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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#341

Post by fbelzile »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #194
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…

> 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…

I agree that this is good news. But let's keep "selfish motives of two different parties" in perspective to the size and power of one side over the other.

This program came in after more than decade after the app store was created and when Apple is finally under increased public scrutiny for anti-competitive behaviour. Apple made an estimated $20 billion from the app store last year alone with estimated profits from that revenue being around 90% [1]. Being able to afford to half the commission over night speaks to how disconnected the commission is to the costs in running the store.

Why were they able to take 30% and continue to take 15% commission off of all sales? Because the value of the app store is only created via continued practices of anti-competitive behaviour. Ex:

1) Banning competing app stores (restricting customers choice)

2) Banning the mention of alternate methods of payment (restricted customers harmed by paying higher fees)

The argument that the app store charged "market rate" is also not a fair comparison. Your comparing one completely closed market to other open markets that Microsoft and Google produced. Both main competitors allow for competing app stores from their own for example.

[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/01/10/the-app-store-is-s...

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#342

Post by zaroth »

ge0rg wrote: post #273
bobthebuild123 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which just goes to show how Google’s and Apple’s investment of tens of billions of dollars building out their respective ecosystem presents a tremendous opportunity to developers.

Amazon made a half-hearted effort to compete in the space and the result is “less than 2%” in your case.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#343

Post by indigochill »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #234
indigochill wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's along the same lines of what Microsoft did when they were being investigated as a monopoly: throw a bone to smaller developers (or in Microsoft's case, kids in school) which actually just grows their market share (in Microsoft's case, kids learn to use Microsoft products and take that to work, in Apple's case, more devs see profitability in the Mac garden). > Apple / Google’s 30% take is the anti-competitive ele…

Should that work in that way on desktop also? With Microsoft/Apple being free to restrict apps to their store only, and taking a cut of every transaction made outside the browser? If not, what's the difference with phones/tablets?

> what's the difference with phones/tablets?

The difference I see is more about Apple specifically, because unlike, say, Google with Android, they have full vertical integration. They make both the hardware and the OS. Everything about Apple is focused on complete corporate control over the experience.

If Apple decided to only permit apps distributed through App Store X on OS X, I wouldn't be at all surprised. That's Apple's MO. And there is a customer segment I think that serves, which is the consumer market which doesn't want to think about maintaining their own digital security, because Apple seems like a reasonably benevolent dictator in this respect, as much as developers dislike the cut they take. Requiring Apple to open their devices to third-party app stores would break this vice grip they have on the experience and, IMO, degrade the experience for Apple's end users (even if it might make things nicer for developers).

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#344

Post by woahAcademia »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #244
woahAcademia wrote: post #230

Let me know when I can make Apps without giving Apple $2000. As a note I feel especially bad for the (global) poor who can't access 100% of humans because Apple charges luxury pricing.

If you're talking about the price of a Mac to develop the app, it's true but not nearly that high. You can go for a Mac Mini, or second-hand.

Second hand and Mac minis need to be replaced often for development purposes.

Apple knows what they are doing.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#345

Post by Dylan16807 »

forest_dweller wrote: post #259
Dylan16807 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The store provides you visibility through promotion on the store page, being listed in search and taking payment for the purchase. Only the first two are affiliate behavior, and they don't apply to every purchase, and you can't opt out. > They are still buying through apple. Right. But that's just facilitating a transaction, which is usually not a 30% cut. > 30% is reasonable because that is the standard rate in mo…

> Only the first two are affiliate behavior, and they don't apply to every purchase, and you can't opt out. What is and isn't affiliate behaviour isn't important. They are acting like an affiliate I said. It is close enough. > Right. But that's just facilitating a transaction, which is usually not a 30% cut. Yes it is a 30% cut. We have already established it is on other stores. > Again, standard and reasonable are d…

> It is close enough.

It's really not. The difference is the part that actually motivates you to pay an affiliate.

> We have already established it is on other stores.

When you look at other services that are just doing payment/download, it's far cheaper than 30%.

> You can choose not to do business with Apple.

That doesn't disagree with what I said, which is that you can't choose the type of relationship with Apple.

> You can. You can not deal with the app store.

"Take it or leave it" is the opposite of choosing the type of relationship. I'm so confused by your response here.

> No we cannot agree. Firstly 90% is not viable to anyone, nobody would agree to that and people wouldn't publish on the app store. So to start your premise is completely absurd.

It's not absurd. People still made apps when the market was a lot smaller. People make apps for android. If revenue is greater than cost, then apps will get made. And a cut like that would remove a lot of competition, so the actual drop in pay wouldn't be as extreme.

