The linux comparison is not apt for another reason: non-technical users do not use linux, whereas non-technical users do buy G1 phones. One good model is value-based pricing (there are many books on the topic): price it based on what value you think a user will get from it. Some users will get high value, and some will get fairly low value. You have to look at the demand curve and figure out which customers to leave out and still make good returns. If you sell something for $1 then you have to get many more customers to break even: so may be worth pricing higher and leave out customers.
Regarding the 24 hour refund window thing: those who cancel purchases are most likely deriving low value from your software. So they are not your target customer base anyway (unless you are willing to drop the price point). Just my $0.02 Inder On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:56 AM, JP <joachim.pfeif...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Feb 27, 2:22 pm, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote: > > I see things at the moment as being similar to the Unix/Linux market > > place. I know many good Unix sysadmins who would rather spend hours or > > days seaching out a piece of free software (or writing it themselves) as > > opposed to paying even $20 for a commercial offering, and Android seems > > to be in the same boat. > > I don't think that's the case really. What drives good Unix sysadmins > and the FOSS crowd in general is to learn something on the way. They > (strike this, we, I guess) like the challenge and the sense of > accomplishment when it's done. It's not like we wouldn't spend $20. > As far as the Android Market and its customer base is concerned - > trying out 12 (you pick the number) different Twitter clients, > flashlights or tip calculators does not fall into this category. And > in fact the Linux types, those that spend the effort to build it > themselves, is not the target group. It's the regular person that uses > the handset to do stuff, be entertained or informed. Given the target > does not seem to have a problem with being charged an extra $10 a > month to get from 400 to unlimited messages, it's disappointing to not > see this spending attitude transpire to the market. A survey on the > number of downloads that paid apps have scored after this week or so, > would reveal an ugly picture. It's not like there isn't opportunity, > but it shows it's hard to be relevant, and on top, the app needs to be > well executed. > At this point (games aside), success seems to gravitate towards apps > that interact with a back end, such as weather forecasting, > identifying songs or streaming a video clip. Even there, the question > is whether an app is really a gain, or whether the original web app > isn't more useful in the first place. I believe I left this as a > comment once. > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
