5 ms·

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?
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        All software is free. I have 4 versions of MacOS archived on my disk right now, and you can get your own copies on the internet archive. Want to pirate Mac software? Go get it, nobody will stop you. The only price that everyone pays on the internet, is free. Every platform that respects the freedom and authority of it's users seems to agree that all software is free. As Apple is an American company, it would make me very happy to see them agree with those values.
        scarface74 4y ago
        Are you a software developer? How does your company make money?
        smoldesu 4y ago
        Selling support.
    - joenot443 4y ago
      Distributing software is inherently not a zero cost process and it suggests an amount of ignorance in the space to say that it is. I’ve been paying the $100/yr to sell my iPhone apps since I was 15. It’s really not very much money, even to a high school kid. I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone dig in so passionately that the fee is unreasonable. Most people just pay it and keep building.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        The fee isn't unreasonable. The things they block off is. Until Apple lets me install an IPA file as easily as something from the App Store, I will mercilessly mock them for extorting the very developers that make them rich. The closing noose is why I left MacOS, and the reason why I could never daily-drive iOS. It's dumb, and anti-consumer. I'll happily answer any further questions, but I'm afraid my opinion isn't as interesting as you think it is.
        scarface74 4y ago
        What does any of this have to do with Mac development? Anyone can already install anything on the Mac even if it is unsigned by right clicking.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        I'm replying to the parent, who was talking about selling and distributing iPhone apps. Moreover, this discussion started with me highlighting which things should be in the subscription (CI/CD time, VPSes, direct support) versus things that shouldn't be in it (freely managing arbitrary software). Conflating the iPhone's capabilities with the developer program is Apple's fault, not mine.
    - 0ct4via 4y ago
      Most people aren't "mad" about this -- and in this case, GP is complaining that they simply don't want to, not that they can't afford it or anything. There are also fee waivers available for registered non-profits, those in education etc. -- so it's not as binary as you're making out. You also don't need any subscription to install any macOS app, but without it being signed by a developer, you have to -- le gasp -- control-click or right-click, and accept the warning that the developer is unverified. Hardly a massive tax on end users.
0ct4via 4y ago
How do you know they weren't gifted it, or bought it used, or that it's some older hardware revision? Wanting to work on software for macOS doesn't automatically mean you own a $3000 MacBook Pro...
- scarface74 4y ago
  And have you seen the prices of even used ARM Macs that by definition aren’t more than two years old?
  - 0ct4via 4y ago
    Did GP claim to be on Apple Silicon? No? Stop assuming. That aside, if GP did run an Apple Silicon machine, there's also the market to buy used, and buy lower-spec models like the base-spec Mac Mini or MacBook Air. Once again, these aren't $3000 machines, and you don't know whether the machine they use was gifted, loaned, used, a work machine, etc. -- although the decided choice by their own admission, and their profile, suggests cost wasn't a factor for them. Do you have a point, or are you just looking to argue? The response was in your incredulous "Yet you can afford to buy a Mac?" accusation to GP -- which is loaded with baseless assumptions. I reasonably pointed out any ways someone could own a Mac without significant or any cost to themselves. Nobody said anything about it being the most modern or powerful machine, all GP said was that they want to create FOSS apps for Mac, and didn't agree with paying the $99/yr Developer program fee for signing apps as an "authorised developer."
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Then don’t pay the $99 fee and tell the users they have to right click to run it.

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?
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      All software is free. I have 4 versions of MacOS archived on my disk right now, and you can get your own copies on the internet archive. Want to pirate Mac software? Go get it, nobody will stop you. The only price that everyone pays on the internet, is free. Every platform that respects the freedom and authority of it's users seems to agree that all software is free. As Apple is an American company, it would make me very happy to see them agree with those values.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Are you a software developer? How does your company make money?
        smoldesu 4y ago
        Selling support.
  - joenot443 4y ago
    Distributing software is inherently not a zero cost process and it suggests an amount of ignorance in the space to say that it is. I’ve been paying the $100/yr to sell my iPhone apps since I was 15. It’s really not very much money, even to a high school kid. I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone dig in so passionately that the fee is unreasonable. Most people just pay it and keep building.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      The fee isn't unreasonable. The things they block off is. Until Apple lets me install an IPA file as easily as something from the App Store, I will mercilessly mock them for extorting the very developers that make them rich. The closing noose is why I left MacOS, and the reason why I could never daily-drive iOS. It's dumb, and anti-consumer. I'll happily answer any further questions, but I'm afraid my opinion isn't as interesting as you think it is.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        What does any of this have to do with Mac development? Anyone can already install anything on the Mac even if it is unsigned by right clicking.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        I'm replying to the parent, who was talking about selling and distributing iPhone apps. Moreover, this discussion started with me highlighting which things should be in the subscription (CI/CD time, VPSes, direct support) versus things that shouldn't be in it (freely managing arbitrary software). Conflating the iPhone's capabilities with the developer program is Apple's fault, not mine.
  - 0ct4via 4y ago
    Most people aren't "mad" about this -- and in this case, GP is complaining that they simply don't want to, not that they can't afford it or anything. There are also fee waivers available for registered non-profits, those in education etc. -- so it's not as binary as you're making out. You also don't need any subscription to install any macOS app, but without it being signed by a developer, you have to -- le gasp -- control-click or right-click, and accept the warning that the developer is unverified. Hardly a massive tax on end users.

0ct4via 4y ago

How do you know they weren't gifted it, or bought it used, or that it's some older hardware revision? Wanting to work on software for macOS doesn't automatically mean you own a $3000 MacBook Pro...

scarface74 4y ago
And have you seen the prices of even used ARM Macs that by definition aren’t more than two years old?
- 0ct4via 4y ago
  Did GP claim to be on Apple Silicon? No? Stop assuming. That aside, if GP did run an Apple Silicon machine, there's also the market to buy used, and buy lower-spec models like the base-spec Mac Mini or MacBook Air. Once again, these aren't $3000 machines, and you don't know whether the machine they use was gifted, loaned, used, a work machine, etc. -- although the decided choice by their own admission, and their profile, suggests cost wasn't a factor for them. Do you have a point, or are you just looking to argue? The response was in your incredulous "Yet you can afford to buy a Mac?" accusation to GP -- which is loaded with baseless assumptions. I reasonably pointed out any ways someone could own a Mac without significant or any cost to themselves. Nobody said anything about it being the most modern or powerful machine, all GP said was that they want to create FOSS apps for Mac, and didn't agree with paying the $99/yr Developer program fee for signing apps as an "authorised developer."
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Then don’t pay the $99 fee and tell the users they have to right click to run it.