This is exciting for small devs, even if not life-changing.
I made 42k in the last 365 days after Apple's 30% cut (or 60k in sales). That means I will get to keep an extra 9k next year, assuming revenue stays flat (it mostly has).
Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#62Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#63Classic antitrust maneuver; divide and conquer, this time from Apple. Antitrust activists shouldn't let this dull their pencil.
The main issue is not the exorbitant commission rate. Apple is hurting the consumers via its anti-competitive behavior with regards to what apps people are and are not allowed to install on a device that they've paid for. They are blocking value creation up and down the stack in a manner that "if we can't extract it, you're not allowed to create it."
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#64Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it 3. I ship a new update 4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively. I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can…
Agree. As a small developer, apples 30% tax never bothered me - seemed excessive but worth it. The arbitrary and weird approval rules is what turned me off their platform.
Although I could see how they are trying to appease antitrust regulators with this move - although they should have gone with 0 - 2% range for that. 15% is a substantial markup to price consumers would pay for using apples monopolized mobile software distribution store.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#65You can always bash Apple but this seems like moving in a good direction. It would have put about $75,000 in my pocket had it been this way when my only successful app was in the App Store. That would have been nice!
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Delivery drivers don't take a percentage from every sale you make. They charge for the service. App stores should charge for their service. They aren't making the sales (at least in most cases). They are delivering assets. Charge for the delivery. I know somebody will start claiming that Apple created the market in the first place. Apple benefits from the large app selection just as much as the developers do…
They are charging for the manual work of checking apps, making sure your app exists in a fair market place and its not surronded by fake, malware infested nightmares. Whether this is worth 30% is arguable, but they are not charging for the delivery, they are charging for keeping the garden trimmed.
App review is a one off task. They could charge the review fee and that's it. If they wanted more money they could charge data transfer fee similar to Amazon's S3. The 30% or 15% has no justification and it is just a cash grab because app developers can't go to an alternative app store with better terms. I am hoping that EU will stop this abuse.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#67The way this is worded makes no sense - surely it should be for the first $1,000,000? $1,000,000 = $150,000 $1,000,001 = >$300,000? It feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the ongoing complaints without much forethought other than an arbitrary change in the percentage below some round number.
There's no discontinuity in the first year you exceed $1m: that extra dollar is "taxed" at 30%, but the first $1m is at 15% ("the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year").
Looks like the next year (after exceeding $1m) the first dollar will be taxed at 30%, though.
They should just make this work like income tax: the first $1m is taxed at 15%, and everything above that is at 30%. (Same rules every year, no flip-flop.)
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#68All about PR. Pretty sure they make the big bucks off the $1million+ earners.
No. The majority of their income is from the less than $1million earners. That's how the long tail in economics works.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#69All about PR. Pretty sure they make the big bucks off the $1million+ earners.
My income just increases 20% from next year for doing nothing. I'll take that.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#70[deleted]