Earlier quoted context omitted.
This news doesn't mean people shouldn't continue to put pressure on Apple and legislators to address the core issue (app store competition), but it's still really good news for small developers. It should also solidly put down all of the arguments we were seeing about whether indie devs and lawsuits putting pressure on Apple and legislators are at all worthwhile. A drop in app fees by 15% is a substantial win, and th…
Solidly? Not really. Still believe the Epic and Apple fight is all about Tim Sweeney being a greedy business man. Zero proof this 15% reduction has anything to do with pressure from that legal battle. Apple has made rev share changes in the past unprovoked (like 15% for sustained subs). How long do you think this change was in the works for? If this change was a response that’s great. But I would bet in that case App…
Not really relevant to what we're talking about.
> Apple has made rev share changes in the past unprovoked (like 15% for sustained subs)
That wasn't an unprovoked change, it was an olive branch to companies like Amazon that were pressuring Apple for more attractive terms.
> But I would bet in that case Apple did it to take wind out of Epic’s sails around standing up for little devs.
Right, that's what I said. Apple is facing pressure from Epic, it's getting bad PR in press releases from other large companies like Microsoft, indie devs are starting to get mad, and legislators are starting to float ideas about antitrust.
Apple is in a position where they need a positive PR push about their app store policies; they need to be able to hit back at the negative press and claim that they're offering more attractive terms than the competition. They're in that position because the negative pressure is working; it's forcing them to respond.
> Zero proof this 15% reduction has anything to do with pressure from that legal battle.
Short of email leaks or Apple publicly admitting that they're doing this to take public pressure off of their store policies, what would convince you that these changes are related to the current legal battle(s) they're facing?
My take is that we've seen this happen multiple times with multiple companies. Steam went through the same process with Epic: they got slammed by publishers for doing very little work in courting them, and as a result, they changed some of their terms to be more attractive to large studios. Microsoft originally ported IE to Macs to help try and rein in suspicions that they were trying to turn the web into a Windows only platform. Apple's recent review process overhauls are minor concessions to try and get people to stop talking about the negative experiences that publishers like Basecamp have had with opaque rules and rejections.
At some point, when you look at the broader industry, you start to see patterns, and those patterns are that broad, uniform negative press and lawsuits are often (but not always) effective tools when it comes to forcing companies to at least make small concessions on their policies. I think it's very reasonable to look at this change as an indication that Apple is scared of antitrust and thinks that it is possible that further antitrust efforts might succeed.