In the past few weeks, Marco Arment, co-founder of Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, released version 2 of his podcast application for iOS, Overcast, for free. There’s only one in-app purchase, which doesn’t unlock any additional functionality, but just sends some money Arment’s way. Call it patronage, if you will. Coinciding with the release, he published a blog post in which he states that any indie developer can just give away their full work for free, so his ‘new’ model should work for everyone.
Obviously, this caused a bit of a ruckus, since it’s easy for a multimillionaire like Arment to give away his work for free. His situation is clearly unique, and most independent application developers barely get by as it is. Or, as Samantha Bielefeld puts it:
The issue isn’t that Marco is successful, there are many app developers who would love to be in the same position. He has earned his time in the spotlight, and it’s only natural for him to take advantage of it. Though to state that anyone can simply do the same thing and be successful, is just plain wrong. He has accelerated the race to the bottom for the podcast app category, and he comes bearing a huge following of people who will give him money for nothing in return except for the possibility of further development of Overcast. The average developer isn’t being called out by name by Phil Schiller for something negative they have written about Apple. The only thing “indie” about Marco is that he works by himself. He is far removed from the typical experience of app creators, and even if it’s deserved, it wouldn’t hurt for him to be a little more humble, and realistic.
And she’s completely and utterly right, of course.
This doesn’t surprise me, though. Over three years ago, when the first Retina MacBook Pro came out, Arment and I had a Twitter exchange about something he said: he said that any web developer should immediately run out and buy this €2300 laptop because retina would be the future, and if they didn’t, they weren’t taking their work seriously.
I pointed out to him that for the majority of people working on the web, €2300 is a lot of money, and most of us don’t have that kind of money just lying around. It might be pocket change to a millionaire, but it’s almost a full month’s salary for me (now – not so much in 2012, when I earned much less than I do now), and in many places in the world with active web developers, it’s probably several months’ worth of salary.
This exchange with Arment has always stuck with me, because I wanted to make sure that I would never turn out this way. I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination (i.e., Dutch standards!), but despite my income being decidedly middle-class, I still belong in the, uh, I don’t know, top 5% or so of the world – just by virtue of being Dutch. I’m ‘rich’ enough to buy several new phones, tablets, and computers a year to make sure I remain familiar with as many platforms as possible for OSNews, but I realise damn well that I’m incredibly lucky I can do so, and would never just assume that everyone else can as well.
So no, this kind of attitude doesn’t surprise me at all. I call this the Donald Trump reasoning: everybody can be rich, if only they were Donald Trump.
Sorry, off-topic rant follows:
You mentioned him… Why did you do that? Seriously, you know how everyone wanted to not publish the name of the shooters in all the mass shootings over here lately? Same reasoning applies…
Can this site please be the one place I don’t have to read that idiots name in print? His entire campaign is fueled by the media storm surrounding him – good or bad, doesn’t matter.
Agree with my politics or not, but some of us conservatives on this side of the pond are trying to save the rest of the world (and ourselves) from this guy, but every time his name gets dropped his poll numbers tick up…
rant off…
I totally agree with the rest of your post.
Edited 2015-10-15 23:20 UTC
I listen to ATP. It’s interesting enough. I listen on the drive to/from work. I enjoy Casey’s rants, the ribbing they give Siracusa and the general banter. But the he, who can’t be named, I dislike. From the opinions he forms from ridiculously convoluted standpoints, to his anal “must be the best” attitude *, the bizarre way he pronounces certain words **, to his weird about turns on decisions and the smugness that follows ***. But moreover, when he does make a mistake, the way he deals with it always seems so insincere. When Siracusa or Liss mess up, they are noticeably humble, often apologetic. But this guy, well, just seems smug and unrepentant. Maybe that is what got him where he is today, but it makes him an extremely unlikeable character. Siracusa will do the follow-up and accept his mistakes, but this guy will often take the “well if that’s what you want, but my way is still better” attitude. I find myself calling him a dick most weeks, and skip his rants or “opinion” pieces frequently as they are often contrived garbage. To say I out and out hate the guy is too strong, and with the other two he is less annoying, but on his own I would just turn off and walk away.
