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Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

android-developers.googleblog.com

71–80 of 250 posts

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#71
post #3

I don't see the point. Spotify's not willing to give up 10% of their Android revenue, they'll still use their own payment. Epic won't give up 15%. South Korea mandated that apps be allowed to have custom payment methods within apps. Why would any big company, whether Netflix, Epic or Spotify, still give Android 10%? It just seems that the "app store pay toll" is getting less and less justifiable; and it seems outrage…

Google makes most of it's money on Android from integration of services. If Windows Phone had taken over the non-Apple market, as looked somewhat likely in 2009, Google may not have ended up a trillion dollar company

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#72
post #58
post #3

I don't see the point. Spotify's not willing to give up 10% of their Android revenue, they'll still use their own payment. Epic won't give up 15%. South Korea mandated that apps be allowed to have custom payment methods within apps. Why would any big company, whether Netflix, Epic or Spotify, still give Android 10%? It just seems that the "app store pay toll" is getting less and less justifiable; and it seems outrage…

On the desktop, ton of apps don't do their own payments. It takes quite a lot for a company to be able to process their own payments. That's why you see a lot of pay with PayPal, Amazon, Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc. So I think for sure people will still offer Apple Pay. The difference is that there'd be competition now, so Apple would be forced to reduce their margins to the minimum, maybe close to cost price to compe…

[deleted]

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all app stores are centralized, Linux has had this figured out for years.

And yet, year of Linux on the desktop never happened. Geeks are very different audience from general public.

Suggesting that App distribution is even part of the consideration for why Linux didn’t catch on is kind of hilarious to be honest. Their app distribution methods being good or not had nothing to do with their lack of adoption and it’s kind of a non sequitur.

If I dropped their app distribution onto Windows it would also succeed there with the general mainstream public, in fact even more so, because of the garbage state for app management there.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really love to know his mindset, because it's completely unfathomable to me. The idea of applications on the phone was something blindingly obvious to me ever since my first Nokia 3410 I had as a kid. The phone had a bunch of distinct functionalities other than making calls, which you could invoke through a menu. Why shouldn't I be able to add new ones? Write new ones myself? Installing custom software was later…

> I'd really love to know his mindset, because it's completely unfathomable to me. He was fixated on having complete control.

And why would webapps give Apple complete control?

Someone develops a webapp, I can make my own phone and anyone who wants to continue using all the webapps they were using in Safari on their iPhone can come over and do that in the browser on my phone.

People develop native apps for the iPhone, and suddenly leaving the iPhone means leaving behind all those apps.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#75
post #64

I think people are focused on the wrong issue. The fee % is not the problem. The problem is the restriction against using other types of payment processors. I am 100% OK with Google, Apple, or whoever charging whatever price they want to charge for using their app store services. They are, after all, providing all of the infrastucture for software delivery, updates, payments, etc. Not to mention giving you access to…

And Apple likes to pretend that there are no better payment options. I would prefer to subscribe via PayPal, because it's easier to cancel via them than via Apple's iTunes corpse.

The reason I vastly prefer paying via Apple over other methods is precisely because of how easy it is for me to see my subscriptions in one place and cancel with a click.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#76
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want it one step further, it's not called "sideloading" but just "normal install", people should be able to install anything they want without some unwanted middleman, all the restrictions are just market distortions.

> people should be able to install anything they want without some unwanted middleman What “people” are you referring to? The millions of people, like yours truly, who’ve made the conscious decision to pay Apple because of their App Store model. I’m an engineer, I have a desktop and a laptop I can install whatever I want on. I’m ok with not doing that on my phone. In fact, I don’t want that experience on my phone. So…

This can be easily resolved by forcing developers who provide their own method of payment to also include the App Store's default in-app purchases. That's how it currently works with Sign in with Apple.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#77
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder that Jobs initially did not support having an app store at all for the original iPhone, IIRC for reasons of maintaining the bar on experience. His proposal was to build "apps" for use in Safari. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/07/10/the-revolution-st...

We're now at the point where writing web-first apps that can get optionally also get compiled into "native" apps that run in a js/wasm runtime on any platform and act like native apps might get popular again.

Is this allowed under iOS?

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#78
post #64

I think people are focused on the wrong issue. The fee % is not the problem. The problem is the restriction against using other types of payment processors. I am 100% OK with Google, Apple, or whoever charging whatever price they want to charge for using their app store services. They are, after all, providing all of the infrastucture for software delivery, updates, payments, etc. Not to mention giving you access to…

And Apple likes to pretend that there are no better payment options. I would prefer to subscribe via PayPal, because it's easier to cancel via them than via Apple's iTunes corpse.

I don’t understand?

Settings -> AppleID -> Subscriptions?

It’s on your phone? You don’t have to use iTunes at all? I wouldn’t have even thought to use iTunes? Unsubscribing is the easiest thing in the world - much easier than PayPal. It’s right there in the Settings app.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#79
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was because their iOS API wasn't ready for public consumption. Web apps were a stopgap so they had something to ship.

Citation? This contradicts everything I’ve seen on the matter.

The article linked in the comment they’re replying to.

According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, the tech guru was opposed to allowing third-party to run natively on iPhone…

…Others in the know disagree with Isaacson's story and contend third-party apps were always on the iPhone roadmap; Jobs and company were simply not comfortable with releasing an SDK at launch.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/07/10/the-revolution-st...

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was because their iOS API wasn't ready for public consumption. Web apps were a stopgap so they had something to ship.

No, Jobs actually didn't want an App Store. He had to be convinced.

Nobody can know what Jobs actually wanted and what is narrative-building because he was the best storyteller this industry has ever seen.
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