A $5 app isn't expensive: Customers need to help fix the App Store economy
Our smartphones are probably one of the most expensive things we carry around each day. But given that iPhones are anything but cheap, why are so many of us surprisingly cheap when browsing the virtual shelves of the App Store? Ironically enough, that tendency to be cheap may end up proving costly in the long run.
It’s no shocker that free apps are vastly more popular than paid apps; everyone likes getting something for nothing. But it is surprising that folks consider a $3 app expensive, and a $10 app downright exorbitant. I know people who play the same iOS game every single day, but choose to stick with the free version—despite its constant, intrusive ads—rather than pony up $5 just once to go ad-free forever.
Of the top 20 best-selling iPhone apps, 15 of them cost $1; the priciest one costs $7. The average price of the top 100 paid apps in the App Store is less than $2.
I’m neither an economist nor a psychologist, but it strikes me that too many iOS device owners fail to act in their own best interests—both in the immediate near term and in the long term—when they scoff at the thought of spending money in the App Store. Here’s how customers who spend lavishly on iOS hardware punish themselves by skimping on apps.
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http://www.macworld.com/article/2032847/a-5-app-isnt-expensive-customers-need-to-help-fix-the-app-store-economy.html#tk.rss_all
