Smart developers will charge money one way or another, but there will be a race to the bottom for most verticals. Now that a single individual for $100 can get

Smart developers will charge money one way or another, but there will be a race to the bottom for most verticals. Now that a single individual for $100 can get a distribution license and ship an app that does something, the barrier is too low to force higher prices or higher quality. As long as that individual is willing to sell their product for cheaper than the next product, eventually there is a race to the bottom. Software's incremental cost is $0 on the app store, so you can sell it for $0 and throw a few ads on it, and if the dev makes > $0 they might be happy with that, and if they aren't they'll adjust prices upward until they get what they want. Also, this doesn't happen with physical distribution usually because things can't sell for less than the cost to manufacture, distribute, and sell. At least, the price for physical goods doesn't hit $0.