Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

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> I also don't agree with Anki's pricing model. The app is free on Android[1] but $25 on iOS[2]. I think I heard (I don't have a source) that the developer's justification was that they needed to make money from the all the time and effort they spent creating Anki, plus hosting costs, etc - so why not do a cheaper price on both Android/iOS, or do a free-to-download app with a subscription model

People with money overwhelmingly buy iPhones. $25 is a pittance for anyone who can afford an iPhone. Anybody who uses Anki seriously gets far, far more value than $25 out of it. I used it for well over 200 hours before I stopped and I know I’ll go back to it again.

The Android version is not maintained by the developer of Anki. The iPhone app is. He chooses to charge for the iPhone app, which enables him to make a living making tens of thousands of people’s lives better.

If you don’t want to spend the price of two pizzas on an app that the modal user will use for over a hundred hours don’t.

> People with money overwhelmingly buy iPhones. $25 is a pittance for anyone who can afford an iPhone. Anybody who uses Anki seriously gets far, far more value than $25 out of it. I used it for well over 200 hours before I stopped and I know I’ll go back to it again.

I used Anki's web interface from my phone for about 6 months before I bought the iOS app. Then about 4 years after using the app almost every day, I sent them another $25 donation. I got way more than $50 worth of value out of it over the 10 years that I used it.

(I've now written my own study tool for Chinese which fixes some of the issues with using flashcards for language learning. Maybe at some point it will show up on "Show HackerNews"; but it's slow going when you've only got a few hours a week.)

I agree with you - I definitely got more than $25 of value from the iOS app and was happy to pay the price. I guess my thing is that I wonder if the developer would be better off trying to solicit more users at a lower price (or a small, monthly/annual subscription) than a one-time purchase.

Fwiw, two pizzas in US buy you up to 20 meals in a developing country. In a developing country, people often get cheaper iPhones (second hand or previous generation). The apps, however cost the same.

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