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US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

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Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#321

Post by etchalon »

xyst wrote: post #282

Once side loading finalizes (couple of years?) the predatory 27-30% fee will come down really fast. F Apple for this monopoly bs. From the anti-repair shenanigans to their locked down ecosystem. It’s all designed to pump as much money from the consumer AND developers inside the wall.

I am willing to make a bet that even when side-loading becomes available, it does change much.

You can side-load on Android, and the Play Store's commissions are on par with Apple's.

The mistake here is believing that either Store is competing for developers. They are not. The stores compete for users, and they charge developers a fee for access to those users. Most users prefer the safety and convience of Play, or Steam, or Apple's iOS store.

So long as user's are primarily using Apple's store, either through defaults, habits or choice, Apple won't have to change much.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#322

Post by rossjudson »

winter_blue wrote: post #290
lolinder wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was always what the outcome was going to look like. People have been talking ever since the ruling as though dodging Apple as a payment processor was going to magically exempt developers from the full 30% fee, but that was never going to happen and it was never the intention of the ruling. Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and storing and…

> Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and storing and delivering the app bundles. The cost of operating an App Store and providing distribution is relatively negligible. Several Linux distros have app stores, and package management and distribution systems that are as good or superior than Apple’s. The annual fee that Apple charges developers al…

That's odd. I would have presumed that there are non-negligible costs involved with hosting and pushing binaries and updates of hundreds of apps per phone, times 1.5 billion active iPhones.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#323

Post by infotainment »

sircastor wrote: post #293
choppaface wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But use of said IP is required because Apple forbids side-loading. Therefore Apple App store is a monopoly. So hopefully the court result will in the end help get the Apple App store shut down / opened up.

Some people think of the App Store as a bazaar that Apple runs on its property, and it’s a 15-30% charge to setup a tent and sell your wares. Others think of it as Apple’s general store where they carry your app as a product, and you pay 15-30% for a place on the shelf. The concept that Kroger (for instance) has a monopoly of customers in its own store is ridiculous. There are other stores, and other bazaars. What an…

Not OP, but sticking with your store analogies, I would use the following:

Apple represents the town government, and the App Store is the only general store in the entire town; other stores have been banned. Don't like it? You're free to pack up and move to another city!

The reason I'd characterize it this way is that changing phone platforms is nontrivial. It's not as simple as just going to another store that day.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#325

Post by lxgr »

Hikikomori wrote: post #78
danpalmer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So Apple will be collecting 27% (instead of 30%) for... what exactly? Off the top of my head... - Bandwidth - Running the App Store for users - Marketing the App Store - App review - Security efforts to keep malware off the store - Making App Store optimisation tools for developers There's a lot of moving parts to this. You could argue that none of this is necessary if you sideload, but distribution is worth a lot…

So charge a fee based on usage of the specific services then? Flat 30% of monthly subscriptions when they're not even providing the service of sending that audio and video to the device is insane.

I agree, but I also don't know what actually would be a fair price for either of these specific services.

The advantage of mandating alternative distribution channels (i.e. sideloading or alternative app stores, both with their own payments infrastructure) would be that it wouldn't be up to a regulator to figure that out – the market could decide.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#326

Post by 6510 »

I'm kinda confused so I asked bing

>The difference between self employed and employed is that123:

> Self-employed workers work for themselves as sole proprietors or independent contractors, while employees work for an organization under a contract of service.

> Self-employed workers have more control over their work, but also more risks and responsibilities, while employees have more stability and benefits, but also more restrictions and obligations.

> Self-employed workers pay their own taxes and expenses, while employees have their taxes withheld and their benefits provided by their employer.

Apple also withholds VAT for the "employee".

Don't get me wrong, legally they are not employees. The interesting thing is how much it is like employment. You work for a single company, you have to do as told, they can fire you at any moment. When that happens you wont be able to sell to your customers because they are not your customers.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#327

Post by mvdtnz »

lolinder wrote: post #154
bradgessler wrote: post #54

Am I getting this right? Say I use Stripe as my payment processor. Stripe takes 2.9% + $0.30, then Apple takes 27% so I'm at 29.9% + $0.30 being taken out of however much I charge for my app? For a $10 app, $0.30 is 3% putting the fee at 32.9%. For the privilege of paying 2.9% more, my users get to see a scary privacy message and when I bill the customer a year later for a subscription, there's a 20-30% chance that t…

This was always what the outcome was going to look like. People have been talking ever since the ruling as though dodging Apple as a payment processor was going to magically exempt developers from the full 30% fee, but that was never going to happen and it was never the intention of the ruling. Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and storing and…

> The Court presumes that in such circumstances that Apple may rely on imposing and utilizing a contractual right to audit developers annual accounting to ensure compliance with its commissions,

To this day it remains absolutely unbelievable to me that anyone would ever agree to this. I always have and always will tell Apple to shove their app store up their ass. Plenty of other ways to make a living in software.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#328

Post by lxgr »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #109
danpalmer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So Apple will be collecting 27% (instead of 30%) for... what exactly? Off the top of my head... - Bandwidth - Running the App Store for users - Marketing the App Store - App review - Security efforts to keep malware off the store - Making App Store optimisation tools for developers There's a lot of moving parts to this. You could argue that none of this is necessary if you sideload, but distribution is worth a lot…

My company's SaaS product used to have an iOS and Android app which we discontinued a couple of years ago when Safari finally started supporting more web-standards that enabled our PWA to more-or-less have parity with the old app (confession: our app was using Xamarin instead of being truly native, not that it mattered much). ...so with that context in-mind, we don't benefit from - nor really need at all, most of tho…

> I think Apple's main mistake here was deciding that having a single set of rules and fee-schedules/commission/etc for everyone

On the other hand, non-equal fees ironically seem to be exactly what's made US courts decide in favor of Apple but against Google in two superficially quite similar cases regarding app store fees:

https://www.theverge.com/23994174/epic-google-trial-jury-ver...

I think the main mistake isn't the fixed percentage fee, but rather holding on to the golden goose that is an app store monopoly for too long.

Google has been providing sideloading since day one for example, and except for a few high-profile exceptions, people do genuinely seem to prefer the platform's native app store.

Apple always aims for total control and authority over everything: Their supply chain, the apps running on their systems, the devices allowed to interface with them – and while that obsession with keeping it as *their own platform arguably is part of what makes their devices attractive, I think it won't keep working forever in this case.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#330

Post by selectodude »

willsmith72 wrote: post #291
stouset wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is hosting, distributing, and directly marketing apps in the app store. They are reviewing submitted apps for compliance with their policies and security requirements. If you want to compare it to desktop computers, great! Compare it to the macOS App Store which… takes a 30% commission. Whether or not you personally agree that 30% is a reasonable fee, you can't simply deny that operating the app store costs mon…

> Apple is hosting, distributing, and directly marketing apps in the app store. They are reviewing submitted apps for compliance with their policies and security requirements. They CHOOSE to do this. If there were a free and open market for app stores, competitors would pop up, who would similarly host, distribute, market, and "review" apps. And they would do it for a whole lot less than 30% and 99USD/year. They char…

>They CHOOSE to do this. If there were a free and open market for app stores, competitors would pop up, who would similarly host, distribute, market, and "review" apps. And they would do it for a whole lot less than 30% and 99USD/year.

Would they? There are plenty of storefronts that sell games on Windows, yet Steam is the dominant one and charges, you guessed it, $100 and 30% of gross revenue. Epic charges 12 percent and loses money on every transaction. It might actually cost somewhere between 12 and 30 percent to make it a profitable and sustainable venture.

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