Swedish tech blog Royal Pingdom has posted an article about piracy in the Android community that Google should take note of. In the article, they bring up the point that, while Android phones are available in approximately 46 countries, in only 13 of those countries are you able buy apps in the marketplace. This is incredibly low compared to, say, the iPhone, which has paid apps supported in 90 countries. Sweden, being one of the countries left out, has made it so that this blogger for RP has seen just how hard it is to live the straight life… and still pimp out his phone.
We all like free, right? But the reality is that it can be bad news for developers if that mentality goes too far.
If Google doesn’t quickly make it possible for users in more countries to easily pay for apps, the company may create a long-term problem. People in those countries will simply get used to pirating their apps. They will get used to all Android apps being “free.”
So what happens once these users finally have proper access to paid apps? Sure, some of them will be paying, if nothing else because it’s more convenient, but the risk is that a significant portion of users will not like the idea of suddenly paying for something that so far has been available at no cost. Google will effectively have created “pirates” out of people who may otherwise not have gone down that route.
To say that this would severely hinder Android developers from making a living is an understatement.
Now, I think between the recent growth we’ve seen in Android’s market share and the announcements Adobe has made about Air, getting developers to work with Android shouldn’t be a huge issue. This is something that Google should address, though. Between the upcoming launch of Windows Phone 7 and the lawsuits filed by Oracle, Google hasn’t won the crown just yet. No reason for a good thing to die because it was too pirate friendly. I still weep for my Dreamcast.
[via Royal Pingdom]
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