Just because developers have been treated as a commodity it doesn't mean we are. Sure I don't feel so. Do you? Anyway, we have to change this as it is not right. We put a lot of effort to make good software, and cutting each others throats in a mindless price war isn't going to pay anyone's bills.
What you find unsurprising and good for consumers is extremely bad for developers. The AppStore Price Wars Attack of the Clones was catalyzed by basic naïveté towards widely known business practices. Worst, we could've fixed it by reading some business books before committing to such low price tiers. But, unfortunately the damage is done.
It is inconsistent with our intellects that we developers behave like mindless monkeys. Also, unacceptable is the fact that any guy selling bananas at any given farmers market understands more about pricing, and the facts of microeconomics, than most of us. This should've been fixed in the universities, but even so there's time for that.
I'm not proposing price fixing as that's immoral, and against law. What I'm stading for instead is for us as a community to start behaving more intelligently regarding business matters. Also, I crave for us developers to value more the sweat and tears we put into our craft.
Programs aren't just code, instead they're the materialization of our ideas through hard work. I think that worthy more than a buck.
How I feel has little to do with how markets work.
Putting a lot of effort into something means nothing. I can spend days digging a hole with a lot of effort and then someone with a digger does it in one hour. The only metric that matters is what buyers are willing to pay.
I'm curious what you have in mind when saying "more intelligently regarding business matter"?
As an aside: I always find it slightly offensive when someone speaks for me by using "we", "us" or "our". I may or may not share your opinions but I'd rather speak for myself.
Too bad you felt offended by my use of pronouns since I evidently wasn't speaking about you. Just because you're a developer doesn't mean you're the representation of an entire group.
Perhaps you never heard about Behavioral Economics [1], and that's why you quickly dismissed your feelings from this subject. Nonetheless people's feelings play an important part on how the markets are played.
I understand you're curious to learn about my views on business, but first you need to understand more about emotions, without it you're a dead duck. Sorry as I can't give you a link or recommend a book to help you out here. But you can always go out and interact with real people, be openharted, and try to learn from them.
Are you proposing devs stop competing and fix prices in order to keep our jobs? (I am a developer)