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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’

#91

Post by AckSyn »

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…

This is not an argument against the fees but an argument against something you personally don't like. To pretend otherwise is intellectually lazy.

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

#92

Post by opencl »

pvg wrote: post #60
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.

Apple's subscription cut is 15% after the subscription has been active for a year, it's 30% for the first year.

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

#93

Post by merpnderp »

cm2187 wrote: post #67

And between PWA and WebAssembly, it is going to be even more difficult in the future to force developers to use the store when they can access most of the functionalities they need without paying a penny or having to bend in front a capricious app review policy.

Not when Apple refuses to implement web Push API. Without Push, webapps can't compete.

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

#94

Post by scarface74 »

blihp wrote: post #43
scarface74 wrote: post #6

For perspective.... In traditional retail, the publisher only gets 45% as opposed to 70% for the app stores. https://kotaku.com/5479698/what-your-60-really-buys

That's true for retail but that hasn't been a thing for most developers since the 90's. And traditional retail includes things like physical shelf space in a real store with real boxes etc. Since the late 90's/early 00's developers have been selling and distributing (PC/Mac) software online where the typical processing fees are usually reported as no more than ~10-15%. The app store narrative has been 'look at how mu…

That's true for retail but that hasn't been a thing for most developers since the 90's. And traditional retail includes things like physical shelf space in a real store with real boxes etc. Since the late 90's/early 00's developers have been selling and distributing (PC/Mac) software online where the typical processing fees are usually reported as no more than ~10-15%.

Most console games are still sold retail because people want the ability to trade them in. In the early 2000's high speed internet wasn't ubiquitous and most software was still being sold in retail.

The app store narrative has been 'look at how much better developers have it than the old days of retail' when the reality is most of the smaller developers could never realistically sell through the traditional retail channel anyways. (there was a lot more to it than the larger cut involved) The other reality is that mobile devices are locked down in ways that PCs historically have not been (i.e. difficult to impossible for most end users to install software outside of the app store) and the only realistic option they had was to go through the platform owner. (i.e. Apple/Google/Amazon/Microsoft)

So the app stores have been a net positive for small developers? How many people are (or should be) paranoid about downloading software from a random site and then putting their credit card information on the same random site? How many that are willing would even go through the trouble of entering their credit card number as opposed to just authorizing the payment through Apple/Google?

Console manufacturers have also demanded a cut of software sold on their platform since the mid 80s. You couldn't sell a game on a console without having signed code on the cartridge/disk and I believe most of the console makers forced you to use them for manufacturering..

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

#95

Post by giarc »

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 ...

You do get XCode for free though. There's a lot of development behind that software. I don't totally agree with the 30% fee, but someone has to pay for XCode development.

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

#96

Post by DmenshunlAnlsis »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #87
DmenshunlAnlsis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pueri…

The monopoly they have isn't phones , it's iOS app distribution . It's a different market -- and the market isn't combined with apps for other systems because they have disjoint sets of customers. You can't use Android apps when you don't have an Android device.

Right, and WalMart has a “monopoly” on WalMarts, but that’s not actually a monopoly. If they had a monopoly on supermarket, that would be a legal issue. Apps is the space for competition, and Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on apps, or phones. In fact you can almost always get the same apps on multiple platforms.

People just want something they can’t have, so they play word games to make themselves sound righteous rather than selfish or petulant. No amount of talking around the issue or downvotes changes it, and it’s why an AG will laugh in your face if you claim Apple is violating antitrust regulations with their system.

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

#97

Post by ksec »

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) -…

>Absolutely terrible search

We have much more powerful CPU, In-Memory DB and SSD, Searching within a comparatively small dataset that is the App Store is a solved problem more than a decade ago and much more so now. Instead we got a appalling App Store search. It could simply mean one thing, Apple just doesn't care.

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

#98

Post by ppeetteerr »

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) -…

They are doing a ton that is useful:

- Taking care of payment processing

- Storing the user's credit card information

- Providing a ton of pricing options

- Providing analytics and crash monitoring tools

- Providing deployment tools

- Providing development tools (push notifications, regular updates to their platforms, market segmentation, beta releases, etc)

- Providing distribution

- Creating a market place for the demand

I'm not saying that 30% is the right amount but to say that the stores are doing nothing useful is a bold disregard for the service they are providing.

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