaining why the thought of paying even $1 for an app turns into an agonizing decision for those perfectly willing to spend $4 on coffee, or $500 on devices that they arguably don't really need. Had Apple created a really low minimum price for apps — say $0.15 — instead of offering free apps on day one, Ariely suggests, we would be anchored to the idea that apps should cost something. 'Then paying more (maybe even $2) for an app would be a simpler step,' he concludes, 'maybe one that we could take as easily as paying $4 for a latte.'"
As a long-time Linux user, one of the best points is that everything comes without strings attached. I would say "the idea that apps should cost something" is questionable at best, but leave it to Apple and their users to advocate it.
Great Intellect...
Free software has been around a lot longer than that. Even OSX and iOS are based on it.
I agonise over paying for apps, thus locking me in to a platform even more with each successive purchase.
Why would you pay?
Deleted
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2594748&cid=38519156
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
I think what it really comes down too is that people have a feeling that software being sold at $1 might as well be free. Deep down they know their own time is worth more than that, so why would they even give a dollar for what should be free?
OTOH, software that has good features, seemingly good support, and solves a problem they have being sold at $20 actually seems like a more reasonable proposition.
The only exception being tiny games. Although I think even Angry Birds was more than $1. I wouldn't know, I purchased it for the PC. That game is damn addictive.
Perhaps it's because there is no recourse for me as a consumer if the app just doesn't work. At least with that $4 coffee I can send it back if it's bad, can't do that with an app.
I would never attach my Credit card to an app store, due to having a 6 yr old in my house who loves to play with my phone.
Having a threshold at $1 means other developers also wont try to undercut at $0.9 , and drag the whole pile of apps down to $0.05 eventually.
Maybe the better question is why we unthinkingly spend $4 for a latte when brewing at home (via an automated coffee maker) or even learning to live without caffeine dependency is much cheaper.
Everyone is used to get software for free, either because it's really free or because they download a pirate version.
Most of us don't steal coffee, gas, bread or anything else of physical existence, for that matter.
Had Apple put a minimum price on apps and most people would use as little of those as possible. It's not like we are all buying our music through iTunes, is it?
why the thought of paying even $1 for an app turns into an agonizing decision for those perfectly willing to spend $4 on coffee,
The answer is simple, isn't it? The seller is not making just one mug of coffee and keep selling clones of it at 4$ a mug. Would you really pay 4$ for a copy of a mug of coffee? Though we all know apps are created by labor and capital investment, though we know that app is as much a product as a mug of coffee is a product, though many of us actually make a living writing code, we still balk because we also know the cost of replication is zero. We should not think that way, but we do.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...but since this isn't the first post, I'm afraid I might get charged a late fee.
There are no free apps. There are only apps which take from their users things that their users don't notice.
Modding to undo accidental posting. Oh, wait...
In the year in which i own the galaxy tab i spend more for buying software than in the ten years before. If an app does what i want and it costs $1 then i buy it. the price has an eception ally low priority in my buying decisions.
For andorid these are
a) Does the app require unreasonable rights without explaining?
b) has the app a clearly decribed concept what is does and what it doesnt?
c) does the app behave reasonably in the refundable period?
d) Are the many users with really strange problems.
If all poitns above are right, and the app is not trivial, i will pay $10 without thinking
I think he's really overanalyzing here. I wouldn't say I "agonize" over a $1 app, but I do think a minute before I buy one for two reasons:
1. It's annoying when my apps list gets overcluttered with crap I don't use, but I also don't like uninstalling paid for apps.
2. $1 might not be that that much, but if I'm not paying attention it's easy to buy 15 or 20 of them in a month, which adds up. By the same token, I won't think twice about a $3 cup of coffee, but when I realized I was buying a $3 cup of coffee every single day on my way to work, I started brewing a pot before I left rather than spend $60 a month on coffee.
I think it's much simpler than that. People don't understand what software does and really see no difference between the device and the programs that run on it. From that point of view, when you buy an app you are paying for something that's "already there", since it was a device that ran apps before and it's a device that runs apps now. The only change is the new app, which is not a tangible thing, but a behaviour. Paying for behaviour seems kinda like paying someone to teach your dog a new trick, and that's just plain silly.
...I've worked with OSS for a decade, even $0.15 sounds ridiculous for a piece of software.
Liberty in your lifetime
Had Apple created a really low minimum price for apps — say $0.15 — instead of offering free apps on day one, Ariely suggests, we would be anchored to the idea that apps should cost something.
Yeah...because the concept of an "app" wasn't invented until the iPod/iPhone came around...
You should see Dan Ariely speak. I didn't realize I had seen him previously until I read his bio on the linked website. He is really a great speaker and has a great amount of insight into irrational thinking. He gave a really great talk on 'cheating' that I saw earlier this year.
That being said, I think he has a point in his quick little blurb. But I also think it wouldn't fit into Apple's business plan to have all the apps cost something. They are not in the business of selling you apps - they want you to buy the hardware that runs that apps.
As an Android user, one of the things that stop me just buying a $1 app is two-fold:
1. Does it work on my device? It may be marked as such, but that is far from reality. Some apps are unstable, some use only a tiny corner of my tablet's display while using the entire screen as touchable surface (scaling issues) and some don't work with a specific part of my hardware (mostly games and audio).
2. Does it work as advertised? Again; few apps seem to live up to their expectations. Having to spend $1 on ten apps before finding the one that actually does what I need it to do no longer makes it cheap.
I understand on the iPhone/iPad platform, problem 1 atleast is solved.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I bought my first App off the Android Market when they were promoting there 10 Cent deal during the holidays. I thougtht to myself, now that I have put in my cc number and i'm only clicks away from buying another one, I just might. Then the next 10 Cent app I went to buy it told me to enter all my info in again so I declined to buy it. The point is, I think the 15 cent app idea would have worked for their business model.
Mark
I buy the coffee because the odds of me enjoying it are nearly 100% and the only damage that could come about is staining if I spill it on myself.
With a $1 app there is a high chance it could be shit and therefore no better than throwing $1 out the window which, while a small sum, is still waste, it may steal my data, it may cause problems with my device and I do have to entrust my credit card with someone else. So there is a risk of further hassle and or time wasted. My time is worth a lot to me so the time wastage factor is much more important than the cost in money.
A low price doesn't mean people are more likely to buy a turd.
But it seems to me that we really don't agonize over $1 apps. It's installing the free one that we're worried are in-app money sinks or simply crap for free. When it comes to the $1 crap apps, we resort to "you get what you pay for", but when it's free and it's crap we're more likely to be pissy about it.
...there is significant cost in producing that app before the duplication takes place, and many app developers like to eat.
So shouldn't we see this with all of the other app stores? As is often pointed out on slashdot, iPhones only make up a increasingly small portion of smartphones. The availability of competing app stores should be able to show that the author is correct. While customers of Apple's app store may expect their apps to be free, surely this isn't the expectation for customers of the Google and Amazon app stores...
Users want a trial which is why I offer a free app, Perpenso Calc for iPhone RPN, 5 modes: Scientific Stats Business Hex Bill, which is upgradable to full (RPN, tape, etc) via in app purchase.
Users may also want customization so I offer the more specialized functionality (statistics, business, hex, etc) as in app purchases. So rather than a higher priced app with everything included I can keep the price down and let users only pay for the specific functionality they want.
Top of the line office software, IE only Microsoft Office
Top of the line AAA games, IE Skyrim
Other then that... corporate users need security software, and gullible home users will also buy it (reason I say gullible is primarily because there are few to no features or increased reliability of free vs paid antivirus's that I've seen). Had nothing to do with how the tablet market was set on launch day, the phones were based on the market of software, and in the end phones and tablets do not currently support much in the way of software that people aren't used to having for free.
When you buy a $4 coffee, and it doesn't turn out the way you expect, there is a real, living, breathing, human being standing in front of you that can fix it.
When you buy a $500 tablet from Walmart and decide you don't like it, you can just go back to the store and return it, no questions asked.
When you spend $1 on an app, and it either isn't what you expect, isn't what is advertised, or doesn't work on your device, the process of getting your money back is a significantly higher hurdle.
On iTunes, you have to request a refund from your PC, and if the holy gods of Apple deem your claim valid, and that's a HUGE "if," then you might get a partial or whole refund, depending upon what they decide. You can't simply uninstall the app and say "I didn't like it and want a refund."
Buying a $1 app is like buying a car. It's agonizing because there is little or no customer satisfaction process once they have your money. It turns out that it doesn't matter what the price is.
Apple should have done what MS did with their online Xbox game store: every single arcade game has a demo available...
I'm never giving it.
Also apps can do ongoing charges, like in that daily show expose on the fish tank.
Finally I like to donate not pay, I get the feeling that more of the money makes it to the developer.
one of the benefits of having been a computer user for so long is that through my history, i've known a number of excellent free or low-cost software (shareware in many cases). so why should apple force prices to be artificially high? if i'm a developer and i want to give away my work, that shouldn't be limited by a corpratist's drive to earn money; as apple has proven, free apps are a nice choice alongside paid apps.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Had Apple created a really low minimum price for apps — say $0.15 — instead of offering free apps on day one, Ariely suggests, we would be anchored to the idea that apps should cost something.
Normally I really enjoy a good behavioral economics essay but this is more of a mashup of hyperbole and sarcasm. The anguish about buying $.99 apps IS that we don't have a good understanding of what a "fair" price is, like he suggests. But more to the point, the reason we don't think we can judge the fairness of the price is that there is SO. MUCH. SHIT. in the app store (this goes for every app store out there.) A free app might be super great and we feel like we really struck gold when we downloaded it and fired it up. A $4.99 app might have been totally disappointing to the point where we either go after a refund (if it is available) or simply anguish over the wasted money on an app that is so poorly written as to be preferably NOT installed on our mobile device of choice. The same effect that makes us feel like we struck gold with that free app find works against our desire to get a paid app, we feel like we are really rolling the dice, and to most of us gambling is only attractive when its flashy and involves glossy cards or red dice.
1. Their are free stuff out there.
2. Quality is so low.
3. They don't let me keep what I buy. I.E. When my phone gets upgraded, I lose the game.
If you want to get me to buy the games then I would offer:
A. No questions asked trade in for permanent store credit within one month of purchase.
B. A permanent account with the company that if you upgrade your phone, lets you copy over the existing games to the new one - or if they no longer work on the new one, gives you that permanent store credit.