* For example, last week they told him he would buy one of the higher models of Tesla in the after show because he would find some minor detail in the trim in the more expensive model “better” – this was despite him denying he would. But he will, and we all know he will given his track record.
** Example, using a hard G in the word “registrar” every week when advertising one of the many sponsors such as Square Space or Hover.
*** The whole “Peace” fiasco.
Edited 2015-10-16 08:16 UTC
Well, you know…
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/09/18/3703044/jamie-dimon-ine…
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/15/3712684/mike-huckabee-…
I was talking about Trump, not Arment… I don’t like Arment either, but then again he isn’t running for the presidency of my country so I don’t care much.
ps. Damnit, you made me say his name.
I win! Lol.
The problem with not naming Trump was that the comment became ambiguous and I read it as “Arment”, especially as I don’t actually really know who Trump is past “fat-rich-whiteguy-with-a-trophy-wife-and-a-toupe”.
Edited 2015-10-16 15:07 UTC
So just for compensation: Bernie Sanders
(yes, him, not her-who-shall-remain-nameless)
(and yes, some Dutch people are interested in American politics and really hope that you get the guy with decades of experience, a great track record and most important of all: genuine passion for the people)
I’m a pretty staunch conservative, so trust me I do not like Sanders… But I would vote for him over “you know who”… Really, I would vote for pretty much anyone over him – I refuse to take any part in the process of electing that empty headed bag of wind to any office, much less the presidency.
I honestly don’t understand how things have gotten this far. The only explanation I have is that a pretty large number of republicans simply just want to watch the world burn… I keep telling myself it is all just apathy and petulance and that everyone will stop acting self destructive before the primary, but my faith is really starting to slip.
I seriously don’t understand the two party system of the USA. Wouldn’t conservatives vote for a socialist like Sanders?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conservative
“Conservative Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political conservatism”
Yeah, that is the dictionary definition, and it isn’t wrong. But in the US, although there are quite a lot of permutations of social policy and fiscal policy positions described as conservative, generally speaking conservative = for smaller government, reduced spending, lower taxes, less regulation – generally a push towards reducing the governments involvement rather than seeing it as a solution to all problems. Plus a pretty serious bend towards “christian” values, i.e. pro-life, creationism, etc.
Conservatives generally lean republican, although that party misses the boat entirely on many of these issues (particularly on how the government spends money).
Im not saying I completely agree with that in the broad sense. Im an atheist and I certainly believe in evolution, so I don’t identify with “traditional” conservatives on most social issues. But I want sane fiscal policy, and in my opinion democratic/liberal/socialist fiscal policy is plain insanity. But then again republican fiscal policy has been no better in the last 20 years either…
I look at all the major candidates right now and I feel like the inmates are running the asylum. Half of them are completely batshit crazy and the other half are liars and/or crooks. I just want a rationale, reasonable, forward thinking person that would balance social needs with responsible fiscal policy – no such candidate exists…
But Ill vote for anyone before the orange haired idiot. Sanders at least seems like an intelligent, honest, and well-intentioned guy, I just don’t agree with him on policy.
Maybe this helps: instead of focusing on money, try focusing on what works. The cold and harsh truth is that the most developed countries with the lowest poverty ratings, best healthcare, best education, and happiest citizens are all… European welfare states. The very thing so many conservative Americans seem to fear.
Now, I’m not saying you can just apply our policies 1:1 to America, but there’s no denying that a lot of things the US gets wrong, we get right. Learn from it – even if that means possibly maybe perhaps accepting that something you consider as “socialist” just happen to be the least worst ways of achieving something.
I’m generally right-wing in my country in that I prefer small, transparent government which focuses on enabling the pursuit of happiness of each individual without harming others – but despite that, I strongly stand for traditional “socialist” ideals. My government MUST ensure healthcare and education for all citizens, a healthy, beautiful environment, a push towards modern and clean energy, 100% strict separation between corporations and government, top-notch infrastructure, a heavily regulated financial sector consisting of many small banks and institutions instead of a few large ones, and so on. I also happen to be in favour of something EU-like, but I’m strongly anti EU-as-it-currently-exists.
