Re:Apple has damaged the perceived value of software
by AnthonyMouse on Thursday May 04, 2017 @11:44AM
(#14265694)
> The real solution would be to find a way to charge for things that people do consider scarce, such as the developers/artists time.
In theory that is what copyright does. If you make some software, you have a copyright on that software, but (unlike patents) not a copyright on any software that does the same thing. So if your total revenue is more than twice what it would cost to re-develop the same software then some other developer should do the math and go into competition with you. You, knowing that, would charge lower prices to begin with to avoid having to split the market with them.
The classical problem with this in Hollywood is that the big studios bought up all the distribution to lock out new competitors, which breaks that mechanism. You still see them trying to do this with cable TV set top boxes and so on. This is also similar to Microsoft's traditional game, but doesn't apply to most other software, which actually has quite vigorous competition.
The problem with what Apple is doing is that it breaks it the other way. Instead of companies leveraging a separate monopoly to thwart their own competitors, Apple is leveraging their App Store monopoly to siphon revenue that rightly belongs to the app developers. With the result that app developers make less than they ought to, which means that useful apps that ought to exist now don't because making them is not profitable against Apple's restrictions.
In theory that is what copyright does. If you make some software, you have a copyright on that software, but (unlike patents) not a copyright on any software that does the same thing. So if your total revenue is more than twice what it would cost to re-develop the same software then some other developer should do the math and go into competition with you. You, knowing that, would charge lower prices to begin with to avoid having to split the market with them.
The classical problem with this in Hollywood is that the big studios bought up all the distribution to lock out new competitors, which breaks that mechanism. You still see them trying to do this with cable TV set top boxes and so on. This is also similar to Microsoft's traditional game, but doesn't apply to most other software, which actually has quite vigorous competition.
The problem with what Apple is doing is that it breaks it the other way. Instead of companies leveraging a separate monopoly to thwart their own competitors, Apple is leveraging their App Store monopoly to siphon revenue that rightly belongs to the app developers. With the result that app developers make less than they ought to, which means that useful apps that ought to exist now don't because making them is not profitable against Apple's restrictions.