Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

So very many things wrong with this piece.

1. Show him the money: I'm not sure he's comparing apples with oranges here. He makes a good living from iOS, but (crucially) by consulting for others who themselves may not have a sustainable business model. There is an increasing amount of evidence suggesting the indie dev model isn't sustainable on iOS, either, from AppCubby and Sparrow to the iconFactory and more.

2. Open vs Closed: I don't think one data point (the app store) is enough to damn open platforms. The Mac is open by his definition, and so is Windows. Are those both "bad for business"? Hardly.

3. Open vs Open: He then conflates "open" (as in I can install anything I want on it without going via a store) with "Open" as in open source, when the two are very different. Piracy is possible on a on a closed-source open-install platform, the open/closed nature of the source is absolutely irrelevant here.

He tries to join the two with a hand-wavy "piracy is easy on Android because it has an open mentality", when the source license has zip to do with this. It makes all the later jabs about Stallman more than a little strawmanish.

4. Choice vs Free: This is more a pedantic point, but you can't go from "too much choice is bad" (which I'd agree with in certain contexts) to "and so freedom is bad". He doesn't back that up, by the way, just asserts "but freedom is bad". No, it is not bad. Sometimes freedoms collide, and sometimes they can be traded. But "overwhelming choice is bad" and "overwhelming freedom is bad" are not synonymous statements.

5. Lock it down (unless it's a movie or album that I want): His conclusion in this piece is basically "Close it down and keep prices high to beat the pirates". Which is an interesting contrast with http://mattgemmell.com/2012/02/17/the-piracy-threshold/ where he says "Open it all up and keep the prices very low or I will pirate".

There's more to be had in this post, but I think I've reached enough errors to abort. At least this one didn't end with "disagree? amuse me by telling me".



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: