Apple has damaged the perceived value of software - <AUTHOR> http://mattgemmell.com/damage/ <comment><USER2> I'd argue that the perceived value of software is correct. As with all IP, once created the value of a _copy_ is pretty much zero. It's a simple case of supply and demand, the supply is infinite so logically the price is zero.

The problem is not selling software (or songs, or movies or any other IP really) for too little, the problem is billing for something that is not scarce. People intuitively understand that scarce things have value and that the value depends on how scarce it is. This is why selling things for which there is an unlimited supply is an uphill battle.

Look at it like this: if you hire a plumber to install a toilet in your home, would you accept it if the toilet was 'free' but you had to pay a fee for every usage ? Hell no. But you'll gladly pay the plumbers hourly wage and material costs.

The IP industry is trying to sell toilets on a pay-per-flush basis and then acts all surprised when people don't accept this and see no ethical problems with piracy.

The real solution would be to find a way to charge for things that people _do_ consider scarce, such as the developers/artists time. Unless we find a way to do that we are stuck with this conflict between consumers and producers of IP.

<comment><USER3> Pharmaceutical companies spend 100's of millions developing new drugs, but it costs essentially nothing to manufacture those pills once they have FDA approval.

Who expects medicine to be free because they cost nothing to replicate?

<comment><USER4> Can you replicate a drug _all by yourself_ at an essentially zero cost?

Making another 100mg of a medicine may cost essentially zero on a pharmaceutical plant, but you can sell the access to the plant.

Copying data is not just easy, but you have already bought the "factory equipment" needed for it, that is, a computer. Thus the drive to dumb down consumer computers (DRM) or move the essential things from users' possession so that they could not easily copy them (SaaS).

<comment><USER3> You need to come up with a stronger argument than software should be free, because it's easier to copy than viagra.

<comment><USER4> I'm not making an argument for "software should be free" here. I'm trying to explain why people often try to copy software or media: it's trivially easy, obviously not requiring the original author's expertise. If they pay the author in such a situation, it's because they _want_ to support the author, not because they are forced to. This ends up with quite little. When an enforcement agency (a publisher) intervenes, the amount extracted grows, but most of it is taken by said agency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this is Apple's fault as much as the reality of competition.

The reason apps are so cheap is because there are so many substitutes.

Apple may be highlighting those who support multiple platforms, but its not telling anyone what to charge.

Musicians complain about the same thing as music gets cheaper and remains somewhat fungible.

It's no one's fault, it's just the reality of competition in an industry with zero marginal cost.

<comment><USER6> This x100. The problem has nothing to do with Apple. Writers, painters and musicians have been faced with the same kind of market for a while, though there's no centralized middleman. Video game developers are headed that way as well. When distribution is easy, "little guys" overrun the market and drive the average success level to zero.

Ironically the one thing that might help is centralized gatekeeping with strict quality control. But that's not as profitable for the gatekeeper as the alternative, so I guess it makes sense for the gatekeeper to be a non-profit entity that can enforce rules, like a union or guild. I wonder when the world will realize that.

<comment><USER7>
        s/centralized gatekeeping/curation service/

Yes, it won't be as profitable as a walled garden, and it will live or die by their reputation. When the market races to the bottom, quality suffers and the risk of scams/etc increases. Eventually, this _creates_ a market of people who don't want to risk buying a lemon. A store that _carefully_ curated what they offer and/or offers additional guarantees about safety/quality/etc is a model that has been successful in the past.

<comment><USER5> I don't think lemons are a real concern in digital economies where marginal costs are zero, so it costs you nothing other than a lost sale to offer a refund.

Not sure about Apple's store, but you can get a refund without too much difficulty on Steam of the Play store.

Discoverability is a real concern though.

<comment><USER6> In gaming at least, lemons are a big concern. For some reason gamers are very afraid of spending five bucks on a possibly imperfect game. Even when refunds are easy and automatic. It defies logic, but it's true. Anyone who can make curation trustworthy will make millions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the "1 purchase, multiple devices" is fair in the sense that I'm only using one device at a time. Also, if I upgrade my phone, why should I have to buy your app again?

That said, the lack of a paid upgrade option in the App Store is a significant negative. To pretend that a one-time purchase for $5 should guarantee you a lifetime of upgrades is both shortsighted and abusive to developers.

<comment><USER9> It's not really that terrible. Everyone can just use the Microsoft Approach and date-name their software.

Buying Office 2015 only gets you that version.

If you want Office 2017, it's not an 'update' per se unless they generously offer it to you, but rather an entirely new piece of software.

<comment><USER10> If you do that in the app store (ios or android), prepare to get thousands of 1-star reviews for your old version from people who believe they are entitled to updates for their lifetime.

I've seen it upfront two times in the playstore, where apps I liked released a new version. I was eager to buy the new version but the new/updated reviews for the old ones were ruthless. One app had to give the new version for free. The other had to promise to keep updating the old version too. The first team just gave up on both apps. The second team (one developer actually) continued but slowly toned down his efforts, going into essentially maintenance mode.

<comment><USER11> > If you do that in the app store (ios or android), prepare to get thousands > of 1-star reviews for your old version from people who believe they are > entitled to updates for their lifetime.

As I user I've had the opposite problem: developers who radically change an app that was perfect. I have no way to revert to the older version I preferred. If the developer had created a new app, I could have stayed on the old one. It's unfortunate most other users want unlimited updates. Paid upgrades and version selection remains an unsolved problem.

<comment><USER12> Yeah. I disable auto updating for this reason on my phone. I've had a number of apps change up their functionality on me or add obtrusive ads and I can't go back to what once worked just fine for my needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a developer, I use a lot of open source. But I haven't paid for a desktop application in years. The web, with it's promise of a free browser and free web applications, has done as much to destroy the perceived value of software.

<comment><USER14> You are confusing value with price. Breathable air is free of charge (so far) and people value breathing.

Similarly, pro bono work does not cheapen the value of a lawyer work. Working for $1 per hour does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oh come on... Apple single-handedly revived the software-for-consumers business model with the App Store. Before, people bought a PC with an OEM license for Office and got their son to install a pirated version of Photoshop. There was essentially no market for consumer software outside of games.

<comment><USER16> Revived as in what? Make people believe that 1 million of fart apps is worth paying for? How much value do you put on apps that superimpose dog ears on people in real time video/camera?

How many apps have you downloaded and how many are actually useful to you?

<comment><USER17> It's hardly Apple's fault that people aren't willing to pay big money for fart apps. If you want to put a $10 fart app out there, it's not like anyone's stopping you from doing it.

Speaking for myself at least, I've purchased quite a few mobile apps over the years. If I need an app in a certain category, I will always get one that costs money over one that's free with ads. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but people like me don't have to be the majority for someone to make money from an app. The only thing that matters is the number of people like me out there, not the percentage of total users we represent.

I do think there's much room for improvement of course. I wish they would do stuff like allow people to offer paid upgrades. But claiming that there are literally no good paid apps is just silly.

<comment><USER14> > It's hardly Apple's fault that people aren't willing to pay big money for > fart apps.

Apple encouraged a market of many cheap-as-in-shoddy $.99 apps instead of inexpensive yet useful and reliable software.

<comment><USER17> How did they actively encourage that situation, what could possibly be their motivation for wanting that situation (surely they'd rather have 30% of a $10 app vs. 30% of a $1 or free app), and what would you have them do to change that situation? There are literally millions of people who would love to have a healthier market for paid mobile apps, including the company itself. Since you've clearly got the answers and we're all just out here in the wilderness scraping sticks together, please share your insights for the sake of the entire industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would posit that "free" but ad-driven sites did far more harm than Apple ever could.

If anything, I think it's pretty impressive how Apple made paying for apps a viable thing, back in the days of rampant Internet piracy.

<comment><USER19> Exactly: The problem for small software developers isn't Apple, it's that the logical price for the far-and-away biggest app makers (Google, Facebook, Snap) to charge is $0. Customers naturally fix their expectations from the apps they use every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apple's number one key, most important reason for their rules about apps is simple - they prioritise whatever keeps users buying a new iPhones every 2 years. Multiple iterations of what is ostensibly the same app with small feature additions isn't going to do that - users don't need a new phone to run something with some extra levels or a new admin screen. Apple need to keep the content in the app store looking like _new_ things that take advantage of new phone features. Brands are great, so new versions of games that use existing IP are welcomed, but new _minor_ versions of previous apps are not.

If you want to build and release small, incremental iterations of an application instead of major updated versions of an application then don't write software for iPhones.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is why the only startups I'll work for are B2B. Trying to sell an "app" to the masses? Uber is losing money and they're a household name, good luck with your Tinder for dogs or whatever.

<comment><USER22> well it's like tinder for dogs, but for cats!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> >Make exactly one sale of an app per person, ever, regardless of the number of devices they own, how often the app has been updated since they last used it, and so on. This also teaches customers that they're entitled to come back to a free app at any point in the future, no matter how long ago they paid for it.

And

>Ideally, make exactly one sale of an app per family. This reinforces the commodification of software; it's to be shared around.

From a consumer perspective, I whole heartedly agree with author.

I own 3 devices, 1 is android and other 2 are Iphones. I never noticed how damaging this could be for developers to have their work sold for the price of one when most of the people use them on multiple devices.

Update part also makes sense, an application built 3 years ago has come a long way since then and have taken thousands of work hours for maintainance and updates.

<comment><USER24> But as a consumer, what the heck am I buying? I'm not buying a physical product, I'm buying a sequence of 0 and 1. It's a license to use said app. It's not the 90's anymore where you own a CD with your program and that is your product. I cannot re-sell the "used app" when I don't use it anymore.

So if I buy the 'license' to use your app, I'm gonna be real effin pissed if I can't use it on all my devices.

Actually tying your purchase to your Apple ID is much better for the dev, because only YOU can use it. A CD with software is much easier to share with your friends.

<comment><USER25> Exactly: people are complaining about technology because it gives consumer an option to have a copy on multiple devices, but at the same time they are just taking the things that the same technology gives them, such as preventing people from reselling their copies, as some kind of a God-given right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > If you sell at $3 instead, your number of sales will go down by much more > than the factor of three that you increased the price by.

In a way, this is great. By charging less for software more people are able to enjoy your software and you make more money. It's a win-win.

I think the only (but major) issue here is that 30% is a laughably high cut for Apple. This cut is so high that only really popular software can be profitable for the developers. There's a lot of useful software that won't get built because it's niche and isn't profitable after 30% is taken off the top.

<comment><USER27> Actually, the quote you highlight is where I started to take umbrage with the blog. I'm willing to listen a person's opinion on what is ideal or fair, but here the author asserts an empirical fact without evidence.

The evidence that I have actually heard[0] from valve indicates the opposite: that total revenue is unchanged by price. I am willing to believe that it can vary from product to product, but I am not willing to believe such an absolute assertion without any evidence.

I agree with your point about 30%.

0: [https://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game- economi...](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economics- valves-gabe-newell/)

<comment><USER28> Did you skip this part of the article?

"But then we did this different experiment where we did a sale. The sale is a highly promoted event that has ancillary media like comic books and movies associated with it. We do a 75 percent price reduction, our Counter-Strike experience tells us that our gross revenue would remain constant. Instead what we saw was our gross revenue increased by a factor of 40. Not 40 percent, but a factor of 40. Which is completely not predicted by our previous experience with silent price variation."

and then: "Twenty-five percent, 50 percent and 75 percent very reliably generate different increases in gross revenue."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I disagree with most of the points made, I think Apple has done more to make software a viable product than any other company. The problem however is that they paint everything in very broad strokes. Everyone pays the 30% Apple tax, regardless of whether you sold a single or a million copies. The absolute numbers on the tax paid for a million copies is higher, but so is the revenue. I'm not sure a progressive system is better than a linear system either, where the top earners would pay more than those at the bottom.

In any case, out of all the issues with the App Store I think this one of app cost is the least interesting. Rather, the ever changing landscape of Apple approval policies and the severe platform lock-in effect is worse. Apple can more or less kill a viable business simply by denying an app in their store, and that removes the entire iOS market for that business with little to no recourse. This is the bigger deal I think. Figuring out how to get people to pay you $3 instead of $1 is less important I think, when you'll most certainly get $0 if you can't sell the damn thing in the first place.

I don't fully understand how Apple is allowed to effectively close off a significant market like this.

</comment><comment><USER30> He didn't even hit on two other major talking points:

1) Free annual macOS updates.

2) Free Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, etc.

This change forced Microsoft to drastically reduce the price of their OS, and to offer free upgrades to Windows 10 for a couple of years! It also prevents people who buy Macs from having to decide between Pages/Numbers/Keynote and the oft-times more familiar and business-friendly Microsoft Office suite. If they get the basic productivity apps for free, why bother with an Office365 subscription? Hell, offering GarageBand for free is undoubtedly undermining the business models of countless consumer-grade audio and mixing software developers.

It keeps Mac users within the Apple software ecosystem.

<comment><USER24> and, you know, google also made an office suite free before Apple made theirs free.

<comment><USER30> But Google was simply extending their already-free web-based offering, not taking historically expensive desktop software (operating systems and productivity suites) and making them free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Was (consumer) software ever perceived as _that_ valuable, though? Most everyone I know is completely unwilling to buy an app or subscription. Even some technical people I know just refuse to spend money on software or services. It's not something I understand or agree with, just something I've noticed. It may be a more regional thing, too, here in the rural southeast.

<comment><USER32> I don't think consumer software has been that valuable in my lifetime. MS Office, & Turbo Tax are killer apps that people pay for. People willingly pay for online games too. Other than that? I guess some people buy apps.

I don't think it's regional. I've never bought an app. I paid for some dev tools, but that's it. Selling productivity outside of people's work is an uphill battle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I agree with the problem but Wouldn't this be more because the indie market is fighting the larger businesses for prices until the final lowest price step to compete for buyers was a .99 cent app or in app purchase or ads. If App Store kept indies out we would have had 9.99 Microsoft word style apps everywhere. It sucks now for a single dev who can't market a app for $30,000 dollars that only makes $8,000. It almost mimics the American economy where the top %1 wins, sometimes you hear of a lower class citizen making it and then everyone thinks they can make it.

<comment><USER34> I think your point relates to the discoverability problem the author mentioned. People mostly find or learn about apps through the App Store. So apps that get to the top of search results can get millions of downloads while similar but unlucky apps get almost nothing.

<comment><USER35> Better app discovery could help a lot: even if 90% of your potential customers are unwilling to spend more than $0.00 for apps, that still leaves literally millions who would consider buying if they were only able to find it.

It's not an easy thing to solve though, I think the promotion and discovery model should be changed fundamentally. First of all ratings and 'most popular' should be completely eliminated from the equation, because they are self- fullfilling and relatively easy to manipulate. I would like to see some form of syndication for apps, which suggests me apps that fit my preferences and use cases, which could (and likely is) vastly different from other people. For example, I would love to be able to find (by whatever means possible) more developer-oriented apps (either on desktop or mobile) for things I don't even know I could use. The current app store model provides basically zero opportunities for this, I can go to the 'developer section' in the app store and look at the top 25 apps but there my options to discover apps stops. There really is no way for niche apps that could find a decent number of paid customers to promote themselves.

Besides better app discovery, trial versions are really essential. I would like some kind of subscription service that lets me try literally every app I want, but only for one month after which I would have to buy it at the regular price.

Yet another idea could be to allow developers to join forces and bundle their apps, dividing the profits through some kind of agreed-on distribution. This way low-volume/high-margin apps that would be hard to sell in large numbers as standalone could piggyback on high-volume/low-margin apps.

Plenty of possible improvements.. At any rate I feel something needs to change, because the current situation is hurting creativity and decreasing the quality and value of many app categories.

<comment><USER36> Being able to try apps is something I've always been surprised isn't widely available right now. There's a sheet music writing app on the Microsoft app store for $60 - I really want it, but I can't justify paying that much for something I can't even try out. What if it just doesn't feel right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Alternative candidate: Google and the model of ad-based software

<comment><USER31> Agreed. I think this has been more damaging than anything. Most people just have no idea what they're giving up in exchange for the free software/service, and when they find out, it's too hidden for them to care.

<comment><USER14> If anything, apps are even more invasive than webapps when it comes to snatching your data, tracking you or displaying ads. (And I'm not defending google)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How about Google when it comes to web apps? Gmail and Google Docs come to mind.

Reality is all the big internet corps have been doing this for a long time.

Then there are those of us who develop fremiums which further reinforce this behaviour.

Now we price our products north of 100/month to try and weed out the non ideal customer.

<comment><USER39> Google offers Gmail and Docs for free to consumers, in order to hook businesses into using it (and mining the consumer's data, of course). And it's working great, they announced a while back that over 3 million businesses are now signed up for the commercial G Suite [0], paying $5- $10 per employee/month in perpetuity (I personally consider the G Suite fantastic value as a business owner).

[0] [https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/01/27/google-just- passed...](https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/01/27/google-just- passed-3m-businesses-paying-for-g-suite)

<comment><USER40> G Suite absolutely destroys Office 365 at the web experience. Gmail is far superior to Outlook online, and all of the Google Docs/drive online experience is extremely well integrated, fast, and intuitive compared to Office 365.

Microsoft wins hands down at the desktop experience though. If you have big or complicated documents and spreadsheets you can't beat Office.

For me personally, G Suite wins because by the time I _need_ Word or Excel I'm going to reach for a full powered solution like Latex or Python.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if Steam isn't doing something similar. Prices are higher there, but I almost never pay full price for a Steam game, and I get the game for all platforms at once.

<comment><USER42> I would argue they are not. The cost of getting a game to steam is significantly higher than getting an app to a marketplace (Apple, Android, etc) and are meant to last for a much shorter span of time. As others have stated, the cost for making copies if effectively zero. The race is not to the bottom (as there are too many specialized games for different niches) rather, it's a race for content production.

<comment><USER41> Is that so different from the app store? Why would Steam games be meant to last for a shorter time than mobile apps? Most mobile games tire pretty quickly, whereas some of the games on Steam have enormous statying power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Unless you can capture the value of something, it may have value, but the price is going to be low. In order for something to be of value to an inventor, the value must be able to be captured.

This is easy for, say pharmaceuticals ("you'd like to live ? That'll be $5000 please. Patents mean nobody else can save you").

Likewise, software has the problem that replicating software is too easy, hence the value can't be captured. Imagine what would immediately happen if someone made an app that people would gladly pay $5000 for (e.g. one that somehow gets them interviews for a $100k job), it would immediately be replicated and sold for $500. And then $50.

Only where that is really hard can you profit. Software that for some reason can't be easily duplicated. Only Microsoft seems to have pulled that off, for very large and complex programs and even there the engine seems to be sputtering.

Larger article about this: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel- competition-is-for-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition- is-for-losers-1410535536)

</comment><comment><USER44> Surely this is one reason that even consumer-oriented software is going to a SaaS model? For iphone apps potential purchasers will be comparing your software to other aps that cost $3, but the normal rate for subscription services is $5-$20/mo., so just by making your software a subscription website, you can ask for a higher effective total price without seeming unreasonable.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm not sure that Apple's environment is hostile towards sustainability of small software businesses like the author claims. Sure, prices are low, but the market is huge and it's extremely easy to sell large numbers if the app is worth anything.

To put it differently: how well would a small software business that is struggling under these conditions have fared 25-30 years ago when you had to advertise in print magazines and carry the disks to the post office for every customer (and every update!)? The fact that there is more competition now, isn't exactly Apple's fault either.

<comment><USER46> In the past, there was very limited ad space in tech magazines, so, inevitably, fewer softwares were known and money focused on those that remained.

Today apps are competing with millions of other apps directly in the app store, anything you want it's been done and released free / with ads, so it's a whole different kind of difficult, probably more difficult than in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I see it moving to a situation where a consumer pays a monthly price and has access to all the apps they want to download. This is already happening to games (see humble bundle & EA Origin subscription).

Amazon are moving this way to an extent, at GDC 2016 the announced that you could publish your app for free on their app store for their line of tablets, and they would pay you per customer per minute of usage on your app.

Also, didn't exactly the same thing happen to music industry?

Now we can pay $0 for music, we just have adds interspersed between tracks.

The same thing will eventually happen to everything digitally distributable.

<comment><USER48> Amazon actually announced their service was closing down last week: [https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/appstore/post/cbadeae1-99...](https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/appstore/post/cbadeae1-990d-4d52-bef5-ea61f6114b94/announcement- amazon-actually-free-program)

<comment><USER47> At the time I thought they would just turn down the money/minute dial to almost zero once they had brought enough people to their platform that it wasn't worth it anymore. I didn't realise they would shut it down completely.

I would be interested in seeing data about how successful that program was at attracting actual consumers to the platform rather than just developers . . . .

<comment><USER48> Yup, I'm not sure it was amazingly popular with either. The Amazon appstore has a bit of an uphill battle in the regard in general AFAIK.

In regard to your other points I also happened across this today: [http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/spotify...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/spotify- apple-music-tidal-music-streaming-services-royalty-rates-compared/)

Interesting how quickly these subscription services are losing money and how low the rate of return to the artist is.

<comment><USER49> I only have one game on there, and can't give specifics, but it earned more on underground than either google or apple's stores (but not both combined). I was looking forward to the long tail of updating it and gaining users, but I guess that's the risk with walled gardens.

<comment><USER48> I think in comparison to F2P type mechanics a subscription service that pays developers per minute of play is great. It's the same focus on retention without the requirement to try to have the player spend on a regular basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I mean is it really Apple, though? Android by comparison has millions of free apps that do nothing but spy on you end to end, after the OS has already spied on you thoroughly.

Maybe Apple users are now trained to think all software should be priced like apps (I disagree with this, but am willing to consider it a possibility for a given group of the iOS user base) but Google meanwhile has trained a whole lot _more_ users that all software should be free and they just need to put up with invasive advertising. I'd argue the latter is far more damaging than the former.

</comment><comment><USER51> I find it fascinating that this is mostly about iOS. Mac users are still the #1 group I'd pinpoint as "willing to pay for software at all" \- and I do think that's the reason why there are many _nice_ apps for the mac where I as a Linux user just use something usable-but-not-so-nice.

But in the grand scale of things, I guess this doesn't matter so much if you compare mac app sales versus iOS sales, thus the main point of the article.

</comment><comment><USER52> I had my own App Company back in 2009, before I went corporate and joined Apple to work on iOS.

I saw the problem as this: once a person has created a valuable software package, usually it costs nothing to rip it off.

Example: If I create the best kick ass calculator, with 10x better UX, better functionality. And charge $10. The learning has been done and the barrier to reproduce what I've created is almost 0. So someone does that, and remakes it, adds a photo sharing feature and charges $5. Then a student comes along and thinks "that's cleaver, but what if I add farting noises" and because He gets education out of it, make's it completely free. How does the first guy recoup his R&D cost? He can't really. It's too easy to reproduce.

I know this is a little simplistic, because there's the marketing effort and SEO. But it's hard to convince someone that they should buy the $10 app when there is a free app. Even if the paid one is better. (Which if you are a fan of fart noises, maybe it's not)

</comment><comment><USER53> iOS is entertainment and consumption platform just because you can't do anything serious with your greasy finger. You can edit text and graphics on Commodore 64 but almost can't on iPad Pro. There will be no CADs for $50000. One exception for this is music software (synthesizers, controllers) which are usable with touch screen but in this case OS (that is designed for entertainment and phone calls) is against them, i.e. no interoperability between apps, no real file system, bad external devices support (although sound subsystem is surprisingly good).

Who wants to buy fart app or doodle drawer for $200?

There's potential for games (it's possible to make or port RTS with great controls), but only on iPad connected to charger. Who wants this when there are PC and consoles? And what if you develop great new CelestialCraft&Conquer for 3 years, and users are willing to pay $50 for it, but then it's rejected by Apple? So everyone is making 3-in-a-rows.

</comment><comment><USER54> It's interesting how Apple have driven AppStore prices towards a race to the bottom when they're selling premium priced hardware.

If less money was being spend on the devices would more be available for apps, of would it turn out like the Android ecosystem where everything is cheap too?

<comment><USER24> People are spending even less on cheaper android hardware. So it might even be the opposite, that since you bought an expensive hardware you can at least pay a couple of dollars for that app that you could also get for free. You don't buy the cheapest tires on your expensive car ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The biggest fallacy in the post as well as in the comment is that there's some "true", "fair" value of software, and we can just work it out with clever arguments.

There isn't. Developer and consumer have conflicting interests as far as price of the software go, and the price is set at a point where these interests meet. Of course, there are other variables (such as software developer being able to pay the bills) and parties (such as Apple) at play, but ultimately, this is, as always, just a matter of conflicting interests and resources that both sides have to influence the outcome. All discussions about what is "fair" or "right" in this situation have literally no meaning.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is partly why a lot of older IOS apps I bought (such as the excellent Mr Reader) have been abandoned by their developers I suspect, as even basic maintenance isn't worth the revenue stream.

And these apps will soon be incompatible with the forthcoming 64-bit switch.

</comment><comment><USER57> Why are low prices Apple's fault?

If it's their fault, what did they do to push things in that direction? What could they have done to have pushed things in the other direction?

I'm willing to listen to honest attempts to answer those questions.

<comment><USER58> Its hard to charge prices when apple don't allow trial versions.

<comment><USER57> They might not have an explicit mechanism for trial versions, but people do make either a free version of their app, or make their app free and have IAP to purchase the full version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I certainly agree with the article's premise, that Apple has put essentially a cap on what you can earn. I don't know that this devalues software as much as people copying does however.

Consider a couple of scenarios; in scenario 1 when someone publishes an App that is the only App of its kind available in the store. There are millions of phone/tablet users and you capture some some percentage of them and you make a few million dollars[1]. Scenario 2 is someone publishes an App in the App store, and it starts to sell well, then 15 additional people publish the exact same App in the App store and are so busy undercutting each other the price has gone down to 99 cents. But lets say this group of apps still sells reasonably well, then another 1500 people put out the same App on the store they all sell for 99 cents or are free with in game purchases. The original app creator made perhaps a few thousand dollars on the sale of the app. And all the people jumping on board made anywhere from nothing to a few thousand as well.

This isn't the first time that technology has released the creative spark in thousands more people, and as a result the market was flooded with new products that were vaguely similar. The industrial revolution had a similar effect it seems. As it became possible for more and more people to build things in a small factory or with less training and apprenticeship things got a bit out of hand and the thing that saved them was that if you patented your invention you could be assured (if you defended your invention against infringers) of a small monopoly to recoup your costs.

And if you had that sort of system today, you could invest all your time and effort and build your app and patent it and then not have to worry that hundreds of ripoff lookalikes of varying quality would dilute the market and the returns.

And yet it would be pretty silly to have a 20 year monopoly on an App that made fart sounds, but perhaps something more aligned with technology time frames like 5 years or 3 years.

The fundamental challenge is that it is always easier to 'reproduce' than to 'invent.' And if you cannot reward the inventors they won't be able to survive and we'll miss out on innovation that they might otherwise have been able to provide.

[1] Don't worry I don't think this is _reality_ :-)

</comment><comment><USER60> The other "genius" thing Apple did is force people on the iOS treadmill. Your iphone keeps getting slower and slower, apps _you_ paid for stop working, and you keep buying new iphones and new apps all over again. I don't believe it was a Machiavellian smoke-filled-room type of thing, but it just ended up that way, and hey look, apple just so happens to have made some cash off of that.

<comment><USER61> In my experience, that isn't true at all. In fact, I've heard the opposite. When iPad sales slump, one explanation is often that everybody's old iPad is still working great and people have no reason to upgrade.

<comment><USER60> I have personally seen atleast 20 iphones (family and friends) progressively slow down over each iOS update.

I'd challenge anyone to take an iPhone 4S, for example, with iOS 5 vs iOS 9 and tell me they're equally fast. Whats worse is Apple intentionally blocks you from going back to the 'factory state' on a device you paid hundreds of dollars on.

