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For those on mobile, either go on a desktop or change your user agent so you get to use the website instead of an ad for a $3 app. Interesting strategy to make

by n2d4 2y ago

For those on mobile, either go on a desktop or change your user agent so you get to use the website instead of an ad for a $3 app. Interesting strategy to make a cool free website with the potential to go viral, and then act like it's behind a paywall for only some part of the population. Is this common?

nkozyra 2y ago
The site itself works for me on mobile, though.
SamBam 2y ago
I feel like this is unlikely to go viral -- these drawing apps have been around for over a decade.
- tyleo 2y ago
  This one has been popular for a decade IMO. I remember playing with it in college. To my mind this is the viral one and there are some additional knock offs.
crystal_revenge 2y ago
Software engineers who measure their income in multiples of median household income refusing to pay $3 for an app that has been entertaining people for over a decade now never ceases to surprise me. Maybe if you're considering changing your user agent to play with this, you're interested enough to spend $3. I did about 5 years ago and still get enjoy that app. Personally I would love a world were a tiny trickle of the revenue software developer generate would trickle down to people making cool things for fun. Who knows, if that happened we might have more developers out there doing thing other than trying to sell ads.
- andai 2y ago
  I refuse to use the web without adblock but most of the websites (or apps I use) are supported by ads. What do? A few have a "pay to remove ads" option, but most do not, and the ones that do, I use infrequently enough that I can't justify the price. There seems to be no good solution for paying for the "long tail" of content and services. Clay Shirky wrote an essay (I forget which one) on this subject like 20+ years ago, about how the main issue with micro transactions isn't even technical but it's the mental cost associated with each transaction. I think this could be solved if the system were "set it and forget it" -- you give it a weekly budget and it just distributes it among the sites you spend the most time on. Brave browser actually tried something very similar with their BAT (with their own ads instead of user provided funds), but it never caught on.
  - dr_dshiv 2y ago
    Yet we tip 15%+ — so it is clearly cultural
itishappy 2y ago
Looks like just apple devices. It runs fine for me on Chrome/Android and using a number of other agents I've tried. Amusingly, the "download on the app store" button with apple logo is present on the desktop version of the site as well.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  Many desktop apps on macOS are distributed via the App Store also.

by n2d4 2y ago

nkozyra 2y ago

The site itself works for me on mobile, though.

SamBam 2y ago

I feel like this is unlikely to go viral -- these drawing apps have been around for over a decade.

tyleo 2y ago
This one has been popular for a decade IMO. I remember playing with it in college. To my mind this is the viral one and there are some additional knock offs.

crystal_revenge 2y ago

Software engineers who measure their income in multiples of median household income refusing to pay $3 for an app that has been entertaining people for over a decade now never ceases to surprise me. Maybe if you're considering changing your user agent to play with this, you're interested enough to spend $3. I did about 5 years ago and still get enjoy that app. Personally I would love a world were a tiny trickle of the revenue software developer generate would trickle down to people making cool things for fun. Who knows, if that happened we might have more developers out there doing thing other than trying to sell ads.

andai 2y ago
I refuse to use the web without adblock but most of the websites (or apps I use) are supported by ads. What do? A few have a "pay to remove ads" option, but most do not, and the ones that do, I use infrequently enough that I can't justify the price. There seems to be no good solution for paying for the "long tail" of content and services. Clay Shirky wrote an essay (I forget which one) on this subject like 20+ years ago, about how the main issue with micro transactions isn't even technical but it's the mental cost associated with each transaction. I think this could be solved if the system were "set it and forget it" -- you give it a weekly budget and it just distributes it among the sites you spend the most time on. Brave browser actually tried something very similar with their BAT (with their own ads instead of user provided funds), but it never caught on.
- dr_dshiv 2y ago
  Yet we tip 15%+ — so it is clearly cultural

itishappy 2y ago

Looks like just apple devices. It runs fine for me on Chrome/Android and using a number of other agents I've tried. Amusingly, the "download on the app store" button with apple logo is present on the desktop version of the site as well.

aspenmayer 2y ago
Many desktop apps on macOS are distributed via the App Store also.