My point: don’t let the polarisation instilled by US media define all “socialist” ideals as bad (or all “conservative” ideals as bad, for that matter!). Take a step back, remove all the labels, take in all information from all over the world about things that are proven to work or not work, and base your judgment on that instead of on labels.
I don’t want to come off as condescending (I probably failed!), and I certainly don’t want to imply you’re not already doing this, by the way! Consider the “you” in this comment as a “general you “.
Im not a loon. I know what socialist means and I don’t think it is a bad word. But we have bigger problems right now. We just don’t agree on priority. I want a government strong enough to actually do some of what you guys do over there – we simply don’t have that right now.
edit – seriously, politics aside.. Look at this chart and tell me if you think that looks healthy to you:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gd…
Edited 2015-10-16 15:23 UTC
If you want to fix spending then you need to fix the military-industrial complex.
They have their fingers in so many things, they are the cause of lots of government spending, even wars.
Take the recent leaked documents about drones for example, it sounds like some futuristic high-tech killing device, but the reality is: “nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.”
At least now you don’t have to wonder where terrorism comes from.
Not that I know how you’d need to do that.
You’d probably need to first adopt some of the ideas of Lawrence Lessig to fix how voting results are counted and get the money out of politics.
Do I see that happening any time soon ? Nope.
If you folks don’t fix your country the Chinese Yuan Renminbi will be the next global currency and the US Dollar less and less important. With all the debt in the US that might be really bad news. It might be the last things keeping the US economy running.
PS Not saying the Dutch or even the EU is doing really well. Or even China for that matter.
Edited 2015-10-16 18:59 UTC
Not trying to be rude, but that kind of thinking is exactly the problem. Yeah, military spending is part of the problem, but you can’t fix things just by turning one knob. Total military spending in the US is about 30% of what we spend on social security and healthcare. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad, but the 3 combined (social security, healthcare, and military) end up being over 75% of total spending, leaving little for science, education, transportation, environment, etc. In fact the biggest expense after the big 3 ends up being paying interest on all the damn debt.
We don’t need to cut military spending. We need to cut spending on everything, and increase taxes on everyone. Not a lot, and not all at once, but that is the only way to make any progress at this point. Short of doing that we all just bicker over our sacred cows while we slowly bankrupt the country and everyone loses…
Agree about total spending, but my idea was military spending has so many indirect costs.
Any way I think education is an important one too, in the Netherlands and the US we are spending less.
Instead of more. We should education people better and more instead of giving them debt at the start of their careers. Even educating people who are switches jobs.
Better education means better jobs. I still believe that.
A realistic tax policy that wasn’t aimed at behavioural adjustment could really simply things. Just git rid of Deductions and Credits and tax income after the poverty line based off the average effective tax rate. Maybe have 3 tiers of tax brackets as so your first 50k after poverty is taxed X and then after that its taxed Y.
They always complain your trying to pull over something when candidates propose it, but the reality is we pay on average X amount of our income a year now which is always less then the real tax bracket. Just get rid of the complication and match the rates to what people actually pay then live with in your means.
This is a joke right? O_o Europeans giving advice to America?? hahaha gimme a break!!
European welfare states are completely fucked up, Europe is a big lie and the very few European Welfare states that work ok are tiny insignificant countries with almost no immigration and plenty of resources!! And even with that incredible advantages their economies have problems to be competitive and cannot innovate and/or be relevant.
USA got plenty of problems for sure! but It’s a 300+millon country with open borders and a relatively free economy. That’s impossible to implement in Europe, European welfare states cannot support even 10% of USA immigrants for example. Europe mentality is so fucked up that europeans rant even to receive 100k war refugees!!!! That’s the “love” for humanity that Europeans have!! USA receive a similar amount of immigrants per month and I don’t see that in the news!
I want a free world I don’t want stupid european socialism, it’s hypocrisy at the highest level. GOD BLESS AMERICA. And God bless conservative Americans. Long live to the USA!!
