Bitter apple itunes news - Turns Out App Developers Are Just Like Artists: Broke...

Turns Out App Developers Are Just Like Artists: Broke...

Turns Out App Developers Are Just Like Artists: Broke...

Please don't shoot the messenger! But the hard reality is that most musicians are making little-to-nothing off of their art, leaving a day job or poverty as the only options.  Sadly, just a tiny sliver of musicians are getting rich or even getting by, just like before, but there's now a plausible argument that artists are doing worse than ever before, despite all the revolutionary rhetoric otherwise (more on that here).

That's a problem, but even worse, it looks like we're not alone.  In fact, app developers seem to be living in a sort of parallel universe.  Like digital music, apps are similarly revolutionary and game-changing, yet the builders of this revolutionary stuff rarely make any money.  And, oftentimes lose money, just like musicians.

 

 

That was the takeaway a broad collective of British engineers and developers, who testified recently in front of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.  The groups, falling under the umbrella of the UK Computing Research Committee (UKCRC), discussed the difficult App Store math as part of a broader review of technology investment.

It's a classic trap.  The UKCRC argued that academia oftentimes overvalues the value of their ideas and intellectual capital, while ignoring the massive costs required to successfully develop and scale a business.  Which means that great, game-changing apps are often poor moneymakers, and buried in a crowd of farting apps.

Which sounds eerily like music, an oversaturated environment where anyone can created.  And, where a song with the greatest airplay and label investment typically overpowers DIY creativity (though of course, not always).  

The submission paper is here.

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