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> Independent software development was an absolute wasteland. It was extremely hard to get a user to give you money outside of a few extremely fortified ghettos

> Independent software development was an absolute wasteland. It was extremely hard to get a user to give you money outside of a few extremely fortified ghettos Utter nonsense. Shrink-wrapped and downloadable software in the Windows world was all over the place using activation/serial codes either thru email or on a CD. Two examples: VueScan https://www.hamrick.com/ https://www.hamrick.com/ SnagIt screen capture (which is now cloud based, I think. I still use an old version)

hn_check 6y ago
Your two fringe examples hardly render that "utter nonsense". There have been over a billion Windows devices in play for 3+ decades. The average Window user has paid for at most anti-virus, Word/Office, and sometimes Adobe. It is rare to find someone who has paid a penny for anything else. Even critical software that people used day after day like WinZip and WinRAR became a meme for being something that went unpaid for. Yes, some guy bought an activation code, but that guy was a serious exception. The pool of developers working on commercial Windows software was absolutely minuscule. And today, with 1.5 billion Windows devices, how many people are making commercial software for Windows, outside of Adobe and Microsoft? That numbers is a rounding error. Despite it being, conceptually, the most amazing, incredible, liberating platform.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > It is rare to find someone who has paid a penny for anything else. Citation needed. Who are all those people attending the Microsoft developers conference every year? Who were all the people in the audience for Ballmer's infamous "Developers, developers, developers" chant? You're claiming the nonexistence of something that clearly exists.
  - hn_check 6y ago
    "You're claiming the nonexistence of something that clearly exists." You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion. There are ARMIES of corporate developers making internal apps for corporations around the globe. I, like probably 80% of HN, spent much of our career doing this. That isn't commercial software. It has zero relevance to any App Store, Windows Store, or getting money from users. Corporate developers make up the vast bulk of participants at those conferences (based upon first hand knowledge). We have MSDN subscriptions, go to conferences, and then we make some internal timesheet app or glue with an accounting system.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      > You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion. Please refrain from personal attacks. As you noted in another comment, I'm primarily a Mac developer, and in my experience, the extent of the third-party Mac software market has often been vastly underestimated. Maybe it's just because people aren't familiar with it. There are of course large numbers of users who never buy third-party software, but with any large platform, such as Mac or Windows, all it takes is a significant % of users to buy software for the market to really add up. Doesn't even have to be a majority of users. I haven't been a regular Windows users for many years, but back when I was, there was a thriving consumer software market on Windows. Again, it doesn't even have to include the majority of users, because those who do buy software are willing to pay good money for it.
      - hn_check 6y ago
        That wasn't a personal attack whatsoever. Saying that the market is a wasteland doesn't eliminate the occasional tiny oasis. But compared to the size of the userbase, the market was and remains tiny. People are postulating about some magical greener pastures when the evidence right in front of our eyes, and through the history of the platform, is that it is a fantasy. Jobs is a good proxy. Through the entirety of my career, internal or corporate solution development jobs have outnumbered commercial, end-user development jobs at least 1000:1 if you aren't directly beside Microsoft, Adobe, or a handful of anti-virus firms. It was, and remains, just a tiny, tiny market. Tiny, micro-boutiques that are a little sliver of marginal prosperity in a desolate wasteland of failure.
        _qulr 6y ago
        > That wasn't a personal attack whatsoever. "You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments" > Tiny, micro-boutiques that are a little sliver of marginal prosperity in a desolate wasteland of failure. I would rephrase this to say you're talking about small businesses, which are not sexy or well known, but are both widespread and crucial to the entire economic foundation of the United States. Unfortunately, App Store revenue is very top-heavy. A few big players, such as Epic, do extremely well on the App Store, but small businesses tend to suffer in the App Store. The total software revenue may be higher now, but the distribution of revenue matters a lot. If the rich get richer, and the rest are stagnant or get poorer, that's only good for the rich, and I wouldn't call it a healthy market, regardless of the totals. In the App Store era, it's "easier" than before to become a wild success, like Epic. But it's a lot harder for indie developers to make a living. You can't "make it up in volume", and you don't have a huge marketing budget to get to the top of the App Store charts, so you need to charge sustainable prices for software. The App Store "race to the bottom", as well as other business and technical limitations, have really hurt smaller developers. I'm not sure we can, or want to live in a world with only BigCos.

