HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

I take some issue with this argument. Not necessarily to say that it's false, just to say that it's not a strong argument or at the very least holds little foresight.

As an example I recently downloaded Words With Friends on the Android, became immediately annoyed with the ads and was at a loss when I tried to find a pay version. I emailed them and although they replied within hours (fantastic!) they said they don't have a paid version at the moment (it's in the works).

I'm reminded of John Carmack's ad-hock survey of iOS and Android users to find how many people would have spent at least $20 for apps[1], and then he explains in more detail why we won't be working with Android at that time. His reasoning is solid, but that survey puts an exclamation on the same point you're making, which is unfortunate.

It's easy to claim nobody pays for things on Android if there's nothing there worth paying for. It seems to me this would make Android a prime market rather than a poor one.

I've personally spent at least $40 on Android apps in the last year or so (mostly games) and will spend plenty more as developers come and give me reason (or at least a chance) to give them money.

1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_SdC8LVODY#t=8m40s

⬐ bad_user

This is exactly my experience with Android.

For instance I wanted an app that would block calls and SMSs and do a better job than the built-in functionality.

I found an ad-supported app that did the job, but the UI was awful.

So I tried to buy a non-free app that had good reviews -- problem was that the developer wouldn't allow purchases from my country, so I couldn't purchase it.

Also, as a developer Android is a poor choice for me, not because there's anything wrong with the platform, but because Google doesn't allow me to be a merchant that receives money from them (I'm not in one of the approved countries).

So the only option available to me as a developer is to release ad-supported apps. And with ads the UI experience suffers, so this automatically puts me in a don-t-give-a-shit state of mind where I don't care about experience as much as I care about volume.

This goes round and round, but on the whole I think that the quality of Android's marketplace represents an opportunity precisely because the competition is doing a poor job.

I don't know if a guy asking a leading question (Skip to 8:40 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_SdC8LVODY#t=8m40s) trying to justifying his own decisions is 'nuff said.

The question he asked at Quakecon 2010 was actually "who has spent at least $20 on the Android app store?"[1], not just on a single game. Your catch-22 scenario still holds, though I think the quantity and quality of free apps in the Android app store has also raised the bar for pay apps.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_SdC8LVODY&feature=playe...