Give me good service and I will buy. Give me crappy, sucky products and you get no money.
As a long-time Linux user, one of the best points is that everything comes without strings attached. I would say "the idea that apps should cost something" is questionable at best, but leave it to Apple and their users to advocate it.
Why just Apple? Even the FSF is OK with software costing something. The GPL allows for charging for the binary. The GPL even allows for charging a nominal fee for delivering the source code to the user.
:-)
Imagine someone releasing a GPL'd program for Mac OS X and then only distributing the source as a $1 Mac Store app download. That might be GPL compliant. This might spur RMS to get to work on GPL v4.
You know, I used to think that if media had a decent price, that I would actually purchase more games.
More and more lately I'm coming to realise that I wouldn't buy most things at any price.
Why would I spend £10 on a DVD, when I can save that £10 towards a new car or a mortgage deposit?
Why would I spend £10 on a book or £1 on a newspaper, when £90 (9 books) buys me an e-reader which will give me free books until the thing breaks?
Why would I spend £anything on games, when I can simply play older ones?
When I was a schoolchild, money existed to be frittered away on the next shiny.
Now I'm (only a few years) older, I can see that in order to live any semblance of a decent life, I'm going to have to save, and save HARD.
Why should I feel sorry for artists? Are they in a worse position than me? In the vast majority of cases I would doubt it.
With regards to expensive coffee - I don't buy it, but I do buy coffee when I'm out, occasionally. Why? Because it is more convenient than making coffee at home, and I can get it instantly as opposed to waiting. Buying 'apps' generally works in reverse.
the problem when things become digitized is that you can replicate it infinitely for the most part. (i'm not talking about forcing people to have some sort of a license key; i'm just talking about the ability to copy digital goods in general). so it's really straight forward economics where supply will always exceed demand. so quite honestly, anything priced above a few cents on the digital market is realistically overpriced. i remember back when allmymp3 was around and they'd price songs for around 10-15 cents. i thought that was the perfect price and was more than willing to make a few purchases. apps are probably in a very similar category since they'll generally fill a very niche market.
I agonize buying them due to inherent design flaws in all systems. With linux I didn't pay for the bugs I have to iron out myself. I thought android would help, but then I tried to migrate from a gmail account to my google apps account (setup over a year after), still don't have access to use the software I purchased through the gmail account. Yes I know I can bind multiple accounts to my device, but I don't like having to choose everytime, or verify the right account is selected in the market prior to purchasing an app, just like DRM, it's doomed by design. Plus nothing is worse then paying for something the developer gave up on long before you even became aware of it, just look through android's market, I'm sure the iPhone isn't much better either. The good news, I didn't pay the apple tax and can have more fun with the devices I OWN (yes, I have root, if you don't you don't own it, you lease it and are subject to someone else's terms of use).
I think it's a values kind of thing. I'm a long time open source user, will always consider the free solution (but aware of the ramifications) and incidentally, on the occasion I go through Starbucks drive-thru my order is "your largest regular coffee". My primary irritation is being stuck behind someone ordering a venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with three and a half virgin tears and grated Unicorn horn. That guy holds up the entire line. And he always wants them to check "in the back" for those trendy breakfast wraps they're always out of.
But I agree with the implied point: If Apple decided tomorrow to eliminate free apps, Apple users would just accept it. They're already used to paying boutique prices.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not only do I agonize over getting locked into a system, I also would like to limit my fraud liability by limiting who I give my financial information to. There is a very short list of who has my credit card information on file and an even shorter list who has it in an electronic database facing the Internet, and I'll be damned if I'm going to add Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc. to that list any time soon.
Retailers generally do not cryptographically lock down the products that they sell so that they are the only retailer capable of selling complements.
I know a lot of people with a lot of money, and it cracks me up when I find them agonizing over price differences for things that are relatively insignificant to them. Why would you consume *any* time whatsoever over a trivial amount of money? For me, $1 for an app is definitely below the threshold of consideration. However, having yet another app littering my library, is a problem. I currently have 544 apps for my iPhone and iPad consuming 25GB. That's friggin' ridiculous... what's wrong with me? And this is after I purged my library a few months ago of unwanted apps. Anyway, now I look closer at the ratings and descriptions to see if it's really going to be worth adding the app to my library, as opposed to just the cost. I'm much more likely to go with the better app, than the cheaper.
I need to track data / find data / waste time
Is there an app for that?
Is it free?
* If it's free then download it
--If it costs money (any money) then research it.
--Do other people say it works, and are they legit?
--If yes to both then pay and download
*Use it
*If it sucks then delete it, and if t costs money then kick myself for wasting it.
You can kinda see why I don't want to pay for apps. There is no downside and the time required is much shorter.
Subsequent copies of computer programs are non-scarce, I'll grant. But without a first copy there are no subsequent copies, and first copies of computer programs are scarce. The typical publishing model to recover the cost of making this first copy involves spreading its cost across subsequent copies.
I've not found the same return policy on software.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
If you think I'm not adding enough value for what I charge - that's fine, you're welcome to not use what I'm making (free market, etc).
Say I think your product is overpriced for what it does, and I make my own alternative product that's cheaper or free. To keep people from choosing my product over yours in a free market, you sue me on dubious grounds involving some sort of claimed infringement, on the basis that a settlement is cheaper than a competent legal defense. Is it still a free market?
