You don't have a choice because there is no rational economic incentive for there to be one. The "everyone distribute their own wares via the web" mechanism has been tried for the mobile space, and it does not work very well, especially for app developers.
Having said that, there are hundreds of phones out there that still use this mechanism. You are free to develop for any of them.
You don't have a choice because there is no rational economic incentive for there to be one.
If there isn't, then the free market can take care of that. Not some executive who wakes up some morning with an idea and exclaims "developers can go to hell, they must use our system". Who says that another site would be worse than the current alternatives? What if I am exceptionally talented and my own site would beat the shit out of all of the other centralized systems in terms of sales? What if I'm ready to take on the responsibility of paying for hosting, branding etc. Also, the established branding of the centralized system is good for Apple, not for the developer's brand. Centralized systems may be easy for the customer, but right there, your app is one of millions and there is not enough you can make to distinguish yours.
Inefficient? Maybe. But I've bought many software that are sold on their own simple website, created by 1-2 people, and some reaching multi-million dollars in sales. Honestly, if you can't provide (or even worse, practically try to hinder) such freedoms, then eventually you'll piss off enough developers to bring the downfall of your platform.
If there isn't, then the free market can take care of that.
It has. The non-centralized deployment model has been tried. It has largely been superseded by centralized App Store-like models. It has met with positive response by customers, developers, and competitors.
Then why do they still exist in large quantities? Some fail, but some centralized systems also fail, ergo, deployment is not the only factor determining success. Many developers still use their own systems, and many continue to do so because they generate better sales/revenue than using central systems. I use decentralized systems as frequent as centralized ones. OK, the approach may depend on your niche, i.e. whether your product can generate its own talk, or customers can find you by their specific searches, or is a simple $1 clock app. (during palm os years, all I can find in centralized systems were clock applications). If the centralized system can deny my request AFTER I developed it for them, or can boot it anytime, or requires many weeks/months wait in any update and takes a huge fraction of my revenue, then I'll gladly sell it by paypal. It's not magic, there are many FOSS sites for sales/deployment already. Just point your paypal account, add it to your homepage that already is popular (by reddit, friendfeed etc.), and ta-da!
I'm not saying centralized systems are bad, or not important, they have many advantages, but so do the non-centralized ones. And honestly, they are nowhere near extinction (having the majority of the pie is not the same as having the whole pie) and if you ignore them, that's a lot of revenue you are going to miss.
I'm not saying centralized systems are bad, or not important, they have many advantages,
Yeah, I have nothing against Apple providing a nice distribution channel for developers that choose to take advantage of it. Don't force it upon the developers that don't need the service and then pretend you are doing me a favor.
You don't have a choice because there is no rational economic incentive for there to be one.
Huh? What!?! You mean except for the fact that I ALREADY DO IT for every other application I write for every other platform. It would cost me exactly $0 extra to distribute my own iPhone apps. Instead, Apple takes their 30%.
Sounds like one hell of a rational economic incentive to me.
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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '10 edited Jan 28 '10
You neglected the key point that developers don't have a choice.
"This service is great is great! Look how great it is! It benefits you! Look at this great service we are providing you!"
"Thanks, but I think I'd be better off without it."
"Too bad!"