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In my opinion giving bounties to developers is a flawed idea. Devs may be motivated to do an app, but if the userbase is small, they will simply cut corners, an

by kolinko 13y ago

In my opinion giving bounties to developers is a flawed idea. Devs may be motivated to do an app, but if the userbase is small, they will simply cut corners, and do the bare minimum, forgetting about support and further development after the bounty was acquired. In other words - if there are no users, a bounty will not convince devs to build a reasonable product, as there will be no incentive to do so. If there are users within the ecosystem, then the bounty is unnecessary. That is why so far the bounty programs did little to improve the ecosystems. A nice idea someone posted here in the comments - instead of giving devs bounty money, Microsoft could give free cash to users left & right, so they'd spend it on the apps. This would force the devs to not only do an app, but do a really good app...

iamshs 13y ago
I like your idea, and I think it should be a bit of column A and column B. Kickstart the platform from both ends, users and developers and then let the momentum ride itself from then on.
r00fus 13y ago
Alternatively, create startups using a fund (I know that Google and Apple have both done this - but only really could find the iFund [1] ) Benefits: * Not free cash * Startups own their product, but are forced to develop for your platform * Multiplies the amount of money * Allows some form of control through stock ownership * Can pay for itself if the platform is successful. Cons: * Requires more overhead * Fund management needs to be trusted * Startups thus created could "branch out" of your platform, thus creating competition (see. Spotify - now competes with iTunes). Personally, I see most of the negatives as "good problems to have", esp. when you're about 3+ years behind existing (and rapidly growing) platforms (in the case of Apple, that was vs. Windows/Web and in the case of Microsoft, it would be iOS/Android). [1] http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/ http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/

by kolinko 13y ago

iamshs 13y ago

I like your idea, and I think it should be a bit of column A and column B. Kickstart the platform from both ends, users and developers and then let the momentum ride itself from then on.

r00fus 13y ago

Alternatively, create startups using a fund (I know that Google and Apple have both done this - but only really could find the iFund [1] ) Benefits: * Not free cash * Startups own their product, but are forced to develop for your platform * Multiplies the amount of money * Allows some form of control through stock ownership * Can pay for itself if the platform is successful. Cons: * Requires more overhead * Fund management needs to be trusted * Startups thus created could "branch out" of your platform, thus creating competition (see. Spotify - now competes with iTunes). Personally, I see most of the negatives as "good problems to have", esp. when you're about 3+ years behind existing (and rapidly growing) platforms (in the case of Apple, that was vs. Windows/Web and in the case of Microsoft, it would be iOS/Android). [1] http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/ http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/