I wish all app stores allowed developers to create "try before buy" apps where users can try a limited version of the app and choose to upgrade to full version w/o having to download the "pro" version. I think the windows phone marketplace allows for those kinds of apps. I created an addicting boggle app called "word zigzag": ( http://goo.gl/HwHh8 ) On the android marketplace, the free version canabalizes the sales of the paid version. If there was a "try before buy" feature built into the app marketplaces, then I think I would get more sales of my paid version.
Undoing my accidental postal mod.
Why would I want to pay interest on my CC for a 1$ app?
Google Search is ad-supported. People agonize over buying a $1 app because it could have been an ad-supported $0 app.
I don't pay $4 for a coffee or a latte; it's not that hard to make my own. I don't like paying $2 for a soft drink at a restaurant when I can buy a full 2-liter bottle for $1.25; often times I choose to stick to water instead, which is probably better anyway.
I don't like paying $1 for an app, because of the insanely short return period. Other than the very basic features, which I should already know about before I buy it, it's hard to figure out I dislike the app until well after the return period is up. If I could have a few days to evaluate it and return it for a full refund if I don't like it, I'd be a lot more willing to spend that $1 up front.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Economic theory assigns user preferences to a "user utility function", discussed for one or two paragraphs in many term papers.
The whole of the discussion seems to be a reference price the buyer forms inside her mind vis à vis a plethora of costless apps. There's not all there is to it.
When we buy something, price is but one element in the decision. Value is a concept related to the buyer needs and desires as well as to the presence of competitive alternatives (among other things). Some people would still pay an extra to have a familiar experience.
Actually, it was a result from previous studies (sorry, no citation) about how excess choice can lead to longer decision processes -- thus, even for free-as-in-beer apps we can have hesitant buyers.
Article is somewhat limited in scope of the variables considered and akin to the famous phrase "there's no free lunch", usually said every time one gets a free lunch. All comments which disregard human factors -- like paying dearly for smartphones because of their "higher status" aura -- are indisputably lame IMHO.
Back when apps were first becoming a craze, with the slogan "there's an app for that," my immediate reaction was "there's a website for that." In fact, most apps are split down the middle between games you could play in flash, or things you could figure out from a Google query.
Now that they charge for the apps, my opinion hasn't changed. They've added value in terms of a streamlined interface, but not enough for me to care. Certainly not enough for me to pay a dollar. If you bookmark a common query, you can probably get results equally quickly.
There are several niches of applications that free software has historically had a very hard time filling for one reason or another. These include games, software to watch rented videos, and software to prepare tax returns.
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Speaking only for myself, I agonize not over whether to spend $1, but over whether the app is going to perform as advertised or otherwise deliver on my expectations. I don't care to reward a substandard app with my money, even if it is only $1. Comments and ratings are good indications, but not always reliable. Obviously a "lite" version is also great, but not always available. Google Market is nice, in that I can uninstall for a refund (within certain limits). Apple apparently will provide a refund, but frankly it's a pain.
In Soviet Russia, accidental post undoes YOU!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
People are concerned more about fairness than the effect on their bank accounts.
If people are trained to think that high quality apps can be free or $0.99, then that is what they expect. If they buy something for $0.99 and it doesn't work as well as expected, they feel taken advantage of.
People will spend $4 for a latte because that is the price everyone pays, so it seems fair to them. If a competitor offers lattes at $0.99 and provides the same quality, then they will be more reluctant to pay the $4.
Those have always been available. You've been able to purchase apps from the carrier, or handset maker for a long time. They've always been awful and horrifically overpriced, because only those brands could enter the marketplace.
Amazon's Free app of the day for android is nice. The one downside is it's tied to the amazon appstore meaning you have to keep that on your device to continue to use the app. No big deal as I get a few free apps a day. Some are crap, some are name brand (Today is monopoly) others have been surprisingly fun. Of course it's also not totally streamlined. It still requires you to 'buy' the free app. There are no charges but it does require me to go through purchase, select which CC on file I want to use for a grand total of 0. 3 pages instead of just 1. Minor annoyance but worth it.
You hate the status quo? Blame Apple.
You got it good? Blame Apple.
There is a flaw in the original argument that everyone is ok paying $4 for a cup of coffee. I think the products are too different in target audience, demographics, and tangibility. I think a similar product with a broader reach could have been found.
Having said that, I suspect there is some truth to the argument, but I also suspect a contributing factor may be a feeling of a "lack of ownership". Do you really feel like you "own" it, or do you feel like you have $1 worth of lease time on it? Especially with the ability to remove apps after downloading them.
One thing I would suggest, is that consumers as a whole have taken that feeling of ownership into account on some level when deciding how much they're willing to pay for pure data as a product. I am much more willing to spend $15 dollars to own a physical piece of a medium than I ever would for a digital copy of say a movie. This is the primary reason I subscribe to netflix streaming and still buy physical DVD's but have never bought a digital copy of a DVD from a service like iTunes. Even if I'm only licensing the item, I still have a tangible product and that tangibility goes a long way with the human psyche.
I can theoretically stream 30 movies a month from Netflix for my $8 bringing the cost of the movie down to ~$.27 each. I think that would be a better comparison for the $1 apps. I have about the same feeling of "ownership" over the product.