>When iPad sales slump, one explanation is often that everybody's old iPad is still working great and people have no reason to upgrade.

Yes, that sounds about right.

<comment><USER61> My phone is an iPhone 5C and thankfully it hasn't slowed yet. I did have to remove a bunch of stuff to get the last upgrade to complete though. Once the upgrade finished, I was able to reload everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I wish Apple distinguished between "upgradeable for a fee" and other "in-app purchases" instead of just lumping them together.

Especially for games; as soon as I see that I just _assume_ it is another gem scam pay-to-win game. I would buy a lot more if it was easy to tell that something is a demo with a purchase specifically to buy (as opposed to gems).

</comment><comment><USER63> I think precisely the opposite is true. The article mentions:

> That means selling at a low price, because most customers will only pay low > prices, and all customers prefer low prices.

Before Apple's excellent app store, how mainstream was it for people to talk about purchasing apps at all?

So people prefer low prices. Before this, they preferred _not having software or piracy_.

</comment><comment><USER64> Consumer data mining and advertising has had a far greater effect. Consumers used to pay for software.

Now software pays for consumers. I wonder how much google spends every year on an average user.

The software is just an intermediary process step in the acquisition of consumer data and advertising dollars.

</comment><comment><USER65> Apple is in the business of selling hardware. A good selection of (cheap) apps sells more hardware.

This is also why they keep coming up with new APIs that are only available on new devices. They need apps that only work on new devices to sell more of those devices.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think the only real problem is, that you can't distribute paid upgrades.

</comment><comment><USER67> The big argument I'd make against this is that, before the App Store, most people didn't buy software at all. They used their web browser, maybe their office suite, and that was it.

</comment><comment><USER68> > Target the largest customer base, so they get 30% of the biggest potential > income. That means selling at a low price, because most customers will only > pay low prices, and all customers prefer low prices. This teaches customers > that software's average value is low.

Can someone explain to me this logic? It seems faulty. Put it this way: if it were somehow possible to make more money as a developer in the App store, how would removing Apple's 30% cut make it more feasible? Apple and developers have a shared incentive to make as much money as possible, but developers control pricing and who they target. Apple is just along for the ride.

> Build a universal app (iPhone and iPad versions, in the same package) to > increase the attractiveness and convenience of owning multiple iOS devices. > You'll earn a "+" in your app's buy-button on the Store. This teaches > customers that supporting multiple devices isn't something to pay extra for.

This is better, and fairer, than the alternative. My iPad and my iPhone run the same operating system. Why should I pay twice for the same functionality across both of them? If Apple didn't do this people would be writing articles lamenting the fact that they want to make their 30% cut twice.

> Also include an Apple Watch version within the iPhone app. As above.

I would be happy to pay to unlock Apple Watch functionality in apps. I'm not sure that Apple prevents that from happening. But I agree with the author here provided the extra functionality is not simply "notifications" but something meaningful and unique to the watch's hardware.

> Provide regular updates, at no cost; so much so that there's no mechanism > for paid upgrades at all. This teaches customers that they should expect > free upgrades for life, no matter how little they paid for the software > initially.

There is a mechanism for a paid update, which is to simply state end of life for an app and release a new one (a la Tweetbot). Another way of looking at this is: Apple is encouraging developers to release new apps at full price once they feel that they have something new to launch, OR to use subscription pricing or quasi subscription pricing like Marco does with Overcast.

> Make exactly one sale of an app per person, ever, regardless of the number > of devices they own, how often the app has been updated since they last used > it, and so on. This also teaches customers that they're entitled to come > back to a free app at any point in the future, no matter how long ago they > paid for it.

That seems fair to me as a consumer. If I bought something a year ago and want to re-install it, why shouldn't I? Wouldn't it seem unfair to not be able to use something I paid for?

> Ideally, make exactly one sale of an app per family. This reinforces the > commodification of software; it's to be shared around.

"Ideally" = Apple does not enforce this.

> Sell only through their store, with their distribution mechanism, their > product page design and user flow, and their 30% cut — which doesn't provide > for marketing or discovery of any kind beyond searchability, and the very > small chance of being featured in some way. The majority of customers > probably have no idea that the price they pay for an app is almost 43% > higher than the amount the developer will receive, before tax (i.e. that > Apple takes 30% off the top).

Which has done more for the security and quality of the software which is available to consumers. (And that's also a reason affluent middle class folks flock to iOS.) And Apple allows search marketing and of course doesn't stop developers from marketing in Google, Bing, on TV, etc. which is where the majority of installs are driven for most app-centric startups I know.

<comment><USER69> Your reply sort of proves the point of the article ...

> Put it this way: if it were somehow possible to make more money as a > developer in the App store, how would removing Apple's 30% cut make it more > feasible?

30% is a pretty hefty percentage. It's the weakest point in the article but imagine if I just cut your salary by 30%, is your job still worthwhile?

> My iPad and my iPhone run the same operating system. Why should I pay twice > for the same functionality across both of them?

Except it's not the same functionality. Try Evernote for instance ... does it LOOK like the same functionality? That's a lot of developer effort you can't recoup. You've just diminished all that extra work to support both modalities with a wave of your hand.

> That seems fair to me as a consumer. If I bought something a year ago and > want to re-install it, why shouldn't I? Wouldn't it seem unfair to not be > able to use something I paid for?

That thing you paid for 5 years ago no longer exists, the software you bought 5 years ago can't even RUN on your new iPhone, what you are getting, for free, is the thing the developer made this year, with actual work, which _looks_ like the thing you bought 5 years ago.

> "Ideally" = Apple does not enforce [family sharing].

But they do encourage it. It's part of the diminishing effect. That you can opt out as a developer doesn't change that.

<comment><USER68> > 30% is a pretty hefty percentage. It's the weakest point in the article but > imagine if I just cut your salary by 30%, is your job still worthwhile?

I'm unclear how this is a response to my response to OP. OP is saying that Apple forces developers to target the biggest possible audience by taking 30%. I'm arguing that Apple is agnostic and that if there's a way for developers to make more money in a niche then Apple is happy with that. And you can always price your software at +30%.

> Except it's not the same functionality. Try Evernote for instance ... does > it LOOK like the same functionality? That's a lot of developer effort you > can't recoup. You've just diminished all that extra work to support both > modalities with a wave of your hand.

That's a distinction which isn't made in the article. Autolayout makes it trivial to support the same functionality across both devices. If you want to introduce new functionality with the iPad then have a separate app. I believe you're still entitled to do precisely that.

> That thing you paid for 5 years ago no longer exists, the software you > bought 5 years ago can't even RUN on your new iPhone, what you are getting, > for free, is the thing the developer made this year, with actual work, which > looks like the thing you bought 5 years ago.

I don't understand this I'm afraid. If you're discussing the fact that apps sometimes need to be updated to keep running on the new versions of iOS then that's just part of the cost of business, but plenty of developers choose to not do this. Again, nobody is forcing developers to do this. Nobody is not buying your app because they think it might not be supported in five years time.

> But they do encourage it. It's part of the diminishing effect. That you can > opt out as a developer doesn't change that.

It's only a diminishing effect on consumers if Apple encourages developers to do it and they do it. There's nothing forcing developers to do it. They're choosing to. They only have themselves to blame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Google has damaged the perceived value of personal data.

</comment><comment><USER71> I disagree, but this is the only website which for I did not enable reader mode in Safari. The best mobile experience ever. Love you man.

</comment><comment><USER72> _Target the largest customer base, so they get 30% of the biggest potential income. That means selling at a low price, because most customers will only pay low prices, and all customers prefer low prices. This teaches customers that software's average value is low._

As software developers, why target the largest customer base instead of creating a product that people are willing to pay money for and target people who can and will spend money?

Apple doesn't target people who are only willing to buy a $60 unlocked phone or a cheap computer. Apple Stores are usually located in the most affluent areas in the country.

 _Build a universal app (iPhone and iPad versions, in the same package) to increase the attractiveness and convenience of owning multiple iOS devices. You'll earn a "+" in your app's buy-button on the Store. This teaches customers that supporting multiple devices isn't something to pay extra for._

I wouldn't pay twice for the same app to run on my 13" laptop and my desktop, why should I pay twice for the same app for my iPhone and iPad?

 _Provide regular updates, at no cost; so much so that there's no mechanism for paid upgrades at all. This teaches customers that they should expect free upgrades for life, no matter how little they paid for the software initially._

It's clunky, but app developers are doing paid upgrades via app bundles.

 _Make exactly one sale of an app per person, ever, regardless of the number of devices they own, how often the app has been updated since they last used it, and so on. This also teaches customers that they're entitled to come back to a free app at any point in the future, no matter how long ago they paid for it._

How is that different from any other software? I can still run old Win95 software today.

 _Sell only through their store, with their distribution mechanism, their product page design and user flow, and their 30% cut — which doesn't provide for marketing or discovery of any kind beyond searchability, and the very small chance of being featured in some way._

It's always been the responsibility of the producer to market their products and make it stand out. Coke and Pepsi don't depend on the stores to advertise for them.

 _The majority of customers probably have no idea that the price they pay for an app is almost 43% higher than the amount the developer will receive, before tax (i.e. that Apple takes 30% off the top)._

I think consumers know there is a markup to what they buy in a store.

Unless you're selling a game, selling an app in the store is not the way to make money. The companies that make money from apps are using the apps as a front end for a service consumers want.

I made more money in 2008 as a "mobile developer" working on Windows CE devices for a company that produced a service that other customers want than most indie app developers make today.</comment>


The open source washing machine project - <AUTHOR> http://openmaterials.org/2010/03/17/the-open-source-washing-machine-project/ <comment><USER2> Isn't "open source" usually used for projects that include source code? Maybe they made the original design diagrams open, but I still can't see calling it open source if it doesn't have a microprocessor or any code running in it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Open Source beer, Open Source Restaurant - Neither of these have a processor or code. But they are still called Open Source. Maybe you don't agree with those terms too.

But taking the idea of free/open source software in to anything in real life is an interesting trend, IMO.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. Both Open Source Beer and the Open Source Restaurant have 'code', recipes, or plans for building them:

Open Source Beer Recipe: [http://www.opensourcebeerproject.com/2007/07/15/open- source-...](http://www.opensourcebeerproject.com/2007/07/15/open-source-beer- recipe-finalized/)

Open Source Restaurant: "[a] restaurant that is completely made of, and only serves food based on the original instructables all the members on instructables.com have made or will make." Members of Instructables.com typically post step by step plans of what they've made. <http://www.instructables.com/group/instructables-restaurant/>

The Open Source Washer project is a misnomer until they release the step by step plans for building it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Open source beer/restaurant had _source code_ and the washing machine doesn't have one yet (I couldn't find).

But my argument was against the idea of 'a project having to _have a microprocessor or any code running in it_ to be an Open Source project'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad to see some brainpower being thrown at the washing machine.

I'm sure that there are a lot of smart people at the established brands working on improving these devices but they all seem to be falling into the "cell phone" syndrome of adding features w/o fixing the root problem (i.e., dropped calls).

I hope to be contributing to this or a similar project soon.</comment>


Show HN: Logobot – your friendly logo builder - <AUTHOR> https://b12io.github.io/logobot/ <comment><USER2> I'm sure you worked very hard on this. It works well for what it is, and it looks polished. This would be something need to include in a portfolio or work sample. However, if you're serious about starting a business, I'd caution against it.

1\. There are already a ton of similar sites. I see one on HN about once a month.

2\. The "Icon + Text" approach is rather limited. I think it targets the very bottom of the market, who aren't very savvy about branding. I suspect that market segment is already well served by free logo services.

Wishing you the best of luck anyway.

EDIT: Didn't realize this was an addon to an existing website builder, and not a stand alone product. In that case, forget what I said. This could be a useful value-add

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a service by [http://www.b12.io/](http://www.b12.io/), right?

Speaking about that, how can I get just the design customization instead of a monthly service that includes hosting? I can do hosting, that's easy, I can't do design.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice! This looks just like [https://logojoy.com/](https://logojoy.com/) which makes a lot of money doing this

</comment><comment><USER5> This is great! I just used it to make 2 stickers.</comment>


AutoValue: Immutable value-type code generation for Java 1.6+ - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1THRUCIzIPRqFSHb67pHV8KMbo55HphSXqlQcIx9oUiI/edit

<comment><AUTHOR> Not released yet, but source available on Github: [https://github.com/google/auto](https://github.com/google/auto)</comment>


For developers: These shirts make you look better than your code – ShirtJS - <AUTHOR> http://shirtjs.com/

<comment><USER2> I dig the sort of shirts, just like those at [http://shop.theunrefinery.com/](http://shop.theunrefinery.com/)

Nice work!</comment>


Carbonmade's Progress: A clever way of marketing the new version of our app. - <AUTHOR> http://spencerfry.com/carbonmades-progress-page

<comment><USER2> Looks amazing, great work Team Carbonmade</comment>


Why is the JVM stack-based and the Dalvik VM register-based? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2719469/why-is-the-jvm-stack-based-and-the-dalvik-vm-register-based <comment><USER2> Because its easier to generate code for a stackbased language since you dont have to name the intermediary values? Just a guess because I didn't read the article yet.</comment>


Iron Age Celtic Woman Was Buried in a Hollowed-Out Tree Trunk - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/iron-age-celtic-woman-was-buried-hollowed-out-tree-trunk-180972773/ <comment><USER2> Reminds me of a story from my home town about a woman found in the trunk of a wych elm tree in the 1940s:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_put_Bella_in_the_Wych_Elm%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_put_Bella_in_the_Wych_Elm%3F)

</comment><comment><USER3> > Given the fact that the pair were both buried around 200 B.C., the Office > for Urban Development suggests it is "quite possible" they knew each other.

Certainly fascinating. But why - in the context of science - do they have to make unsubstantiated statements like this? It's unnecessary. It dilutes the standard expectation of what actually constitutes science. Is it any wonder the general public oscillates between no trust and confused?

Leave the TMZ'ing to TMZ. Leave the BuzzFeed'ing to BuzzFeed. Please.

<comment><USER4> I think that's a pretty reasonable shorthand for saying that two separate archeological sites overlapped in time, place, and culture, and which makes comparisons/differences between them more immediately interesting.

<comment><USER3> That's my point. It's adding a story arc where there is none.

Unless there is evidence the two grave sites overlapped (in time) then the "theory" proposed is bad science. Again, it sets an unreasonable expectation. Science has enough problems right now. Using faux storylines isn't going to help.

<comment><USER4> I don't think this is at all as serious as you think. I don't think this is the Zurich Office for Urban Development spinning a cute little narrative, I think it's more similar to the Corded Ware culture [0], where scientists identified a lot of clayware buried in corresponding times and places, and so theorized that the people that make them communicated and shared a culture. The timing, and the coordination, suggested that those people corresponded to the Indo-European spread from near the Black Sea into western Europe.

In taking two things (two pieces of clayware, or two people) uncovered with similar features, you are usually able to extrapolate more information than by holding each one in perfect isolation.

What's more, there's not a whole lot riding on this. The office said "Isn't this interesting, that two archaeological sites are so close in place and time". That usually doesn't happen, particularly that far back in time. If the Office had editorialized that they were lovers, or best friends, I would agree with you, but this is just saying "We can date them to a very similar time, and to a very similar place. They are intrinsically linked, and should be treated as being more close together than separate."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Ware_culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Ware_culture)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fascinating facts to learn of, but sites like this one and LiveScience tend to interject too much extra content that is unsubstantiated. Adding in the bit about Caesar coming in, when he wasn't on his high horse for 150 years after these people died. Just because some general time period was 2,200 years ago, doesn't mean there isn't a significant gap between the ages. 150 years can change a lot. It's the time between the age of slavery in the US to today.

Then the bisexual (/poly?) suggestion and hedonistic remark. Citations or substantiation? Very unprofessional but I suppose these are online authors from no specific literary tradition. It was a Roman source that recorded a consort to a Celtic king that supposedly told Emperor Augustus's wife, "we consort openly with the best of men. You allow yourselves to be debauched in secret by the vilest." Which is the hedonist? I'm American, of now-distant European Celtic & Germanic tribal extraction and while a non-expert, am knowledgeable enough in the subject to see when someone is interjecting their personal nonsense into an article.

<comment><USER6> It seems some references for homosexual relationships among the celts come down from contemporary authors including Aristotle, however I can't find anything specific about La Téne.

[https://books.google.pt/books?id=TCvoj1efp8UC&lpg=PA18&pg=PA...](https://books.google.pt/books?id=TCvoj1efp8UC&lpg=PA18&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false)

<comment><USER5> I'm not saying there wasn't homosexuality.. that's what Saudi Arabia claims for their nation. Homosexuality has an evolutionary purpose, always existed everywhere and always will. Homosexuality is not a slur, weakness, or failure. It was the exaggerated nature of the characterization.

<comment><USER7> > "Homosexuality has an evolutionary purpose"

Could you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely interested to know, it could fundamentally change my view on homosexuality.

<comment><USER5> Must preface that I'm a non-expert, this isn't my area of expertise, I'm just a curious person that seeks truth, and works as a programmer. I could be wrong, but when I find convincing evidence or logic that I am, you'll see me singing a different tune. If there are any credentialed evolutionary biologists among us, please, correct or affirm the following.

As with a lot of human traits that sprung from evolution, today it's not as clear as it would've been. In tribal structure, we needed more caregivers to children. Having a few homosexuals uninterested in breeding assisted with survival of the group. Everyone around the world needs additional caregivers, members of the tribe died early often. Someone had to raise the next generation, and the risks of dying were plentiful. Beyond famines and death from conflicts, shamanistic medicine only, no scientific medical care and definitely no vaccinations or antibiotics. Basically, people dropping like flies. The unpredictable death rate required a proportionally larger quantity of caregivers than breeders.

Further, any trait that exists in ~5%+ of the population over time is regarded as having an evolutionary purpose. Which homosexuality meets the definition of. For example, I'm color-blind, while no longer very useful (other than map spotting, which the US military does use color-blind folks for), it was an advantage for hunting in a snowcovered environment by removing unnecessary data for the brain to process, resulting in spotting prey faster and increasing reaction times. It's difficult to provide hard evidence for evolutionary traits, folks that want to dismiss it due to discomfort always will, but this trait was shown to appear in Ice Age Spain and spread from there. Caregiving for the tribe goes much further back in time, hence homosexuality being far wider reaching. Neither gay folks or color-blind folks are deserving of disdain though, simply because we're the products of hundreds of thousands of year of human survival and those traits are not as relevant today. All humans have traits that aren't perfectly suited for sitting behind a computer all day, or the modern age. It's a shame we haven't evolved to consume glyphosate, or breathing the air we're polluting without dying of cancer.

