Amazon's "App of the Day" Hurting Developers

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godnodog

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If nowhere in the contract is something related to this, than you should sue them,

I´m not exacly sure if this doesn´t fall into the software piracy level.
 

flipt

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Amazing what you can do with a product when it has no inventory costs associated it (or virtually none). Maybe Amazon should consider giving a "free product of the day" away and see if their stance would change when it actually cost them money.
 
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This is a shame. Their Pocket Cast app (which I assume is the app in question) is absolutely the best podcatcher I have tried on Android. The thing is though, I would never have heard of it if not for the Amazon Free App of the day. And believe me, I did a fair amount of searching and even read a few article roundups on Android podcatchers and this one was never mentioned. I just happened to try it out and learned of its greatness. Maybe the free App of the Day should be more like a 30-day trial? If you like it, then you have the option to purchase it. Or perhaps at least have the ability to donate through the Amazon store if you want to help the devs out afterwards.
 

back_by_demand

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How about only free for the first 1000 downloaders, so that way it gets shed loads of advertising and only a minimal cost to the developer.

Terms of the appstore could be that you opt-in to be on the app of the day, if you don't agree you never get the exposure but also don't lose sales.
 

zoemayne

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I bet Amazon will claim that non- 50,000 in revenue for their share holders. This would of been succesfull if their profits were from ads.
 

leadpoop

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The developers seem to assume a lot! "$54,805.14" If they are not selling well now it's probably because their product is not the best. Maybe they should always do free with as-support. As that seems to be the only way they can "sell" their apps.
 
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They agreed to it before the app was listed for free, what's the problem? They can't possibly think that all those people who downloaded it for free were going to buy it. Some of them probably would, but most wouldn't have, they just saw "free" and downloaded it just in case they should ever actually want to use it.
 
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Problem is (with all Android Apps) it just takes one rooted phone and the APK is now free to the world. This google policy is what is really rough for developers. This is why your android apps are full of adds. It is too bad because it hurts everyone all the way down the tree, (except google)
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]leadpoop[/nom]The developers seem to assume a lot! "$54,805.14" If they are not selling well now it's probably because their product is not the best. Maybe they should always do free with as-support. As that seems to be the only way they can "sell" their apps.[/citation]

dud you are dumb--- , there is no assuming there , it's simple math

give away this many copies free = this much revenue potential lost

if amazon didn't have the free app of the day , and those 50,000 users bought the app then there certainly would have been that much money made , again there is no assumption here simpel calculation.

also it's a simple fact that many users don't buy apps at all and just grab the free apps as they come. This very mentality underlines the economic problems in US today , people getting shit they arnt paying for , or folks giving away stuff they cant afford to give away.

i think these guys should sue the ass off amazon over this. Things like this are making me like amazon less and less
 

luissantos

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[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]dud you are dumb--- , there is no assuming there , it's simple math give away this many copies free = this much revenue potential lost if amazon didn't have the free app of the day , and those 50,000 users bought the app then there certainly would have been that much money made , again there is no assumption here simpel calculation. also it's a simple fact that many users don't buy apps at all and just grab the free apps as they come. This very mentality underlines the economic problems in US today , people getting shit they arnt paying for , or folks giving away stuff they cant afford to give away. i think these guys should sue the ass off amazon over this. Things like this are making me like amazon less and less[/citation]

no my good sir, you are the dumb one here.
the assumption here is that the app would have gotten those many downloads even if it wasn't free. that is obviously wrong.
it's not math, it's logic.

you don't calculate using the number of downloads you got when offering something for free. that number is obviously several orders of magnitude above what you would normally get if the app was paid. If the developer lost any money AT ALL that would have been the money he would have made on any other day, which he claims himself to be a rather meager sum.

Of course the free advertising he gets from this market maneuver should far outweigh whatever that meager sum is. In fact, it's a well known strategy to release something for free for a week or two in the apple appstore to gain notoriety. Advertising is EVERYTHING.

Of course if your app was already sub-par and you don't know what to do with the promotional campaigns, well, you know where I'm going with this...
 

l23j4l2jjgljwsjsk

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It can go both ways.

Take valve and steam for example. A few years ago they gave portal away for free. I wasnt a steam user at the time but i became one just for that. Fast forward and ive bought about 20 other valve games through steam now. Those are sales they would not have had without giving me portal for free. In addition to that ive bought numorous other games from other developers through steam as well. Most of them were bought when they had their specials(not for free but highly reduced). Even tho i bought them all on specials, those are all sales they would not have had without offering me just 1 game for free, or those specials.
 

christop

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Amazon say they get nothing for you apps either. Really you get people coming to your site for free apps and you have advertising on your site that you sell.
 

crewton

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Portal was always "free" though. It came bundled in the orange box which myself and I assume others bought for Half life 2 and team fortress 2. Portal was more of a demo game to see if people found it fun. I loved Portal and bought Portal 2. So, I too used a "free" product and purchased additional games from them.

On topic: I'm not a big app fan and won't pay for them. Even a buck or two they don't really do much for me. They should place a timer on the free app so that people can use them for a month and if they really like the app they can buy them later. Giving them away for free saturates the market and screws the developers over.
 

scuba dave

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[citation][nom]luissantos[/nom]no my good sir, you are the dumb one here.the assumption here is that the app would have gotten those many downloads even if it wasn't free. that is obviously wrong.it's not math, it's logic.you don't calculate using the number of downloads you got when offering something for free. that number is obviously several orders of magnitude above what you would normally get if the app was paid. If the developer lost any money AT ALL that would have been the money he would have made on any other day, which he claims himself to be a rather meager sum.Of course the free advertising he gets from this market maneuver should far outweigh whatever that meager sum is. In fact, it's a well known strategy to release something for free for a week or two in the apple appstore to gain notoriety. Advertising is EVERYTHING.Of course if your app was already sub-par and you don't know what to do with the promotional campaigns, well, you know where I'm going with this...[/citation]

No, no, my good good sir, he isn't the dumb one. However, you are now definitely one for not paying attention to the article in the slightest. Good job bro.

It isn't an "assumption" that they would have actually got that many downloads. They did get that many downloads. The 54.8k total is what they would have gotten had they received the 20% cut that they agreed to in their Developer Agreement. Now, my math shows a slightly different number ($1.78 per download x 101,491 x .2 = $36,130.80), but regardless, they would have made that money, if Amazon had honored their original agreement, but instead Amazon didn't(through the backdoor deal), and Amazon received plenty of free advertising for their app store(which would have cost them 36k in the original deal), and Shifty Jelly was basically drop kicked in the nuts. Way to go Amazon.
 

scuba dave

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Nevermind with my (mis)calculation, lol. I based my total on 20 percent of their normal sale received per download ($1.78) instead of 20 percent of the asking price ($2.70). The $54.8k number is accurate. Amazon shafted them good. :/ Sad that iOS treats them better.. I expected more of Amazon...
 

coldmast

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Limited copies would help (limit to 1000), as well as offer more developer control, and mandatory user reviews. Providing free, as-is software is usually a great way to get free beta testers, and garner user feedback to make a more complete product. Bait and switch is also a good way of getting more users, like offering 'free' lite versions with less features.

The problem with these pricing estimates is that it assumes that people would pay for the regular price, the 'big news' is that if you weren't getting sales before, the situation wouldn't change without proper alteration to a marketing or price strategy. I might dislike pancakes, but if someone were to offer free pancakes I would probably wait in line. As well free 'tiny' samples of lemonade might convince me on a full purchase.

If a developer doesn't offer a demo then there is no way of knowing if the software performs as advertised. Many developers don't offer refunds for buggy software, usually passing blame, or "working on a fix". If most projects on sourceforge worked "as advertised" people wouldn't actually buy software.
 
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