I pay the author their due, for the work they put into the app. If I don't see any value in it, I don't get it, free or otherwise. Buying apps via Apple or Google or boxed software from a retailer is always a gamble, but you can read comments before buying, or work out if it is worth less than a cup of coffee.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Just make a trial version that expires after x days and points the user to the paid version. (Don't worry about the small number of users who will uninstall and just re-install the trial. That's a lot of work to do every x days, if x is small.)
I realize its not quite what you are referring to but iPhone apps are tied to your iTunes account, not a particular device. So if you have and iPhone and an iPad you can load the app on both. When you upgrade a device you can load the app on the new device.
Please. Thinking about a purchase is a good thing. It's not a dollar app..its ANOTHER dollar app.
I wish people put that much thought into buying a cup of coffee. Maybe we can curb run away personal debt.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Problem is that most apps aren't worth $1.00 or even the $0.15 mentioned in the summary. People are willing to pay for something that is useful and adds real value.
That's why I use freemyapps (But then again I work there so I might be *slightly* biased :)
the android market 10 cent / celebration apps were the sweet spot for me. i'd happily pay 10 or 20 cents a day for apps that amused or assisted me. ten of me per day equals a dollar revenue. how many of me are there? seems a reasonable scale.
99 cents was arbitrary, that's what bothers me.
90% of $1 apps are crap. So you have to spend $10 to get one good app.
People are not agonizing over just $1; they're agonizing over having to spend $1 ten times and the time to download and evaluate ten apps to find a good one.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
spending enough on lattes that they could afford to buy a brand new car
$4 * 50 weeks/year * 5 workdays/week = $1,000/year
To buy the cheapest brand new car, 2012 Nissan Versa, they would have had to start saving in 2001. To buy the lowest end version of the best selling car, a Ford F-series truck, they would have had to start saving in 1989.
So premium coffee is definitely good money down the toilet, but probably not a "brand new car." Practically speaking, they could buy a great computer every year or two.
why pay. coffee make it yourself and it tastes better. apps hack it yourself and it is more fun to play/use.
I won't pay $0.01 or $1 or $10 for an app because I will not share personal information to be abused by Google and the developer.
Billing requires personal information.
You don't need my name, my address, my phone number, or my email address.
On the rare occasions where I buy a $4 latte, I do so by pulling a $5 bill out of my pocket. If I had to sign up for a latte market account to bombard me with all sorts of premium coffee products then I would just stay home.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Many of these apps (whether they only cost $1 or not) demand a certain amount of interaction with the user. Perhaps you're trying to buy a program to act as a database of some sort, for some of your information? Or maybe you want, say, a program that makes your phone into a universal remote for some of your other devices? You're looking at sinking a lot of time into configuring said universal remote programs, or a lot of time inputting your data. If the program is defective after that, or simply doesn't deliver on what was promised -- the money you paid to download simply adds insult to injury. EG. Haha... you actually GAVE us a dollar to waste 4 hours screwing around with our broken app!
Another reason I don't like buying apps even at 99 cents when free alternatives exist isn't that I'm so bothered or pained to spend the small amount of money. It has to do with the DRM the paid apps are entangled in. If I get a free app, it's not truly attached to my Apple ID in a direct way. I can actually sync it onto someone else's iPhone or iPod or iPad and it'll work on there. As soon as I pay even a penny for the app though, it does a DRM check to ensure it won't install on a device that's not authorized with the ID that originally purchased it.
except that we actually get something of identifiable value when we buy coffee. We get only some vague concept of value when we buy information - and there is no parallel between what we pay and what we get! It's not rational. So i don't buy apps.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Agreed, why go to Starpunks when Dunkin Donuts has coffee twice as good, for half the price... Have you noticed that after Burger King had 99 cent Whoppers for years, when they jacked the price way up, sales seemingly went to zero? BK did a great job of making people think a Whopper was only "worth" 99 cents. Practically all the Burger Kings in Phoenix are something else now.
Truthfully, I think Apple might have made more money if they just sold annual subscriptions to download "all you want" from the App Store, for say, $99 or even $149. People would probably pay that happily, right along with the initial purchase, and even if they didn't renew after a year - I bet they'd get more that way than they made on them actually buying apps one at a time.
You no give me the PayPal....you NO get the big dollars.
that doesn't work for the first release, only for ongoing costs.
I think h4rr4r was referring to the so-called street performer protocol for episodic works. The developer releases world 1 for free and then releases world 2 after having received enough donations to cover the development of world 1, etc. This assumes a work is episodic enough to be broken into such "worlds". Stephen King tried this with one of his novels but ended up abandoning it.
Yes, each copy does have a direct attached cost. One the is determined by the IP owner
The validity of "ownership" of Internet Protocol addresses is in dispute. But I understand that by "IP" you meant "copyright". Still, a lot of these discussions about business models for free software take place without assuming copyright because their goal is to find means "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" other than the amortization of the first copy's cost over subsequent copies that copyright enables.
Wow, when's the last time you had a post with a positive score?
I always check this before downloading anything, ignoring anything with particular low scores. And, just like Amazon, I am more willing to buy stuff if there are numerous objective positive reviews posted.
This article fails to prove anything particularly special about mobile apps versus any other kind of market.
Really? How sad.
Given my salary, if I think about spending a dollar for more than minute, I'm costing myself money.
Agonize. Bah.
As an owner of a Playbook. I can say it was not my intention to purchase any apps for that device.
It was for music, videos and readying some ebooks. I also ended up using it to read and respond to my corporate email from my Blackberry.
It does all those pretty much to my satisfaction I have to say.
The only apps that interested me to round up the features of this tablet were a few games I found interesting. I ended up buying Star Front a StarCraft clone for 0.99 cents. The low price for the purchase was helping because I didn't feel like I would loose anything should the game not be worth it. I'm glad to say it was.
I then purchased Nova2 on the Playbook. Again for 0.99 cents. It came down from 6.99 I think which wasn't a price I was willing to pay for something I wasn't sure would be worth it and while I am enjoying it, tablets are not the best devices to play an FPS game. But for a dollar. I can't feel like I have something to complain about.
The problem in my view is that as a long time buyer of games. I have always owned the copy of any game I have bought.
Not in this case. I am not the owner here. I can't resell it or lend it to a friend. It's more like a long term rental. Once the Playbook's life ends. It's gone assuming I don't purchase the Playbook 2 instead of getting an Android device as my 2nd tablet. I don't imagine that I will be able to play it via emulation in the future like I was able to for old DOS games.
Maybe I will be proven wrong but that remains to be seen. So anything that is a high cost for a game I can't even test before purchasing is a situation where you feel like you need to tread carefully. I watched Youtube reviews of the games before buying them.
The reason why people "agonize" over spending $1 or any amount on apps is because it's not a physical object that you buy over the counter.
Humans like to touch, hold, covert... Software - even with a touch interface - doesn't provide that tactile satisfaction or physical perceived value.
Who the hell spends $200 on a damn phone and then quibbles about paying $1 for an app?
I don't know anyone that agonizes over buying a $1 app. If it's a $5 app maybe, but if there is a free, gimped demo version I can try and I end up liking it, I've got no problem dropping the $5 for the full version.
Posting anonymously just to tell you I won't waste my Mod points to mod this shit down.
Who the hell agonizes over $1 apps? The massive profits out of the app store show that most people don't, and in fact the low price model makes most people NOT agonize over buying apps. I agonize over buying games for my gaming console, because at $50 it just seems crazy expensive. Steam made it a bit better by letting me buy games at $30 or less after a while, so I bought more. On the iPhone I've bought probably 100 paid apps and have no regrets. If something turns out not great, who cares, it was a buck. Lots of apps are high quality and save me lots of time, so the money is more than well spent.
Apple and MS keep their 30%, but Google gives the 30% from android market purchases to the carriers as a bribe to promote carrying android phones. I do not want to give any money to the carriers for work they did not do. I already pay for the use of their network, so I refuse to pay for apps on the android market.
"You sir, ARE the problem."
You are sitting on your computer here right now, just as I am. Neither of us are out feeding starving kids in Africa.
Whether we are wrong in doing so is a judgement that an individual makes.
I obey the law in as much as it serves me. I obey the law because I do not want to be imprisoned, or get a criminal record, reducing my chances of gainful employment and a happy, free life.
I certainly do not obey the law simply because it's there. If my mother was struggling in a hospital bed, I would ignore UK euthanasia law. If I saw a person being assaulted in the street, and felt I was in a position to fight off the attacker, I would consider my actions justified, regardless of what the law may say.
I simply choose to make the personal judgement that piracy is not a crime which significantly affects other people. No-one is entitled to be paid for their work. And even if they were, Western software developers, authors and artists are very low on my list of priorities for "people in need of money".
Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful that authors of the work I use put the effort in. But in the current position I'm in, I simply cannot justify spending money on anything that can be trivially obtained for free.
I do not claim to have the answer to your question.
In a time gone by, I would have been more ideological about such matters and perhaps given you a rebuttal, but lately cynicism has taken hold.
I don't really feel that it's meaningful to discuss such questions. In an alternate world, in which copyright infringement was much more difficult or policing was much easier, then it may be.
The situation is tantamount to tax avoidance (note, not evasion). If you ask a person to choose between paying 30% tax or 35% tax, most individuals would choose 30%. They'd be perfectly justified in doing so, and if you continued the choice decreasing by 5% each time, noone would pay any taxes and our theoretical nation would fall apart.
The only thing stopping this from happening in most countries is law. If it were easy to get away with not paying income tax, a one shot thing unlikely to bite you in the future (as piracy currently is), a lot more people would do it. But we don't discuss the potential implications of such a world, because it's not one we live in.
That $4.00 coffee is a known. it will taste good and do it's job.
the $1.00 app is a crap shoot. It may be great, it may be a steaming pile of crap. The app stores on Apple AND Android help keep the crap out there.
I should be able to buy an app and get a refund in 10 minutes after I run it. Hell I would have done that with the $4.99 iMovie app from apple as it's crap, yet the web is full or rave reviews of that steaming turd.
WE agonize over a $1.00 app just like we agonize over burning a $1.00 bill.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I try my best to stay clear of all "Free" apps.
- I respect the hard work of developers. If they spend their time building something I want, why not give them a buck?
- Nothing is truly free, you pay for the app, or the developer sells you (via ads).
- I hate ads.
The only thing stopping this from happening in most countries is law.
