Microsoft drops annual renewal fee for Windows and Windows Phone Stores...
It's almost like someone at Microsoft read my post ridiculing the spending of $2.5B on Mojang and then tried to figure how they could top that in terms of stupidity. Because they found the answer... removing the renewal fee from developer accounts!
If some at Microsoft made this move in response to my post (and I sincerely doubt it), re-read it! The point was to use that $2.5 billion to bring in targeted apps, not to open the flood gates to less enthused hobbyist and scammers.
Yes. This move might A) attract more developers and B) keep some existing developers longer. BUT that isn't really the point. I've argued time and again that the app gap is largely an artificial construct. While there is a disparity in the total number of apps... 99.99% of those apps don't mean a thing to anyone. Heck, a large portion of those apps probably have single digit downloads. The "real" app is the big name apps that are missing and the currently trending apps. Dropping the $20 renewal fee isn't going to win those people over.
Bringing in more apps on the other hand wouldn't be a problem either. Were it not for the single biggest problem Microsoft has with the selection of apps it has today, which is the increasingly large number of apps that imitate the apps that are missing (or even ones which aren't) and screw people out of their money by abusing their logos and app names. This move potentially makes that situation worse by lowering the perceived cost to get in the game. And clearly Microsoft doesn't have the resources to deal with the issues with the existing apps, so encouraging more developers to onboard seems pretty darn silly to me.
But, as I said, were it not for that fact, it has some long term potential. While gap in the popular apps is the real issue, many people still read too much into numbers. Perhaps even the people responsible for some of those popular apps, and definitely some buyers of mobile phones. If Microsoft could inflate their app count with this tactic to a more comparable level to iOS and Android it may just draw enough new users to draw in demand apps to the platform.
All in all though, this seems like a stupid move. As much as I hated the old $99 a year fee, I didn't feel it was unfair and back when it was in place there were much fewer rip off apps. Hobbyists were still free to develop in the emulator, which frankly, is where most initial development takes place. And, if you got your app to a point where you wanted to monetize it or make it available for all, at that point the $99 fee probably didn't wouldn't seem so bad.
I think, ideally, a one-time $99 fee makes a lot more sense than any of a $99 annual fee, a $20 annual fee or a $20 flat fee. It is high enough to keep some dubious apps at bay, but not too high even a hobbyist couldn't afford it as a one-time fee. It isn't high enough to keep out all of the crap... but that is only because the price point is intended to still keep it at a reasonable cost for those more serious independent developers/hobbyists.
And I would actually take this further and say that the $99/year is fine. The only problem I ever had with their annual subscription model was that if you stopped paying they pulled your apps from the store. Which, frankly, makes no sense. Free apps give your platform intrinsic value, and paid apps (including ad funded ones) pay Microsoft a percentage anyway. I can see blocking submission of new apps or even updating your existing app. But pulling all apps entirely hurts both parties.
Also, this doesn't really open the flood gates at all. The entry price hasn't changed. Only the fact that it was a subscription before. $20 a year is less than $2/month. The renewal cost likely wasn't driving anyone away in the first place. If getting a flood of developers/apps was your plan, just make it free. If not, you never should have gone down to $20 in the first place. Just revised the terms or removed the annual fee at the higher price point.
If some at Microsoft made this move in response to my post (and I sincerely doubt it), re-read it! The point was to use that $2.5 billion to bring in targeted apps, not to open the flood gates to less enthused hobbyist and scammers.
Yes. This move might A) attract more developers and B) keep some existing developers longer. BUT that isn't really the point. I've argued time and again that the app gap is largely an artificial construct. While there is a disparity in the total number of apps... 99.99% of those apps don't mean a thing to anyone. Heck, a large portion of those apps probably have single digit downloads. The "real" app is the big name apps that are missing and the currently trending apps. Dropping the $20 renewal fee isn't going to win those people over.
Bringing in more apps on the other hand wouldn't be a problem either. Were it not for the single biggest problem Microsoft has with the selection of apps it has today, which is the increasingly large number of apps that imitate the apps that are missing (or even ones which aren't) and screw people out of their money by abusing their logos and app names. This move potentially makes that situation worse by lowering the perceived cost to get in the game. And clearly Microsoft doesn't have the resources to deal with the issues with the existing apps, so encouraging more developers to onboard seems pretty darn silly to me.
But, as I said, were it not for that fact, it has some long term potential. While gap in the popular apps is the real issue, many people still read too much into numbers. Perhaps even the people responsible for some of those popular apps, and definitely some buyers of mobile phones. If Microsoft could inflate their app count with this tactic to a more comparable level to iOS and Android it may just draw enough new users to draw in demand apps to the platform.
All in all though, this seems like a stupid move. As much as I hated the old $99 a year fee, I didn't feel it was unfair and back when it was in place there were much fewer rip off apps. Hobbyists were still free to develop in the emulator, which frankly, is where most initial development takes place. And, if you got your app to a point where you wanted to monetize it or make it available for all, at that point the $99 fee probably didn't wouldn't seem so bad.
I think, ideally, a one-time $99 fee makes a lot more sense than any of a $99 annual fee, a $20 annual fee or a $20 flat fee. It is high enough to keep some dubious apps at bay, but not too high even a hobbyist couldn't afford it as a one-time fee. It isn't high enough to keep out all of the crap... but that is only because the price point is intended to still keep it at a reasonable cost for those more serious independent developers/hobbyists.
And I would actually take this further and say that the $99/year is fine. The only problem I ever had with their annual subscription model was that if you stopped paying they pulled your apps from the store. Which, frankly, makes no sense. Free apps give your platform intrinsic value, and paid apps (including ad funded ones) pay Microsoft a percentage anyway. I can see blocking submission of new apps or even updating your existing app. But pulling all apps entirely hurts both parties.
Also, this doesn't really open the flood gates at all. The entry price hasn't changed. Only the fact that it was a subscription before. $20 a year is less than $2/month. The renewal cost likely wasn't driving anyone away in the first place. If getting a flood of developers/apps was your plan, just make it free. If not, you never should have gone down to $20 in the first place. Just revised the terms or removed the annual fee at the higher price point.
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