4 ms·

It costs $5 to get a developer account for the Chrome Web Store. Cheap compared to an iOS developer account, but still...

k-mcgrady 13y ago
Yeh, that seems pretty reasonable especially when you consider the price of other dev programs (just had to renew my iOS membership today).
- untog 13y ago
  No, let's not go down the path of saying things are OK because they're better than the worst option out there.
  - cwp 13y ago
    Ok, it seems pretty reasonable, when you consider how easy it is to obtain five dollars.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      I can see it MAYBE being an issue in countries where income isn't as high as the U.S., but at least for any American, or anyone in any industrialized country, the $5 fee to get an account is not a significant impediment.
      - PavlovsCat 13y ago
        "at least for any American, or anyone in any industrialized country" Yeah, nobody can't possibly be that poor, eww! And who needs talented people in the third world making great extensions and possibly finding better jobs or at least global recognition that way.
        victorhooi 13y ago
        Err, I think you should think through your argument logically a bit more... You're using a "Think of the poor!" argument, just like they use "Think of the children!". It's a complete strawman. Put it this way - if they can program a Chrome extension - that means they probably have access to a reasonably modern computer. And working internet access. And they they're probably fairly educated. And they had all these things for some time, since this isn't the sort of thing you can learn and hack up in 5 minutes, unless your name happens to be Jeff Dean. So yes, I'd say that the above group probably does have access to $5. We're not talking about illiterate villagers in Africa or rural China here with no running water and one OLPC for the village. I'm not saying we shouldn't do something to help those people (Red Cross does awesome work here, btw, good people to donate to) - however, I somehow doubt that programming Chrome Extensions is at the top of those people's list of priorities.
        PavlovsCat 13y ago
        Yeah, I was getting a bit ahead of myself there. Fair enough. Also, Firefox. But still: > So yes, I'd say that the above group probably does have access to $5. This doesn't mean it's not still a week's of income for where they're from, and money missed dearly. Even if it's not the "the top priority", which I never claimed, I find shrugging it off because it's (supposedly) not a problem for anyone in the first world a bit meh. Would it still deter driveby spammers if it cost 3$? 2$? Are there other ways to ensure this? To not even go further because "meh, just five bucks", kinda sucks. On the other hand, it's also stupid to tell Google how much to charge, let them suck :P
  - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    How about going down the path of placing an insignificant, minimal, token fee of admission on the service to weed out zero-effort scammers?
    - untog 13y ago
      I was more talking about the logic of it. "Apple charges $100 therefore $5 is a good deal" isn't good logic.
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    It is reasonable because it prevents spam. Simple as that.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    For security, verified chrome store is better than someone's self-host. And many users might just download random add-ons and think they are legit when they are not. I am not saying all chrome store apps are safe, but when shit goes wrong it is Google's responsibility to take it down from spreading and mitigate the issue. For openness, no, of course not.
GrinningFool 13y ago
That sounds more like it's "show us you're a real person before we host your stuff" than any real attempt to make money...
- teddyh 13y ago
  “We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files…”

k-mcgrady 13y ago

Yeh, that seems pretty reasonable especially when you consider the price of other dev programs (just had to renew my iOS membership today).

untog 13y ago
No, let's not go down the path of saying things are OK because they're better than the worst option out there.
- cwp 13y ago
  Ok, it seems pretty reasonable, when you consider how easy it is to obtain five dollars.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    I can see it MAYBE being an issue in countries where income isn't as high as the U.S., but at least for any American, or anyone in any industrialized country, the $5 fee to get an account is not a significant impediment.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      "at least for any American, or anyone in any industrialized country" Yeah, nobody can't possibly be that poor, eww! And who needs talented people in the third world making great extensions and possibly finding better jobs or at least global recognition that way.
      - victorhooi 13y ago
        Err, I think you should think through your argument logically a bit more... You're using a "Think of the poor!" argument, just like they use "Think of the children!". It's a complete strawman. Put it this way - if they can program a Chrome extension - that means they probably have access to a reasonably modern computer. And working internet access. And they they're probably fairly educated. And they had all these things for some time, since this isn't the sort of thing you can learn and hack up in 5 minutes, unless your name happens to be Jeff Dean. So yes, I'd say that the above group probably does have access to $5. We're not talking about illiterate villagers in Africa or rural China here with no running water and one OLPC for the village. I'm not saying we shouldn't do something to help those people (Red Cross does awesome work here, btw, good people to donate to) - however, I somehow doubt that programming Chrome Extensions is at the top of those people's list of priorities.
        PavlovsCat 13y ago
        Yeah, I was getting a bit ahead of myself there. Fair enough. Also, Firefox. But still: > So yes, I'd say that the above group probably does have access to $5. This doesn't mean it's not still a week's of income for where they're from, and money missed dearly. Even if it's not the "the top priority", which I never claimed, I find shrugging it off because it's (supposedly) not a problem for anyone in the first world a bit meh. Would it still deter driveby spammers if it cost 3$? 2$? Are there other ways to ensure this? To not even go further because "meh, just five bucks", kinda sucks. On the other hand, it's also stupid to tell Google how much to charge, let them suck :P
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  How about going down the path of placing an insignificant, minimal, token fee of admission on the service to weed out zero-effort scammers?
  - untog 13y ago
    I was more talking about the logic of it. "Apple charges $100 therefore $5 is a good deal" isn't good logic.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  It is reasonable because it prevents spam. Simple as that.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  For security, verified chrome store is better than someone's self-host. And many users might just download random add-ons and think they are legit when they are not. I am not saying all chrome store apps are safe, but when shit goes wrong it is Google's responsibility to take it down from spreading and mitigate the issue. For openness, no, of course not.

GrinningFool 13y ago

That sounds more like it's "show us you're a real person before we host your stuff" than any real attempt to make money...

teddyh 13y ago
“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files…”