An addendum that I feel is necessary. You could seek out a scientist who has dedicated their entire life to studying this topic to confirm/deny my claims, or a professor at a local university who has essentially done the same and dedicated their professional lives to this topic to learn more. That's what I would do if genuinely curious and wanted to know more, not hit up DuckDuckGo. The ability of those folks to cut through the noise in their field is something a search engine doesn't offer. No different from an experienced programmer searching on software. There's an alarming trend of people today dismissing expertise and credibility as traits without merit. Experts on topics like this are still the go-to source. I'm just a layman in comparison. While I did not and will not spend more time digging up citations for my claims here, it is logical and based on prior readings. Neither is it my prerogative to convince every homophobe among us that being homosexual is more than OK, I do hope everyone who reads this chooses to embrace our gay brothers and sisters. It's illogical not to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to be disposed of in a cool and eco-friendly way. Give the nutrients back to nature so to speak. I'd be fine with just being tossed in a bog etc and letting things eat away. But rules and all...even the most basic no frills cremation is something like 1500usd which is obscene in my view. I find the 5 figure events with ornate sealed caskets to be ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> You could have a tibetan sky burial and be cut into pieces of meat to feed the vultures. It's probably pretty cheap too.

<comment><USER10> Old people suffer muscular and joint pain. They are prescribed drugs like Voltaren. Voltaren is diclofenac.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis)

<comment><USER11> This was a big issue in India I remember but "cattles" instead of "human" bodies.

<comment><USER10> Yes. I think the drug was being used in animal feed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have heard of boat burials, where the body is placed in a boat, thogh not necessarily set adrift, just placed within. The obvious (possibly too obvious) interpretation is that it's the vehicle to take the person to the next world. Based on nothing at all I wonder if this is a symbolic form of a boat burial.

<comment><USER13> [https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/lit/beowulf/prelude/](https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/lit/beowulf/prelude/) for one of the more famous depictions in literature.

<comment><USER12> I wasn't thinking of ship burials (though thanks for the beowulf pointer, I didn't know that, and in returns here's an allegedly eyewitness account of one [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_funeral#Ibn_Fadlan%27s_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_funeral#Ibn_Fadlan%27s_account)), but something much smaller and older.

There was a report of a discovered boat burial on doggerland, on land (before doggerland flooded. That would have been at the end of the last ice age). I can't find it now.

<comment><USER13> Possibly Sutton Hoo? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo)

I know about the neolithic villages currently under silt in the english channel, but that's about it.

<comment><USER12> Sutton hoo is saxon IIRC. No, the villages/communities you mentioned are the ones that were drowned when the ice melted - before that the UK was much larger and joined to the continent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland). That was the boat burial area I meant. I did dig but can't find it, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was thinking it sounded like the way a witch might have been carelessly disposed of. Fortunately the illustration cleared that up. This does not look like anything just thrown together.

<comment><USER13> Far too high status for anything careless.

It's more or less anachronistic to talk about 'witches' in the Iron Age, certainly in the modern sense that connotes "naughty bad not-christian women spellcasters".

<comment><USER15> Evil spellcasters are a familiar concept in every known culture, present or attested.

I don't really think it's a stretch to use the modern word "witch" to refer to this universal concept.

<comment><USER16> Magic is a rather culturally specific idea.

Africa and Europe had a lot of cultural exchange, but Australian Aborigines and Native Americans had wildly different views. That's not to say similarities did not exist, but the more universal the idea the more vague it must be.

Aka, Evil people with power is more universal than the ability to cast a persistent curse.

<comment><USER17> Some Native Americans absolutely have a (pre-Columbian) concept of witchcraft.

Source: my godmother is a Maya shaman.

<comment><USER12> Well, that's not something I read every day.

Could you liberally expand on this if possible? Stuff like, what does she do, what is notable about her worldview, what's her view of other worlds (in christian terms, hell/heaven, in norse terms valhalla and the world tree etc), what can we on HN learn from her. Anything else you'd wish to add.

(I've got the popol vuh, just wish I could find time to read it).

Major TIA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me Xinjiang xiaohe cemetery in China,

[https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ancient-mummies- of-...](https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ancient-mummies-of-the-tarim- basin/)

They seem to also use tree trunk

</comment><comment><USER19> Celtic?

<comment><USER20> Yes, Celtic. The Celts were mostly on mainland Europe at that time. You can find more details in that most scholarly work, _Asterix the Gaul_

<comment><USER21> Also in Caesar's book about his campaigns in Gaul (oddly enough there is no account of a tribe with a magic potion):

[https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/romans/BelloGallico1.h...](https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/romans/BelloGallico1.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Open Sourcing the Microsoft JDBC Driver and Maven Support - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jdbcteam/2016/11/17/open-source-jdbc-maven/ <comment><USER2> Finally!

Having dealt with _many_ database drivers over the years, I can say first hand that closed source drivers are the bane of my existence. The only thing worse than running into a deep-in-the-stack bug in a database driver is one that you can't correct, let alone debug properly.

Regardless of your views on closed source software on the server side of things, it's a disservice to your customers to not have open source client side drivers. The secret sauce is always on the server side so it doesn't buy you anything. At best there's (very poor) argument for security through obscurity or you're doing something silly like hiding server side features behind client side feature flags.

Plus the more tech savvy of your users will directly contribute back to improve the driver. This is both for fixing existing bugs and adding features to support existing database server features. In this particular case, I've got a laundry list of things I'd like corrected / added / improved in the SQL Server JDBC driver. Had it been open sourced a few years back, I would have already done them myself.

Unless there's a legal restriction for not doing so, like say not owning the original source, there's no good reason not to open source the client side of things.

<comment><USER3> > the bane of my existence

This reminds me far too much of the .NET DB2 drivers. What a steaming pile, not to mention having to navigate the labyrinth of the IBM download site to even find it in the first place.

<comment><USER4> You know what's worse? DB2 for iSeries. Pisses me off to no end that pulling JTOpen from Maven is crazy easy, but if you want to access your data from any other language prepare to shell out thousands of dollars for "DB2 Connect" (per server!) because it's totally incomprehensible that even though you've already payed through the nose for IBM i that you shouldn't be charged for accessing the data anywhere else.

<comment><USER5> Usually plays out something like this:

"Hi $BIG_COMPANY, we'd like to expand our usage of $SOFTWARE that we've already got a $BIG_MONEY license for. Where can we get client drivers for a new app that will use it?"

"Hi $CUSTOMER, that's great news. Send us a check for $MORE_MONEY and we'd be happy to help."

"Hi $BIG_COMPANY, to clarify, we're already paying $BIG_MONEY for a license for the server and we'd like to expand our usage of it. That means in the longer term we'd be more entrenched into using it and would likely renew your contract."

"Hi $CUSTOMER, that's great news. Send us a check for $MORE_MONEY and we'd be happy to help."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yay... Isnt everyone using jTDS anyway because it is reliably faster?

[https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en- US/36e7b9cf-5bc5...](https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en- US/36e7b9cf-5bc5-445d-874c-1d6f8e819b63/ms-jdbc-driver-performance- observations-versus-jtds?forum=sqldataaccess)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7848213/why-is-jtds- faste...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7848213/why-is-jtds-faster-than- microsoft-jdbc-driver)

Edit: seems like they fixed their abysmal performance after 5years in jan 2016; see stackoverflow comment.

<comment><USER7> The jTDS project is dying, there has not been a new release in over 3 years despite some pretty significant bugs.

[https://sourceforge.net/p/jtds/discussion/129584/thread/050f...](https://sourceforge.net/p/jtds/discussion/129584/thread/050f9892/)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, maybe we'll switch as well now.

But I just cant stand the loving hype for MS here. They gave out such horrible and dog slow drivers to their paying customers that people reverse engineered the protocol and wrote their own. And it still performs very well.

Now that MS publishes this codebase (which should have been standard, or at least best, practice), they get showered with love.

Like an abusive relationship where one is happy and extatic if the abuser is reasonably nice for a day.

<comment><USER8> You don't need to reverse engineer the protocol. TDS is an open spec on their website.

<comment><USER6> SQL Server TDS spec was published in 2008, when jTDS was in version 1.2 and already feature complete and stable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Static code analysis with SonarQUBE : [https://sonarqube.com/dashboard/index?id=com.microsoft.sqlse...](https://sonarqube.com/dashboard/index?id=com.microsoft.sqlserver%3Amssql- jdbc)

</comment><comment><USER10> Yay! Just… Yay!

Now it's your turn, Oracle.

<comment><USER11> > Now it's your turn, Oracle.

That'll never happen. They're too busy trying to make the open source projects they inherited from Sun (MySQL, Java) closed source again.

<comment><USER12> Doing good job there. MySql dead. Java bloated in politics...

<comment><USER13> Java started out bloated in politics, so I don't know if it is fair to blame Oracle for that.

Still not totally happy with their direction on Java

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice. Microsoft seems to be open-sourcing a fair bit of stuff lately.

However, unlike their other repos there are a couple of things that strike out. The code isn't even consistently formatted. There are parts that make you say ouch.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like a simple PR to issue and get approved for free internet open- source points? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How did people use this before if it wasn't in the Maven Central Repo?

I know it's _possible_ to not use mvn, just wondering what people did in cases like this where a possibly major component in the stack was unavailable. Most big stuff in Java can be found in mvn, and if not we often end up using an alternative. But that's not so easy for a driver.

