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Wow, I just saw the price. $10! There seems to be a lot of entitlement amongst developers of successful apps. I mean ten dollars... Have they ever considered t

by natch 9y ago

Wow, I just saw the price. $10! There seems to be a lot of entitlement amongst developers of successful apps. I mean ten dollars... Have they ever considered that it could be a free app that is a thank you to the community that has supported them over the years, which could pay for itself by bringing new users into their customer base?

cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
Cool. I think you're entitled for charging your rates for your labor. Do free work for me.
- natch 9y ago
  I've done plenty of free things in my career and in almost every case it's turned out to be a huge win, because of the relationships it led to, doors it opened, etc. Not everything good in life makes money directly.
watmough 9y ago
I think the entitlement is on your side, not Panic's. Panic are a business and to provide and maintain the app, they have to assign one developer half-time. This costs more than the $35k or so earnings of the app. I'm not sure the math could be any clearer.
- natch 9y ago
  They earn plenty of money on Transmit for Mac. The following may be a bit hard to argue but let me try. The availability of Transmit for iOS should increase sales for Mac, since the apps can have synergies that make the Mac app better. So I think they should credit some of their Mac earnings to iOS, and factor that into their figure for the iOS app. Doing separate accounting for paired apps on different platforms makes less sense when those apps have synergy with each other.
  - cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
    >So I think they should credit some of their Mac earnings to iOS, and factor that into their figure for the iOS app. Doing separate accounting for paired apps on different platforms makes less sense when those apps have synergy with each other. I think they disagree with you here, bud.
    - natch 9y ago
      Yes, either that, or it may not have even occurred to them to think of it that way.
andymatuschak 9y ago
> Or a free app that is just done as a thank you to the community that has supported them over the years? What would be wrong with this? That would be a very expensive thank you for a tiny business! Given Panic's level of polish and concomitant development timelines, I expect this app took several months of a designer's time and at least six months of an engineer's time—probably more like nine. Then QA, support, etc. I'd guess we're looking at a >$150k price tag here, plus ongoing maintenance. As to paying for itself via bringing new users into their customer base: given the average sale price of their desktop software, this iOS app would have to generate several thousand net-new sales. That doesn't seem wildly outlandish to me, but I'd guess one order of magnitude fewer is more likely.
- natch 9y ago
  You haven't responded to the point that the cost is sunk. I have made free apps and the indirect dividends have been huge. You yourself make a free app (and I donate to it monthly, hurray for me) and yet you don't see why anyone would want to make a free app?
- natch 9y ago
  >That would be a very expensive thank you for a tiny business! I wonder why they don't just scale back the maintenance to bare bones and make it free. The past cost is already behind them... removing it from the store won't fix that. They even did the iPhone X compatibility updates already. For the new protocols and cloud services they'd like to add, I could see an intern tackling that, for a relatively lower cost (not free) compared to a developer. So I'm not so sure the numbers couldn't work out.

by natch 9y ago

cuckcuckspruce 9y ago

Cool. I think you're entitled for charging your rates for your labor. Do free work for me.

natch 9y ago
I've done plenty of free things in my career and in almost every case it's turned out to be a huge win, because of the relationships it led to, doors it opened, etc. Not everything good in life makes money directly.

watmough 9y ago

I think the entitlement is on your side, not Panic's. Panic are a business and to provide and maintain the app, they have to assign one developer half-time. This costs more than the $35k or so earnings of the app. I'm not sure the math could be any clearer.

natch 9y ago
They earn plenty of money on Transmit for Mac. The following may be a bit hard to argue but let me try. The availability of Transmit for iOS should increase sales for Mac, since the apps can have synergies that make the Mac app better. So I think they should credit some of their Mac earnings to iOS, and factor that into their figure for the iOS app. Doing separate accounting for paired apps on different platforms makes less sense when those apps have synergy with each other.
- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  >So I think they should credit some of their Mac earnings to iOS, and factor that into their figure for the iOS app. Doing separate accounting for paired apps on different platforms makes less sense when those apps have synergy with each other. I think they disagree with you here, bud.
  - natch 9y ago
    Yes, either that, or it may not have even occurred to them to think of it that way.

andymatuschak 9y ago

> Or a free app that is just done as a thank you to the community that has supported them over the years? What would be wrong with this? That would be a very expensive thank you for a tiny business! Given Panic's level of polish and concomitant development timelines, I expect this app took several months of a designer's time and at least six months of an engineer's time—probably more like nine. Then QA, support, etc. I'd guess we're looking at a >$150k price tag here, plus ongoing maintenance. As to paying for itself via bringing new users into their customer base: given the average sale price of their desktop software, this iOS app would have to generate several thousand net-new sales. That doesn't seem wildly outlandish to me, but I'd guess one order of magnitude fewer is more likely.

natch 9y ago
You haven't responded to the point that the cost is sunk. I have made free apps and the indirect dividends have been huge. You yourself make a free app (and I donate to it monthly, hurray for me) and yet you don't see why anyone would want to make a free app?
natch 9y ago
>That would be a very expensive thank you for a tiny business! I wonder why they don't just scale back the maintenance to bare bones and make it free. The past cost is already behind them... removing it from the store won't fix that. They even did the iPhone X compatibility updates already. For the new protocols and cloud services they'd like to add, I could see an intern tackling that, for a relatively lower cost (not free) compared to a developer. So I'm not so sure the numbers couldn't work out.