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Comment by Flowsion | Hacker News Reader

I can understand this logic, but does every app generate enough revenue to sustain a developer full-time? I would think that some niche apps are able to bring in solid revenue for the amount of work put in.

I'm unsure how much time would go into general upkeep and management. Could some of the others suggestions here work, asking users to pay for future updates?

I'm in the same camp as most of these users. I have this problem while using Discord and a game on STEAM (Counter-Strike). The mic quality is degraded heavily and I would be more than happy to pay a one-time fee. But I do not like adding too many subscriptions, no matter the cost, especially for apps that I could see myself requiring no serious updates unless I upgraded my physical products.

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I think the issue these days is that so many VC funded companies give away products for free to essentially capture the entire market so no non-VC funded can compete with that, or numerous "free" (ad supported) or in-app-purchases funded competition (the ad supported ones frequently being just direct clones of other peoples work) force the purchase price down below the actual development cost.

People now believe apps should be free, or cheap enough that they don't cover the actual costs for people who are doing the actual development costs.

I'm not sure what the real path forward for developers in this environment - if you charge the necessary amount you're undercut by separately funded products or ad supported apps, if you charge a "competitive" amount you can't live off it, if you have a subscription that supports ongoing dev people say "I only want to pay a single time".

None of this helped when you then have asshole game devs that sell games for $100+, but then throw in constant in app purchases and DLC for basic functionality that used to be part of the game.

Oh I can't agree more.

When the VC money was sponsoring everything, everything's price has become free and today they are recouping their investment and people begin talking about "enshittification". Free(as on free beer) software was simply a predatory practice to shape the market in certain way and prepare it for exploitation.

I don't expect it to generate full time job level income, all I expect it not be a burden.

I used to make free apps, browser extensions and so on. Dropped everything because it becomes full time job and if its going to be a full time job I must be compensated accordingly.

I'm no longer a teenager and my time is no longer paid by my parents. It's possible to have other business models where the software is "free" but on this particular case I don't see how it can be. Transcribe all the user audio and share it with advertisers? Please no.

I completely agree that you must be compensated. I don't think anyone is telling you to share this for free, in fact, a lot of people are stating how they would be happy to pay for it.

It makes sense that a collection of apps, extensions, etc would become a full-time job that demanded full-time compensation. I think the disconnect people are having would be, how could a single app demand that?

Either way, it's your prerogative to do as you'd like with your app. I wish you the best of luck as it's a really neat sounding app.

I think whoever think that the price is not right should just not use it. Unfortunately the VC money that was flowing in last 20 years degenerated the expectation of everyone and once the investors begin recouping people begin talking abut "enshittification" but can't come around and pay for the services they use or not pay and not use.

This is not a VC funded project, this is something I made for myself and got the idea to put it on the AppStore.

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