Amazon App Store Fight

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So you are a developer that has an app on Amazon. As part of a "free app of the day" promotion, Amazon hands out over 100,000 copies of your app. Are you thrilled about the free exposure or are you mad you didn't get paid? I guess the bright side is that the week before the giveaway, the developer only sold 38 copies of its app, total. Now they have a lot of exposure for current / future apps. Thanks to everyone that sent this one in!

That’s right, Amazon gave away 101,491 copies of our app! At this point, we had a few seconds of excitement as well, had we mis-read the email and really earned $54,800 in one day? We would have done if our public agreement was in place, but we can now confirm that thanks to Amazon’s secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day. That’s right, over 100,000 apps given away, $0 made.
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Agreed with reading the fine print, however you would think for a targeted free daily app, Amazon would at least kick something the developers way. After all, it's advertising and driving traffic to the overall app store.
 
And they wouldn't have sold nearly that amount if it wasn't free. Thank them for the exposure and hope it bumps their sales post giveaway.
 
The dev's warning to others is a good word of caution to anyone who would be lured by Amazon's public statement of "We'll pay you 20% if you give your app away free".

While they knew the terms of the deal very shortly before their app was featured (and they discussed it internally on whether or not they should do it), they went ahead and did it just to see what would happen, despite being lured into considering the deal under false pretenses.

To try to hide the bait-and-switch, Amazon even told them that they couldn't disclose the deal publicly. Well the cat's out of the bag now. Future developers now have a case study against which they may weigh their decision.
 
The "fine print" wasn't disclosed to them until the very last stage of the deal, right before it was posted on the site. It's not so much that they're crying about Amazon screwing them, they're just telling their experience so that people can make informed decisions about the free app of the day program, because Amazon clearly doesn't want people making informed decisions about it.
 
They didn't even have their public agreement setup, who's fault is that, sure as heck ain't Amazon's.
 
They agreed to not receiving compensations...its' not like Amazon posted the app and withheld payment
 
Thanks for your response. The Free App of the Day promotion is the most valuable and visible spot in the store. It hosted the launch of the likes of Angry Birds Rio, Plants v. Zombies and more. Amazon will not receive any sales rev share from the Free App of the Day; and in fact, with as the Free of the Day for one day, you will receive a subsequent Appstore main page placement for the following 14 days.

All these highly valuable placements are at no cost to you. We want to promote your app and in exchange of the placements, at the 0% rev share for one day only.
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Main page placement for 14 days at the cost of giving away the app free for one day? I think they're more upset that the app wasn't very good. This doesn't seem fishy.
 
FREE
air conditioning in here
BEER
is very ice cold and tasty

lol :D

I think new laws should require that if an agreement/ad contains any fine print, it should be required to include a 1 page summation, and in the court of law 90% weight should be given to the summation, and 10% weight to the actual fine print. If someone refuses to read a 1 page summation, well shame on them, but some of these agreements can be pages and pages and pages long and lawyers can twist it in any real direction they want to achieve the required results.

These businesses should have to disclose their most important parts in the 1 page summation, or be at risk of having it quickly thrown out by a judge...
 
yes, they were aware, and actually had a conversation with amazon to clarify the fine print, before they accepted to have the app featured. the article isnt really about amazon screwing people in the fine print, as it is about how ethical it is to use someones work and not pay them for it.

so the question should only be:
does the exposure your app/company gets from being featured on amazon make it worth giving your app away for free?
 
I love amazon app store as a user, because I get free app each day. I get them but I dont use them. Just like collecting stuff.
 
Yeah, I have to say 14 days at the top spot in exchange for giving it away for one day isn't as bad as they are making it out to be. They just want free money because they're entitled babies.
 
100,000 freeloaders or what I like to call lazy pirates...According to these developers it was not worth the exposure and cost them more in support and new servers with very few additional sales after the free giveaway. A big win for Amazon while sticking it to the developers.
 
ballistic90 said:
Yeah, I have to say 14 days at the top spot in exchange for giving it away for one day isn't as bad as they are making it out to be. They just want free money because they're entitled babies.
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Amazon also slashed the price to 1/3 of the normal amount AND automatically takes an 80% share of sales instead of the normal 30% during that time period of "featuring", with no developer control over the matter. Yes, they did agree to it, but it is extremely bad, and non-publicly-disclosed, terms.
 
This particular shop makes their money on iOS apps, so it was worth it for them to try it out and see how it would work out.

This is more of a word of mouth to other devs to be aware that the 20% sale price you'd normally get doesn't count for Free App Of The Days. It's not listed when you submit your app that the terms change for FAD apps.

Other interesting notes are the "other" beefs with Amazon, especially the rewriting of app descriptions. That can be pretty frustrating.
 
How is this a fight exactly? Amazon did what they said they would do and the developers signed a conrtact.
 
I don't see the problem here with what Amazon did.

Amazon: We want to give away your app for a day and give you 14 days in the top spot after that, but at a discounted price.

Dev: Ok

...

Amazon: Your app was downloaded over 100k times on free app day. Good job.

Dev: Where's my money? I know I agreed to your not giving us any but I still want it. Gimme. Whaaaa.
 
ballistic90 said:
Yeah, I have to say 14 days at the top spot in exchange for giving it away for one day isn't as bad as they are making it out to be. They just want free money because they're entitled babies.
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Entitlement babies? There's no sense of entitlement in the post at all. They aren't crying about the exposure, or even the terms of agreement they signed up for. They are not asking Amazon to give them anything. They are simply venting their frustration with the process, the lack of control Amazon gives developers, the misconception Amazon gives to it's users about what happens when Amazon gives apps away for free, and the fact that the terms suck. I mean, the developer has to ask permission from Amazon to have the app removed? Wow. They don't want anything else from Amazon - they simply want out.

