Premium Pricing

With your indulgence, I would like to travel back a few months to the fall of last year. I seem to vaguely recall something about the economy...and also if I'm not mistaken there was a little something in there about an election of some sort...but its all a little hazy. Why the selective memory loss? Well, because something of far greater and more lasting importance was transpiring those fateful autumn days...I was finally purchasing my iPhone. It was the best of times and it was the wort of times as together, the iPhone and I worked out the kinks of our new life together. One such bump in the road came as I was growing accustomed to the concept of the app store. My issue was one that I imagine many newcomers to the app store have as well, "We have to pay for this stuff?!" Its a little jarring to be sure. We are so used to the whats on your phone is on your phone and it comes with it and stays there and nobody can change that mentality that its hard to shake it. So on the one hand you have the novelty of it. I mean, for the love of Thor, if there is something that this already feature-rich phone can't do natively-you can get a program that fills that niche! It's absolutely brilliant. On the flip side though, this means that your recently depleted bank account still has more to suffer. So, during the first few weeks of my technological enlightenment I flatly refused to purchase any app-no matter how tantalizing it seemed. Instead I chose to shop in the highly tenous and often downright disturbing world of the free apps. I was privvy to such amazing innovations as the fart maker, the fart blaster, the fart noise pro, and of course the more economically titled Fart. Now thats not to say that the free world wasn't without its gems like Pandora and Tap Tap Revenge, but i think its safe to say that the age old idiom applies here: you get what you pay for. So what are we as iPhone app store customers willing to pay for? 99cents seems to be about as high as many are willing to go for a decent app. Once you start getting over $5 though, the once passive consumers start to become livid and inconsolable. [Upon writing this section I happened to notice that the Sims3, priced at a robust $9.99, rocketed to the top of the paid apps list; so kindly disregard this entire article.] I mean, what is it exactly that people feel their $5 could be better spent on? Gas? Food? Trifles! Let's face it, for the quality of entertainment we are getting...it's a bargain.** People with traditional game systems envy us. For as they scour the bargain bin at their local gamers garage for some deals, they will only get the scent of what we have at our fingertips daily. Now, my point i guess is this; in order to get premium content you have to be willing to sometimes shell out a little bit of money. So the next time you visit the app store, and your finger refelxively jumps to the free Top 25...hesitate for a moment. Let that finger linger and see what those developers are offering. There, how does that feel? Ironically, we are at a time now where the whole process is happening again. The 3.0 possibilty of upgrades purchased in app is a shock to our systems! What are they thinking?! Are they really gonna make us pay for a new set of drapes for our virtual worlds? What do you guys think? Is this just another logical step in the progression of the industry, or a gross injustice?! **(My sponsors wish me to assure you that I am not recieving any compensation for this shameless example of hack journalism.)