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I'm nearing feature completion of a command-line tool that I hope will enable me to pay my rent myself. There are many services that provide online stores; which would be the best for me?
I expect to provide installers for .deb and .rpm Linuxes (Linuces?), *BSD, Mac OS X and Windows. The user will select the platform, pay then download the installer.
I expect I'll provide a time-limited demo.
It won't have DRM as I'm convinced someone would just crack it. And really DRM sounds like a PITA from my perspective. The product will be inexpensive; I have the hope that most people would rather pay than have to figure out how to download a "liberated" product.
The eCommerce services I've checked out so far enable the sale of physical products as well as Software as a Service.
I am less concerned with the cost of my store provided I can still make a profit.
I'm not going to sell it through Apple's App Store because I don't want to deal with the sandbox. I expect most of my users will be comfortable with command-lines; I don't forsee them wanting to shop at the App Store.
I hope to go Alpha in a week.
[In consideration of other Soylentils who may have a product with a GUI, or even this submitter should they decide to add one, what other store(s) would you recommend? -Ed.]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:20PM
What command line tool could be created in 2016 that has any value? It must be some highly specialized niche product. I would suggest looking where products in that niche are distributed. If your niche is comfortable with command-line tools (software developers, scientists, etc) do they buy command-line programs at app stores? I guess you've done market research, but outside of Linux users (who don't buy things at app stores), the main command-line users are Apple users, so excluding yourself from their store is probably going to limit the viability of your product. As Windows expands its command-line tools, it will be more viable, but it's hard to not go to major platforms.
If this is a niche tool that fills a real need, you might be better off doing a patronage-style campaign through Kickstarter or one of its many imitators - ask people in the niche to pay up front to have the tool developed, and if they need it they'll pay. Once it's developed, upload it to github or source forge and move on to the next tool. Up-front revenues for a real need are more realistic than trying to protect software to have a trickle of residuals. You haven't released this yet, so release some mockups and say it's 80% done and you'll have it done as soon as you get funding for the last 20%.
Also look at spinoffs like teaching people how to use this tool to kick off revenues from, say, YouTube hits. That would probably be more viable if you have a thriving niche community than selling command-line software. Write a book - PACKT will apparently publish anything, and even O'Reilly isn't picky these days. This won't sell much, but technologies get bona fides if they have a book with an animal on the cover.
And I hope your rent is low!
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 5, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:26PM
One that automates the creation of pizza rolls?
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(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:58PM
No, that's not useful. Unless you mean Hot Pockets?
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:05PM
GCC is a command line tool and it has great value, but it's value has already been recouped many times over in decades past in previous implementations of compilers, when compilers were new and mysterious. Now compilers are free as in speech and beer. They are no longer novel and mysterious. Do not discount MDC's tool just because it has a CLI.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].