As a software developer, my work is worth somewhere in the magnitude of about 30 euro per hour. If I write an "app" over the weekend, investing perhaps 20 hour

As a software developer, my work is worth somewhere in the magnitude of about 30 euro per hour. If I write an "app" over the weekend, investing perhaps 20 hours in it, that makes 600 euro investment. Imagine that I would want to make as much profit as that investment; I would need to get 1200 euro from "sales". At 1 euro per download, that means 1200 people paying for a download. If only 1200 people have downloaded that from you, what do you imagine would be easier: paying 1 euro to download from your known and central website, or investing some time to search for it on some peer-to-peer network? Keep in mind that only a small percentage of those 1200 would invest the time to seed it on peer-to-peer networks. Here is a way to get paid: make it as easy as possible to pay for a download of your fully functional "product". Wouldn't it be much easier to know beforehand that you will get the money? That's the way contract work works: someone has a problem, and he would like to get someone to solve it. You set your hours, haggle for a price, then go to work, deliver the solution, get paid. This is another way to get paid: find someone to make a contract with. I believe that it is the most important way for professional work. This actually also works for "apps" and other self-initiated projects, through crowdfunding (e.g. through Indiegogo or Kickstarter). However, even completely unfunded work needs not be financial waste, as you build a portfolio with which to gain contracts.