111–120 of 474 posts
To avoid the app store tax, companies can look to Audible as an example. On iOS, I can only add books to my wishlist and have to make the purchase on my computer.
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 (…
People keep saying Apple adds no value but bringing millions of paying customers and a trusted storefront does in fact have lots of value for most apps. This is exactly the value Steam brings on PC. Being locked down or not is a red herring to the value argument, people sell on Steam because of simple math: the millions of additional paying customers outweighs the commission Valve demands.
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
This makes sense in retail. The operating costs associated with retail are more than twice that of a pure digital store. Digital stores don't need to worry about theft, inventory, logistics, opportunity costs of floor space, bad returns, etc. I bet Apple's entire online operation cost less to run than all of the Walmarts in New Jersey. Plus, you can do cool things like individualize what's offered to customers in a d…
Price is purely a function of supply and demand. If app makers decide that it's not worth the 30% cut that Apple charges to reach the But realistically, the developers who are making the most money are the ones doing in app purchases for coins, loot boxes, etc. It's not exactly costing them anything to "produce" more coins.
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 (…
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…
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…
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…
And I don't think you are actually disagreeing with your parents at all. Because all the services they provided and as you have listed are now considered as standard. That is like accepting credit cards and cashiers in Retail stores. They are not providing enough useful valued ON TOP of the standard expected.
I think the focus on "30%" is a little mis-statement. You can pretty easily argue that 30% is too high, but clearly they aren't going to pass along the 12-15% or whatever it actually costs them (assuming 5-7% for payment, a few more % for server costs and bandwidth, a few more % for customer support and developer support) -- clearly they're going to value their monopoly audience attention at some non-zero number. So…
All those factors you mention are probably better measured as a flat fee per user rather than a percentage of the sale cost. Free apps cost Apple just as much to host and support as paid apps, so why don't they get charged?
The 30% is essentially arbitrary. They're making a healthy profit from the App Store, so 30% must be on the high side. And the amount different apps are paying must vary a huge amount, only loosely correlated with their hosting costs.
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.
Is there a SaaS opportunity here? Helping developers create a frictionless experience redirecting customers to an optimized web view to complete payment and then back to the app in a seamless way?