A volley of pundits started with an article in Time written by Anita Hamilton wherein she laments the forthcoming App Store* won't have free apps. She notes that many other distributors give their software away for free; they instead sell ad space and transfer the cost from you to the advertiser. Her reasoning behind the lack of free from Apple: "quite simply, because people are still willing to pay for them." The Macalope responds here. And the Gruber puts in his two cents, too.
I'm not so convinced that Ms. Hamilton is whining. Although it's possible that I didn't read the article closely enough, I still didn't get an overwhelming sense that all is wrong with the world because of Apple. Instead, I read that most people make software so bad that they have to give it away. Many Apple developers, on the other hand, make something so good that people want it. And they pay for it.
Quite frankly, this rule of quality is something that will never be dominated by the masses. It is certainly not easy to create something that has great value, but if it does, customers will pay. I've found the same to be true lately of business purchases and sales. When we create something that actually works for the customer in a really good way, beyond their expectation, they want to know or buy more.
* The App Store is a store for buying programs that run on your iPhone. Well, actually, buying programs that run on my iPhone. If you had an iPhone, you'd already know this, so I have to assume you don't have one yet.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment