“There's no such thing as bad PR”.

Well, you have to consider the average customers of iPhone apps and the average quality over price of iPhone apps.

A mobile iFart or hot girls app that cost 99 cents might get lots of good reviews, when it's still on the top list. Even though you should know that it's a useless and a very simple app. Most of the cost of investment is only spent on the graphics and audio.
Meanwhile, an app that cost more than a buck, and it has a bit more usable and long term value in it will get lots of bad reviews over some flaws, because of its slightly higher price.

Price is just not equal to the efforts required to make them.

What I want to know now is, did anyone actually buy the said app this weekend? Priceless…

I have no problem with it if prices need to move upwards to sustain good developers and good apps. Just firmly believe this sort of approach does not help move anything forward.

I agree that there is probably at least an element of 'PR stunt' – but it is still absurd to me that mocking your customers is considered good PR.

I've worked as a bartender in the past, and in tech support and network support for many years, so lots of customer facing roles – not sure how a cafe is any great world apart. There are plenty of jobs where dealing with users / customers can be frustrating at times – but still, there is not a single one of them I can think of where any sort of intelligent management would endorse publicly berating them.

I wish I had 3400 people providing feed back on any of my apps.

For the record I'm amazed at how cheap things are going for in the store currently, and I do not think the low prices can be sustained.

Name one industry that you don't have to deal with "morons". People as a whole are stupid, because they are uninformed. That is why they are communicating with the business. They want clarity. This is the one of the few places customers would tolerate being called an moron and come back and help make that developer a load of cash..

Everyone is trying to make a buck. I don't fault the devs if they make a load of cash. That is why they are making apps, and I can already tell you this "protest" will profit them nicely on Monday. Just like I don't fault the devs for making a grip of cash, I don't fault the end user for trying to save a buck. Because quite honestly there is an upswing in app pricing (.99 is becoming more of a sale price) the consumer is not just trying to save one dollar, they are trying to get control of the market. Same goes for Tweetie 2, the consumer is use to devs putting out updates and features and they want to make sure the market doesn't trend toward leaving the features out for new versions. I think the market is going in the right direction myself. I wouldn't want to see it get above the $5 level, but that is me.

Here is what's funny. Back in the WM days apps were between 10-30 bucks. Small devs struggled and large devs did alright. But now that apps are averaging between 1-10 bucks devs are making a killing in comparison. Even though this dev has made more money than ever before, they are acting like "whining morons" because they don't understand or know why 3,400 people a month are complaining about prices and are tired of taking the time to provide customer service. BTW 90% customer service is answering "stupid moronic questions" If this is truly a noble move then put of a FAQ page and an automated email and send you customers to it. Hire a service to field the support calls. Donate all the money you are about to make to a charity. Yea, I didn't think so.

One is elasticity of demand, and the second is whether there are any externalities from pricing your app at a very low price, such as word of mouth effects or getting a big bump in sales from making the Top 25, Top 50, Top 100 list.

Another consideration, especially on BlackBerry and Android stores is the number of people you have to support…seems like there always questions, always issues with device settings, etc…at 99 cents, if there's one inquiry, you lose money on that app sale…

The App Store is the place where consumers are very spoiled. I don't really think this kind of act by the devs will really stop people from buying the app. They will just wait until the price go down. It will go down eventually.

True. The approach by the dev probably wasn't the wisest – but look at the coverage he's gotten! Perhaps should have had a weekend sale, make some money, and then re-raise the price. Clearly, money wasn't the motivating factor here. Principles were, evidently.

Apps are priced very low, especially in comparison to other platforms. I have no great problem with it if as the market shakes out, prices go up. And you're right – I wouldn't tend to be firing off an email or snail mail note to anyone at Target about their pricing levels, or to individual product manufacturers. For me, that's not the point though. The point is if I did, or certainly if 3,400 individuals did, I would never, ever expect the response from a business to be like this.

My point is that these apps that are in the app store are WAY below what years past have brought it. IMO, if the game isn't worse the 3 or 4 bucks, don't buy it. If you see something in Target or Macy's, and you disagree with the price – do you email the maker of the product and complain? No. You wait for the price to drop, you don't buy it, or you cough up the money and buy it anyway. Choose one of those option, IMO.