5 ms·
I feel like given the circumstances, Microsoft should probably make distribution free and collect no revenue, at least until the platform becomes popular. Ther
by nxc18 8y ago
I feel like given the circumstances, Microsoft should probably make distribution free and collect no revenue, at least until the platform becomes popular.
There are costs to targeting the Windows platform, especially if you're doing things their new preferred way (UWP). Primarily a slow, difficult to work with development kit. Lots of mysterious crashes that you can't do much about, lots of leaky abstractions over COM.
If anything, Microsoft should be paying developers to target their store. I do personally prefer modern apps and the experience of the store, I just know not to reach for it first. As a customer I would appreciate more apps, they need to figure out a way to make the platform more appealing for developers.
- yunyu 8y agoThey've attempted to do that before: https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-developers-cash-for-windows-apps https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-... All that lead to was a bunch of similar looking apps of questionable quality flooding the store.
- ktjfi 8y agoThat was absolutely retarded. I remember they went around universities handing out Lumia 925 mobiles to anybody who uploaded a few apps... imagine the quality of the apps. If only they had spent that money on actually making the OS better. Imagine that.
- shawnz 8y ago> If only they had spent that money on actually making the OS better. Imagine that. What do you think they were trying to do? Apps are what make an OS good. Even if they caused 10,000 trash apps to be created and only 100 good ones, that's still 100 more good apps than they had before.
- ktjfi 8y agoNot having a new toolkit every version would've been good. Allowing users of WP 7.* to update to 8, good too. Allowing all users of 8.1 to update to 10. Also their own apps were poor. I remember Skype for WP 8 was absolutely unusable. MS is composed of many teams and many of them clearly didn't give a shit about WP.
- beering 8y agoThat's a little different, because there was guaranteed money for just creating an app. If Microsoft took a 0% cut, it wouldn't be that different for app spammers - they'd still have to get people to pay for the app at some point. Ultimately I don't think the difference between 15%, 5%, or 0% is that meaningful to an app developer. It's not going to turn your small number of Windows customers into a huge number, and 95% of a small dollar amount is not much less than 100% of a small dollar amount.
- duskwuff 8y agoThe damage done by that campaign is still ongoing. The Microsoft Store is flooded with copycat apps, web site shells, and rebranded versions of open-source software. You can get a sense of the problem by browsing their "new and rising" feed: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/new-and-rising/apps/pc https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/new-and-rising/apps/pc
- deyan 8y agoAre there any stats on how successful / unsuccessful their store is?
- orbitingpluto 8y agoI had to request refunds on half of the apps that I purchased because they disappeared or completely ceased functioning? I only bought items on the Windows Store because I had a few $25 Windows Store vouchers as well. They stopped selling Music around January 2018?
- youdontknowtho 8y agoThey don't force you to do UWP any more. You can publish Win32 apps to the Store. For what it's wort, doesn't seem like lots of developers are doing it. You can also publish command line apps to the store. Which is cool...
- contextfree 8y agoYou can also make UWP command line apps https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/launch-resume/console-uwp https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/launch-resume/c...