Apps, 80/20.

I'd done it in a post here, but thought I'd redo the math with the latest numbers Apple gave.

Announced at WWDC today, 900,000 apps, with $10 Billion paid to developers.  That works out to $11,111 per app.  But I can tell you that not every app gets that!  Using the 80/20 rule, 20% of the apps would get 80% of the money.  That seems more likely.

So 180,000 apps share 8 Billion, for an average of $44,444 per app.  (With the sad other 720,000 sharing $2 Billion and making $2,777 for their average.  That seems more like it.)

Applying the 80/20 rule over and over, so at each level 20% of the apps get 80% of the money...
900,000 share $10,000,000,000 for $11,111 each
180,000 share $8,000,000,000 for $44,444 each
36,000 share $6,400,000,000 for $177,778 each
7,200 share $5,120,000,000 for $711,111 each
1,440 share $4,096,000,000 for $2,844,444 each
288 share $3,276,800,000 for $11,377,778 each
58 share $2,621,440,000 for $45,511,111 each
12 share $2,097,152,000 for $182,044,444 each

So you've got to be in about the top 0.8% of apps to start getting close to $1 million.  And the very top apps make a lot!  The top ~0.16% sharing 40% of the total App Store profits.


(And applying just once more on the lower side, the bottom 80% sharing the bottom 20%: 576,000 sharing $400 million, for $695 per app.  Which seems about right.)

Movies@Home

We watched one of the "now in theaters" movies they have thru Comcast's On Demand service.  They usually cost a bit more ($9.99) than renting those that are out on DVD ($5.99).  But they're all independent type movies that aren't in wide release, and not big release movies.

How much would we be willing to pay to watch a current big movie?  Iron Man 3 has been out in theaters a few weeks now.  How much might we pay to watch that tonight at home?  I'd easily pay $25 to watch it at home tonight.  Less than what it would cost for us to go out, maybe pay for parking, and pay the excessive price for movie snacks compared to what we have at home.

I think $25 is the sweet spot.  $35+ we'd maybe do it if friends were coming over, but almost never for the 2 of us to watch at home.