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Tweetbot seems really awesome and I realize they explain why it is worth the $20, but I still think it's too pricey. And I don't think that because of Tweetbot,

Tweetbot seems really awesome and I realize they explain why it is worth the $20, but I still think it's too pricey. And I don't think that because of Tweetbot, I think that because of Twitter. I'm more worried with all the sporadic changes Twitter is making lately that they could somehow do something to make Tweetbot useless. Maybe by not allowing 3rd party apps or something. Who knows? And because of that, I don't want to risk wasting $20. It's sort of like how people felt with the "Elevation Dock" on the iPhone. They got it for their iPhone 4's and then it basically became just a paperweight when the 5 came out (I realize they made a crumby adapter to make it work with the iPhone 5). I guess, all in all, it just bums me out that awesome products (like Tweetbot) could potentially have a great product like this ruined by 1 small decision Twitter makes. And I just don't think I want to waste $20 on that bet (especially when the Twitter site UI/UX isn't THAT bad to use). /2 cents

CyberMonk 14y ago
Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? I'm really glad we have companies like Tapbots, Panic, etc., pushing against the "race to the bottom" trend with app prices that we've seen lately. Good apps are HARD to do, and there's no reason they shouldn't command a price commensurate with the effort involved.
- bluetidepro 14y ago
  >Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. And that is why I say it's a gamble I don't really want to take on a social networking app (no matter how nice the UI/UX is). It's worth more to me to just use the browser Twitter app (has a few flaws but isn't THAT bad) for free then take a huge risk with $20.
  - msbarnett 14y ago
    > That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. If they stopped supporting it tomorrow, it wouldn't disappear from your device. The earliest it would possibly break would be in the next major OS upgrade. Y'know, in about a year. The idea that a measly $20 is too much to pay for months of engineering and design work up to now, let alone going forward, is utterly absurd. I'd expect it from Joe Random Entitled-Guy, but I'd expect a higher standard from HN, where presumably the sentiment is that devs ought to be able to subsist above the poverty line.
    - bluetidepro 14y ago
      > If they stopped supporting it tomorrow, it wouldn't disappear from your device. The earliest it would possibly break would be in the next major OS upgrade. That's not true at all. Twitter could revoke their API access or something that could break it tomorrow. Yes the actual app may still be on my device but nothing says it will actually still be able to work. That is all in Twitter's hands. > The idea that a measly $20 is too much to pay for months of engineering and design work up to now, let alone going forward, is utterly absurd. That is their decision to make this bet. If I were to spend years and years making the perfect toaster and I charge $1,000 for it (to pay for the engineering and design work), you're saying it's absurd NOT to buy it? It's actually the opposite. It's absurd to assume that just because someone puts engineering and design into a product, that it automatically makes the product worth X price.
      - msbarnett 14y ago
        > If I were to spend years and years making the perfect toaster and I charge $1,000 for it (to pay for the engineering and design work), you're saying it's absurd NOT to buy it? It's never absurd to choose not to buy anything. But your analogy gets in the way of what is absurd. We're not talking about charging $1000 dollars (the same price as a nice laptop, a middling DSLR, or a crappy used car) for a toaster. We're talking about $20 (the same price as a delivered pizza, a middling steak, and less than two tickets for an hour and a half movie) for a polished piece of software. What's absurd is asserting that that's too much to ask for the product of months of engineering and design work. You certainly don't have to buy it! It's totally ok if it's not worth $20 of your money, to you. But asserting that the authors ought to value their work less than a pizza, that they're doing something wrong by asking a not-unreasonable pizza-money price for it, is entitled, race-to-the-bottom mentality crap. Engineers are expensive, iOS engineers doubly so. This meme that their work is worth less than a candy bar, let alone a pizza, is a toxic devaluation of the worth of every engineer working in the software field coda: They're currently both the #2 paid app and #2 top-grossing app in the App Store, so the demand is certainly there at $20. Devaluing their work by launching at less would have accomplished nothing but leaving money on the table.

CyberMonk 14y ago

Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? I'm really glad we have companies like Tapbots, Panic, etc., pushing against the "race to the bottom" trend with app prices that we've seen lately. Good apps are HARD to do, and there's no reason they shouldn't command a price commensurate with the effort involved.

bluetidepro 14y ago
>Even if the app is only around and viable for a year, if you use it every day, is it really so hard to justify spending $20 on it? That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. And that is why I say it's a gamble I don't really want to take on a social networking app (no matter how nice the UI/UX is). It's worth more to me to just use the browser Twitter app (has a few flaws but isn't THAT bad) for free then take a huge risk with $20.
- msbarnett 14y ago
  > That's exactly what I'm worried about. It COULD be a year (and in that case, yes, it would be worth it), but no one can guarantee that. It could be tomorrow for all we know. If they stopped supporting it tomorrow, it wouldn't disappear from your device. The earliest it would possibly break would be in the next major OS upgrade. Y'know, in about a year. The idea that a measly $20 is too much to pay for months of engineering and design work up to now, let alone going forward, is utterly absurd. I'd expect it from Joe Random Entitled-Guy, but I'd expect a higher standard from HN, where presumably the sentiment is that devs ought to be able to subsist above the poverty line.
  - bluetidepro 14y ago
    > If they stopped supporting it tomorrow, it wouldn't disappear from your device. The earliest it would possibly break would be in the next major OS upgrade. That's not true at all. Twitter could revoke their API access or something that could break it tomorrow. Yes the actual app may still be on my device but nothing says it will actually still be able to work. That is all in Twitter's hands. > The idea that a measly $20 is too much to pay for months of engineering and design work up to now, let alone going forward, is utterly absurd. That is their decision to make this bet. If I were to spend years and years making the perfect toaster and I charge $1,000 for it (to pay for the engineering and design work), you're saying it's absurd NOT to buy it? It's actually the opposite. It's absurd to assume that just because someone puts engineering and design into a product, that it automatically makes the product worth X price.
    - msbarnett 14y ago
      > If I were to spend years and years making the perfect toaster and I charge $1,000 for it (to pay for the engineering and design work), you're saying it's absurd NOT to buy it? It's never absurd to choose not to buy anything. But your analogy gets in the way of what is absurd. We're not talking about charging $1000 dollars (the same price as a nice laptop, a middling DSLR, or a crappy used car) for a toaster. We're talking about $20 (the same price as a delivered pizza, a middling steak, and less than two tickets for an hour and a half movie) for a polished piece of software. What's absurd is asserting that that's too much to ask for the product of months of engineering and design work. You certainly don't have to buy it! It's totally ok if it's not worth $20 of your money, to you. But asserting that the authors ought to value their work less than a pizza, that they're doing something wrong by asking a not-unreasonable pizza-money price for it, is entitled, race-to-the-bottom mentality crap. Engineers are expensive, iOS engineers doubly so. This meme that their work is worth less than a candy bar, let alone a pizza, is a toxic devaluation of the worth of every engineer working in the software field coda: They're currently both the #2 paid app and #2 top-grossing app in the App Store, so the demand is certainly there at $20. Devaluing their work by launching at less would have accomplished nothing but leaving money on the table.