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Found on the Web: Short Rant Against Users of Free Web Apps

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JavaJones:
The other issue is the prices.  Most shareware is going to be minimum $20.  That's not much, but most people would consider it too expensive unless they were really serious about it.  The app prices ($2-5) are much more acceptable psychologically to users.  They'll buy it just to see.  That's where you want to be, even more so with Windows.
-superboyac (January 05, 2012, 04:48 PM)
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I was under the impression that 99 cent apps sold a lot better than the $2-5 range. As I understand it the $2-5 range is still a really tough one even on mobile devices. I wouldn't be surprised if more expensive apps ($5-10 or even $20) actually sold better. It would jive with PC-side pricing realities where very often pricing your app at $20 actually results in a lower perception of value and thus lower sales than pricing at say $40 ($39.99). There was a lot of discussion on this in the Sagelight thread a while back.

- Oshyan

Renegade:
The other issue is the prices.  Most shareware is going to be minimum $20.  That's not much, but most people would consider it too expensive unless they were really serious about it.  The app prices ($2-5) are much more acceptable psychologically to users.  They'll buy it just to see.  That's where you want to be, even more so with Windows.
-superboyac (January 05, 2012, 04:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

I was under the impression that 99 cent apps sold a lot better than the $2-5 range. As I understand it the $2-5 range is still a really tough one even on mobile devices. I wouldn't be surprised if more expensive apps ($5-10 or even $20) actually sold better. It would jive with PC-side pricing realities where very often pricing your app at $20 actually results in a lower perception of value and thus lower sales than pricing at say $40 ($39.99). There was a lot of discussion on this in the Sagelight thread a while back.

- Oshyan
-JavaJones (January 05, 2012, 09:28 PM)
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If you read through the JoS forums, you'll constantly hear about how raising prices increased the number of sales.

Pricing is a very difficult thing to get right.

40hz:

The only really "free" software out there is that which comes for "free" as in "no money" AND has a GPL-type license (or BSD or whatever -- you know what I mean there).

-Renegade link=topic=29521.msg273891#msg273891
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I do, being involved with the FOSS yahoos. ;D

But one problem is they're as guilty as the next guy with their "free as in beer" spiel. While it's a clever argument, it just causes more confusion for most people. That's why I was hoping a term like "Libre" would catch on for the FOSS world. But I'm not holding my breath.

And in all fairness, calling it "free open-source software" wouldn't have become the source of confusion it has - if pretenders and commercial interests didn't adopt the exact same terminology for things that are very different from what the FOSS movement originators meant (and almost everybody understood it to mean) - when they first started using the terms "free" and "open-source."

Of course, one of the best ways to dilute an opponent's argument is to try to "ambiguate" it by calling its opposite by the same name. That's why some of the most brutal and oppressive dictatorships took to prefixing the names of their nations with: The Democratic Republic of...
 :-\

wraith808:
Stop trying to make the word 'free' mean something it doesn't.

Want people to stop being confused about what 'free' means? That's easy. Just stop trying to confuse them...and maybe ban the word 'free' from our marketing vocabulary as one way of accomplishing that.

-40hz (January 05, 2012, 08:34 PM)
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Many people respond to the word 'free' in a manner that is out of sync with what it actually means; they'll use things that they wouldn't use, and make an extraordinary effort just because 'free' is attached to it.  I was watching a tv show the other night, and there was a band that had been booked for a stage far off the beaten path.  They changed the name of the band to 'free beer', and a huge crowd showed up.   Now, this was only a TV show, but I think it speaks to the use of 'free' as a marketing tactic, the same as using '$ X.99' to make it seem like the price is lower than it really is.

Also, free is a matter of perspective.  From an absolute perspective, *nothing* is free.  In terms of money?  This site *is* free- it requires no monetary expenditure.  But you *are* spending your ability to not be contacted by the person.  And people don't understand this concept.  Even FOSS is not *free*.  Everything has its downsides, and in an absolute manner, that downside is a *cost*.  Not in money, but it is a cost.

TaoPhoenix:
Okay, here's we go:

Freemium from the start is just fine. Freemium is different from CrippleWare. For some definitions: Crippleware is that really irritating business where they offer a trial version say of a music converter, then it pops up "sorry, the 'free' version only processes 15 seconds of your song. To process a whole song, pay $29.95". Into the trash it goes. That feels 90's to me, and remember *every* one of these widgets is 29.95 or something. Nag screens also suk.

Good Freemium (according to a book at home) is "80-20" etc. (I think the book even put it at 90-10). 80% of basic usability is there, and even some nice tweaks. The Paid version has a few complicated but powerful features aimed at power users. 80-20 also describes the user base - 80% would use it to convert 7 songs for that mix and forget about it.

Forget Google and Facebook - they're one shot deals "not likely to happen again" for years.

You can't make a living writing fun little apps. It's the same thing the media companies are whining about - they can't make money with cheap copied 200 word rehashes of AP releases, or maybe comics.

It's an educational process. It really is the Information Superthruway, which includes techniques to do things such as with software widgets. The Old Timers are sad that low hanging fruit isn't cutting it anymore. Then again, neither is door to door lint brush cases. In this educational process, it's a GOOD thing that people can do the basics now. That means in general we're not seeing those "support call jokes" about people who can't find the on switch. Society as a whole improves when the support calls change to "How do I downsample (is that the right word - I don't know) an MP3 into a MIDI format for my keyboard?"

Edit: I meant to add that you can't (easily! Hello Angry Birds!) make a *living* at writing small apps. Hoping I'm not being obvious, a good living is at least $1000 gross a month and that's assuming you're in an area with cheap rent. (After all, Apps are mostly location-agnostic.) What I do see is that someone has the "rent paying" job and then a side venture with apps brings maybe $200 a month for Entertainment.

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