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Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

bloomberg.com

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Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#51

Post by gergles »

Maybe this will make Apple reconsider their entire "software development tax" revenue stream. It is abhorrent that I have to pay them $99 a year to run my own apps on my own device.

(Yes, I know you can install your own app through XCode. That runs for 7 days. Then must be re-signed. It also can't use tons of features including things like App Groups. Not acceptable.)

(Further yes, I know that if you have ever had a paid account, apparently some of the restrictions are relaxed - for example, you apparently get 90 days on your provisioning profiles. This appears to be Noblesse Oblige on the part of Apple and is not a documented policy, so I'm not willing to rely on it.)

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#52

Post by rlanday »

cgriswald wrote: post #45
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #10

Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…

Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…

> Apple adds no value there

Other than inventing the modern phone, writing the operating system and developer tools, running the store, manufacturing the phones people are consuming Amazon's product on and convincing people to buy them...you can argue about what's "fair," but Apple's certainly adding value.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#53

Post by enitihas »

Fnoord wrote: post #34
safar wrote: post #18

Then there's the "developer tax" too - Apple squeezes money from the developers too for the "privilege" of even making an app (for public distribution) for the ios platform. And you need to buy a Mac too ...

Luckily you can run macOS in VirtualBox, KVM, Qemu, ESXi, etc.

Legally?

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#54

Post by mywittyname »

colechristensen wrote: post #46
mywittyname wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve has several big competitors in the PC market. Several hugely successful games are not available on Steam. I'm not sure it's possible to create a hugely successful iPhone app that isn't on the App Store. Apple has a monopoly and is using it to squeeze excessive fees from developers.

Using a monopoly to squeeze excessive fees that happen to be exactly the same as the fees for a competitive market? There seems to be a logic breakdown there.

There's no logic breakdown at all: publishers can get better terms by going with an competitor to Steam, such as GMG, GoG, Origin, Microsoft Store, or just release the app on their own website/platform.

It's functionally impossible to release an app on iOS without paying Apple.

Compared to the 0% of self-publishing, Apple's fees are excessive.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#55

Post by gameswithgo »

rlanday wrote: post #52
cgriswald wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…

> Apple adds no value there Other than inventing the modern phone, writing the operating system and developer tools, running the store, manufacturing the phones people are consuming Amazon's product on and convincing people to buy them...you can argue about what's "fair," but Apple's certainly adding value.

Anything is fair, but I don't like things that only allow app stores as a first class way to get software on my machine.

I have voted with my wallet. But it is getting harder to do so, soon only linux will be left.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#56

Post by enitihas »

scarface74 wrote: post #31
adorable wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so how do you sell iOS apps or in-app content then?

Amazon does it all of the time. You pay for content by going on Amazon.com and you view the content via an app.

This may work for Amazon only because their own brand is also directly known to the user, and a lot of users would also be visitors of their website. But for a newcomer trying to sell digital goods via an app, good luck

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#58

Post by jimbokun »

cgriswald wrote: post #45
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #10

Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…

Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…

As I understand it, if you already have a subscription for Amazon Video through the web, then download the Amazon Video app and login to your existing account, Apple doesn't get anything.

Which is why the article emphasized Netflix trying to get customers to sign up through their web site, and not the app.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#59

Post by Marsymars »

makecheck wrote: post #32

The 30% cut would have been reasonable after all this time if the platforms were doing anything useful with the money. Instead, we got: - Store APIs that to this day are stupidly complex to get right in all cases, making you wonder why it’s so hard - No support for very common, decades-old pricing schemes like “free demo, then buy” (except through convoluted means) - Stagnant app store designs (esp. Mac, for YEARS) -…

On top of the terrible search, they also show ads. Which, if search was good, would be explicitly worse than actual search results.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#60

Post by pvg »

jakelarkin wrote: post #23

If the app is a singular product that only exists on mobile, then fine you bake the Apple/Google tax into your price. for content subscription businesses that are multi-platform its a bit of an absurd situation. You can't really charge 50% more on mobile platforms. Depending on where your user randomly decides to sign up your revenue and lifetime value of that user is suddenly 2/3rds of what it otherwise would be, de…

The cut is 15% so even if you passed it on to your consumers, which nobody does, you wouldn't charge 50% more.
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