<comment><USER17> Run a company maven repo. Make an internal maven plugin with what you need and add it to the company repo.

<comment><USER18> Or just have a bash script that installs it to the local Maven repository first.

Not recommended, but plenty of folks do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Microsoft has been open-sourcing a lot lately, but it seems to be mostly "peripheral" software...

 _The JDBC driver can be used to connect to SQL anywhere. Use it to connect to SQL Server (on-prem or in the cloud), Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse._

...associated with the use of their commercial products.

<comment><USER20> > Microsoft has been open-sourcing a lot lately, but it seems to be mostly > "peripheral" software...

How is .NET Core peripheral software? If anything it enables developers with C# codebases to move _away_ from Microsoft's commercial products.

<comment><USER21> And they've open sourced a lot more than just .NET Core.

[https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet](https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet)

<comment><USER22> [http://microsoft.github.io](http://microsoft.github.io) is a metasite with links to most of the Microsoft GitHub organizations and repositories. You can spend days flipping through all of it.

<comment><USER23> the carousel on top has four pips but three items. my ocd is at critical levels right now. (possibly something got filtered since i'm at work)

<comment><USER21> Here's another overview:

[https://opensource.microsoft.com/](https://opensource.microsoft.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Oh, this driver was really troublesome!

I remember we had once revert to java 6, because we couldn't get connectivity in Java 7 with SQL Server through their JDBC Driver... It took days to figure it out...

</comment><comment><USER25> This is really cool. I'd like to see a lot more in the test directory, though. Can any MSFTies here describe how this is tested?

</comment><comment><USER12> wooohoo... 20 years later

</comment><comment><USER26> First off kudos to microsoft for open sourcing their JDBC driver.

I would have figured microsoft would have used a linter to fix style issues with their code before Open Sourcing. E.x: [https://github.com/Microsoft/mssql- jdbc/blob/master/src/main...](https://github.com/Microsoft/mssql- jdbc/blob/master/src/main/java/com/microsoft/sqlserver/jdbc/SQLServerColumnEncryptionJavaKeyStoreProvider.java#L81)

Anyone know if microsoft is going to specify their java style guide.

<comment><USER27> Microsoft is a tech company just like many others. You can nitpick all you want but all companies have imperfect code and it is normal.

<comment><USER26> Sure. I don't fault them. Just curious that Microsoft doesn't force a linter on devs. At google we generally force style guide compliance.

<comment><USER27> My guess is that this code is pretty old.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gmail Add-ons - <AUTHOR> https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com/2017/03/bring-power-of-your-apps-into-gmail_9.html <comment><USER2> This is a really big deal. Having recently written an extension that integrates with Gmail[1], I've found that InboxSDK[2] was a lifesaver.

Having the power to do this with Google's consent _and_ have it be available on mobile devices is huge.

I hope this solves the problem of conflicting Gmail extensions, I currently just have too many installed that don't place nice together.

[1]: [https://gmail-message-id-finder.co/](https://gmail-message-id- finder.co/) [2]: [https://www.inboxsdk.com/](https://www.inboxsdk.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree that its a really big deal. Mobile support is huge.

We actually built the inboxsdk that you are referring to. There are a _ton_ of extensions built using it and >10M end users using apps built with it. We've worked really hard to make sure apps built with the SDK are compatible. If you have any examples of 2 extensions not playing nice, def let me know.

<comment><USER2> First of all, thanks for InboxSDK!

Looking at it now, it's actually mostly InboxSDK extensions that are conflicting with Gmelius and some other custom extensions. Having 10+ extensions all trying to modify the DOM of one site at the same time is bound to give some problems :).

Curious to see if Streak will switch to this new official way, although it seems that a lot of the stuff you're doing won't be available to Add-ons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gmelius is actually using parts of the SDK. But they are really aggressive and do some DOM manipulation. In general we hope that users of the InboxSDK never need to actually touch the DOM ever. The SDK handles coordination across extensions. Ofcourse extension don't have to abide by this and hence the conflicts.

As for Streak, we're planning on a mixed approach. The add-ons from Google support very few UI entry points (at least for now). Streak's entire UI only lives in Gmail so we need a lot more integrations. We'll use the Google sanctioned way when possible and fall back on the extension as we currently have now for the other cases.

<comment><USER3> First of all, big shoutout to InboxSDK / Streak folks. Our extension, Fyle ([http://www.fyle.in](http://www.fyle.in)) would've been ridiculously more difficult without it.

We're having an issue with Gmelius interacting badly with our extension. Basically, we never enter our messageViewHandler code when Gmelius finds a tracker. Have reached out to them as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry to be the one that has negative feelings about it.

Email is one of those rare concepts that is really hard to change or enhance. I can easily see Google abandoning this feature in 5 years.

People need email service just because of the email function, nothing more than that.

It's concept clearly has some limitations (attachment sizes, layout inconsistencies and so on) but it also doesn't have any deal-breaker problems.

Introducing external services integration to email sounds like taking a huge risk. How people manage their invoices, to-do lists and other stuff is changing faster than ever. These add-ons will require active development all the time to keep themselves up-to-date.

As a developer, I wouldn't risk investing in this feature.

<comment><USER5> I've been panned on here before for saying this, but I really feel everyone should leave email alone. As a spec its already so immensely complicated and embedded that any features you add will only be picked up by a tiny percentage of providers.

<comment><USER6> Imagine if that advice had been taken pre-gmail though. Not _everyone_ loves it, but for most people, gmail's conversation view is far superior to the default way emails were organized before. And it does this while still interacting seamlessly with other email clients.

I don't see gmail as perfect, but that's kind of the point; it's possible we could gain from this kind of experimentation.

Afterthought - archiving and snoozing emails are also concepts that weren't around initially, but can be extremely valuable depending on your workflow. I'm sure there are other similar improvements and additions to be found.

<comment><USER7> I've come to dislike it more and more. Gmail hides too many details. Thinks like precise timestamps. Things like not surfacing subject changes well enough. Things like a spam filter with immense amounts of false positives. I keep having to fight with gmail in ways I never have to with other mail solutions, to the point were I'm getting very close to abandoning it entirely.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you on the spam filtering. It would be VERY nice if you could customize the threshold, or even better, have a couple of thresholds, so you end up with a 'definitely spam' and a 'probably spam' box.

I've kind of created that by using spamassassin to filter out really hardcore spam before it gets to gmail, but obviously that's not an option if you're using an @gmail address.

That said, I think we take for granted just how good gmail's spam filtering is. Their ability to 'see' so much email passing through the system gives them a massive advantage there, which they've used to pretty good effect. They catch a ton of stuff for me that SA misses, and very few false positives (but just enough that I can't ignore the folder, unfortunately).

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately the false positives vary greatly with your mail patterns. For me the amount large enough that even though it also stops a shitload of spam I'm starting to think it's too much of a problem. Just checked right now, and though I've checked my spam folder earlier this month (and emptied the folder), it now has 40 messages of which 9 are false positives. What's more, several of them are from senders I regularly get e-mail from and that I have never marked as spam.

<comment><USER6> Ha, lucky you. Before I started pre-filtering with SA, I got about 3000 spam emails per month. I can cut out about 2/3 of those with SA without losing any of the false positives, so now I only have to wade through 1000 or so to find the one or two falses. :/

<comment><USER7> That brutal, but if my false positive rate was that low I'd probably be willing to just tolerate it. What drives me most crazy, is just how hard it is to get Gmail to accept that a given type of e-mail is not spam...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does this mean that we'll finally get an easy to use PGP integration in Gmail web and mobile? Can't wait!

<comment><USER9> Sure, but the hard part for adoption isn't using the tools, but teaching people how to keep their private keys safe/secure

<comment><USER10> I don't know man. Right now the hard part is using the tools. It's a pain in the ass. The last I tried FireGPG was the best and it wasn't terribly smooth flow either (no fault of it's own).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know, guys.

Inbox was nifty at first but it positively crawls now. Any input action takes several seconds, at best, to process on a fast machine, sometimes much more. Loading Inbox is about 30s. It's maybe 20x slower than straight gmail classic. Plugins will just slow it more?

<comment><USER12> 12 seconds to load fully here (that's 11.90 seconds too long - can't they store some stuff in local storage or...?) - and of course it's not really usable until it's fully loaded. You could start trying to type but it'll not do anything, or stuff will move.

Opening the 'Updates', er, 'section' with 2 emails in it took 2 seconds, which is silly.

I love the flow of Inbox but I'm seriously considering going back to a local client. Are there any good ones left these days? I liked mutt, but using it with an IMAP mailbox made it a bit clunky. I just need to work /fast/, without crashes, without spam, and preferably with vi keys and programmabil... never mind the last two, I can live with the speed, stability and spam-free parts.

<comment><USER13> > Are there any good ones left these days?

Not really. I wish the Mozilla Foundation would rejuvenate their email client once and for all.

I found Nylas N1[0] works well, it's cross platform which is a big plus and has plenty of kb shortcuts.

[0]: [https://nylas.com/](https://nylas.com/)

<comment><USER14> I can't trust Nylas because you have to trust yet another third party with your email, in addition to Google/Fastmail/etc.

AFAIK Nylas doesn't work locally, but through their "cloud APIs". They are not alone in doing this, for example Outlook for Android does it too.

That's not acceptable for me. The email client should only communicate with the email provider. Trusting Google or Fastmail with my email is a leap of faith on its own without an extra third party involved.