The media and internet have politicized the issues so much that, even if you agree with a single issue from the opposite party, you’re labeled a fraud (Blue-Dog, Rino) and ridiculed for it. The two parties used to work together. Now it’s just us vs. them, and high school immaturity. They sequester themselves into separate rooms, work themselves up into their respective lathers, and we all suffer.
Just like the Tea-Party killed the Republican, the internet killed middle-of-the-road politicians on both sides of the aisle.
Is it like Beetlejuice? Say his name too many times and he appears? I don’t like him, but taking offence to the mention of his name is a bit of an over reaction!
Well said. Even taking money aside, imagine we have countless young developers in closed societies who can’t even read tech news websites because they are censored, can’t register as a developer to IT companies websites and access forums and documentations (i.e. they are banned from learning technology and science), can’t apply even for an online training class, because they are embargoed by other countries. (Of course these embargoes have minimum or no effect on tyrants using technology to hurt their own people and the rest of world). They can’t download a simple java plug-in, and most of them are people who simply like technology like any typical young person of our times and like to make a living by developing apps or creating websites, etc.
Now imagine how they look at their privileged counterparts in free world, walking on stage with t-shirts and headsets, boasting about “disruption”, rarely mentioning that their success is based on many factors, including a sane government,democarcy,tax,political stability, subsidised or free education, free access to information and ability to travel and attend classes and seminars as they like.
Not blaming them for what they got (I wish everybody had access to the same facilities, from Africa to North Korea), but ignorance and arrogance of IT industry “rich kids” sometimes become unbearable.
Hopefully they realize from this that they, too, one day should try change their society to be more democratic, Yes, we in the west enjoy the spoils and rewards of decisions our ancestors did.
I don’t understand why we “rich boys” here in the west should feel ashamed or try to live our lives from the perspective of someone in say North Korea. It isn’t our fault that not everyone can afford what we have. I am a (relatively upper) middle class developer and I see and express myself the way someone from that bracket sees the world.
History shows totalitarian regimes either get defeated by forces from outside or when their security apparatus for some reason decides to give up supporting them. (It usually when they get a better deal from someone else). They rarely change from within; as the saying blood makes poor mortar.
So it’s not the matter of citizens “realising†democracy is a good thing and try to achieve it.
Talking about your democracy loving ancestors, some of the most tyrannical countries nowadays used to be democracies that their governments undermined and changed to dictatorship by west. e.g.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état).
(Maybe a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_ch…)
And even nowadays some of the most tyrannical countries are strongly supported by west, too. So it’s not that simple that you mentioned.
Maybe if you expect people to put their life to risk to fight totalitarianism from within, Its expected from you as a citizen of a democratic country to use your vote to make change in your government not to sell them torture, censorship and eavesdropping tools. Please don’t pretend that it’s not your fault, because they are your elected officials.
(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/14/dsei-weapons-fair-auth…)
I didn’t suggest that citizen’s of the free world have to feel ashamed. But having your statements in mind, maybe it’s not a bad idea to study some history and current news, maybe, to see how west behaviour contributed and contributing to the world’s current crisis. (of course stating that west contribution is wholly negative is totally wrong and so far from truth).
So in direct contrast with your statement, it is your (or ours, because I live in western world too) -not fault-, but responsibility to understand the world more, that our actions and lack of actions have severe consequences for humanity, not to mention being less cocky about our “ancestorsâ€.
I just don’t buy into this concept of the west being responsible for how the world looks like. Even when taking our imperialistic past into consideration. Just because someone in Nigeria might not be able to buy a MacBook Pro doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to state that developers should go out and buy one ASAP.
Let’s reader’s decide that what you said were in response to my original statements, or attacking the straw man. I won’t add anything because it would be redundant.
I’ve talked to people who want to do away with the DMCA entirely and make piracy legal, and when I ask how the hell they expect content producers to make money, they always site this model right here, where they release their content and let people pay whatever they want for it.
This apparently will work for starving artists, but not starving app developers?
I don’t understand the implicit statement that Thom and Marco both agree that a web developer should buy their own tools, instead of having their employer get it. Or was it implicit that you were both talking about independents? I don’t like the idea that companies (start up or not) should require employees to buy the most important tool. ( If I were to agree that a macbook is the best choice for computer).
