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This would have been a completely unattainable amount of money as a high school student. In college, that money was better spent on school supplies and food, an

This would have been a completely unattainable amount of money as a high school student. In college, that money was better spent on school supplies and food, and spending cash was short. After college it took me the better part of a decade to get to the point where $100/year felt like something I could feasibly consider spending and not risk missing rent in January. $100/year is a lot of money to people in a wide variety of life situations. Being unable to afford this does not make them any less of a programmer.

pjmlp 4y ago
I bought Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ versions for Windows 3.1 as high-school student. Each of them were between 150 and 200 euros on today's money. High school student allowance in early 1990's Portugal after decades of dictatorship wasn't that great either.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Was it a subscription service, though? That doesn't seem like a terrible deal if you get a perpetual license - meanwhile forking over $99/year for some basic functionality wrapped in Service Credit seems like a racket to me.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    No it wasn't, nor are Apple devices given for free to students. Anyone that can afford Apple hardware as an high school student surely can afford the dev subscription.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Anyone that can afford a Lexus can also pay for a heated seat subscription. Does that make it right for them to sell it?
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Yes, a company has the right to do whatever they want with their products. It is up for the customers to validate their business decisions.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        Customers can only validate it if they have a choice. How does an iPhone developer validate or invalidate Apple's behavior? They're basically a hostage on Apple's platform, and the only thing keeping them there is the fact that they get paid. Apple shouldn't have the negotiating power they wield, and regulators are taking action to stop them from abusing it.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        By becoming a developer of something else.
        grishka 4y ago
        You don't have that choice if you're building a service that relies on having a mobile app. You are required to have presence on iOS if you want any semblance of success.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        It might be news for you, many countries in the world have a very superficial presence of iOS devices, and not every company is a multinational. Second, Web also exists. Third, this whole thread is about macOS.
        saurik 4y ago
        You are the one who tried to introduce an extremely general argument, which I guess you are no longer interested in defending? > Yes, a company has the right to do whatever they want with their products. > It is up for the customers to validate their business decisions. So, to verify: you do agree that your argument at least does not apply to the iPhone?
    - goosedragons 4y ago
      Who says the HS student is buying the hardware themselves? It could have been a gift, a hand-me-down, a school computer, etc. As a HS student I was poor as shit, no allowance and lived in a rural area where getting a part-time job would require a car and all the expense with that.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Yeah and selling apps on Apple hardware will surely be top priority in such cases.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        They didn't say they wanted to sell the app, just sign and distribute it. Maybe they want to put their FOSS project on the App Store, but can't until they get a "real job" first.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        No need for the app store for that. Plus I have known many offshore colleagues from African and Asian countries that managed to be successful in selling software, despite the conditions they were raised in. So painting the Apple story as gate keeping is playing it short, there are many ways to skin a rabbit.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        You'll need the App Store if you want it on iPhone, which means you need to pay the subscription. I'm not going to sit around all day and play pity-party with you about impoverished developers. I've known my fair share too, and I might even be one depending on your definition of poor living conditions. The point is simple: Apple stops people from doing arbitrary stuff for no reason. Perhaps you don't care; I'm not arguing that. Maybe it doesn't stop people from getting rich; obviously, money is still made. Regardless, everyone knows their deal stinks like shit - the cat's out of the bag. Apple bought themselves a couple months with the 15% punch-line, but the laughing stops next year. This isn't controversial or high-concept stuff. You should be able to freely install stuff on your iPhone even if you don't personally intend to. It seems like by-and-large, the democratic world agrees.
scarface74 4y ago
Yet you can afford to buy a Mac? Looking around in the average small city in the US today, McDonalds is paying $15-$20 an hour.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  McDonalds pays you in compensation for actual physical labor. You pay Apple to flip an arbitrary bit on your iCloud account that enables features that should be enabled by-default on devices you bought and paid-for. Bit of a difference there, perhaps something worth being upset about.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    That has nothing to do with the fact that $100 is affordable to the average college student working at a fast food company. But even if I buy your argument, are you saying that selling software also has no value since once you write it, the marginal cost of delivering software is basically $0
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Distributing software has zero cost. Apple can bundle services with it (vuln scanning, CI/CD, cloud resources, etc.) but copying data is inherently a free process. You may object to that all you wish, but the entirety of the internet stands as evidence that software distribution is normalized and free. The problem was never that Apple wanted to offer cloud resources or scan for known exploits. Go wild, Microsoft does that too and it works great for them. People are only mad when Apple conflates completely arbitrary capabilities with their $99 dev service fee. I should not need a recurring subscription to install an App from Github. We're not in 2005 anymore, we're done selling feature phones.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        So once software is made, delivering it to the customer is just “delivering data”. Do you think that all software should be free and people shouldn’t charge for software?

