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Why is that not a legitimate justification? The vast majority of the world's population charge a monetary fee for their time, so why is this any different? The guy put a lot of effort into making an app, as such, if you like the app, you now reward him for that time by paying him.

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You have a good point. Only thing I can say is that products are typically priced on what the market for it will bear. That's why enterprise crud apps or office productivity apps may sell for more than a game which may have required more effort from more skilled people.

Suppose that it turns out that he had outsourced the development of the app - as long as you get the same app, should he charge less?

What if has still written it but was using a special compiler which compiled Lisp to Objective-C and had only spent two hours doing it, would you still feel that it was fair you paid the same?

Yes, it's only $5. A good cup of coffee is only slightly less than that, and it takes all of minutes to create. It's not like we are talking about $1000 enterprise software here.

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