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0 pointsfiloleg5y ago0 comments

>I've been wondering about why the Mac seems to have a fairly healthy market for small software. It surprises me that Windows, being a much larger market, seems to have fewer opportunities for indie devs.

I think it comes down to the target audience. Of course both Mac and Windows have their fair share of users across all categories. However, it seems that, in the US, most devs and enthusiasts prefer to use Mac/Linux, while Windows is used a lot by gamers/office workers/etc. (not alleging that enthusiasts and devs don't use Windows, far from it, just talking comparatively). Given the price of an average Mac being higher than a Windows machine, it would also be fair to suggest that Mac users, on average, tend to have more disposable income as well.

With this in mind, it makes sense that the platform with more devs with more disposable income would be a better target to sell niche indie software as well.

For a similar phenomenon, look up the breakdown of earnings from apps on iOS vs. Android. There are plenty of analysis on this over the years, so here is a recent article I just found as an example[0]. Not even diving into the actual revenue per user or per app, iOS apps generated overall almost twice the revenue of Android apps in Q3 of 2019 (using numbers from the article I found), despite there being more of both Android users in the world and Android apps on the store. My reasoning as to "why" boils down to a simple guess that whichever device has more users with higher disposable income is the one that is gonna bring the developer more revenue.

0.https://www.techaheadcorp.com/blog/android-vs-ios/#:~:text=A....

0 comments

skinnymuch5y ago

I thought perhaps better curated listings, better communities, blogs, et al could be what could get Windows software to sell better. Especially like productivity and other sort of loved ones that have a consistent market with indie Mac Devs.

But Android I believe has all of the above like Mac and iOS do. Yet as you say, Android lags behind.

I need to check the article. Wouldn’t the sheer number of Android users mean there are enough of them with high disposable income? I’d think there’d be more (outside the US, UK, Canada markets)

criddell5y ago

> Given the price of an average Mac being higher than a Windows machine, it would also be fair to suggest that Mac users, on average, tend to have more disposable income as well.

I don't think it means much to talk about averages when the Windows market is so much larger. There are plenty of Windows gamers who spend thousands on their machines. There are also plenty of highly paid developers and white collar workers who primarily use Windows. So I don't think there's a shortage of Windows users who could buy indie software, but for some reason they don't.

So I don't think it's a financial reason. Maybe it's cultural? Maybe Mac users enjoy their computers more than Windows users and aren't afraid to pay a little bit more to make it even better. Mac users picked the minority platform whereas Windows is the default and people who don't care about computers end up on the default platform.

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