And I think she’s completely and utterly wrong. But this comes from a Linux/Android user who makes his living using FOSS apps, contributes back to various FOSS projects and release a lot of stuff under free licenses.
Excuse me, but isn’t said the vast majority of developers trying to sell their stuff on app stores make next to nothing in revenue? Then they just as well release their wares free of charge and invent new revenue models.
I think her point is that it’s easy to experiment with new revenue models for someone who has the financial background to go without any extra income for years in a row. Implicitely assuming that everyone is in a similar situation and stating that this is the one good way to go and everyone should follow is somewhat narrowminded.
And his point, as i read it, is “The old model is not working. Adapt or die”. Something I find harsh but true. A quick search found me this: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/18/90-of-ios-apps-are-free-average-…
This site will show how your income compares to the rest of the world
http://www.globalrichlist.net
But although it will show you that (assuming you live in a developed country) you are pretty high up the global income scale don’t let that fool you into thinking that things are really bad in the world – they are not. Check out the work of the wonderful Hans Rosling (and his Gapminder website) to get some perspective on just how much better the world has become in our lifetimes. Here are a few link for staters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYnpJGaMiXo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w
http://www.gapminder.org
i can’t mod you up as it states ive already +1 you recently, but thanks for the links they were really interesting.
Same, and I don’t even remember the last time I did. But +1 Tony.
BTW – I have a website where I write about politics, economics, and especially the crisis of the eurozone.
A lot of what I write is about things that have gone wrong but I didn’t want that to encourage what I see as the ‘culture of pessimism;, the idea that everything is getting worse or is really bad, so I wrote a piece called ‘Reasons to be cheerful’.
If you liked the Hans Rosling stuff you may find my piece interesting, its here:
http://fromtone.com/reasons-to-be-cheerful/
Hans Rosling was one of the reasons I started watching TED-talks. You have to love the way I understands the world and makes his points clear and backed up by facts.
From the third link his point about “To solve the worlds energy problems the rich should look at themselves” is incredibly well presented. (12 could become 22 but here is how to drop it to 9 while moving the entire world forwards)
Now more related to the actual original topic: https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking
Edited 2015-10-16 08:39 UTC
It is meaningless because it doesn’t account for parity pricing. The cost of living in Australia is roughly 2x as much as the USA, 3-4x as high as Latin America and 10x as high as India.
An Australian earning USD15,000/year would be too poor to afford food and rent. The same income in in India would belong to a highly paid professional.
Parity pricing is really hard, but by converting everything to dollars there should be some effect of parity pricing already included (exchange rates go quite a long way towards parity pricing although not all the way there of course)
But we digress from the topic andd it only strengthens the absurdity of the “if you take your job as a developer serious you should buy this Retina MacBook”. MacBooks cost basically the same in every country around the world, no matter what the average income is simply because there would be massive parallel import otherwise
Physical objects such as cars and laptops tend to have similar pricing around the world. However the cost of other goods and services (fuel, food, housing etc) may be wildly different. Many Australians retire to South East Asia to have a great lifestyle on a very modest (by Australian standards) budget.
I have always advocated that the ‘Web is the one platform that one could be stuck with a Pentium III and Notepad and you could still invent the next biggest thing in the world, better than the biggest corporations.
This push to more and more expensive and proprietary hardware / software is a slap in the face of 75+% of the world.
Good luck at even *using* the modern web with a Pentium III…
It is entirely doable; use Opera Mini for the majority of browsing (uses a mere fraction of memory / CPU / bandwidth of big browsers and works for 80% of what I read). For the complex sites, a combination of adblocking, filtering and other such content control should make them tolerable.
I am reminded of the time my P4 machine broke and I had no money, so I bought and clobbered together the absolutely cheapest machine I could — a PII 300 MHz with Win 98. I stripped the OS down; it booted as quick as the i7/SSD I have now. Doing less is always faster than doing more, quickly.
The tech industry is the only place where these immature fuckwits can actually work. People like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk literally wouldn’t have lasted a week in any other industry.
I’ve given up trying to make any money from apps, so I give mine away for free.
