Papering over App Store problems
The challenges facing Adobe are shared by almost all productivity apps.
- Productivity apps are indispensable (and thus priceless) to some users
- Productivity apps usually have high learning curves
- Well-done productivity apps require significant investment up-front
- Productivity apps require regular maintenance and upgrades
Unfortunately, app store economics don’t really work here.
- f you have a low price, you need massive volume to make up for the upfront costs
- If you have a high price, users are much less likely to buy your app, especially since there is likely a learning curve *If you can’t monetize over time, your users are extracting MUCH more value than you are receiving in revenue. That’s great if you’re a user, up until the company you love sells out because they can’t make money. Sparrow is the canonical example here. How many Sparrow devotees would gladly pay $5 a month to have the app available and continually updated?
A rather more thoughtful piece, I thought, than the more recent one by Gedeon Maheux that everyone has been discussing lately.
Put bluntly, the App Store is going to have to change its economic model: otherwise quality productivity apps will simply be priced out of it, and it will risk going (horror) the Android way.
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