Why don't we get an App store?

[BigBenAussie]

An app store is a relatively easy thing to create. That is not a problem.

There are a number of problems in sustaining a viable Amiga software market.
To have a market, which promotes commercial quality software development, we need a larger user base to warrant development costs.
Aminet, OS4Depot, Morphzone and the AROS Archives, while extremely useful and necessary at this point, effectively detract from a commercial app store.
The current AmigaOS4 hardware is too expensive to provide significant growth in the user base.
MorphOS users are only in a slightly better position in terms of hardware accessibility, but will inevitably hit a roadblock with Mac hardware.
AROS users typically want their apps to be not only open source but free.
68k users are in decline, although Minimig and Natami have the potential to hold that steady.
The propensity towards free open source ports limits the viability of new Amiga dedicated software development.

Apps that support all Amiga&alike platforms may be limited to the lowest common denominator, but would have access the the super-set of these user bases.

Taking it further, Apps/games, based on a cross platform toolkit, which aside from Amiga compatibility, can provide executables for iPhone/iPad, Windows, MacOS and Linux have an even greater chance of commercial success by leveraging these larger user bases.

I see a requirement for cross platform software architectures, if a developer is to have any chance of making their development costs back.

I am currently working full time on such a platform agnostic application architecture, but out of necessity, I am focused on those other platforms first.

[BigBenAussie]

@cgutjahr

About the last thing the Amiga needs is an "app store". Instead of encouraging more commercialisation - which in our case just means one more round of milking the few remaining enthusiasts - we should encourage more open source development.

And kill for all time any possibility of a commercial incentive to create Amiga&alike specific applications. There is no incentive now, no userbase, nothing that could entice a developer other than love for the platform. It is not outside the realm of possibility that this could change and a developer could make money from an Amiga&alike product. In an ideal world this should be the norm rather than the exception. It should be a goal worth striving for as it is the only way to advance the platform significantly. I am not a raving fanboy that believes Amiga will take over the world any time soon, but believe in a strategy that should improve the applications situation immensely.

Tell me, why shouldn't an Amiga developer make a buck, especially if they deserve it, in furthering the platform? The Apple app-store and its proliferation of apps is often seen as the yardstick of success against other mobile platforms. It has made the iPhone platform the success it is, and any such endeavour catering to Amiga&alike platforms in the same fashion, could likely do the same thing.

Indeed, I would be a proponent of an app-store that collects a fee, even on free software, giving the possibility for the user to assign that fee to a particular bounty. Money is the only thing that is going to take Amiga&alike software to the next level. If you want free software perhaps AROS is your best bet, but if you're running a commercial Amiga&alike system, then it stands to reason that you would be supportive of commercial quality software.

You want to encourage open-source application development, which is your perogative, but you know most of that is going to come from Linux, and if all you wanted was Linux apps, then I'm at a loss to explain why you'd be using an Amiga&alike. I am not against open source perse, rather the reliance on it for everything.