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Ask HN: Why are font licenses for apps ~10x more expensive than web?

3 points by emhart ↗ HN
I only have a handful of examples, but I'm seeing $15 fonts licensed at $150 for embedding in applications, $100 font families licensed at $1000 for applications, etc.

Conversely, print vs. web licenses tend to remain quite even.

As much as I am bummed to be priced out of some of my favorite font options, I'm more curious about the disparity than anything. Does anyone here have any insight?

2 comments

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benologist
Because apps can charge $1 per person, websites usually can't.
meerita
Fonts business today is like paid shareware was to software in the past: a fabulous middleman idea that in that time was the abusive form of business than later became obsolete when new disruptive ways came in. They use senseless, really high cost licenses, most of them inspired in the analog world that doesn't fit in the internet era. Right now people may pay, but they will not in the future. Probably, the first thing you will see from this services is making cheap all the stuff progressively until renting individually isn't profitable anymore. At the end they're all will be free and we will pay only the delivery.

These services are just a masquerade for the same senseless business model: being intermediate, suck a big part of the artists work and that's all.