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I'm surprised that people are making this argument here on HN. Pricing has nothing to do with how many months a developer spent on an app. The consumer doesn't
by statictype 15y ago
I'm surprised that people are making this argument here on HN. Pricing has nothing to do with how many months a developer spent on an app. The consumer doesn't and shouldn't care about it anymore than a developer should care about how much effort someone took to earn and spend those five bucks.
FWIW, I think five dollars is ok for a niche app like this but "he spent a lot of time on it" doesn't sound like a legitimate justification for it (or for any pricing).
- olivercameron 15y agoWhy is that not a legitimate justification? The vast majority of the world's population charge a monetary fee for their time, so why is this any different? The guy put a lot of effort into making an app, as such, if you like the app, you now reward him for that time by paying him.
- statictype 15y agoYou have a good point. Only thing I can say is that products are typically priced on what the market for it will bear. That's why enterprise crud apps or office productivity apps may sell for more than a game which may have required more effort from more skilled people.
- tomjen3 15y agoSuppose that it turns out that he had outsourced the development of the app - as long as you get the same app, should he charge less? What if has still written it but was using a special compiler which compiled Lisp to Objective-C and had only spent two hours doing it, would you still feel that it was fair you paid the same?
- olivercameron 15y agoYes, it's only $5. A good cup of coffee is only slightly less than that, and it takes all of minutes to create. It's not like we are talking about $1000 enterprise software here.