If Apple wanted to, they could offer free tickets to everybody.
For example, 5,000 tickets at $1,599 each is just under $8 million, which is a drop in the ocean when you consider Apple has around $145 billion in cash.
While shareholders are rewarded with dividends and share buybacks for taking on risk, developers have to pay to take on the risk of building Mac/iOS apps.
$8 million represents %0.000055172 of Apple's cash. That looks to me like a pretty cheap way to throw a party for developers and celebrate all that they've done over the years.
And how do they distribute the free tickets? By charging, and by charging a significant amount, they can be sure that only people who really want to be there will be there, and they can be pretty certain that the people coming are developers who will directly benefit from the talks and labs.
That said, I do think they should have separate press tickets for the keynote, perhaps priced a little higher, but with priority entry or something. As a developer I'd like to see fewer tickets taken by the press, but really care about being in the main hall for the keynote.
It surely costs Apple a lot more than $8 million to have so many of their developers engaged in WWDC, both during the event and before, preparing for it.
For example, 5,000 tickets at $1,599 each is just under $8 million, which is a drop in the ocean when you consider Apple has around $145 billion in cash.
While shareholders are rewarded with dividends and share buybacks for taking on risk, developers have to pay to take on the risk of building Mac/iOS apps.
$8 million represents %0.000055172 of Apple's cash. That looks to me like a pretty cheap way to throw a party for developers and celebrate all that they've done over the years.