I'm having a hard time finding a part of this post that I agree with. I understand and also think there is a problem making an apples to apples comparison of digital and real goods, but let me step through these arguments:
"Fact: Starbucks Coffee is a Trustable Experience"
So the argument here is that brand weight translates into actual value. While this is true across the consumerist landscape, there now also exists these things called reviews. They enable people with no knowledge of something to make a reasonable decision based on the experience of others. For example, I would be willing to pay more at a well reviewed coffee shop than at a Starbucks. For me, reviews always trump brand value.
"Fact: Your $1 App is a Total Gamble"
First problem: the logic that x was bad so y must be bad as well is flawed. No one would have Starbucks, hate it, and hate Peet's Coffee by association. Now, it would be reasonable to assume that someone could be turned off by Apps in general the same way someone could dislike coffee, but that makes this whole argument comparison anyway. Second: you're making the same mistake arrogant people make when they write off buying a lotto ticket before a big drawing. Yes, odds of winning might be low (staggeringly low in the lottery, much less so in buying an app), but the potential gain far outweighs it and the barrier to entry is also next to nothing. You might buy a $1 app and have it be worthless, but it also might give you 30 hours of playtime or speed up your tasks by 10 min a day or something wonderful. If it's worthless, you're out a dollar. I'll miss that single dollar... I could have travelled back in time to the 80s and bought a candy bar.
"Fact: Starbucks Has No Free Alternative"
Yes they do. Taste tests. But this is harder to argue against, and deserves another debate altogether. If someone provides a better service/app for free, by all means use it. It works for open source, less so for people trying to turn a profit. Expect a paid version to come along that trumps it.
"Fact: The Starbucks Craftsmanship Is On Full Display"
Seriously wtf. "The feeling says “lots of work went into this magical liquid pick-me-up”." And apps grow on trees? What an ignorant statement. What do you consider the screenshots and YouTube videos of applications? Whether you meant to or not, you have managed to say that you think it takes far more work to make the same cup of coffee your home coffee pot makes than it does to build an application. "How often have you heard people say “I could have made that app, if only I’d thought of it first”. Or “that’s so simple, I can’t believe its been so successful”." I don't think I've heard anyone say "I could have made that," it's far more likely to hear "I thought of that first." To that I say, "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook you'd have invented Facebook."
Yes, perhaps there is a problem with comparing a cup of coffee with a $1 app. But the problem is not that Starbucks is more valuable than some individual or that a single app developer is to blame for the quality of all software. The problem is that we have allowed computer science to become a black box in our society. It's far worse than even math's "I don't need to know this because I'll never use it." The only people who have any idea of the time and effort involved in software creation are the people who create software. You call it "showing craftsmanship," but I call it changing our damn society to stop trivializing things that take massive amounts of effort while glorifying the ones that take little. The solution is simple: make computer science a mainstay of primary and secondary education. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and computers.
TL;DR: The trivialization of the effort involved with software development is the fault of society and not the fault of software developers.
"Fact: Starbucks Coffee is a Trustable Experience"
So the argument here is that brand weight translates into actual value. While this is true across the consumerist landscape, there now also exists these things called reviews. They enable people with no knowledge of something to make a reasonable decision based on the experience of others. For example, I would be willing to pay more at a well reviewed coffee shop than at a Starbucks. For me, reviews always trump brand value.
"Fact: Your $1 App is a Total Gamble" First problem: the logic that x was bad so y must be bad as well is flawed. No one would have Starbucks, hate it, and hate Peet's Coffee by association. Now, it would be reasonable to assume that someone could be turned off by Apps in general the same way someone could dislike coffee, but that makes this whole argument comparison anyway. Second: you're making the same mistake arrogant people make when they write off buying a lotto ticket before a big drawing. Yes, odds of winning might be low (staggeringly low in the lottery, much less so in buying an app), but the potential gain far outweighs it and the barrier to entry is also next to nothing. You might buy a $1 app and have it be worthless, but it also might give you 30 hours of playtime or speed up your tasks by 10 min a day or something wonderful. If it's worthless, you're out a dollar. I'll miss that single dollar... I could have travelled back in time to the 80s and bought a candy bar.
"Fact: Starbucks Has No Free Alternative" Yes they do. Taste tests. But this is harder to argue against, and deserves another debate altogether. If someone provides a better service/app for free, by all means use it. It works for open source, less so for people trying to turn a profit. Expect a paid version to come along that trumps it.
"Fact: The Starbucks Craftsmanship Is On Full Display" Seriously wtf. "The feeling says “lots of work went into this magical liquid pick-me-up”." And apps grow on trees? What an ignorant statement. What do you consider the screenshots and YouTube videos of applications? Whether you meant to or not, you have managed to say that you think it takes far more work to make the same cup of coffee your home coffee pot makes than it does to build an application. "How often have you heard people say “I could have made that app, if only I’d thought of it first”. Or “that’s so simple, I can’t believe its been so successful”." I don't think I've heard anyone say "I could have made that," it's far more likely to hear "I thought of that first." To that I say, "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook you'd have invented Facebook."
Yes, perhaps there is a problem with comparing a cup of coffee with a $1 app. But the problem is not that Starbucks is more valuable than some individual or that a single app developer is to blame for the quality of all software. The problem is that we have allowed computer science to become a black box in our society. It's far worse than even math's "I don't need to know this because I'll never use it." The only people who have any idea of the time and effort involved in software creation are the people who create software. You call it "showing craftsmanship," but I call it changing our damn society to stop trivializing things that take massive amounts of effort while glorifying the ones that take little. The solution is simple: make computer science a mainstay of primary and secondary education. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and computers.
TL;DR: The trivialization of the effort involved with software development is the fault of society and not the fault of software developers.