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

macrumors.com

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

#641

Post by ric2b »

throwaway290 wrote: post #281
threeseed wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic should have sued over the size of Apple's cut, not it's right to take a cut Epic charges 5% for Unreal Engine. Apple offers developers significantly more than just a games engine.

The most famous Epic game is (or was until this legal battle) played on iOS more than on any other platform, that's in Epic's own complaint. So who built iOS? Why so many people use it? How come they are willing to pay for games instead of pirating them? Looks like whoever developed iOS and all the hardware it runs on and the ecosystem that makes it appealing for rich users is actually providing Epic a ton of value a…

I don't get where the equivalence of "iPhone user" and "rich person" comes from.

It's $1000, most people have acess to that kind of money, even if they need to finance it and even if it is a terrible financial decision for them to buy one, many still do.

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

#642

Post by ric2b »

dwaite wrote: post #590
shaan7 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you buy an iphone there is no one to compete This. The problem is not the 30%, the problem is that iPhones do not have an option to buy apps from, lets say a Amazon Store or Epic Store.

That has been the style of argument made to regulators so far. However then people get shocked that Apple says ok, we've rolled out the ability for third party app stores, we still review all the apps before signing, and the store owes us a 20% commission.

They haven't rolled out the ability for third party stores.

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

#643

Post by ric2b »

stefandesu wrote: post #416
malshe wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few vendors who sell on Amazon. With advertising, they end up paying close to 60% of the selling price to Amazon.

How can Amazon pricing be so competitive if the cut is so large for third-party vendors?

"third-party vendors" on Amazon includes a galaxy of drop shippers that do little more than create product pages and let Amazon and the actual manufacturer sort out everything else between them, such as logistics, delivery, returns, etc.

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

#644

Post by nolok »

ben_w wrote: post #603
andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

> You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. True. > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. I'm old enough to have developed software before the App Store existed, and remember that everyone was very excited both buy it…

The problem is not that 30% is too high or too low, the problem is that it shouldn't be a % but a flat fee structure, like every other services ever.

If you have an app tomorrow that sells for $10 to 10k people you owe Apple $30k, now you manage to up your price to $30, same work same size same everything, but suddenly you now owe Apple $90k ? That's called a tax, not a fee.

Doing so wouldn't stop apple from having a separate, "pay 30% all inclusive" fee, and it wouldn't stop them from "if your app is free you have no fee" (beside the xcode sub fee).

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

#646

Post by norman784 »

andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

As a user I don't care for the 30% cut, what I care is to have a centralised payment method and subscription system, I don't have energy/time to keep with different subscriptions in each service/app and knowing that there are bad actors, they will do whatever possible to make hard to unsubscribe (like a few years ago the NYT, where you could only unsubscribe by phone and was very hard even so). But if even when using third party payment systems they need to integrate with Apple subscription API and you can cancel/track in one place then I'm fine with that.

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

#647

Post by lozenge »

dwaite wrote: post #587
lozenge wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon customers are still available on other platforms. They use credit cards and they can put their details into any site, and I imagine most of them frequently do. Their shipping address is also accepted by every company. iPhone users don't carry a second Android phone, and their purchasing decision has committed them to only buying on the App Store for at least a few years at a time. And the crazy part is they ar…

I'm not quite getting your point. The parent seems to be saying that when you take the difference between physical and digital goods into account, that Amazon is leaving him with a similar slice of the revenue. You seem to be arguing that he has alternatives to Amazon. However, you also seem to be making the point indirectly that the motivation for selling on Amazon, and why businesses sell in the App Stores, is that…

Companies like Amazon and Apple are free to set prices, but there are rules about being a monopoly and what that entails. Amazon is not a monopoly, it just has a dominant position. Apple has used technological means to make itself a monopoly.

Web apps are not a real alternative. Firstly, an app you can only use on a desktop is a non starter for almost every use case. So you need a mobile layout. Now, some features like background audio and video are not available as a web app. Some are less reliable like user sessions, timers, push notifications and offline behaviour. Technical innovation is not possible due to the standards based approach - for video calls you have to use WebRTC for example, for games you have to use WebGL. Some features like notifications, vibration, were delayed by Apple until users were trained to only accept native apps. There's others like battery status, Apple Watch, Settings pane that I don't know the exact status, but I'm sure App Store gets an advantage there too.

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

#648

Post by [deleted] »

sofixa wrote: post #612
ben_w wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. True. > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. I'm old enough to have developed software before the App Store existed, and remember that everyone was very excited both buy it…

> and by the relatively low fees of only 30%. 30% is low compared to what? Mafia extortion rates?

[deleted]

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

#649

Post by ben_w »

sofixa wrote: post #612
ben_w wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. True. > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. I'm old enough to have developed software before the App Store existed, and remember that everyone was very excited both buy it…

> and by the relatively low fees of only 30%. 30% is low compared to what? Mafia extortion rates?

When the App Store was new, the web hosting for my indie shareware games was about 30% of their net revenue after the payment processor and marketplace fees.

The payment processor (cheapest PayPal (U.S. Accounts), most expensive American Express/Optima International[0]) and marketplace (Kagi[0]) fees were on top of that hosting fee, and cost anywhere from (1.9 to 5.0)% + $0.30 (payment provider) plus 2.5% + $1 (market place for ≤$25), which makes those two items combined also more than 30% for any item sold for less than $5.08-5.77.

Hosting fees are of course cheaper today, more so when bulk bought (I think more than enough to compensate for games today getting into the 100GB range when my shareware was 10s of MB).

I'd hope that payment providers are also.

But at the time, it looked amazing.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20090903044400/http://www.kagi.c...

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

#650

Post by InsomniacL »

> "...the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (US) to include a link to the developer’s website that informs users of other ways to purchase digital goods or services."

https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...

I'm guessing Apple were required to provide developers with Alternative Payment options and not 'a link to a webpage that informs users'...

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