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Dirty Percent

daringfireball.net

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Re: Dirty Percent

#21

Post by msg »

Grubers gonna grube :(

Talk about burying the lede!

"But leaving aside the revenue split, there are technical limitations as well. The existing in-app purchasing system in iOS has a technical limit of 3,500 catalog items. I.e. any single app can offer no more than 3,500 items for in-app purchase. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of Kindle titles.

"Something’s got to give here. I don’t know what, but there must be more news on this front coming soon. I don’t believe Apple wants to chase competing e-book platforms off the App Store."

In other words, all the rest of the article, defending the Apple terms, is so much codswallop. Because Gruber believes that these terms are unacceptable, as in Dead On Arrival, to major users of in-app purchases and will have to change shortly to accommodate them.

And once you have figured that out, why not apply this to the other users of the platform, the rest of these arguments? "Eating margins will chase applications off iOS" and "Catalog limits are too low for many credible use cases" apply to many more developers than just Amazon Kindle.

But for some reason these arguments are dissociated from the ones Gruber wants to make. Instead of putting together the whole picture, he comes to these major stumbling blocks and writes the equivalent of "Does Not Compute."

Re: Dirty Percent

#22

Post by pederb72 »

erikstarck wrote: post #9

I just know one thing: the moment Kindle is removed from the app store, I'm selling my iPad.

I'd love for Amazon to remove the DRM from their books, and just sell books in epub format which can be read on any device without a Kindle app. That would solve Amazon's problem with iOS/Apple, and also be an ideal solution for end users. EDIT: what I mean is, music is now sold without DRM. Why do we still need DRM for ebooks? I'd love to be able to just put all my ebooks in a Dropbox folder, and not depend on Amazon to create an app for every platform where I want to read my books.

Re: Dirty Percent

#23

Post by zach »

All this talk about Gruber, the fanboy that blindly defends Apple, seems to be missing one thing, which is why he should be unhappy instead.

John Gruber in general likes the way Apple does things. Right? Not a controversial position, well understood and, these days, pretty common. So first off, I'm never surprised when he posts about "here's the thought process and mechanics behind the way Apple does things" even if that's the top-level business decisions Apple makes.

So with that understanding, what kind of thing should he naturally be unhappy about? Things Apple does that are uncharacteristic, bad moves for their users, or just downright unethical (i.e. knowingly lying to customers). I truly believe that's it.

Let's toss aside the idea that this move is uncharacteristic (even detractors say "that's the way Apple likes things.") Second, he's explained how he thinks these rules seem good for users. And finally, although I know a lot of people think Apple is doing something unethical, I really don't think John sees things that idealistically when it comes to these kinds of things.

He did demonstrate some sympathy to criticism that Apple changed their rules, but I don't think he sees that at all as unethical. He's idealistic about design but I don't think he's idealistic about business and the marketplace. I actually don't think he really cares as much about the business angles, but that's where the interest is these days.

I really don't see any reason he should be unhappy with this plan. I think he's explained pretty well why he thinks it's a reasonable approach, and given that evidence I think you need to argue pretty forcefully to suggest he's being insincere.

Re: Dirty Percent

#24

Post by sutro »

siglesias wrote: post #12
Lewisham wrote: post #4

I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality. When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?" And he then punts on the biggest question of all: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple…

Ad hominem. You should address logical flaws and false statements. And he was critical of Apple in two of the four points, so your premise is false. Edit: This discussion is also something of a strawman, attacking none of the important arguments made in the article. The point about what Gruber would say if Microsoft had done this is simply a preemption of an ad hominem attack against himself and it's quite unfortunat…

Does anyone know of a browser plugin that will automatically eliminate from view any Hacker News comment containing the phrase "ad hominem?" Ad-Hom Block Pro or some such?

Re: Dirty Percent

#25

Post by apike »

ra88it wrote: post #19
Lewisham wrote: post #4

I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality. When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?" And he then punts on the biggest question of all: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple…

Brands like Costco and Amazon make a huge chunk of change, but you don't see them getting into petty stuff like this. Is the following statement (from the article) false? As for ruthless profiteering, consider that Amazon, with their e-book publishing, originally took the fat end of a 70-30 revenue split with authors.

This was true until iBooks came out. Keep in mind that a 70% cut for the publisher for books is better than most authors traditionally get. Meanwhile, record labels' cuts are usually more than 90%.

Re: Dirty Percent

#26

Post by solutionyogi »

siglesias wrote: post #12
Lewisham wrote: post #4

I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality. When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?" And he then punts on the biggest question of all: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple…

Ad hominem. You should address logical flaws and false statements. And he was critical of Apple in two of the four points, so your premise is false. Edit: This discussion is also something of a strawman, attacking none of the important arguments made in the article. The point about what Gruber would say if Microsoft had done this is simply a preemption of an ad hominem attack against himself and it's quite unfortunat…

Ad Hominem? He said only one thing about 'Gruber' that he is tired of him. Rest of his comment was about Gruber's arguments and non arguments. I didn't see any Ad Hominem attack in the original comment.

And how is Gruber's overall argument right if he is critical of Apple in two of the four points? How does that even make sense?

Re: Dirty Percent

#27

Post by ra88it »

apike wrote: post #25
ra88it wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brands like Costco and Amazon make a huge chunk of change, but you don't see them getting into petty stuff like this. Is the following statement (from the article) false? As for ruthless profiteering, consider that Amazon, with their e-book publishing, originally took the fat end of a 70-30 revenue split with authors.

This was true until iBooks came out. Keep in mind that a 70% cut for the publisher for books is better than most authors traditionally get. Meanwhile, record labels' cuts are usually more than 90%.

Right, I realize they reversed the cut after iBooks came out. But so now it's 30%, just like Apple.

Re: Dirty Percent

#28

Post by natnat »

fleitz wrote: post #8
Lewisham wrote: post #4

I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality. When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?" And he then punts on the biggest question of all: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple…

I don't believe Costco publishes their vendor agreements so you really have no idea how Costco treats their suppliers. Also, no one complains that Google takes 32% of AdWords.

Google takes all of AdWords, since it's on their own site. They take a 32% cut of AdSense.

The thing is, advertisers could use other channels to put ads up on the web. They can advertise with Chitika or whatever and get a bigger cut than they would with Google. They typically don't, because AdSense adds a lot of value by targeting the ads well. On the other hand, if you want to sell software on an iOS device, the only way is through the app store. Apple doesn't need to add any value to protect their 30% cut from competition because they don't allow competitors.

Re: Dirty Percent

#29

Post by swombat »

kondro wrote: post #7

I'm pretty much in agreement with everything Gruber said (first time for everything). The one thing that really annoys me though is that Apple have decided is that if you offer a subscription-model outside of the app store, you now have to offer it at the same cost inside the app store. Instead of paying 1-4% credit-card transaction fees with 24 hour payment terms, you now have to potentially pay a 30% app-store tran…

Steve Jobs has already commented, in an email, that this isn't meant for SaaS apps:

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/21/steve-jobs-email-suggest...

Re: Dirty Percent

#30

Post by kmfrk »

erikstarck wrote: post #9

I just know one thing: the moment Kindle is removed from the app store, I'm selling my iPad.

Apple have done a great job of undermining their impending iPad 2 launch. I was on board for buying one (or the iPad 3), until the 30% subscription debacle ensued.
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