They analyze the data on a per app basis, which may not be the best way to do it. Let's take the Facebook developers on Android. The Android Facebook app has been downloaded over 500 million times. Facebook's Android Slingshot app has been downloaded less than half a million times. With the way Visionmobile/Techcrunch break down the data, on an average per app basis, the existence of the Slingshot app drags the achievements of the flagship Facebook app way down - it halves it, basically. This doesn't really bear any relation to how much success Facebook has had though.
HN often contemplates the power law, so it's natural a developer might have one app which is very successful (Rovio released 51 apps before releasing Angry Birds), then another app which is half as successful, then a third app half as successful as the second app, and so forth. This analysis doesn't think in those terms though, they are more of the idea that every app released by a company will be more or less as successful as the other ones it releases.
Also the report sets the bar fairly high. It calls people who make $9000 per app per month "strugglers". I'd be happy with one app making $9000 a month, and wouldn't be struggling making the resulting six-figure salary. Even if I had two or three apps making $9000 a month each I'd be considered a struggler. This isn't really struggling. Maybe for a firm with venture capital that was expected to grow quickly it would be considered a failure, but not for a bootstrapped developer, or partnership of developers.
HN often contemplates the power law, so it's natural a developer might have one app which is very successful (Rovio released 51 apps before releasing Angry Birds), then another app which is half as successful, then a third app half as successful as the second app, and so forth. This analysis doesn't think in those terms though, they are more of the idea that every app released by a company will be more or less as successful as the other ones it releases.
Also the report sets the bar fairly high. It calls people who make $9000 per app per month "strugglers". I'd be happy with one app making $9000 a month, and wouldn't be struggling making the resulting six-figure salary. Even if I had two or three apps making $9000 a month each I'd be considered a struggler. This isn't really struggling. Maybe for a firm with venture capital that was expected to grow quickly it would be considered a failure, but not for a bootstrapped developer, or partnership of developers.