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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#351

Post by api »

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…

What does Nintendo, etc., charge to develop and distribute for a console?

Captive platforms are not new. iOS devices are consoles.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#352

Post by indigochill »

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.

> of course it isn't up to us here to decide if it does

I also think it shouldn't be up to courts. It should be up to the consumers themselves. They generally seem quite happy with Apple and Google.

On the other hand, if there is a consumer need that is not being met by Google or Apple, it is a prime opportunity to disrupt the market with a new offering that fulfills that need. If Google or Apple stamp that out or have done so in the past, then I will agree it's an anti-competition issue.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#353

Post by munawwar »

archildress wrote: post #247

I just feel that there's always this discussion about "X% isn't fair because $reason" (insert Apple's market cap, free cash flow, stock price, etc.) But what I'm yet to see is any kind of mindful analysis of what a "fair" fee is without the emotion attached to the discussion.

Most payment processors take like 2% to 3.5% of payment amount for example. This should be the range for IAP. And payment processors are rich just with this %. But if that's not enough, apple already charges $99/year/developer for access to the store.

Some may disagree, saying "bringing in customers is worth more than that". Regardless of that discussion, the anti competitive move is that there are no alternative app stores on iOS. Also, no alternative payment processor in the apple store.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#354

Post by Spivak »

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.

Should this make a difference? Just because users don't actually use alternative app stores doesn't mean the alternatives don't exist. It's not like Bed Bath & Beyond gets to complain that they don't get as many customers as Target. It has to be okay for a company to find themselves with naturally large marketshare simply because they do good business. If Google is doing something unkosher to get/keep their marketshare (and they are) then that's what you have to go after.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#355

Post by forest_dweller »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #345
forest_dweller wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

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

Except if you look at the link that compares all similar stores. It is around about 30% except for EPIC. EPIC can afford such a low rate because they are flush with cash from Fortnite and Unreal Engine dominates the professional game engine market. EPIC are trying to buy their way into the market, if it works then steam and other game stores will have to lower their rates.

> 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.

We weren't talking about market. We were talking about the revenue split.

It was never 90% rate. Apple has had the 30% rate since 2011. Npbody had a problem with the 30% rate back then. Why is it suddenly such an issue?

> 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.

If people were happy with the arrangement then it is fine. So yes. However nobody would release anything to the app store back in 2011 if it was that high (70% to apple).

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

If everyone did it all at the same time as a protest. Apple would have to respond and everyone certainly would.

> 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.

So you are saying paying the 30% on the App store is worth it as you get a larger paying market. Which is what makes the 30% reasonable because it is worth it.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#356

Post by dannyw »

danaris wrote: post #229
dannyw wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Apple added Screen Time, they banned other competing apps.

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…

But it’s not possible to replicate Screen Time without using VPNs.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#357

Post by zaroth »

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…

> 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.

Except they have done exactly that in the past. In June 2016 Apple introduced a subscription billing model which reduces the fee to 15% after the first year a customer is subscribed.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#358

Post by Dylan16807 »

macinjosh wrote: post #328
Dylan16807 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of small devs are going to be over this threshold.

Good for them! That's a lot of money.

It's not a lot of money if 10-20 people are splitting it between wages and employment taxes and health care and rent and marketing.

You can be quite a small business and still go over a million in revenue. This is more like "single small team" as a threshold.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#359

Post by Spivak »

pja wrote: post #270
bobthebuild123 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google literally has multiple alternative app stores currently active.

And how many of those are installed on the average US Android phone exactly? What happens to a phone manufacturer who ships a phone with an alternate App store?

> What happens to a phone manufacturer who ships a phone with an alternate App store?

You get to be the best selling Android phone every year. Are we all forgetting that Samsung ships their own app store? Nobody uses it because it's garbage but that's not Google Play's fault.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#360

Post by jmull »

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…

> purely a cynical piece of PR

Well, this is a big change to a core part of their App Store business model.

It’s hard to reduce that to a PR move.

Consider the revenue at stake here.

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