pjmlp 4y ago

I bought Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ versions for Windows 3.1 as high-school student. Each of them were between 150 and 200 euros on today's money. High school student allowance in early 1990's Portugal after decades of dictatorship wasn't that great either.

smoldesu 4y ago
Was it a subscription service, though? That doesn't seem like a terrible deal if you get a perpetual license - meanwhile forking over $99/year for some basic functionality wrapped in Service Credit seems like a racket to me.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  No it wasn't, nor are Apple devices given for free to students. Anyone that can afford Apple hardware as an high school student surely can afford the dev subscription.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Anyone that can afford a Lexus can also pay for a heated seat subscription. Does that make it right for them to sell it?
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Yes, a company has the right to do whatever they want with their products. It is up for the customers to validate their business decisions.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Customers can only validate it if they have a choice. How does an iPhone developer validate or invalidate Apple's behavior? They're basically a hostage on Apple's platform, and the only thing keeping them there is the fact that they get paid. Apple shouldn't have the negotiating power they wield, and regulators are taking action to stop them from abusing it.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        By becoming a developer of something else.
        grishka 4y ago
        You don't have that choice if you're building a service that relies on having a mobile app. You are required to have presence on iOS if you want any semblance of success.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        It might be news for you, many countries in the world have a very superficial presence of iOS devices, and not every company is a multinational. Second, Web also exists. Third, this whole thread is about macOS.
        saurik 4y ago
        You are the one who tried to introduce an extremely general argument, which I guess you are no longer interested in defending? > Yes, a company has the right to do whatever they want with their products. > It is up for the customers to validate their business decisions. So, to verify: you do agree that your argument at least does not apply to the iPhone?
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Who says the HS student is buying the hardware themselves? It could have been a gift, a hand-me-down, a school computer, etc. As a HS student I was poor as shit, no allowance and lived in a rural area where getting a part-time job would require a car and all the expense with that.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Yeah and selling apps on Apple hardware will surely be top priority in such cases.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        They didn't say they wanted to sell the app, just sign and distribute it. Maybe they want to put their FOSS project on the App Store, but can't until they get a "real job" first.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        No need for the app store for that. Plus I have known many offshore colleagues from African and Asian countries that managed to be successful in selling software, despite the conditions they were raised in. So painting the Apple story as gate keeping is playing it short, there are many ways to skin a rabbit.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        You'll need the App Store if you want it on iPhone, which means you need to pay the subscription. I'm not going to sit around all day and play pity-party with you about impoverished developers. I've known my fair share too, and I might even be one depending on your definition of poor living conditions. The point is simple: Apple stops people from doing arbitrary stuff for no reason. Perhaps you don't care; I'm not arguing that. Maybe it doesn't stop people from getting rich; obviously, money is still made. Regardless, everyone knows their deal stinks like shit - the cat's out of the bag. Apple bought themselves a couple months with the 15% punch-line, but the laughing stops next year. This isn't controversial or high-concept stuff. You should be able to freely install stuff on your iPhone even if you don't personally intend to. It seems like by-and-large, the democratic world agrees.

scarface74 4y ago

Yet you can afford to buy a Mac? Looking around in the average small city in the US today, McDonalds is paying $15-$20 an hour.

smoldesu 4y ago
McDonalds pays you in compensation for actual physical labor. You pay Apple to flip an arbitrary bit on your iCloud account that enables features that should be enabled by-default on devices you bought and paid-for. Bit of a difference there, perhaps something worth being upset about.
- scarface74 4y ago
  That has nothing to do with the fact that $100 is affordable to the average college student working at a fast food company. But even if I buy your argument, are you saying that selling software also has no value since once you write it, the marginal cost of delivering software is basically $0
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Distributing software has zero cost. Apple can bundle services with it (vuln scanning, CI/CD, cloud resources, etc.) but copying data is inherently a free process. You may object to that all you wish, but the entirety of the internet stands as evidence that software distribution is normalized and free. The problem was never that Apple wanted to offer cloud resources or scan for known exploits. Go wild, Microsoft does that too and it works great for them. People are only mad when Apple conflates completely arbitrary capabilities with their $99 dev service fee. I should not need a recurring subscription to install an App from Github. We're not in 2005 anymore, we're done selling feature phones.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      So once software is made, delivering it to the customer is just “delivering data”. Do you think that all software should be free and people shouldn’t charge for software?