I'd also question their business model. If Nylas Mail syncs via their own "cloud", it means it's not free to operate on an ongoing basis, which means it will end up either milking users for ads or die.

<comment><USER15> Their newly released free version brings their sync engine to the client so there is no third party relay anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anybody know what happens when an add-on augmented e-mail is opened outside of Gmail (or, presumably, Inbox)?

There is a huge difference between:

Google is enhancing e-mail in a way that makes e-mail better for everybody.

and

Google is migrating GMail to be another walled garden collaborative workflow tool that happens to have a very good e-mail client build in.

<comment><USER17> If you look at the examples, they all look like adding extra functionality to your inbox, not to the content of the emails you send.

So it doesn't sound like "I'll send you this email that you can only access if you have gmail AND this specific add-ons", more like "when you open an email, the add-on shows relevant information from your internal CRM system as well as canned responses".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When is google adding missing useful functionality such as "schedule email send"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably soon - they already added snoozing an email to Inbox

edit: if you want it now, we offer that functionality in gmail and inbox soon: www.streak.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is awesome. I developed Chrome/Firefox browser extensions that connected Gmail attachments with cloud storage in the past, and hacking through Gmail's DOM always threw any SLA we could provide out the window.

It's even better that this will run on Android and iOS as well, which truly makes all the "Gmail extensions" from developers such as myself production- ready.

</comment><comment><USER20> And _just_ as I completed a WebExtension based integration. Awesome! /s

Seriously though: I was considering using Gmail contextual gadgets, but it seems google has just dumped those, left the tooling and admin panels not to work and the documentation to rot at least 3 revisions earlier.

Looking into it was a complete waste of time, and seeing this now, I'm going to guess soon to be deprecated.

I wonder how long until Google repeats the history with this one. I'm honestly not sure I'd dare jump on another Google tech like this.

<comment><USER21> _Seriously though: I was considering using Gmail contextual gadgets, but it seems google has just dumped those, left the tooling and admin panels not to work and the documentation to rot at least 3 revisions earlier._

That's in line with my experience. We had a gadget working a few years back (a button to create a ticket, for our support teams); a year and half ago we had to make an update, and the gadget simply never came back - even after we reverted. And the tools are useless to identify these problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd rather Google made this an open standard. Because right now, I'm feeling it starts to sound a little too much like "embrace, extend, extinguish".

<comment><USER23> (disc: googler) How could you make an open standard for this? Do you mean an open standard for apps-in-email? Or an open standard for doing things in gmail?

<comment><USER22> I meant an open standard for apps-in-email, but then again, interoperability between apps is something that probably should be handled more generically at the OS level.

Coming back to my remark, email is one of the great federated protocols of the web, and I would really hate it if a big company would ruin it by adding proprietary extensions.

<comment><USER21> This seems to be extensions to the client, not to the messages themselves.

The extensions to messages they did was Email Markup, and they do use standard/open formats from schema.org (which is developed by multiple orgs, not just Google).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A PGP add on built into gmail would be nice .. They have been promising it for years now, seems they have trouble delivering it.

<comment><USER25> > seems they have trouble delivering it.

More like seems it's not good for their core-business to deliver it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Anybody know when the developer preview / early access for Gmail Add-ons is likely to happen?

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems like a lot of posters here not catching on, this seems to be a parity thing with the new cross-platform, HTML-based MS Office Add-ins which are pretty sweet and have been out for a while. Unusual for Microsoft to be out in front of this since usually they like to follow examples.

</comment><comment><USER27> I still like Google's Inbox. Which seems like a forgotten and abandoned child sometimes.... But it works great for me. Makes it easier to wage through the tons of stupid mails.

Talking about Mobile version here. The web version is not good.

<comment><USER28> > Which seems like a forgotten and abandoned child sometimes

Isn't it first to get features like Smart Reply?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Did I understand right that add-ons also work in the iOS app? How are they implementing that, especially since Apple recently said you're not allowed to load custom code on the fly? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant, but I have no app dev experience whatsoever so I have no clue how any of this stuff is done at the moment.

<comment><USER30> My understanding is that on the fly code loading is still allowed if (1) the loaded code is written in, or compiled to, JavaScript, and (2) no native hooks it can call allow it to call arbitrary native functions by name, which was being misused to access hidden/proprietary APIs that could break during updates. Which makes sense if Apple wants to guarantee "our updates won't get blamed for broken apps as long as our public APIs are backwards compatible."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'll probably setup a Slack channel for those interested in talking more about this. I'm not part of the program yet, but very interested in it, and I'd be happy to meet you if you have similar interests. btwelchy_gmail

</comment><comment><USER32> A little off topic, but anyone else find those example gifs exceptionally fluid and intuitive? I really liked the way the blue dot indicated movement, clicks, etc. A very elegant solution for demoing a touch-based system.

<comment><USER33> I found it a little disingenuous - in reality, half that screen is going to be taken up by an on-screen keyboard, and typing is nothing like that quick; that little blue dot would be moving from key to key to key to key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I read that Google is trying to engage developers and allowing them to market their add-ons via the G Suite market place. Has anyone had any financial success via developing these type of add-ons?

<comment><USER35> I doubt much direct revenue would come this route. But, if you sell CRM software, or trouble ticket software, the integration might swing a potential buyer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Someone should really develop an app that was just the add-ons, without the email part.

Some personal dashboard from where you could receive notifications of all sorts and perform actions on them.

<comment> dyu- You mean like igoogle? They killed it even though it had decent number of users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This happens very regularly for me, Google's own internal links are terribly broken.

I'm on an android device, using chrome. I'm clicking a link on a Google site, a call to action to sign up.

I get a page that's not a signup page but another overview, and has a broken image in.

Usually it's broken links on help pages but this is just useless. How do I sign up? I want to build on your platform! Please stop making the first interactions I have with you broken!

</comment><comment><USER38> So two things come to mind:

\- this reminds of the ancient Labs feature in Gmail where you could add stuff like favicon that shows unread email count

\- is there going to be a Gmail plugin store?

<comment><USER36> You didn't click the link, that's clear.

But hey, Gmail Labs is still there!

<comment><USER33> That's hardly fair: the linked page doesn't mention Labs once.

> _But hey, Gmail Labs is still there!_

I'm not even sure what makes you say that like there's no chance of it changing as a result of this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Will it support both iOS Google Inbox and Gmail apps?

</comment><comment><USER40> Would this API support manipulation of message composition format? I would really like a gmail add-on that eliminated quoted text in replies by default, with a button to "reply with quoted text" for the rare occasions when it is wanted.

</comment><comment><USER39> Very neat, reminds me of Salesforce Lightning -- customizing UI across devices in client side Salesforce apps. [https://developer.salesforce.com/lightning](https://developer.salesforce.com/lightning)

</comment><comment><USER41> Are you allowed to write something that removes Google ads?

<comment><USER42> Nope, but you could always pay Google for GMail and go without ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'd just like it stop telling me my chromium is not up to date. :/

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder how this might work for easier PGP with something like Mailvelope

</comment><comment><USER45> Exciting. I wonder if this is related to the 'instant app' tech?

</comment><comment><USER46> What about people using Gmail outside of Gsuite?

</comment><comment><USER47> Great feature, only a few years overdue...

</comment><comment><USER48> What if my customer is not G Suite User ?

<comment><USER49> They just use email. These add one augment the email client (Gmail) not the email messages themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is a great idea. Google is like on Aderall lately.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is like, 5 years too late, and it's arguably the reason Slack is succeeding in killing Google Hangouts & Gmail as communication tools.

<comment><USER52> There's still a shit ton of companies whose products live extensively (or exclusively) in Gmail - not to mention the examples they give are use cases that you would not use in slack. Slack is certainly winning as an external communication tool, but email/gmail dominates external (and customer) communication for gSuite-using companies.</comment></comment>


The Fun Theory: Fun as a way to Change People's Behavior - <AUTHOR> http://thefuntheory.com/

<comment><USER2> Entertaining and something that may be popular at first, but unfortunately something like this isn't scalable (the novelty would wear off, not to mention cost needs to be taken into account).

The concept that fun encourages more participation is sound, but just like tourist traps it will only encourage first time use and not much after, IMHO.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for ruining it for me, pal.

<comment><USER2> Didn't mean to come off too negatively about it. While I stand by my point about the feasibility of these things, this is the type of creativity necessary to encourage better behavior with respect to the environment.

<comment><USER4> I'd agree with the two bin related ones. The stairs I think may have more staying power.

The question all videos need answer is what are the usage ratios 6 months later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember seeing a urinal with a miniature propeller-like device attached to the grill at the bottom. Using a suitable jet of water, a visitor could make the propeller spin at great speed.

Apparently, these things almost eliminate spillage. The Urinal Fly is a similar concept, much simpler, but not so much fun imo.

I think there's no end to the amount of fun humans can invent. One day, every large company will have a VP of Fun.

      "Our aim is to keep this bathroom clean. Your aim would be appreciated"
      - notice in my grandmother's bathroom.

<comment><USER6> I imagine that this same concept could be useful to encourage young children (boys) to learn to go to the toilet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of this great (and fun!) book : A theory of fun. <http://www.theoryoffun.com/>

It's oriented toward game design but has some interesting thoughts about fun in general.

<comment><USER8> I wish I had +10 upvotes for this! I can't recommend Theory of Fun enough for anyone who cares about learning, life, motivation, achievement, etc.</comment></comment>