Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dirty Percent

daringfireball.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 98 posts

Re: Dirty Percent

#41

Post by kenjackson »

alanh wrote: post #18
saturdaysaint wrote: post #14

I think Gruber is ignoring the competitive disadvantage Apple is putting themselves in by shutting out the "middle man" apps. Kindle, Spotify and Netflix are deeply entrenched, best-of-breed services - consumers have deep investment with their Kindle devices, Netflix accounts, etc. These are not minor points. People will give up their Kindles and use iBooks the day they uninstall iTunes and start using a Zune. So And…

No, Gruber has stated that he does not believe Apple is ignorant of the consequences of taking 30% of Kindle sales or Netflix subscriptions via iOS — after all, Apple built Netflix support directly into AppleTV. He believes the company has probably been in talks with Amazon, Netflix, and similar companies for some time.

There's a lesson here. Build your brand inside of iOS and you're screwed. Apple can choke you. Build it outside of iOS and you have a chance to have reasonable terms. As nice as iOS is, w/o middlemen, established outside of iOS, like Kindle and Netflix -- it probably gets killed by Android.

Re: Dirty Percent

#42

Post by mechanical_fish »

swombat wrote: post #29
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...

Moreover, such arguments are silly. Nobody buys an iPad and then looks through the app store for $100k apps to run on it, or even $5k apps. If you are in the market for such an app, you buy the app and then go shopping for the hardware.

Perhaps Apple has now ceded the market for mobile clients of $100k enterprise Java applications to Android. If so, I doubt they are losing much sleep in Cupertino.

Obviously Apple's pricing model makes no sense for markets that they are not actually in. What matters, however, is the competitive landscape of the market that they are in.

Re: Dirty Percent

#43

Post by ugh »

martythemaniak wrote: post #36
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 found it pretty hilarious when Gruber quoted Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Gruber owes his good fortunes to being the premier Apple shill, and no amount of logic, reasoning, facts or ethics is going to change that. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/23/dhh-it-dept

Does he?

He earns money from ads, do you think he would earn less should he write critically about Apple?

(All of this seems very much beside the point, though. Discussions about Daring Fireball have become so predictable. Nobody seems to be even interested in talking about the arguments, everyone wants to throw dirt around.)

Re: Dirty Percent

#44

Post by calloc »

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.

But Costco does publicise how much markup they put on their products as a maximum:

_Costco's maximum markup on merchandise is 14 percent, and "a lot of products don't come close to 14 percent," Sinegal said. By comparison, supermarkets commonly mark up merchandise by 25 percent and department stores by about 50 percent._

http://www.gazette.com/articles/costco-33279-springs-store.h...

Costco is extremely cut-throat, there have been several articles about Costco and how if they aren't receiving the lowest price for a product they just won't have it on the shelves, the Coke dispute was pretty big [1].

Overall I find that Costco is pretty transparent when it comes to the products they offer, and how much they charge for them. So far Costco has been a great value for me as a consumer!

[1]: http://www.wbur.org/npr/120590548/price-fight-coke-isnt-it-a...

Re: Dirty Percent

#45

Post by mbrubeck »

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…

What I like about Gruber, even when I disagree with him, is that I think he understands, better than any other outside commentator, how Apple's management team thinks and works. He's not a leading expert on business, or on technology, but I'd call him a leading expert on Steve Jobs' mind.

This understanding is part of why Gruber often seems like an Apple apologist. Even when he disagrees with Apple' decisions, he can generally give a good explanation of why the decision was made and why Steve and Tim and company probably think it is the right one. And of course, when he is writing from the point of view of Apple Inc., the primary question is always "What is best for Apple?"

(This also explains why I hate Gruber's writing about competiting companies like Microsoft and Google. I don't think he understands how those companies think and work at all, so his commentary on them totally lacks that insight and usefulness.)

Re: Dirty Percent

#46

Post by jonknee »

swombat wrote: post #29
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...

For now. They can change that at any point like they did for publishers.

Re: Dirty Percent

#47

Post by b0sk »

ugh wrote: post #43
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it pretty hilarious when Gruber quoted Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Gruber owes his good fortunes to being the premier Apple shill, and no amount of logic, reasoning, facts or ethics is going to change that. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/23/dhh-it-dept

Does he? He earns money from ads, do you think he would earn less should he write critically about Apple? (All of this seems very much beside the point, though. Discussions about Daring Fireball have become so predictable. Nobody seems to be even interested in talking about the arguments, everyone wants to throw dirt around.)

It's an indirect effect. Majority of his readers are Apple fans and need a constant reminder why their platform is better than others. ( Think about it in terms of being a sports fan. You'll rarely subscribe to a beat writer who tries to uncover scandals in your team and tries to find faults ).

He earns money from software and services which run in Apple-based platforms. ( Pixelmator, for example ). If he constantly undermines Apple, will Pixelmator be happy?

He has to give an air of legitimacy by pointing out Apple's faults once in a while and competitors' good products now and then. His primary audience is Apple fans. and he writes for them.

Re: Dirty Percent

#48

Post by chollida1 »

ugh wrote: post #43
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it pretty hilarious when Gruber quoted Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Gruber owes his good fortunes to being the premier Apple shill, and no amount of logic, reasoning, facts or ethics is going to change that. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/23/dhh-it-dept

Does he? He earns money from ads, do you think he would earn less should he write critically about Apple? (All of this seems very much beside the point, though. Discussions about Daring Fireball have become so predictable. Nobody seems to be even interested in talking about the arguments, everyone wants to throw dirt around.)

> He earns money from ads, do you think he would earn less should he write critically about Apple?

Well, he has stated on many occasions that he has "sources" inside of Apple where he gets alot of his information from. If he started to be overly critical of Apple and his sources suddenly dried up then his writing would suffer, his readership would go down and his ad revenue would decease.

So I'd say it's pretty easy to make the case that he would indeed earn less if he was overly critical of Apple.

Re: Dirty Percent

#49

Post by pederb72 »

lwhi wrote: post #31
pederb72 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Amazo…

But if you'd like Amazon to make a concession as large as this, surely Apple should be asked to make a few concessions too? Both companies sell IP - and both rely on a various forms of DRM to enforce scarcity. I think selling IP will eventually be seen as a fruitless (and unsustainable) pursuit - but for the time being this is a way both these companies are making a profit selling digital goods.

As far as I can remember, Apple/Steve Jobs talked the music industry into dropping DRM on music. As the leading ebooks store Amazon should be the one to push to remove DRM from books.

Re: Dirty Percent

#50

Post by ajg1977 »

Apple doesn’t give a damn about companies with business models that can’t afford a 70/30 split. Apple’s running a competitive business; competition is cold and hard.

Why not allow developers and publishers to set their own prices for in-app subscriptions? One reason: Apple wants its customers to get the best price

So on one hand competition is good, natural, and everyone benefits. But on the other, companies shouldn't be be able to compete with Apple's built-in subscription system?

Post reply on HN