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

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

#71

Post by wlesieutre »

jimbokun wrote: post #58
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…

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.

IIRC this is how the Kindle app works for iOS. You can't buy books, but if you own books on your account you can read them.

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

#72

Post by Daishiman »

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.

Not legally.

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

#73

Post by VikingCoder »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19
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 (…

30% seems a lot when BlueSnap/Avangate/FastSpring provide most of the same services for 6-8%. Of course Apple would argue that they are connecting you to their customers. When there are a million apps in the store I'm not sure how true that is.

BlueSnap/Avangate/FastSpring develop a free OS that's used by 85% of the smartphones in the world?

The fee is paying towards the development of Android. Your comparison of "same services" isn't remotely valid.

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

#74

Post by cbhl »

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…

I would bet that Apple would probably rather you not have a relationship with Amazon Video at all, getting your TV and Movies from iTunes instead.

But Apple doesn't have a majority of market share (by number of devices), so, in my opinion, antitrust regulators have completely discounted their behavior.

On the other hand, the experience of using Apple Pay is miles beyond Google Checkout/Wallet/Pay/Android Pay/whatever marketing's new name-of-the-week-is, and only allowing One Blessed Way of taking payment on Apple devices is a big component of that. Having one consistent flow that I can execute in three seconds from muscle memory really does make buying-from-random-apps-and-retailers experience much nicer and more predictable than it is on the web and on other mobile platforms.

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

#75

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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.

> 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.

Valve gets 30% of apps distributed using Steam. In other words, only companies that value Steam at the 30% premium will use it -- and many of them don't. Meanwhile Steam has to be responsive to customers because it has competition, so it's forced to be a better product than monopoly app stores.

It's like saying that $25 is "the market price" for eight ounces of tuna fish because there are restaurants that charge that price and some people patronize them, so a monopoly that charges $50/pound in all cases is not charging unreasonable prices.

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

#77

Post by fipple »

To me, the worst consequence of the App Store tax is that it aligns the interests of Apple with app developers rather than users (who ultimately provide Apple with much more revenue). Apple promotes things like “Top Grossing” because it makes tons of money off those dumbfuck apps that turn users into broke zombies. If they only got 5%, they’d create an App Store that encouraged and promoted apps that delivered great entertainment at low cost.

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

#78

Post by kristofferR »

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) -…

The iOS App Store design is pretty awesome actually. It got a total design revamp last year in iOS 11 [1], and it's coming to macOS Mojave in a couple of months, so to claim the design is stagnant is incorrect.

It's fluid, and has great use of typography, spacing and colors. I don't see how it is criticize the design of it, the design is the best part. The missing features (like demo versions not being possible) etc and bad policies are the issues, not the design.

An annoying thing with the new design is that the Today content only is saved for a week, past articles and selections gets lost (archiving the editorial content would actually be a smart website idea, if you disregard the copyright issues), ideally it should be indefinitely scrollable.

Edit: It's frustrating that people don't bother explaining what is wrong with the design of the App Store instead of just downvoting me.

[1] https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/

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

#79

Post by DmenshunlAnlsis »

mywittyname wrote: post #28
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 (…

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.

Apple has a “monopoly” on their own products, not smartphones or apps, or anything else. It’s like complaining that Ford has a monopoly on cars made by Ford. There are other phones, other ecosystems, other cars. A monopoly isn’t “I want an Apple product on my own terms, and if I can’t get that, it’s a monopoly.” This trend of claiming Apple is a monopoly or Facebook is because you don’t like the alternatives is puerile and incorrect. You have a right to competition, not the premium product. You have a right to the marketplace of for example, cars, not a right to a Mercedes.

I’m getting very tired of the phrase “de facto” bandied about in front of monopoly as a way to use the latter word in a way that has no legal or technical merit. Words have meanings. Apple has a walled garden which competes with similar products, it’s just that Apple’s is better in many ways. They have a valuable audience, they don’t suffe from the security issues of their competitors, and that may make you want to use them. So use them, or don’t, and accept the trade-offs.

Don’t like Apple? Try android, their competition in the same space.

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

#80

Post by wilc0 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #71
jimbokun wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC this is how the Kindle app works for iOS. You can't buy books, but if you own books on your account you can read them.

You can wishlist and download samples from the app on iOS, but any purchases have to be done from the website. On android, you can buy/download full books directly from the app.
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