Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#271

Post by kbutler » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #248

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. Oh please. Has it ever occurred in the history of the world that the selfish motives of two different parties aligned? i.e. Apple gets good press for helping smaller developers and the smaller developers get increased revenues. It happens all the times, and it's called "good business". You can keep waiting for Apple's App Store executives to cover them…

If Apple didn't fear either Epic's lawsuit or Congressional action, or both, they'd never reduce their app store cut, for anyone, ever. This announcement means Apple knows that neither public opinion nor the law is on their side and they're about to lose really, really big. And they're hoping if they can flip this around a bit and get control of the narrative, they can convince regulators they will self-regulate... w…

> they'd never reduce their app store cut, for anyone, ever.

Why not 50%? 75%? 100%? 150%?

It could also be that they are seeking the optimal rate of return, balancing developer incentives, bringing in new developers, etc.

I think many factors play into the decision, including lawsuits and public scrutiny.

I think it will be really interesting to watch and see if google mirrors the pricing.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#272

Post by syshum » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

breakfastduck wrote: post #135

saagarjha wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But developers provide value to Apple and users as well, and of course already "pay" by writing software for the platform.

Thats fair but kinda like saying a food product producer is already providing value to a store by producing goods but not paying the store any money to host their product. It doesn't really make sense.

I am not sure what you said makes any sense...

The food product producer is not selling to me directly, they sell to the store, who then sells to me.

Apple is not selling me the app, they are very clear about this, my relationship is with the App Developer, they are just a "payment processor"

So comparing the App Store to traditional retail store is no where near a proper analogy

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#273

Post by ge0rg » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

bobthebuild123 wrote: post #251

pja wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appoogle are a duopoly. You can’t get significant sales on mobile phones without going through their respective App Stores, which both charge 30%. What a coincidence! Your comparisons with book publishers are specious: if I write a book today I can go to any of a number of publishers, none of whom have any kind of control over access to readers. Or I can even self-publish and sell direct. Jailbreaking is a complete i…

Google literally has multiple alternative app stores currently active.

I'm publishing the same (paid) app on Google Play and on Amazon's store, which is AFAICT the most widely used alternative (outside of markets where Google is not active).

My Amazon income is less than 2% of the Google income.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#274

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #142

simonh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For app store listing and promotion, application delivery all over the world to hundreds of millions of devices, access to back end services like notifications and iCloud storage, and sales transaction processing? Really? Imagine if you had to develop or pay for all of those services individually. Your own download site, product promotion, services, a third party transaction processor, a content delivery network, bes…

Well, the app store cannot exist without app and phone without apps is essentially worthless (unless it has at least the caller app). So who is promoting who? The so called application delivery is just a file server that anyone can setup for peanuts these days. Apple offers no alternative for notifications or storage - there is no competition so they can dictate extortionate prices. Yes many companies would love to r…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#275

Post by mjs » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #81

mjs wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rule…

Maybe that makes it look a bit too much like the tax it is for comfort.

The way the rules are now seems like there's a very big incentive to avoid earning a little bit more than $1m. This could have … unintended consequences.

(e.g. if it looks like you're going to earn a little bit over $1m, increase prices by a lot (to discourage purchases), but tell people the app will be "cheap" again in January. Or even make the app free for a while.)

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#276

Post by ody4242 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

Sodman wrote: post #267

bobthebuild123 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google literally has multiple alternative app stores currently active.

We've barely been able to get people to stop referring to all Android devices as "Droids". The average person doesn't even know about alternate app stores, yet alone have the will to seek them out, install them, search for an app, and then pay for it (likely having to enter payment info this time). You might as well tell developers to release their apps on the dark web. I'm sure you can release niche apps on these st…

Well, there is Amazon Appstore for Android, where you can buy digital goods (apps and games as well) on an Android device. Idk if the Amazon Appstore is available for IOS with the same terms. Can you buy IOS apps via Amazon Appstore on an IOS device?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#277

Post by pier25 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #134

gtsteve wrote: post #21

Looks 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…

This isn’t a problem exclusive to Apple anymore. Google has implemented some draconian nonsense this year to the point where I ended up distributing my Android app as a PWA. I had no problems with Apple. Apple gets all the headlines, and certainly gets more chatter on HN, but they aren’t alone in this bullshit. As an example... Fortnite was also banned by Google.

Fortnite was banned from the Play store, not Android.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#278

Post by user-the-name » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

coder543 wrote: post #269

danaris wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly, the apps they banned were doing things like abusing the VPN function to capture all traffic from the phone, and using that as their mechanism for blocking certain websites (or maybe it was MDM they were abusing...?). It wasn't a simple matter of "Apple releases product that does X, then bans all products that do X from the App Store;" the products they banned had to use some seriously sketchy t…

And, instead of providing APIs to help make those apps less sketchy... Apple decided it would be easier to just ban them. Apple clearly thought they were valuable enough to customers to keep around before the release of Screen Time, even with the sketchy method they had to use.

Because those APIs can be used for extremely sketchy activity.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#279

Post by whiddershins » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #228

Heliosmaster wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's exactly like the freelancer tax brackets in Italy. Everybody jumping through hoops (and or not declaring stuff) to remain under the threshold of 60k/year (was 30k/year). Otherwise tax rate doubles.

In Germany we have "cold progression", so stacking tax brackets. If you earn 35.000€ it's something like (random numbers): 0-9000€ [0%] -> 0€ 9000-20.000€ [10%] -> 1100€ 20.000-40.000€ [15%] -> 3000€ Total = 4400€ So if you're in the 15% bracket you pay 4400€ which is actually 12.5% in total, and not 5250€ (15%) as some people seem to believe.

Same in the US I believe.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#280

Post by tabs_masterrace » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

Are you kidding me? This is great news for indies and small companies, to which I count myself, and I will be making 15% more money. Dude, I'm really happy reading this announcement today, thanks Apple, what else is there to say? I think some of you might have trust issues, and are stuck in a spiral of negativity, it's getting a bit weird. Now Google please follow!