Totally agree, we should all start charging. As a user, I've become ridiculously cheap. And it's not the price, it's how the ecosystem has evolved. I'm used to free apps now. We need to get people to be used to paying for apps. Not easy though, will only work if everyone starts doing it...

I find lack of a demo makes me avoid paying for things.

If there's a demo/lite version, I always buy the app if it's something I use even occasionally.

I've been thinking the same thing for a while. The simplest argument in favour would be that people would immediately be much more careful in their selection. If I have to fork out money, I'm definitely not going to pick the buggy / low quality / app with dodgy permissions to the system, uses my location andor other data for ads revenue /etc. It means those apps wont have an audience and die off, because there's no incentive. And we'll all be better off...Not?

I'm so sick of all the crap that is out there, I wish I can just pay a fair amount and get an app that gets close to what I need, is of quality and without hidden agendas and issues.

Free is a funny thing, people's behaviour and expectations go out of whack. Even $0.99 is better than free. It's often better than $9.99 also. Free makes that people expect everything to be free, even quality software.

Quality software is hard to create. You cannot hold it to a developer if he gave it to you for free; he has no reason to really make it good...If you haven't actually put out software at a price, then you don't have first-hand experience of the responsibility it puts on you. The responsibility we need to create a better (app) world.

And if you want to throw the open-source argument, just remember free and open-source is not the same thing. If you're confused go read The Free Software Definition: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

I agree with previous comments, there should be atleast a trial period, I need to be able to figure out if this app will meet my needs.

I think its fine the way it is. I've paid for some truly awful apps and regretted it. If I can download an app, get a feel for it, like it, then upgrade the basic features in it then I'm a happy customer. rather than having spent $7 on something I'll never use again and be bitter about paying for. (I can't really be bitter about wasting 69p but that does add up to quite a large amount after a while!)

There's a crappy trend of releasing free games on the basis that you need to pay for gold/coins/credits to progress. This totally ruins the game for me. I would rather pay for a full game then the pay-for-progress model. In this case it isn't even about the money. It just ruins the experience for me because the game has a built-in cheat. You give money, the game becomes easy and you complete it.

As a consumer i prefer buying apps. It gives the developer a better financial incentive to improve the product, plus i feel great since not only have i helped someone, i'm also going to get something which USUALLY works better than something just given away.

Direct payment is not the only way to let customers pay for apps.

I pay for Google search with my permission to show me advertising. That is also payment, just a different kind.

I do not pay money for my desktop or my mobile operating system. Those are apps too, and the companies that invest in these systems do so mostly for commercial reasons. Great apps, but no direct payment.

"How much would you pay for a great news app?"

Depends on demand and supply.

Apps market is completely full. There is much more offer than demand/need. Once "supports" are broken, in this case, when people get used not to pay, to make them pay again, something must change (offer, demand, rules). I'm an architect (real architect , not IT) and in this market it happens the same, people are not paying anymore for ideas, they only pay for project drawings. The competition (offer) is too high, if you don't do it somebody will.

This would be great, but would never work. Unless you are working on some incredibly small niche OR your app is miles and miles ahead of the competition, people will gladly (read: stupidly) download a worse app for free rather than pay a small amount.

Also, this would be collusion at some level, woudn't it? :)