hn_check 6y ago

Your two fringe examples hardly render that "utter nonsense". There have been over a billion Windows devices in play for 3+ decades. The average Window user has paid for at most anti-virus, Word/Office, and sometimes Adobe. It is rare to find someone who has paid a penny for anything else. Even critical software that people used day after day like WinZip and WinRAR became a meme for being something that went unpaid for. Yes, some guy bought an activation code, but that guy was a serious exception. The pool of developers working on commercial Windows software was absolutely minuscule. And today, with 1.5 billion Windows devices, how many people are making commercial software for Windows, outside of Adobe and Microsoft? That numbers is a rounding error. Despite it being, conceptually, the most amazing, incredible, liberating platform.

_qulr 6y ago
> It is rare to find someone who has paid a penny for anything else. Citation needed. Who are all those people attending the Microsoft developers conference every year? Who were all the people in the audience for Ballmer's infamous "Developers, developers, developers" chant? You're claiming the nonexistence of something that clearly exists.
- hn_check 6y ago
  "You're claiming the nonexistence of something that clearly exists." You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion. There are ARMIES of corporate developers making internal apps for corporations around the globe. I, like probably 80% of HN, spent much of our career doing this. That isn't commercial software. It has zero relevance to any App Store, Windows Store, or getting money from users. Corporate developers make up the vast bulk of participants at those conferences (based upon first hand knowledge). We have MSDN subscriptions, go to conferences, and then we make some internal timesheet app or glue with an accounting system.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion. Please refrain from personal attacks. As you noted in another comment, I'm primarily a Mac developer, and in my experience, the extent of the third-party Mac software market has often been vastly underestimated. Maybe it's just because people aren't familiar with it. There are of course large numbers of users who never buy third-party software, but with any large platform, such as Mac or Windows, all it takes is a significant % of users to buy software for the market to really add up. Doesn't even have to be a majority of users. I haven't been a regular Windows users for many years, but back when I was, there was a thriving consumer software market on Windows. Again, it doesn't even have to include the majority of users, because those who do buy software are willing to pay good money for it.
    - hn_check 6y ago
      That wasn't a personal attack whatsoever. Saying that the market is a wasteland doesn't eliminate the occasional tiny oasis. But compared to the size of the userbase, the market was and remains tiny. People are postulating about some magical greener pastures when the evidence right in front of our eyes, and through the history of the platform, is that it is a fantasy. Jobs is a good proxy. Through the entirety of my career, internal or corporate solution development jobs have outnumbered commercial, end-user development jobs at least 1000:1 if you aren't directly beside Microsoft, Adobe, or a handful of anti-virus firms. It was, and remains, just a tiny, tiny market. Tiny, micro-boutiques that are a little sliver of marginal prosperity in a desolate wasteland of failure.
      - _qulr 6y ago
        > That wasn't a personal attack whatsoever. "You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments" > Tiny, micro-boutiques that are a little sliver of marginal prosperity in a desolate wasteland of failure. I would rephrase this to say you're talking about small businesses, which are not sexy or well known, but are both widespread and crucial to the entire economic foundation of the United States. Unfortunately, App Store revenue is very top-heavy. A few big players, such as Epic, do extremely well on the App Store, but small businesses tend to suffer in the App Store. The total software revenue may be higher now, but the distribution of revenue matters a lot. If the rich get richer, and the rest are stagnant or get poorer, that's only good for the rich, and I wouldn't call it a healthy market, regardless of the totals. In the App Store era, it's "easier" than before to become a wild success, like Epic. But it's a lot harder for indie developers to make a living. You can't "make it up in volume", and you don't have a huge marketing budget to get to the top of the App Store charts, so you need to charge sustainable prices for software. The App Store "race to the bottom", as well as other business and technical limitations, have really hurt smaller developers. I'm not sure we can, or want to live in a world with only BigCos.