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

Apple, Epic, and the App Store

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 781 posts

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#681

Post by bananaface »

imtringued wrote: post #668
colinmhayes wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but you're not. Yes, Epic is trying to make money. But if Epic is allowed to open their own store it would be very good for small developers. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

Small developers don't care about minuscule savings on their low sales numbers. They primarily care about getting as many sales as possible. The only ones who benefit are those who are selling lots of copies.

That's absurd, of course I care about the 30% take. I care about both.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#682

Post by SmallDeadGuy »

bttrfl wrote: post #359
cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

Following your logic, Fortnite's add-ons should clearly be free since the cost to make and sell them is minuscule in comparison to 400M Epic made in April alone [0]. [0] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...

Fortnite is free. They release patches to the game weekly, with major patches every month or so, which are also free. The _only_ revenue stream in fortnite is cosmetic skins, which as a player you could ignore entirely and still play 100% of the game.

In fact, you can earn small handfuls of the premium currency every season, which actually allowed people to purchase premium skins or the "battle pass" with currency obtained for free.

There is no comparison to be made with Apple, who won't let you do a thing on the app store without giving them money.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#683

Post by fluffything »

cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

> It should be free like the Web,

Lots of entitlement here. Apple does not owe you anything.

If you don't like Apple's terms, just don't buy their products. It really is that simple.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#684

Post by cromwellian »

fluffything wrote: post #683
cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

> It should be free like the Web, Lots of entitlement here. Apple does not owe you anything. If you don't like Apple's terms, just don't buy their products. It really is that simple.

"Love it or leave it." Sure fire mark of tribalism.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#685

Post by cromwellian »

cynix wrote: post #677
WWLink wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's transparent to a lot of people, because IIRC, charging price $x on your website, and then charging price $x+30% on apple's store is a breach of the app store contract and will get your app removed. Am I wrong though? If I am, sorry. xD

No, you're free to charge whatever you want on your own website. You just can't mention that fact in your iOS app.

> You just can't mention that fact in your iOS app.

And you don't think that is anti-competitive? Apple is free to promote their own services on their platform that compete with others, require them to pay a 30% tax that their own competing service does, and the only escape hatch they give you is "you can use the web, but you can't tell your users"

Am I taking crazy pills, or do other people think this is absurd.

The first rule of alternative signup models on the App Store is, you don't talk about alternative signup models.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#686

Post by cromwellian »

IncRnd wrote: post #445
pwthornton wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't cost $450 to make an iPhone. That's insane. It may cost that in parts, but there are many, many highly paid engineers, designers, product managers, etc. who worked on those products. Those people's salaries must be accounted for somehow. This is something that a commenter on Hacker News should understand! All of those dumb cost breakdowns for what it "costs" to make iPhones or whatever always miss the fact…

Apple has more products than an iPhone. In business you do not include the costs in that manner. Even without an iPhone, those costs exist and would be paid.

People used to pay money for Trumpet Winsock, then a TCP/IP stack became critical infrastructure, and you no longer paid for it. Web Browsers used to have a commercial model (Netscape), then the Web become so critical, it became commodity infrastructure. Disk compression and encryption? Table stakes. Video decompression/compression? I could go on and on, but ALOT of functionality that used to be commercial add-ons has become commodity, and required OS infra. It's just paid for, and no on charges.

Otherwise, hey, let's unbundle Mobile Safari, and Mail, and Maps, and when you buy an iPhone, the first thing you have to do is buy all the builtin default apps.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#687

Post by mehrdada »

birdyrooster wrote: post #571
nodamage wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let's say hypothetically Epic allowed the sale of third-party skins in Fortnite. Would a skinmaker would be entitled to demand the following concessions? 1. The ability to install skins outside of the V-bucks store. 2. The ability to pay for Fortnite skins using payment methods other than V-bucks. Alternatively, should Epic not be permitted to impose the following restrictions in their Fortnite store? 1. Skins mu…

Not all monopolies are created equally. Some have greater cost to society. For example, Qualcomm has an essential patent which grants them a monopoly over certain communications technologies but it has been mitigated by requiring them to license it in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) way. A monopoly by Standard Oil was pervasive in all of daily living because by the early twentieth century, they had…

> it has been mitigated by requiring them to license it in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) way.

Writing it in passive voice makes it look like there is some governmental force at play that made them license on FRAND terms. They voluntarily agreed to that in negotiations with a standards body/industry consortium which otherwise would not have agreed to utilize their technology in a communication standard. The trade-off is they benefit automatically by getting distribution and licensing the technology to a lot of people that need to implement that standard.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#688

Post by cromwellian »

lostgame wrote: post #611
cromwellian wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Nike so far ahead of every other shoe manufacturer? What's the margin on a pair of Nikes? How many young kids waste family money on a brand who makes the shoes for a fraction in Southeast Asia. How about Christian Louboutain? There's also the sunk cost for many people. If you've bought tons of content in the App Store, you'd have to rebuy everything if you switched to another ecosystem. For the same reason, if you…

>> Is Nike so far ahead of every other shoe manufacturer? From personal experience, yes. Easily. It's like comparing a Wal-Mart 'First Act' electric guitar to a Fender Stratocaster, or one of those awful Crosley turntables to a pair of Technics SL-1200s. I have particularly sensitive feet, and ride a push scooter everywhere so cheap soles will wear quickly. I'll go through 4 pairs of $30 knockoff shoes a year instead…

Retailers have physical real estate that is a limited resource. They have to have logistics and shelf stocking. The marginal cost is that is non-trivial compared to maintaining a large database of apps which is almost but not quite zero.

The retail analogy is bogus. Software isn't a physical product these days.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#689

Post by bllguo »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #464
earhart wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that Epic would be able to prevent other stores from being installed. The problem is that if there are multiple app stores, it encourages a race-to-the-bottom for the app stores -- why go through Apple's store with all its vetting if you can release to the Epic store instead? So, yes, the worry is exactly that another company might offer better terms to developers -- because sometimes, those terms…

I suppose one way to counteract this is for apple to license app stores and they have to have the same standards as apples store. I have no desire to have low quality stores on my phone, thats why I like the iPhone - I don't have to worry about all the nonsense android phone owners do.

So many comments here to this effect and they're all so puzzling. I'd love to hear exactly what "nonsense" I'm supposedly worried about all the time. Relying solely on Google's store is perfectly usable. I wish I could find data on this but I'd confidently assert the vast vast majority of (non-Chinese) Android owners never use alternative stores.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#690

Post by cromwellian »

humaniania wrote: post #532
cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

Who are you to tell Apple how to set their prices? Apple is an American company and we have free markets here. Price controls on luxury goods are completely against free market capitalism. If you don't like it, don't buy an iPhone. Good luck finding a better smart phone experience.

Well, I'm a customer and I can bitch and moan about their behavior all I want. How else will they improve if their customers don't have any complaints?

But again, we see the "love it or leave it" attitude. As in, you have no right to criticize the cherished totem that I have invested a huge portion of my self into.

Post reply on HN