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[CM] subtle exodus from the Mac app store

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  [CM] subtle exodus from the Mac app store RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-10-22 21:35 +0000
    Re: [CM] subtle exodus from the Mac app store Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-22 16:49 -0700
      Re: [CM] subtle exodus from the Mac app store "D.D." <usenet.xyzzyx@spamgourmet.com> - 2014-10-25 03:11 -0700
        Re: [CM] subtle exodus from the Mac app store Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-25 19:27 -0700

#5415 — [CM] subtle exodus from the Mac app store

From the «go indie or go broke» department:
Title: Mac App Store: the subtle exodus
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:38:52 -0400
Link: http://osnews.com/story/27984/Mac_App_Store_the_subtle_exodus

My ultimate fear is that the complacent state of the Mac App Store would lead
to the slow erosion of the Mac indie community. The MAS is the best place to
get your software, it comes bundled with your OS, it's very convenient but when
all the issues compound, developers will vote with their feet and continue the
slow exodus. I feel that Apple needs to encourage the availability of high
quality software rather than quantity over quality - the first step would
addressing the core issues that have been known for years. The Mac platform
would be a much worse place if we prioritise short-term gains, boasting about
the hundreds of thousands of free abandonware rather than concentrate on the
long-term fundamentals to sustain a healthy and innovative ecosystem. It's
finally starting to dawn on people that application stores' primary goal is not
to make the lives of developers easier. No, the one true goal of application
stores is to drive the price of software down to zero or near-zero - and if the
side effect of that is that the independent and small developers who built your
platform go out of business or leave the platform altogether, that's just too
damn bad. It was fun in the short term, when the low-hanging fruits were ripe
for the picking, but everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together
could see the unsustainability of it all. The 'app economy' is pretty close to
bust, and I suspect zero to none of the suggestions listed in this article will
be implemented by Apple. It's not in their interest to raise the prices of
software in their application stores.

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#5416

On 2014-10-22 21:35:26 +0000, RS Wood said:

> No, the one true goal of application stores is to drive the price of 
> software down to zero or near-zero

See, no.  The one true goal of app stores is to get a cut of the 
action.  If the price of software is at or approaches zero, then 
there's really no point.

Steam recently redid their store interface from the naive type that 
Apple uses (and others AFAIK) where you can sort by date, popularity, 
and a few other metrics, to one where you can narrow down your 
searching and browsing into a large number of useful categories.  I 
feel that Apple's store is pretty much useless for browsing (as Steam 
was until recently) because there was no way to effectively find what 
you were looking for.  Apple would do well to look at Steam's interface 
redesign and think about how they could apply the same ideas.

I don't believe that the "App Economy" is a bust - on the contrary it 
has replaced the traditional software retailer for most people.  I 
haven't bought boxed software in years.  I don't even feel guilty about 
the much lower prices - after the store, the distributor, the 
publisher, and the other middle men took their cut how much do you 
think a small developer took home from a $50 boxed software title?  I 
would guess somewhere between a nickel and a quarter.  These days he 
gets a third of the price that he sets himself!

The internet has made a select few middlemen very rich, and it has 
destroyed many others.  I can't say I feel sorry for the ones who are 
losing out.  The fewer of these types, the better.

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#5439

Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
> I don't believe that the "App Economy" is a bust - on the contrary it has
> replaced the traditional software retailer for most people.  I haven't bought
> boxed software in years.  I don't even feel guilty about the much lower prices -
> after the store, the distributor, the publisher, and the other middle men took
> their cut how much do you think a small developer took home from a $50 boxed
> software title?  I would guess somewhere between a nickel and a quarter.  These
> days he gets a third of the price that he sets himself!

The vast majority of traditional boxed software/games sold at retailers was made 
by people employed full-time as developers, and there was no lack of jobs to go 
around thanks to the large number of small & mid-size publishers. I don't know 
how common indie developers that got offers from publishers were, just that they 
were given highly competitive rates as the publisher wouldn't bother unless they 
felt it would be a hit.

So the end of the traditional boxed software market actually did hurt average 
developers, since it (along with outsourcing) meant it became much harder to 
find a job, making it possible for publishers to underpay & overwork the 
relative few people they hire.

That said, are app stores really responsible for the loss of traditional/boxed 
software?  It seemed to me like there were relatively few computer titles on the 
shelves years before Windows 8 even had a preview release. (I don't know how 
most people were getting their software, though; I haven't had the funds to 
justify buying any since long before I switched to Linux.)

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#5446

On 2014-10-25 10:11:20 +0000, D.D. said:

> Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
>> I don't believe that the "App Economy" is a bust - on the contrary it has
>> replaced the traditional software retailer for most people.  I haven't bought
>> boxed software in years.  I don't even feel guilty about the much lower 
>> prices -
>> after the store, the distributor, the publisher, and the other middle men took
>> their cut how much do you think a small developer took home from a $50 boxed
>> software title?  I would guess somewhere between a nickel and a quarter.  These
>> days he gets a third of the price that he sets himself!
> 
> The vast majority of traditional boxed software/games sold at retailers 
> was made by people employed full-time as developers, and there was no 
> lack of jobs to go around thanks to the large number of small & 
> mid-size publishers. I don't know how common indie developers that got 
> offers from publishers were, just that they were given highly 
> competitive rates as the publisher wouldn't bother unless they felt it 
> would be a hit.

I would figure that most software developers, probably way over 90%, 
worked in-house on custom applications not for sale, and not for 
software publishers selling boxed software at retail outlets.  I don't 
doubt that some of these guys lost their jobs, but the industry average 
salary for a programmer is still pretty respectable so I don't think 
they are hurting that much.

> So the end of the traditional boxed software market actually did hurt 
> average developers, since it (along with outsourcing) meant it became 
> much harder to find a job, making it possible for publishers to 
> underpay & overwork the relative few people they hire.

I think you can probably blame outsourcing almost completely here.

> That said, are app stores really responsible for the loss of 
> traditional/boxed software?  It seemed to me like there were relatively 
> few computer titles on the shelves years before Windows 8 even had a 
> preview release. (I don't know how most people were getting their 
> software, though; I haven't had the funds to justify buying any since 
> long before I switched to Linux.)

Windows is so late to the application store party that it's barely 
worth mentioning, and I don't think they actually sell much there.  I 
think probably Amazon sells more software than computer stores these 
days, and most software can also be purchased and downloaded instantly 
from the developer's site as well.

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