Laws can be amended.
If it were easy to get away with not paying income tax, a one shot thing unlikely to bite you in the future (as piracy currently is), a lot more people would do it. But we don't discuss the potential implications of such a world, because it's not one we live in.
It's easy to get away with underpaying income tax: just vote in a legislature that cuts spending to the point where it can cut income tax. Or does "it's not one we live in" refer to entrenched expectations of entitlements? Social Security is an entitlement that the United States Congress can in theory do away with at any time, as are Medicare and copyright.
IMO it's because you're paying $1, and people tend to think the app doesn't have value. Just look at a starbuck' s coffee, it can cost 0.50 but they cost ten times that price, and people all over the world make soviet-style queues to get one.
As an app producer, I see it breaking down like this:
-If you don't pay for an app, you have to assume that the producer will find other revenue streams, like "in app ads", or selling your "usage patterns".
-If you do pay for an app, you can usually assume that they don't violate your privacy...
-Or its a free, "sponsored production", like an app for your bank, or telco; not exactly free, as your already paying for it...
But in any instance, always check what "permissions" the app requires. i.e. Internet, location and/or contacts access, but dose not seem to need it...
Generally, I don't mind paying, say, up to the price of a burger, or a beer, for a basic app, and up to the price of a movie for something "cool", but usually stay away from free app, unless its from a respectable company. Personally, I value my privacy...
At the end of the day, if I put my time into producing something like an app, I will want to be reimbursed; after-all, why do you go to work?
Had Apple created a really low minimum price for apps — say $0.15 — instead of offering free apps on day one, Ariely suggests, we would be anchored to the idea that apps should cost something
We need to be anchored to the idea that music should cost something, or at least that it isn't "free". It's not about those few recordings that still sell today; they are "few" compared to mass that hasn't sold (or at least in bulk) for decades. It's about keeping their monopoly intact, and for the public to find it "normal" that a sound recordings "is copyrighted" and can only be bought on a licensed medium (mostly used for older recordings). They will never admit to this, but as you can see from the Ariely comment, that line of reasoning is absolutely in their minds.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Much like the Linux scene frequently flares up to, we are stuck in the Paradox of Choice paradox with App Stores. I would guess most people would prefer a $50 suite that did everything except games for which their phone is useful to an adequate level.
Same situation with OSes and office productivity suites. Consumers have demonstrated over and over again that they would rather use crappy Windows + MS Office over having to try to pick the *right* distro of Linux and office suite.
Arguably, Apple's recent success figured this out with computer hardware by reducing the choice equation to price and portability.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html20 minute Ted Talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMV4PIEIKY4A longer (1 hr) version from Google Tech Talks
Is part of paying $4 for coffee getting to enjoy the ambience, or perhaps the wifi?
Never bought anything in the Android app store. Not even the $1 apps. I did get a lot of ad-supported apps, but I'm not anymore willing to pay for ad-free versions of those since I already got what I need and the ads don't bother me.
On the other hand, I got a lot of old GameBoy games on my 3DS, each purchased at the eShop for at least $2.99. All of those are games I played in my childhood, but couldn't (re-)get in any other way nowadays. Funnily enough, I never bought any of the cheaper games in the eShop, just because I haven't tried them and I don't know how they fare against the classics.
Bottom line, I'm willing to pay more for things when I know exactly what I'm going to get, and I'm sure I can't get them anywhere else for cheaper/free. I'm sure this is in line with the latte analogy. (Btw, I don't go for Starbucks, I just visit the nearest McCafe for my hot chocolate fix since I'm satisfied with the quality and pay much less.)
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
... it's possible we'd wind up spending an every year's disposable income on them. Isn't that the real reason someone might "agonize" over a one dollar app, the fact that cumulatively he's buying dozens or even hundreds of them?
I'm very fussy about everything I buy, software or otherwise: I look at what the item is expected to do and how complicated that is to implement and accomplish, whether that be design and coding or design and cost to manufacture. If I decide the price of the item doesn't reflect its actual value, then I simply won't buy it, even if I really want/need it. I was taught in business law that the ideal transaction is an equal exchange of value; if consumers aren't sufficiently guarding their half of that equation, then capitalism results in concentration of wealth (from the 99 percent to the 1 percent).
So it seems to me that people agonizing over one-dollar apps are probably consumers that are doing the right thing for the economy, doing their part to foster that transactional equality.
Nope. It's not capitalism that produces abundance, it's technology. First the low-skill professions were replaced, now technology is moving up the food chain...
it kills me a bit inside that somehow the "In Soviet Russia" meme still achieves a mod of 4+ funny. Where prior posts, although relatively unfunny, are original.
the reason seems to be that in soviet russia, dead horse beats you. insert catherine the great joke for affirmation.
Who pays $4 for a coffee? It's ridiculous!
But seriously now, weren't apps called programs in an earlier age? And wasn't it possible to copy them from floppy disks and such? And aren't we therefore used to them being free of cost? And wasn't Apple's app-store much too late anyway?
Games should be 0,99 starting 29th of dez. 10am PST , I've heard somewhere... I'll get 1 or 2 titles that I wouldn't have bought for full price. https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Gameloft
The $4 latte will be what the user wanted/expected. If not, it can be returned and a new one made. Satisfaction guaranteed.
