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It is a puzzle. At one time, developer tools were priced to extract money from developers. Then, when third-party free tools came along, platform owners reali
by jcl 16y ago
It is a puzzle. At one time, developer tools were priced to extract money from developers. Then, when third-party free tools came along, platform owners realized that market share and lock-in was much more valuable and started giving their tools away for free. But now Apple is neither charging to recoup development costs nor giving tools away. It is strange that the cost should be so close to free yet not actually be free.
My working assumption is that Apple is charging to ensure that each developer must experience the App Store purchasing process at least once, thereby encouraging them to write apps for it.
- varikin 16y agoBut, if you pay for the Mac Developer Program, you can download it from the website. So either $5 or $99/year. But you need to pay $99/year to submit apps to the app store—at least iOS app store, I assume the same for Mac App Store. So developers don't have to experience the app store. I think it is to deter everyone from installing XCode just because they can. That 4+ GB download isn't free on their side. It is just enough of a pain point to make sure the user is sure they want it, but not so bad that people have to save up for it.
- reemrevnivek 16y agoWell, each time a single app sells on the app store, they get 30%. If we assume it costs $5 to host XCode, then if each developer averages 17 downloads, they'll make a few cents off of each one. If we assume that one developer in a thousand gets 17,000 downloads, they'll still make money. The argument for covering their hosting costs seems hollow to me, even if we assume it actually costs $5.