Paid apps in Jolla Store

General
#1

I know there’s a similar post already, but I believe that Jolla needs to make the ability for paid apps a priority for the Store. Enabling this feature will allow for the accelerated growth of Sailfish by providing a tangible incentive for developers to target a new market that competes with Apple and Google.

You can’t succeed in an international market when all you offer are free applications and no path for income. I understand they this is a complex problem in terms of finance and regulation, but the effort is worth it.

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Could a third party developer monetize their apps?
[Strategies] Bringing more sailors to SFOS
#2

Why this double posting?

To many apps are useless and not worth a cent. Sailfishos user used to try and test new apps first and decide then about a donation. Is in your app a link for donating you? Add this. Or offer additional services behind a paywall.

Creating free open source apps is a proven way of success. See Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Libre Office and many more.

Further discussion here

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#3

It isn’t double posting (well, sort of). First, I recognized that there was a similar post and linked to it (as did you). Second, the post I linked to was similar, but not the same idea. That post focused to finding ways to support developers through some third party solution.

To many apps are useless and not worth a cent.

Let the market decide that. If no one wants to pay for them, then no one will pay for them.

I’m trying to avoid the middleman and pass the savings on to you: that is, have Jolla itself play a more central role in the finances of application development and software sales. I don’t think that creating ad hoc and byzantine donation schemes to attempt to eke out payments to developers is a good long term solution. Short term and stopgap, maybe, but not long term. Plus, donation schemes avoid providing Jolla any income. With a paid Store model, Jolla has an opportunity to charge a modest fee (perhaps flat rate, or percentage, I’ll leave that to others to decide), but in a donation model Jolla gets nothing and is has less incentive and growth.

I understand that Jolla has been avoiding this for years because of the overhead, regulation, and cost involved with setting up an online Store with multiple payment systems…but this is long enough. This is time to move forward – in business, if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking. Jolla cannot grow without strongly considering this course of action.

People need to take this seriously.

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#4

Has Jolla ever explained why are they not working on a system which would enable paid apps?

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#5

It’s been a long time since they publicly addressed the issue, but essentially they said they can’t afford the overhead and logistics necessary to process sales across international borders. A lack of capital also stopped them from selling the phone in the United States - they couldn’t afford the FCC certification.

If I were running Jolla, I’d be looking for investors and pitching an app store as a source of revenue, not just licensing deals.

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#6

Most also open source - oh snap, one could almost conclude this OS is largely chosen by Linux and privacy enthusiasts :smile:

At this time I also don’t know a single person who would bother looking into the Jolla store when he/she can geht the app from OpenRepos. It has been all but dead for ages because of inflexibility on Jolla’s side and arbitrary restrictions in place hindering app development. If they cared, they would have lifted these first and got many, many more apps into the store without the need for a payment processing infrastructure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been an early proponent for allowing paid apps back in the day when they tried to appeal directly to consumers vs. governments alone. The sad truth is, I don’t think their Store is relevant to Jolla’s business model any more.

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#7

@wazor

…maybe it is not needed? Do you really think you can be make money with the small Jolla user base? And do you really think all the famous android apps like Whatsapp earns their money from the google store?

If you want to make money with your app you need some server based features. A simple QML app or the next look-a-like will not be enough.

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#8

@unmaintained

hey, I am looking into the Jolla store for good apps. It is easier to trust this store apps. And I love the restriction of QT libraries. So I am sure I am not a subject of some playing coding kid :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

And yes, here in lovely local town I now at least 10 Jolla user looking in the Jolla store.

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#9

I am not thinking about it personally, I am just thinking if paid apps could lead to higher quality apps which could cover functionality users need. For example there is a lack of usable Slack app, Discord app, and many other chat apps. WhatsApp is a lost cause indeed, but other chat apps could be covered.

#10

you know 10 Jolla users in one town? amazing, Sailfish is going mainstream :slight_smile:

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#11

If you mean this would prevent someone from running malicious code on your phone then good luck with that. :grinning:

#12

Yeah, does this imply paid apps would generally be better than open source apps? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

#13

I would really like a “pay what you want model”, where, if the developer accepts it, you can pay whatever you want, or download the app for free.

This could possible be expanded by allowing the developer to set a suggested price, like how Elementary OS’s AppCenter operates. And I wouldn’t mind Jolla taking a x% cut or so, if it needs an additional revenue stream.

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#14

I’m still thinking, given Jolla’s current business model, it’s not worth the hassle.

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#15

No. Just thinking about incentives for devs to spend months banging on something boring as a Slack client.

#16

@davidrasch
… it’s a very amazing town, of course :smiley: And a smart one.

#17

Given the rather limited user base getting someone to do the “boring” stuff by providing monetary incentives alone could be just some wishful thinking.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against paid apps in the store and would gladly use (and pay for) them if needed.
It’s just a matter of priorities and limited ressources with Jolla

#18

It reminds me of the old Blackberry OS10 store. The OS10 user base was certainly higher than the SFOS user base. A few dozen sales weren’t enough for the developers and they left the store. Not enough to live and too much to die. There is another parallel thing: OS10 also had an Android 4.x runtime and most users preferred Android apps.

A side anecdote:
Over 30000 really “exciting” trash apps pushed into the store by ONE manufacturer overnight!! These were all city maps generated by a bot. Something like that makes the store attractive :wink:

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#19

Every time I look into the Play store it looks to me like there are a few decent apps floating in a sea of garbage so numbers alone are not everything :grinning:

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#21

You have to see that in relation to 45,000 total :slight_smile: