The "user-developer gap" myth

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

The Apple II Mail Group writes ...

 ....
>>
I thought I would comment here about the essay on the "State of the Apple
II." I believe there is a serious gap between end users and developers,
<<

     Well, there certainly has been a major gap between Apple II users and a
few developers. On the other hand, most active developers get along fine with
users.

     Here is a listing of a few along with recent products/upgrades
announced:


Teodor Angeloff- Apple II Oasis v2.4

Jesse Blue (NinjaForce)- Asimov2, NinjaForce Assembler

Beverly Cadieux- Appleworks and ProSel updates

Peter Koch- unix-based A2 emulator

Andy McFadden- Nulib2

Steven W. Mentzer- XGS/32 IIgs emulator

Ron Kneusel- DSK2FILE v5.7f

Jonathan Schattke- AppleWin v1.11.B

Eric A. Seiden (DAR Systems)- ProLine 3.1 

Mike Westerfield (Byte Works)- GSoft BASIC v1.2.0


The list would be longer; but, these are examples which were easiest to find
via a few simple newsgroup scans.


     Other developers and budding developers who regularly participate in
Csa2 discussions without any "gap" include Paul Guertin, Jerry Kendall, Rudy
Guy, Phoenyx, Paul Schlyter, Boris Guenter, Jon Bettencourt, ... 

     Meanwhile, you can count up developers with a real "user gap" problem on
the fingers of one hand.

     The so-called "gap" between developers and users is a myth.



>>
but it is not for the reasons given in the article.
<<

     Naturally.


>>
That article states, "Selling 40 copies of a product is now considered a
success. Selling 60 copies is a smash hit." This surprises me and is not
true.

I easily sell many hundreds of copies of disks containing my original
software (AppleWorks-related patches, TimeOut accessories, etc.)  as soon as
they come out. ..And not just to my subscribers; we have buyers from all
sorts of Apple II resources. The problem is not that the users are not buying
because they don't buy anything. It's more likely because the users simply
don't know what's available.
<<
 ....

     In general, agree. Minor league marketing constitutes a major factor.
Additional significant factors are ...

o- Price: We can talk about time invested, etc. until Hell freezes and the
bottom line will be the same.  No one is going to sell many copies of any
piece of Apple II software (with, maybe, one exception) for more than $25--
and even $25 equates to a pretty heavy-duty package. Just about all current
software is over-priced.

o- Appeal: A number of recent commercial releases have very limited appeal.
Until there is a significant upgrade to IIgs hardware, very few users are
going to care about accessing the net using an Apple II.

o- PR: For years, a small clique has tried to sell the notion that some elite
group of developers creates Everything-- obviously not true-- and that
developers view users as clods and pirates-- possibly still true for a few
developers. Unfortunately, enough users believe this part of the myth to have
an impact on sales. People don't like or trust sellers who, they believe, are
calling them "pirates" for downloading ancient software.



Rubywand