Making Money in Mobile

Great write up by Tim Bray on how you make money in mobile. Which can be summarized with his two takeaways:

First of all, the number of people making serious money selling apps is pretty small. Second, that doesn’t matter very much, because we’re so early in the game that we don’t know how it’s going to shake out.

Another choice remark is his comment that today’s mobile apps are a race to the bottom:

Selling anything on a one-time basis at a price below $10 is historically the kind of business that’s been owned by companies like Walmart

This is something I’ve previously written about as well as did a talk at iOSDevCamp Seattle, while some things are changing, most has stayed the same.

Essentially the way you make money in mobile hasn’t substantially changed in over ten years, you just don’t have to work through a carrier. This question is currently at the heart of this trillion dollar industry, but it isn’t about mobile, it is about how you add value to peoples lives. And that isn’t constrained to just your devices.