Free Apps Have Destroyed The App Market
 

instagram could have sold for 2 billion if they would have enclosed their apps in plastic bags and sold them at gas stations. :2 cents:

Don't forget they could have resold the same app to the many different markets, like hotels and cable. They are massive IDIOTFACES!

Lets make porn free, maybe we all will be making millions then!

now you tell me :disgust

People may not spend to buy apps but they sure do spend once they are inside. The growth of such a new thing with so many developers building apps charging would have slowed the market to a snails pace. Also the amount advertising generated is pretty huge.

"The report, which has been compiled by the mobile team at technology analyst firm Screen Digest, predicts that in-app purchases will rise to account for 64 percent of the total app market revenue by 2015, up from 39 percent in 2011

Revenue from in-app purchases will increase to $5.6 billion in 2015, up from $970 million in 2011. The report estimates that 96 per cent of all smartphone apps were downloaded for free in 2011."

Source.

Smart acquisition

Free apps supposedly make the developer 3-4 times the profit a paid app does. At least in the Google Play market.

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

They paid $300/user. I doubt this purchase will ever show a profit.

Waht's that? You mean freemium works?

Well fuck me sideways!

Can only be one explanation.... it must be magic :upsidedow

people spend money on good apps. If they aren't buying your apps they might suck.

Agreed. I'll gladly spend the up-front money on a really good app. For example; as a power-user of twitter, I need more features than most. Twittelator Pro or Twittelator Neue are the best apps for someone like me, so gladly I shell out the $2.99 sitting next to my pocket lint.

Then, you get the people who want all of the wonderful features of an app like this, but they don't want to pay and they'll give one star or submit bullshit reviews, complaining about it. Yet, the same fool will go to McDonald's and spend the same amount on a Value meal.

This message is hidden because everyone is on your imaginary ignore list LOL.
This message is hidden because everyone is on your imaginary ignore list LOL.
This message is hidden because everyone is on your imaginary ignore list LOL.
This message is hidden because everyone is on your imaginary ignore list LOL.
This message is hidden because everyone is on your imaginary ignore list LOL.

Paid a lot per user but they must see a value in it somewhere.

According to this article, your number is way off. It says:

"One user = $28"

As opposed to the Facebook IPO which estimates each user's value at $118 per user.

www dot bbc.co.uk/news/business-17666032

Facebook needed to do this...Needed to get more into mobile, and needed to get it away from Google...

Although, I think they could have offered $750 million and those dudes would've still shit their pants and said yes.

Sure wish I could post links....Oh well, someday... :)

apphub.com coming soon to an Internet near you. Giving away full-length apps and hiding behind DMCA safe-harbor. Run by Manwin, of course.

oops my math was off. Here is a wired magazine article on it. How many of those mentioned in the article have paid off?

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/...stagram-trend/

How many companies have the big new tech's bought and done nothing with?

I think this is going totally the wrong way. Mobile is trying to get on the web. They should not be trying to get on mobile. Think of how many sites have apps and you just use the browser. Is it going up or down? This might make a good poll.

It's sort of like the Craigslist argument. Yes, Craigslist makes millions for a few people, but it ruined a newspaper industry worth billions that employed thousands of people around the country.

That's the problem with the free economy. It shrinks the REAL economy. Instagram employs 10 people, the owner got 400 million of that billion dollar price tag. The success of Instagram as a startup helps absolutely nobody. In the old days when startups were companies like Apple or Microsoft, they actually employed people and contributed to the economy.

It's pretty simple, the economy is based on the amount of money flying around. When things are free, there is less money flying around for everybody. It might be nice to get your apps for free and download a free song, but you can't find a job. Outsourcing is very similar. I can start a company with 5 people in a small office, do all my production offshore and make millions even though I really don't contribute anything to the economy.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but that's the real economics of it. Yes, a few people can make billions, but it shrinks the economy for everyone else. Of course, that doesn't matter to the GFY geniuses because they are all inventing the billion dollar apps.

Of course, the adult industry was also hit by the "freemium effect", but I guess that's different...lol

Craigslist ruined the newspaper industry... really? So it wasn't the switch from print to digital media? Facebook buying this company means it is rolled into the animal that is Facebook. This will mean more time and effort will be spent on the product. Making more jobs for people as Facebook grows. Many newspapers now charge to view their content online and this is down to education of the consumers who think digital goods should be free!

The app market as a whole depends on millions of developers all across the globe working hard to find success. Since the start of app revolution the amount of software companies that now exist is amazing. The advancements in the mobile billing space will soon be clear to see which is largely down to potential of the app market. Then you have a lot of ad networks that sell the space on all these apps. Apps are being stolen or a better term would be copied and these copies are getting into the app stores. I do feel that this is not happening on a mass scale and i hope it stays this way.

I am not looking for an argument :) but watch this video and maybe you can see my points more clearly. I think the we have had been hit the hardest when it comes to freemium but the app market is miles away from what happened in adult so comparing the two for me makes no sense at all!

[QUOTE=Tofu;18877235]Agreed. I'll gladly spend the up-front money on a really good app. For example; as a power-user of twitter, I need more features than most. Twittelator Pro or Twittelator Neue are the best apps for someone like me, so gladly I shell out the $2.99 sitting next to my pocket lint./QUOTE]

All the cool kids are using Tweetbot now, did you not get the memo?

:)

That is such gash.

The newspaper industry committed suicide, it wasn't killed by anyone. Let alone fucking Craigslist.

Paid classifieds were the lifeblood of newspapers.

.

craigslist did indeed suck the ad money out of the newspaper industry. that is a simple fact.

Well, the loss of classified ads was a huge loss of income for newspapers.

But if you don't like that comparison, that's fine. But the argument still holds true. Freemium is much like outsourcing in that it shrinks the overall economy of an industry while making a very few number of people more wealthy. Like I said, an economy is judged by the amount of money flowing through it, when you reduce that money, you reduce the economy. Sorry, that's just the facts.

Once again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong or trying to fight the future, but that is part of the reality of "Freemium".

I assume everyone here either works or has worked in the adult industry so you should be very familiar with the "freemium effect" as it has worked its magic on the adult industry. An industry that in the past employed many people but now employs far fewer people, and with a total amount of revenue being much lower now than in the past, and concentrated in a fewer number of people. ONCE AGAIN, I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that's what freemium does to an industry, it makes it contract and reduces the opportunity for a majority of the players in that industry while benefiting a few.

Your point does sound much more compelling than without the Craigslist reference :winkwink:

What about newspapers that now charge subscriptions and the added value of advertising?

That hasn't even come close to recouping the money lost. Newspapers have laid off thousands of workers and closed offices all around the country.

The problem with the proponents of freemium is they use conceptual, hypothetical arguments, but the truth is you can see the reality of the impact of freemium in the real world using real world examples. Hundreds of thousands of people are out of work because of freemium yet the proponents put forth one example of 10 people making a billion dollars or some other one-off success story as a counter argument.

It's cool if you like the idea of freemium and want to try it, but it reduces opportunity for the majority of people in a specific industry and that reduction in total money flowing negatively impacts the ENTIRE economy. You simply can't argue with it.

You joke, but these sites already exist.

Apple has their devices locked down pretty well though. So unless they are jailbreaking their ipads they won't be able to use it. It's a different story for other devices though. Imagine how porn would be now if in order to view a pirated porn clip you had to jailbreak your computer. It would likewise be a non-issue.

FWIW, I do think free has it's place. Even possibly with an affiliate model. The old chaturbate program showed it. It's just that at the moment we haven't transitioned to that and the real problem is THEFT not free. Free actually makes a lot of sense.