With a few exceptions, we’ve noticed a trend regarding Mac software. The prices are going up. There’s still plenty of value, and software has improved in usability in recent years, but the trend is unmistakable.

The Mac’s market is growing rapidly which increases the number of software users who want more from their Macs. Software developers are happy to oblige and produce even more titles in a competitive market.

That’s good for Mac users, right? After all, there’s plenty of freeware and open source software available, too. Think of the many Mac browsers available, all of them very good, and few of them have a price tag.

One of the most popular Internet functions to become available in recent years is RSS. Mac360 touted the benefits of an RSS news feeds, and an RSS reader for Mac users many years ago. These little utilities gather news headlines and summaries from many web sites and bring them to a single location on your Mac.

With Apple’s Safari web browser, users have a simple way to gather RSS news feeds right inside the browser, making web site headlines and summaries just a few clicks away.

Among the many RSS readers available for Mac users, we’ve touted the open source Vienna, the highly acclaimed NewsFire, and one of the earlier news readers, NetNewsWire.

Vienna is free, though it lacks many of the features and glitzy look and feel of the commercial Mac RSS readers. Did I say ‘commercial’ RSS news readers? That’s changed.

A few months ago, NewsGator, the publisher of the very popular, feature-laden NetNewsWire decided to provide the utility for free. Free. No real strings attached. Download it. Use it.

Having the most popular of anything suddenly become free has an impact on competing products. Remember Microsoft’s Internet Explorer? It was free. That made it difficult for Netscape to compete in a not-very-open market and the browser capabilities suffered under Microsoft’s dominance.

But free is good, right? Apple provides a very capable suite of applications in every Mac-- iLife ‘08. Are they really ’free‘? You have to buy a Mac to get iLife or you have to shell out $79 to get the upgraded versions. Free becomes a relative term.

NetNewsWire was and remains the most popular RSS reader among Mac users (if our own site’s stats are any indication), so what is NewsGator’s incentive to continue to develop the product?

And what about competitors such as David Watanabe’s popular NewsFire?

It’s a tough business. Over the weekend Watanabe made NewsFire available for free. No strings. No nagware. No ads. Dowload it. Use it. It’s free.

The price of some excellent Mac software dropped from modest beyond nominal and all the way to free. What is the impact for Mac users? What will happen to further development of both NewsFire and NetNewsWire? What is the incentive for a software developer to continue to develop these applications? What happens to other RSS software?

Apple did the logical thing by including a modest but capable RSS reader in Safari, though features are limited, and paltry compared to the standalone readers, the price is really, really right, and a good way for new users to get into an RSS world.

Without a commercial incentive for continued development will either RSS reader be available for future Mac users?

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

Off Topic #6 - The MacHeist is back. In case you missed it a few months ago, MacHeist is a great way for Mac users to get 12 top Mac applications and utilities for $49. Many of these have been reviewed on Mac360, so we highly recommend that you take a look. The value, what you get for what you pay, is remarkable. Click Here to look, buy, download.

Off Topic #58 - Do politicians use personal computers? Of course. We’ve heard Barack Obama prefers a Mac, while Hillary Clinton uses a Dell, though, apparently neither of the candidates can bowl. Does Obama’s potential vice president use a Mac? Even Clinton acknowledges Apple’s brand power but says she can’t afford a Mac. Maybe she’d win if she used a Mac.

• Article by Ron McElfresh • Published on Monday, March 3, 2008
• Category: News & Commentary • 6 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now

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Readers Talk Back:

frozilla says:

Of course they will be “available”. One could easily argue that they will be more available. As for the “impact to mac users”, the answer is simply that neither of these fine products are likely to have significant (or any) upgrades in the future. While on the surface, this conclusion might seem sad, I don’t really think it is. I like NetNewsWire a lot, and I really don’t want it turning into some sort of Microsoft Word bloatware in some unending competition with a primary rival as they fight for more dollars offering me essentially the same product over and over again. I would far rather software companies get their products to a certain point and then only address bug fixes, thus allowing the company to focus on some new product.

— Posted on Wed Mar 05 at 11:30 am by frozilla

MacSheikh says:

@ Mr SWDev

Don’t be an idiot. Read the article properly before posting your nonsense.

— Posted on Tue Mar 04 at 6:39 am by MacSheikh

mad jack says:

I wouldn’t take the software offered by some mac developers if they paid me. If the products are great people will buy them, if they are second rate as is the case with most third party mac products then nobody will buy them.

— Posted on Tue Mar 04 at 4:40 am by mad jack

Captain America says:

There’s plenty of good software for the Mac that is totally free, many of which I read about here on Mac 360. Thanks for the tips.

Apple has probably harmed some developers with their “free” software on the Mac, but Apple is in business to make money, too. Without a financially health Apple, we all suffer.

You’re right that some software development probably suffers when the competition is completely free. There is not much competition for iPhoto or GarageBand or iTunes, right?

— Posted on Mon Mar 03 at 4:27 pm by Captain America

willis_the_cheap says:

I use some Mac software that’s free, though most of it is open sourced and has an active development community. You’re right that once commercial software becomes free there is little incentive for continued improvements and I fear that may happen to the RSS readers for Mac.

— Posted on Mon Mar 03 at 4:03 pm by willis_the_cheap

Mr SWDev says:

How are software developers supposed to educate their children, pay their mortgages? I wonder if you draw a salary or have a contractual arrangement with 360? Your requiring the site to run the annoying ads! Why don’t you run an editorial about why the web would be better off if you did withour your paycheck!

If software developers can charge a reasonable fee for their work then progress can be made on new and better versions, customers can be supported. This whole notion of ‘free’ as in no cost is a permutation of the original intent of ‘free’ as in open…

The discusssion should be ‘value’ based? Wouldn’t be better if Starbucks coffee was free? The market is a mechanism for establishing value.

Stop with this site’s never ending tirade that somehow software is exempt from having a price attached to it. Software developers have families and costs just like you and everyone else!

Editor’s Note: This was obviously not a tirade, but a voiced concern that free is not always good, either for Mac users, or Mac software developers. There are lots of words on the web, so pay close attention to what you read. What part of this obvious concern did you not understand from the concluding question?

“Without a commercial incentive for continued development will either RSS reader be available for future Mac users?”

Sorry to disappoint you, but the writers of Mac360 do not ‘draw a salary.’ Life should be so good to us. Our venture is a labor of love. We run ads to help pay for server hosting and bandwidth costs, and contest prizes for Forums users.

— Posted on Mon Mar 03 at 3:34 pm by Mr SWDev

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