21–30 of 113 posts
That's cool... assuming you can get in: https://getpolarized.io/2019/02/28/dear-app-stores-dont-bloc... I found out that our app was crushed after 2 weeks of development. Basically, they won't let us in because we use Electron. Electron is developed in part (primarily) due to Github which they now own. TWO WEEKS I spent porting to the MS App Store only to have them just crush us ... It's great that I can make 95% of…
It's not like Microsoft really needs the revenue from the half-dozen apps available in their store right now. What they need is momentum.
If I were in charge of making this decision I would pull the levers on every incentive I can give developers, cause God knows most people don't even remember the MS Store exists...
I feel like given the circumstances, Microsoft should probably make distribution free and collect no revenue, at least until the platform becomes popular. There are costs to targeting the Windows platform, especially if you're doing things their new preferred way (UWP). Primarily a slow, difficult to work with development kit. Lots of mysterious crashes that you can't do much about, lots of leaky abstractions over CO…
They've attempted to do that before: https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-... All that lead to was a bunch of similar looking apps of questionable quality flooding the store.
You can get a sense of the problem by browsing their "new and rising" feed:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/new-and-rising/apps/pc
That's cool... assuming you can get in: https://getpolarized.io/2019/02/28/dear-app-stores-dont-bloc... I found out that our app was crushed after 2 weeks of development. Basically, they won't let us in because we use Electron. Electron is developed in part (primarily) due to Github which they now own. TWO WEEKS I spent porting to the MS App Store only to have them just crush us ... It's great that I can make 95% of…
That's cool... assuming you can get in: https://getpolarized.io/2019/02/28/dear-app-stores-dont-bloc... I found out that our app was crushed after 2 weeks of development. Basically, they won't let us in because we use Electron. Electron is developed in part (primarily) due to Github which they now own. TWO WEEKS I spent porting to the MS App Store only to have them just crush us ... It's great that I can make 95% of…
I get the impression they don't do extensive Q&A with their products.
That's cool... assuming you can get in: https://getpolarized.io/2019/02/28/dear-app-stores-dont-bloc... I found out that our app was crushed after 2 weeks of development. Basically, they won't let us in because we use Electron. Electron is developed in part (primarily) due to Github which they now own. TWO WEEKS I spent porting to the MS App Store only to have them just crush us ... It's great that I can make 95% of…
Seems like there might be more to it than that, since Slack is written in Electron and is in the Windows Store.
I feel like given the circumstances, Microsoft should probably make distribution free and collect no revenue, at least until the platform becomes popular. There are costs to targeting the Windows platform, especially if you're doing things their new preferred way (UWP). Primarily a slow, difficult to work with development kit. Lots of mysterious crashes that you can't do much about, lots of leaky abstractions over CO…
They've attempted to do that before: https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-... All that lead to was a bunch of similar looking apps of questionable quality flooding the store.
If only they had spent that money on actually making the OS better. Imagine that.
Here's how the new payment structure works: > When Microsoft delivers a customer through other methods (tracked by an OCID), such as when the customer discovers the app in a Microsoft Store collection, through Microsoft Store search, or through any other Microsoft-owned properties, then you will receive 85 percent of the revenue from that purchase. > When there is no CID or OCID attributed to a purchase, in the insta…
So if they are browsing your website, decide they’ll probably purchase it, but then later they open up the Microsoft store and search for it there, you lose money you would’ve had if they’d immediately downloaded it from a link on your website?
Same if the customer thinks of buying your product at your own brand store, but then forgets, later they see it in a different store and buy it there. They pay the same RRP, but you see a smaller slice because the store keeps a cut.
Is this a problem? Not necessarily, if you're so sure customers would come back to your store then you can just refuse to sell it to other stores except as a retail product (so they couldn't afford to offer the same price as you)
It can be a problem if the store owner has some special privileges you don't have. Maybe they're the only one licensed to sell booze in the whole country. Or, take Apple, the only ones able to sell apps that actually work out of the box in an iPhone.
So far as I know, Microsoft aren't yet as abusive as Apple here. But I suppose that isn't helped by the fact that Microsoft's store isn't exactly a wild success.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like there might be more to it than that, since Slack is written in Electron and is in the Windows Store.
There is something more to it: Slack is really popular and MS really wanted it on the store so they let them ignore the rule.
https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/windows-store-guide
Microsoft devs have even contributed to the tool mentioned in that article (and Microsoft is listed in the MIT license copyright statement):