Personally not paying $20 for a twitter app, nor will I be revoking my tokens. When the money grabbing stops and the price becomes reasonable, I'll buy it, but until then, the token stays on the several accounts I used during the betas.
Whilst its a great app, the business logic is massively flawed.
Lets say for arguments sake that they still have the 100,000 'tokens' that they had a while ago.
That works out at a maximum income (taking Apple's 30% cut into account) of $1.4 million.
Obviously they are a fairly small company, however when that runs out (and remember, I didn't take into account any expenses, so the actual profit will be significantly lower) they are promising to keep developing the software, despite having no income.
Whilst some of their other products may subsidise the ongoing development, when it comes to major updates, they have zero incentive once they know that they cant make a penny off of it, even if they release 'v2' and charge all over again, as they wont be issued more tokens for it.
Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess. Tempted to pirate the app out of spite.
The issue isnt greed. The issue is that you cant promise to support a product you arent making any money on.
Personally not paying $20 for a twitter app, nor will I be revoking my tokens. When the money grabbing stops and the price becomes reasonable, I'll buy it, but until then, the token stays on the several accounts I used during the betas.
Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess. Tempted to pirate the app out of spite.
Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess.
pffff $20 my personal limit of apps is $2,99
It's kids like you that ruin the playground for everyone.
Greed?
Ruin the playground by voting with my dollar and saying I won't roll over and pay $20 for an app with a single function and uncertain future? Or ruin the playground by saying that I'm keeping the tokens I have so that should I choose to pay for this app (regardless what I pay or when) I actually can?
so once their 100,000 tokens are used up, support for the app will cease?
once they are used up they won't be making any more money from it.
It is like you didn't read the blog post at all.
I still don't get the flawed logic of MAS apps pricing... While iPhone apps cost mostly between 1 and 10 dollars, Mac variant of the same app costs 5-10 times more.
i did, but there is clearly a finite amount of money they can make from this app, which is unlike any other app in the store.
once the tokens are used up, the money stops rolling in. with no money there isn't anything to fund future development, there isn't any incentive to develop further as there is no money in it.
of course they could make a v2 app that is a "new" app (like what Tweetie did), and they'd have another 100,000 tokens to play with, but who'd be silly enough to spend another $20 on that.
Because of Twitter’s recent enforcement of token limits, we only have a limited number of tokens available for Tweetbot for Mac. These tokens dictate how many users Tweetbot for Mac can have. The app’s limit is separate from, but much smaller than, the limit for Tweetbot for iOS. Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer be able to sell the app to new users. Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.
Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.
With twitter doing the whole token limit thing, it makes me inclined to just avoid twitter itself and seek out alternatives. Why waste time on something with a strategy that will eventually put themselves out of business?
Twitter CEO,
I've noticed you don't want third party developers making Twitter clients and are limiting their usefulness with "tokens." Care to explain?
From listening to the guys in the jailbreak community, its pretty sad these days. Apps that are $.99 still get pirated. People pretty much refuse to pay for an app thats more than $2.99. Things have really changed. And part of it is the independent app developers fault. Too often people got burned buying something for $20 and found out that it was either a terrible app, buggy or support ended soon after.
What I don't understand from my age demographic..30-40 years old. People had no problem buying music for $15-18 and only listening to it once. Now an app that you will probably use every day costs $20 and you are going to balk? Concert tickets these days cost $60,80,100 or more. You are getting 2 hours of entertainment for that.
These guys worked tirelessly on this app for a year. I think $20 is a lot. I don't do it often, but I'm buying this one. Why? Because I use the service every day. I might as well ride in style.
More complicated development. More features. Fewer potential customers. What's flawed about the logic?
Not 5-10x more complicated development. Not at all.
Fewer potential customers? Well, with those prices you bet there'll be fewer customers!