Time​.com Has a Shitty Grasp of Economics

I usu­ally reserve my bile for the bit play­ers in the blo­gosklein­bot­tle; but good lord this is a shitty arti­cle. There’s so much wrong with this piece of crap that I don’t know where to begin. In brief, the gist of the arti­cle is that some­how Apple is gyp­ping users because they’re allow­ing devel­op­ers to charge for iPhone appli­ca­tions. Yeah, let that one sink in a bit. I really don’t have the time to com­pletely decon­struct this steam­ing turd; but here are a few choice bits.

So why can’t all iPhone apps be free? Well, quite sim­ply, because peo­ple are still will­ing to pay for them. Apple cur­rently gen­er­ates most of its rev­enue from up-front sales — whether it’s for MacBooks, iTunes or iPhones. And the pay approach for mobile games, ring­tones and videos has long been used by other tech pur­vey­ors like Verizon and Research In Motion, and even third-party app stores like Handango. “It is a his­tor­i­cal busi­ness model,” notes Kevin Burden of ABI Research. Buyers are will­ing to pony up, though, because of the cachet of the Apple brand.

Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick, did I just read a quote from a “research” firm call­ing sup­ply and fuck­ing demand a “his­tor­i­cal busi­ness model.” I’m a social­ist and even I’m offended by that. Heavens fuck­ing for­bid that peo­ple pay money for things that have value. Devs, you heard it here first, your time and effort are worth exactly squat.

The next bit of inanity fol­lows the fol­lows the stan­dard Web 2.0 bull­shit meme that Google is the only busi­ness model in town.

We may find out soon, as free, ad-supported appli­ca­tions gain momen­tum. The first hand­sets run­ning Google’s Android oper­at­ing sys­tem will go on sale from T-Mobile late this year. Google won’t talk specifics about pric­ing, but some devel­op­ers expect the wid­gets that run on them to be free. “Google’s strong point is cre­at­ing inven­tory to run ads across. I’ll bet on the fact that they are going to be free,” says Buzzd co-founder Nihal Mehta.

I know that, as a user, there is noth­ing I’m look­ing for­ward to more than ads block­ing part of appli­ca­tion on that expan­sive 3.5 inch screen.

The last bit of stu­pid is per­haps the most mind-numbing of all.

If Apple ever does decide to let all iPhone apps be free, it would be a rad­i­cal depar­ture from its typ­i­cal way of doing business.

Wait, does this imbe­cile actu­ally think that Apple is demand­ing that devel­op­ers charge for their apps. That there is no way a devel­oper couldn’t choose to make their appli­ca­tion ad sup­ported if they wanted to? Can this writer actu­ally be that stu­pid that she doesn’t even know how the App Store works? Of course she can, this is Web 2.0. Accuracy isn’t impor­tant; gotta bump up that hit-count though.