Will you pay for a console app?

Console or GUI, it's an app that solves some kind of problem, like almost all apps, so why not? Key is being a problem worth paying, and figuring out how to reach prospects, but this are problems common to every kind of thing.

One very cool app which is console based is Caddy https://caddyserver.com/, and it's been going pretty well, it seems.

I do currently pay for an app like yours. If it does the job, it does the job, and that's what I'm paying for.

I suspect you're thinking about this wrong. Rather than asking "will anyone pay for a console app?" it might be better to think in terms of whether the combined intersection of "people who have this problem", "people who will pay to solve it", and "people who are comfortable using a command line" is a large enough group to be worthwhile.

Think about something like Tarsnap: https://www.tarsnap.com

Tarsnap couldn't possibly succeed with a desktop or web app only. Not having a command line entry point would have been a death knell for such a project. Because the fit of the problem, product and people almost entirely excludes desktop and web software.

When you say console app, I think of something like http://ngrok.com—for which I pay.

What other CLI-only solutions are out there? Do people pay for them?

hmm... maybe we're thinking about it from the wrong angle. The interface is just how the value is delivered, not how the value is created. The value is created by what problem does this thing solve for me? If its an uptime monitoring service...do people tend to pay for uptime monitoring services? It seems that some people do. But... of the existing solutions through what interface is their value currently being delivered and are there signals from the market to suggest that a CLI would be an actual value add? Or is it just a nice to have? Maybe developers would actually prefer the web based version! I can't answer that for you.

My impression is that most cli is used in linux/unix based systems. That is a very heavily open source ecosystem with many amazing free tools baked right in. People are not used to shelling out money for cli applications. But consider this... aws, heroku etc have cli interfaces and people pay lots of money to those services! So... there IS a precedent for people paying for services that are accessed via the command line. In some cases the ability to script interactions with the service is a key part of the value. At the end of the day though it comes down is "are developers who need uptime monitoring in pain that there is currently no uptime service with programmatic access available via cli interface?"

Depends on what the console app can do. I would gladly pay for console app that could make profitable trades for me :) (probably doesnt exist though..)

I think you're asking the wrong question - people will pay if it solves a big enough pain for them

But as an example of a successful CLI app: http://now.sh

It has to be a very strong reason for me to pay.

It really depends on what problem it solves. I think I am geeky enough to pay for such a thing, assuming it's either solving a problem or si really fun.

Note that I will first search for an open source analogy or consider to build it myself as a learning experience.

What the cli app about?

Nope.

I would say it depends of the purpose of the console app.

It should be "just for fun" app. I suppose no one would pay for service like this.