Because if that's your only goal, you end up producing low-quality, mass-produced garbage - "shovelware" - and that's no way to go through life, in my opinion.
1. Its pretty presumptious to be telling people what their life goals are
2. Making quality products is not mutually exclusive from building quality products, I hate to bring them up as an example but not many people could argue that apple produces mass produced garbage, and they do fairly well on the money side.
I'm actually the guy running the site, so just thought I'd add my 2 cents :) With this site, the main focus is building a business model around Android development - "making money" with Android. That's not to say app quality has to go out the door. In my experience, you can't really build a sustainable business around crappy products. So it's in my best interests to keep up the quality, even if the business development is the stated goal (and the one I'll write most about).
Agree with you 100% that quality is key to success. I just chose to focus on the business & financial side of things, since at the time I started this blog there weren't many people writing about their experiences with Android.
Does "low-quality, mass-produced garbage" make a developer more money than quality apps?
I'm skeptical, but I don't have figures. Still, a race to the bottom and near-zero margins, because crap is easy to replicate, seems like a bad plan for real profits.
In the long run, no, I don't think low quality apps make more money than by high quality ones. But that's not to say that there isn't any money to be made by selling garbage.
I'm not saying that it's bad to make money - quite the opposite! All I'm saying is that shitty software sucks. Writing it sucks, selling it sucks, buying it sucks and using it sucks. Build cool stuff instead.
I admire your attitude, in trying to make quality software instead of the shovelware and scamware we all know. Making money is important, but that doesn't mean you have to throw out all your standards as engineer just to squish out every last penny.
Sure, with enough marketing, spinning, social engineering you can make anything sell well, but if customers feel screwed they'll eventually avoid you like the plague. At least that is what I believe.
(yes -- I know you can also state the opposite "there is a sucker born every minute, have suckers as your target audience". But I don't work that way)
I don't inherently value well-made software. If writing "shovelware" makes me the most money, which in turn allows me to do the things I do inherently value, then that is the rational thing for me to do.
