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I'm not sure what the mental block is for people. A $5 app is considered premium, and that's what plenty of people spend on coffee on their way to work every da

I'm not sure what the mental block is for people. A $5 app is considered premium, and that's what plenty of people spend on coffee on their way to work every day.

malux85 8y ago
I hear this all the time, like somehow the only factor in the propositions is economic. When someone spends $5 on coffee, they know exactly what they are getting, it’s a regular purchase, produced by a formulaic method, with consistent quality, that energises them for the day ... that also hooks into their biochemistry and there’s a certain about of conditioning / addictive behaviour there too. Compare that to the purchase of an app. There’s no biochemical enhancement, the quality of apps varies wildly and is unpredictable until after purchase, there’s little / no ability to refund. There’s no addictive hook to buy an app (I know some apps are addictive - that’s different) How are those propositions even nearly close? The decision to purchase is not purely economic.
- ok_coo 8y ago
  I think this hits close to home for a lot of people. It's not about the small amount of money to pay for the app, mostly what stops me is that I don't know what I'm getting for that $5. It feels like I'm potentially throwing money down the drain. I've also paid for games apps (the most was around $20, I would pay more). I'd like to pay "premium" $ for a premium product on the app store, but I generally don't see that as an option. Periodically, I'll glance at the games available on the iOS store and the quality is night and day compared to PC/console. Maybe people think apps are not worth buying because they're charging pennies? What happened to making a solid product and not being afraid to charge for it?
SatvikBeri 8y ago
On average, I might have to buy 4 apps and spend 15 minutes fiddling around with each to find one I like in that category. So that's $20 plus an hour of my time. The good apps basically have to subsidize all the crap.
Tsubasachan 8y ago
Can't pirate a coffee. I'm from the billion dollar iPod generation. Paying for software just feels weird.
wink 8y ago
I'm not sure there's so much overlap between those 2 groups. I don't buy 5$ apps and I also don't buy 5$ coffees. Also I notice that I hardly ever use the apps I test (why do I even have this smartphone?) so the coffee would absolutely bring much more joy than the app, in 90% of the time - and that's from someone who doesn't regularly consume coffee outside of home and office (i.e. relatively cheap)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

I'm not sure what the mental block is for people. A $5 app is considered premium, and that's what plenty of people spend on coffee on their way to work every day.

malux85 8y ago

I hear this all the time, like somehow the only factor in the propositions is economic. When someone spends $5 on coffee, they know exactly what they are getting, it’s a regular purchase, produced by a formulaic method, with consistent quality, that energises them for the day ... that also hooks into their biochemistry and there’s a certain about of conditioning / addictive behaviour there too. Compare that to the purchase of an app. There’s no biochemical enhancement, the quality of apps varies wildly and is unpredictable until after purchase, there’s little / no ability to refund. There’s no addictive hook to buy an app (I know some apps are addictive - that’s different) How are those propositions even nearly close? The decision to purchase is not purely economic.

ok_coo 8y ago
I think this hits close to home for a lot of people. It's not about the small amount of money to pay for the app, mostly what stops me is that I don't know what I'm getting for that $5. It feels like I'm potentially throwing money down the drain. I've also paid for games apps (the most was around $20, I would pay more). I'd like to pay "premium" $ for a premium product on the app store, but I generally don't see that as an option. Periodically, I'll glance at the games available on the iOS store and the quality is night and day compared to PC/console. Maybe people think apps are not worth buying because they're charging pennies? What happened to making a solid product and not being afraid to charge for it?

SatvikBeri 8y ago

On average, I might have to buy 4 apps and spend 15 minutes fiddling around with each to find one I like in that category. So that's $20 plus an hour of my time. The good apps basically have to subsidize all the crap.

Tsubasachan 8y ago

Can't pirate a coffee. I'm from the billion dollar iPod generation. Paying for software just feels weird.

wink 8y ago

I'm not sure there's so much overlap between those 2 groups. I don't buy 5$ apps and I also don't buy 5$ coffees. Also I notice that I hardly ever use the apps I test (why do I even have this smartphone?) so the coffee would absolutely bring much more joy than the app, in 90% of the time - and that's from someone who doesn't regularly consume coffee outside of home and office (i.e. relatively cheap)

deleted 8y ago

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