The app is $1, or more, for something that may not work as advertised, or at all. And no refund.
A buyer is concerned about being ripped off, regardless the price. A buyer doesn't like to give away money, no matter how small ... or else pan-handling would be an honourable and profitable profession.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I don't really agonize over a $4 latte because I've maybe bought 4 in my life... and I guess when I did I agonized a little.
Like anyone can even know that
I read one of Ariely's books recently (Predictably Irrational). He studies how real consumers make decisions, often irrational decisions, in contrast to traditional economics which assumes every consumer makes rational decisions. It was a very good book and the case studies made his point well.
I pay $4 for a lattee because I know that lattee will be good, or I will get them to re-make it on the spot. If I pay $4 for an app that turns out to be crap, I am mostly up shit creek with no paddle. Combine this with the fact that the app store is so full of noise that the peer review system is totally useless, and you see where I am going.
Why get a car or a bike when you can walk?
I do not currently own a car because the benefits do not outweigh the costs for me. I take the train or pay friends fuel + hourly rate to transport me around when required. As a relatively young male in the UK, insurance costs run at £3000 per year. That pays for a very large amount of taxi journeys.
I would very much enjoy driving a car, and technically I could make the payments and not have to loan money. But then, that takes me further away from financial freedom. It reduces the interest I accrue in my savings account. It reduces the amount of time I could survive comfortably if my income dried up tomorrow.
Why buy and wear underwear when you can go commando?
Why buy a shaver when you can just grow a beard?
Why buy food when you can live in the wilderness off the land?
For the first two questions.. underwear runs at probably sub £20 per year. It's also not obtainable for free, as coffee isn't. Shavers are even cheaper - disposable razors run at probably £2 for a year.
Living in the wilderness has an opportunity cost of not taking part in society. To be sure, if I discovered food + rent + other essential bills actually cost me more than any job I could find was providing, I would certainly give it a shot.
There's a price to being civilized, and a price for convenience, and a price for fun.
It appears that you're cramming virtually all money into being civilized, and a hint of convenience.
Now I don't know where you live or how much you make... but I don't make all that particularly much and live in an apartment, but I can still buy clothes, food, occasionally splurge on eating out, and guess what... still have money to play Skyrim and also browse the internet. And still be saving up enough money for a trip to my brother's destination wedding next year.
It's called balance. One CAN actually do all these things without going in the hole if you're smart about it. If I wanted to spend absolutely nothing except on the essentials, I'd buy a gun, a hunting knife, a pile of ammo, and go live in the forest for the rest of my life.
I do not budget to avoid "going into the hole", if by that you mean into debt. I am debt free, at least in the sense that my assets are greater than my liabilities (I do have student loan debt, but it is hedged.)
But what about future obligations? If I fell out of university now, I'd be able to keep myself going for about a few months until I had to borrow additional money.
Every £10 I spend now is another night of accommodation.
At the end of the day, all expenditures warrant a cost-benefit analysis, if we speak rationally. Internet access provides more to me in terms of future earnings potential than does playing Skyrim. In addition, if I wish to play Skyrim, I can very easily and without threat of punishment obtain the game for free. It would be difficult to do the same for Internet access.
My problem isn't the money, it's the general low quality of the apps.
I've been playing a lot of indie games on Steam lately... and am amazed at how games like Binding of Isaac, Super Meatboy, Cave Story, Terraria, Minecraft, and on and on and on can be sold at $5 or less.... yet offer many hours of very fun, high quality game play.
By comparison, I'm getting really disappointed by what's available for my tablet. All I can see are "clicky" games- solitare, mahjong, freakin Farm Story (I'd rather click a cow). I can't even get anything like Angband or Nethack.
Then I've played either demos or the "free" (as in ad supported) versions of games, and they're just either really short and lame, or buggy and lame, or sometimes really good games which are kind of rough and could use some polish.
The way I see it, there are far better low price or free games on the PC than a tablet, and that's a real shame, because the tablet is a really great platform with a lot of potential.
Soviet Russia jokes aren't necessarily unoriginal. Do you know about airbrushing - I think it was a reference to that.
I would never pay 3€ for a fscking coffee cup...
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Nobody seems to bring in the law of economics. The reason we have no problems dropping $4 for a coffee is because it's a physical good that costs the producer $ every time they make one for you. Apps, on the other hand, are unlimited. Once an app is created, it costs nothing to make in unlimited quantity. There is no "additional services" provided with most apps that will make people happy to pay for (most apps; some are now free with in-app upgrades).
The point isn't the price. The point is the services, and costs of reproduction: Hey, I have an unlimited quantity of X product that costs me nothing to keep in stock, but you must come down here, yourself, look at the product yourself, find me, yourself, and still pay me to give you the product.... that doesn't sound right. And their reason is just: it costs me $ to make the first initial product.
Actually I was thinking of Lieutenant Kije - whose very existence was down to a mistaken post, i.e. a clerical error which (after much hilarity) had to be finally cleared up by faking his death.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The agonizing for me at least isn't the $1, its the time I would need to spend to get to know the app and how it works and evaluate if it is the right one for me. The time spent on an app that turns out to be a dud was worth way more than the $1 outlay. That's where the real loss is.
An engineer is someone who spends 3 hours trying to solve a 2 hour problem in 1 hour - Anonymous