And what good is exposure if it doesn't result in sales? Less than ten sales a day - before AND after the event - is hardly worth giving over 100,000 copies of your app away for free.
 
TheBuzzer said:
I love amazon app store as a user, because I get free app each day. I get them but I dont use them. Just like collecting stuff.
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This is great for the user, but the last two statements you made is exactly why the developers in this post were kinda reluctant to sign up for the deal to begin with. We give our app away, lose out on revenue from the actual POTENTIAL customers, and now have to support a ton of people who don't even care about our product to begin with - and yet we received no additional revenue to help with the support.
 
I have to agree here, Amazon didn't do anything wrong.

They didn't force them to be a free app. They offered to make them the free app of the day if they waived the 20%. They discussed it internally and agreed hoping that the exposure would help them in the long run.

When they saw the 100K+ downloads they had buyers remorse. The idea they somehow lost $54,000 from the agreement is laughable. Especially considering that the previous week had them selling less than 40 copies.

I'm not sure what they expected when they agreed. Frankly, this kinds seems like a publicity play on the developers part.

If Amazon does have any faults here, it's because they don't have a quick and easy way for developers to remove their apps from the store.
 
Amazon is in the wrong when they first announce that they'll give devs 20% of the app price on free apps and then tell devs they won't pay them anything. This is totally contradictory.

The lesson learned is that devs should submit only feature or time limited versions of their app for Free App of the Day, without any support of any kind. Something that is free for customers should not cost the devs a cent either, like extra support hardware or time.
 
Chimel said:
Amazon is in the wrong when they first announce that they'll give devs 20% of the app price on free apps and then tell devs they won't pay them anything. This is totally contradictory.

The lesson learned is that devs should submit only feature or time limited versions of their app for Free App of the Day, without any support of any kind. Something that is free for customers should not cost the devs a cent either, like extra support hardware or time.
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How do you give someone 20% of a $0 sale?
 
Amazon did nothing wrong, and the devs agreed to it all, but reading their post I can see that other devs wouldn't get real excited about working with Amazon.

I had to laugh at the devs complaining they had to buy new hardware to support all the new users. Only an idiot would allow an app to be given away for free if they knew it would increase their cost to support the new users.
 
They could have NOT listed their app, and then no problem. Honestly, All the apps I have gotten in Free app of the Day other than Jog tracker I would have never bought. Jog Tracker I bought before it was featured.
 
Amazon did compensate them. 100,000 people have the app now. If it's a good app, some of those people will tell friends that the app was good and they will pay for the app.

Deal with it.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
How do you give someone 20% of a $0 sale?
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Is this sarcasm? The terms stated 20% of the app's normal pricing, when given away as a free app of the day, publicly. The sale price is not the same thing as the freebie giveaway ;).
 
GoldenTiger said:
Is this sarcasm? The terms stated 20% of the app's normal pricing, when given away as a free app of the day, publicly. The sale price is not the same thing as the freebie giveaway ;).
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Do you have a link to the terms, by any chance?
 
GoldenTiger said:
Is this sarcasm? The terms stated 20% of the app's normal pricing, when given away as a free app of the day, publicly. The sale price is not the same thing as the freebie giveaway ;).
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Amazon is also fully in its rights to negotiate the terms. The developers agree to the terms before they were made a "free app."

They also maintain that it hurt sales, but honestly, I don't see the evidence given the numbers they posted. The order amounts they list are:

0, 2, 2, 14, 20, 101491, 16, 18, 5, 7, 8, 1, 6, 6, ......

They had an increase of almost 50% in orders in the 5 days following the listing than they had the 5 days before. The fact that sales continually declined over the remainder of the 14 day "sale price" and "top apps" rankings can mean that there wasn't much desire to buy the app in the first place.

What happened was, this guy was shocked at the number of downloads and feels like he was ripped off. In his own words
A heated debate broke out in our office about whether we should or not. I was firmly against, my business partner for. In the end we agreed that we had entered the world of Android development as an experiment, and it would seem silly not to add more data to the experiment we were conducting
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So, he didn't want to do it, but was talked into it. In the end, he and is partner agreed. That puts the blame firmly on his own shoulders.

He then had the double whammy of not expecting that kind of response and wasn't ready for it with support or infrastructure. ie, they didn't plan for potential outcomes.

He is just bitter.

I'm not sure what he expected. Amazon is a major, international retail presence. Of course there were going to be a ton of people trying a free application.
 
There's too many of these app monkeys trying to land golden tickets these days, kind of funny that they can crank out paid apps but can't read contracts correctly.
 
griffinhart said:
Amazon is also fully in its rights to negotiate the terms. The developers agree to the terms before they were made a "free app."
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I wasn't saying they didn't know what they were getting into or were even "wronged", I was saying the terms they offer privately appear to suck compared to what they proclaim they will provide publicly.
 
fps4ever said:
100,000 freeloaders or what I like to call lazy pirates...According to these developers it was not worth the exposure and cost them more in support and new servers with very few additional sales after the free giveaway. A big win for Amazon while sticking it to the developers.
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Freeloaders?
Lazy pirates?

If you don't want your app to be given away for free, DON'T ACCEPT TO PUT IT UP FOR FREE.

And no, if Amazon sent them the proper contract in time, they read it, discussed it and accepted it, they did not stick anything into anyone. If you don't know if the potential of giving away 1 product freely is worth the publicity gain for possible future products, then either don't accept it, or suck it up as the experiment they admitted that it was.

The blame lays squarely on them for accepting the contract while never even giving the thought of a "worst case scenario".
 
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