But okay, what if I said 75% instead? If you get 3x the market share while getting paid 25% of gross revenue, you actually make more money than if you were paid 70% on 1x market share. So there would absolutely be viable apps for some developers. But at the same time, if Apple took a 75% cut that would be unreasonable.

> The vast majority of would just pull their apps and Apple would have to lower the rate again.

They wouldn't if Apple was really committed. The app already exists, removing it would mean less money.

> Now if another player releases a new phone with a store and they have a better market rate and a decent market share then Apple will lower their rates (like Nintendo did).

Even with a better rate, Android's app payment market is smaller. It wouldn't do enough to make the apps there significantly better, and the number of people willing to switch off iphone for the marginal difference wouldn't do anything.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#346

Post by cma »

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…

It's the opposite of Steam's response to Epic, which was to lower the cut for larger publishers and larger selling games only. The reason is those publishers and big players could credibly threaten to leave the store. Apple has a monopoly so no one could credibly threaten to do so (without challenging the monopoly in court, like Epic did).

Steam reduced it for publishers with bargaining power. No one has real bargaining power on the App Store.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#347

Post by strawberrypuree »

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…

How can it be a “purely cynical PR piece” when there is an actual reduction in cost for developers?

In other words, what should Apple have done here? What is the right cut, and how did you come to that figure?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#348

Post by zaroth »

baq wrote: post #268
indigochill wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's along the same lines of what Microsoft did when they were being investigated as a monopoly: throw a bone to smaller developers (or in Microsoft's case, kids in school) which actually just grows their market share (in Microsoft's case, kids learn to use Microsoft products and take that to work, in Apple's case, more devs see profitability in the Mac garden). > Apple / Google’s 30% take is the anti-competitive ele…

the whole point of antitrust regulations is that > Both Apple and Google are fully within their rights to charge whatever they want within their app store and enforce whatever capricious whims they like on apps that they distribute. actually isn't always true - especially when it hurts consumers. of course it isn't up to us here to decide if it does. remember that private doesn't mean unregulated.

Just look at what Apple has accomplished in the meteoric rise of the iPhone. This is strong evidence of a company that is competing like hell to keep and grow its customers base.

“Hurting consumers” would be an almost Orwellian characterization of the smartphone technology revolution driven predominantly by the competition between Apple, Samsung, Google, Huawei, etc.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#349

Post by beagle3 »

varispeed wrote: post #53
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…

There is another problem - you cannot create your own app store or use alternative one if Apple for some reason does not accept your app. There is essentially no competition and at least the EU should step in and force Apple to open it to other app stores.

There’s altstore.io and others, and e.g. f-droid for Android.

What you want is for those stores to be on equal footing - which I would like as well, but is harder to argue for because alternatives do exist.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#350

Post by pja »

bredren wrote: post #303
pja wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I refer you to a comment I made in a previous thread about mobile payment revenue shares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23583011 As a point of reference, HumbleBundle charges 5% for the Humble payment widget. They handle hosting your data, all the payment systems for taking payments from most of the world, handling chargebacks on your behalf etc etc. If you want to sell your game on the Humble Store on t…

>The fact that Apple’s systems make it almost impossible to effectively communicate with your own customer Do you see effective communication with customers being interrupted by the App Store page itself? For example, the UX on the app description where the only link is to Developer Website at the bottom under Information? Or a mix of things? Can you propose or point at a set of proposed changes that would improve th…

It’s a mix of things I believe. Apple insists on owning the entire customer relationship, preventing an App owner from directly communicating with their users. From Apple’s point of view, this was probably a deliberate business decision: being able to communicate with your users can be abused by bad actors & Apple decided that it was better /for them/ that they prevent the Apple brand being tarnished by association by preventing any communication between App developers and App users. The downside of this is that without that communication, innovation on the App store has pretty much stalled. I’m not the only one making this argument: it’s something that John Gruber (hardly an Apple sceptic!) has made repeatedly.

As an App seller, one might reasonably want to:

. Carry out market research on a representative cross section of users.

. Communicate directly with users for bug reports and errors.

. Have a channel for real, high touch end user support.

. Sell to end-users in ways that are not limited by the App store model that Apple enforces

. Communicate with end users (on an opt-in basis) for marketing & cross-selling other Apps.

In general, the App store model works fine for low-priced, low-sales touch, high sales numbers Apps. It’s terrible for high-touch, high value applications, which is why you simply don’t see very many of those being developed for the App store - they’re just not viable. It’s this lack that Gruber especially complains about & I think he’s right. Where are the $100 Apps that fulfill a need that only a small number of people have? No-where, because they can’t reach their customers on the App store, so there’s no point even developing them.

(Obviously this is talking in sweeping generalities here: there are some high value Apps, but none of them are sold through the App store - the App is supporting some service that is sold elsewhere.)

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