Amazon has today announced that it is giving Appstore developers the opportunity to charge for HTML5 web apps in almost 200 countries worldwide. The changes will apply to both new releases, as well as those already available to download from the Appstore.

Until now, web apps distributed through the Amazon Appstore were automatically set to free, and developers were unable to charge for them. But today’s update changes that; developers can now set a price in specific countries based on the markets they choose to publish their web apps to.

In addition to this, web app developers can now take part in Amazon’s Free App of the Day (FAD) promotion, which offers paid apps for free for one day only.

“This is great news for developers looking to publish their first web app to the Amazon Appstore,” Amazon said in a blog post today. Not only will it allow them to monetize their releases, but it may also encourage other web app developers to distribute their software through the Appstore, boosting its catalog.

Of course, it may also mean that users must now pay for web apps that were previously free, but at least we’ll be supporting out favorite developers for all their hard work.

• SourceAmazon