I know a person worth about $200 million. He tells everybody about what a brilliant investor he is. He somehow forgets to mention his inheritance, his history of insider trading (the authorities didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute) and all the valuable stock investment tips he received over the years.
Edited 2015-10-16 08:56 UTC
I see what he is trying to say. But yes, he could have put it in a more diplomatic manner.
The market has changed Massively in just the last few years. Gone are they days that you will pay hundreds of pounds for office(like) apps on your phone.
People want everything for free. If you don’t offer it, they will go to the competitor who does.
He is proposing a model by which you make your work free and fully functional and then hope/encourage people donate to your app development (freeware as opposed to shareware in old parlance). Personally I avoid any app that i cant just buy once and it be mine forever, free or not. Especially games.
This is one approach, but I prefer that of Amazon underground. They pay the devs by app usage time. You make an app that people come back to and use again and again? You make money. You make a fart app. You wont be retiring anytime soon.
Marco is open about wanting to make money, and he’s smart enough to make it happen. He offer “whatever” in exchange for money to willing buyers. Nothing wrong with that.
Next.
A few things:
1. I have a long history of thinking Marco comes off as arrogant and out of touch.
2. As an advocate for Phish, he consistently points people to the worst indicators of their style and music
3. I think Marco fundamentally skews towards Apple bias
4. The whole thing with Peace was overplayed. Christ, you made an ad-blocker and you remove it because you don’t “like the way it feels”? No one I know saw Marco as the face of ad-blocking. Made no sense to me.
However:
1. Overcast is the best podcast player I’ve used
2. Marco has been extremely critical of Apple over the last several months
3. Marco is rarely without rationale, even if it’s silly
4. The stuff Marco is makes is mostly really good and/or really useful
5. He can be humble just like he can be pompous, for example, he admits he’s s shitty programmer.
This is one case where he was off base. But I think if you follow ATP, he’s consistent and he’s logical about his stances, and he readily admits many of his faults.
I think, in general, making Overcast free was an interesting experiment, and I not only upgraded, I became an immediate patron. Just a few thoughts from the sidelines.
I am often struck by the disconnect people seem to have with regards to money and the wealth gap. I live in an area that, while well off by global standards, is relatively poor compared to much of North America and western Europe. A lot of people here have dial-up speeds when connecting to the Internet, most have bandwidth caps and a Macbook Pro can cost multiple months’ salary.
Too often I encounter people on tech forums or news sites that say things like, “Why don’t they just buy a Mac?” or “Why don’t they just upgrade their computer/phone?” “Forget making download media small, full up the DVD ISO with all the software that’ll fit.” These people are obviously living in their own little bubble and are completely ignoring the reality and limitations much of the world deals with.
Google and Apple seem to think everyone can operate in the cloud. In Australia a typical phone plan has a about 3GB of monthly data, free WiFi is rare and many areas still have very poor (or no) mobile reception.
Well, you could spend all day hanging around Macca’s. Their wi-fi usually works well as long as no one else is online at the same time.
I hear often from a friend who tries to make a living as a musician in San Fran, complaining about the trials and tribulations of trying to stay afloat as a talented musician.
I’ve thought about bringing up app store prices going down, but honestly it doesn’t compare. The job market for anyone technically talented is so good right now, that its really tough to care about the difficulties of making it on your own.
Also, I find it a bit odd that some of the same people who cheered as Napster and the pirate bay brought them free music are now complaining that people want their work for free.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
BS. I have a friend who is a world class AI developer with a PhD and an extensive publication record. She is out of work.
I also have two very experienced Iranian friends who went to Sharif University (arguably the top undergraduate electrical engineering and computer science school in the world). One works as a low level data analyst, the other is unemployed.
IMHO most of the demand is for Silicon Valley code monkeys hired to write shitty apps rather than really great programmers.
Edited 2015-10-17 03:45 UTC
In the article he repeatedly says “I’m setting myself up to be successful.” He never claims his strategy is the right one for everyone. This is a ridiculously overblown storm in a teacup, that sadly obscures his original message about the need to stand up to the “Facebookization” of podcasts.