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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#501

Post by peteretep »

busterarm wrote: post #498
peteretep wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exposure isn't necessarily good for an app. Users > frequently _cost_ money. Ask anyone who has > significantly scaled freemium services. Then it's not a business, it's a charity.

Not necessarily. Cost of users isn't linear with count of users and while it might go down as your userbase grows, you might not have the finances yet to handle that growth. You can't just "be ready to host a 100 million users, tomorrow" in the early stages of your business.

If you don't have a contingency plan for how you will handle - operationally, financially, infrastructure-perspective, monetization - user scaling at speed, then not only is your business a charity, it's a hobby, too.

If there are credible signs you will acquire 100m users tomorrow, and you can't walk in to a VC and walk out with a big chunk of money for a small amount of equity, it means you don't have a real business plan.

Additionally, I would be interested in any examples you have of companies acquiring 100m users overnight, or anything within two orders of magnitude of that.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#502

Post by peteretep »

gridspy wrote: post #499
peteretep wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exposure isn't necessarily good for an app. Users > frequently _cost_ money. Ask anyone who has > significantly scaled freemium services. Then it's not a business, it's a charity.

It's a marketing channel. You pay real costs to provision and support free users so that some of them will become paid users. It only works if there is a high enough proportion of conversions to paid.

    > It only works if there is a high enough proportion of
    > conversions to paid.
That is additionally what makes it a viable business. Loss-leaders are nothing new, in any industry, despite the cute name of "freemium".

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#503

Post by [deleted] »

busterarm wrote: post #498
peteretep wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exposure isn't necessarily good for an app. Users > frequently _cost_ money. Ask anyone who has > significantly scaled freemium services. Then it's not a business, it's a charity.

Not necessarily. Cost of users isn't linear with count of users and while it might go down as your userbase grows, you might not have the finances yet to handle that growth. You can't just "be ready to host a 100 million users, tomorrow" in the early stages of your business.

[deleted]

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#504

Post by busterarm »

peteretep wrote: post #501
busterarm wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Cost of users isn't linear with count of users and while it might go down as your userbase grows, you might not have the finances yet to handle that growth. You can't just "be ready to host a 100 million users, tomorrow" in the early stages of your business.

If you don't have a contingency plan for how you will handle - operationally, financially, infrastructure-perspective, monetization - user scaling at speed, then not only is your business a charity, it's a hobby, too. If there are credible signs you will acquire 100m users tomorrow, and you can't walk in to a VC and walk out with a big chunk of money for a small amount of equity, it means you don't have a real busine…

That's the thing about "exposure" though. You have no control over it. You can't plan for it. You are missing the point. 100 million was just a number. The corpses of businesses that scaled past their ability to serve their customers are real.

But part of your argument has merit: it's the same reason that "exposure" doesn't create album sales. There's no real chance (really, there isn't) that you have a product that will reach 100m people tomorrow, so you shouldn't be producing music as if you would.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#505

Post by djrogers »

mike_hearn wrote: post #383
S4M wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On what possible basis could anyone consider that appropriate? Not a US citizen here, but I think the reason is that a US citizen has more privileges than someone else: it's easier to travel and get a work permit abroad, if something goes badly they are still under protection of the US government, etc. This is due to the fact that USA are the most powerful country on Earth, and one of the reasons for that is its mi…

> I think the reason is that a US citizen has more privileges than someone else Not the case. I have read that the most powerful passport in the world (as in, getting into countries visa free) is the British passport. Additionally Americans, unlike citizens of other countries, get no protection from their host government. If they get evacuated from a disaster zone they get charged for the costs. And as everything the…

> If they get evacuated from a disaster zone they get charged for the costs. And as everything the US Gov does is horrendously price inflated, there are cases of people getting "rescued" and then wishing they'd been left behind after being served with massive bills.

Citation please? The only thing I've ever heard of even remotely close to this ate the occasional local search and rescue operations that are caused by poor judgement. That has nothing at all to do with the U.S. government.

The next time there's a disaster in almost any country - look around. That's a U.S. Navy carrier providing electricity for emergency relief. Those are U.S. Marines distributing rice, ponchos, and water. Those are U.S. Navy Corpsmen delivering first aid to the wounded.

As bad as people like to make this country out to be, we are the first ones there with the biggest shovel any time another country needs to be dug out.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#506

Post by teacup50 »

w4 wrote: post #378
rayiner wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do consumers prefer SaaS? The reaction to Windows and Office becoming subscription software seems pretty uniformly negative.

Even if users grouse about it, they seem to prefer it versus a big one time upfront purchase based on their usage/purchase patterns. Of course, what they'd probably really prefer is a low one time upfront purchase, but that's typically not tenable for the software business.

Users rarely get a choice when vendors decide to switch to rent-seeking licensing models, so where is it that they seem to prefer it?

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#507

Post by peteretep »

busterarm wrote: post #504
peteretep wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have a contingency plan for how you will handle - operationally, financially, infrastructure-perspective, monetization - user scaling at speed, then not only is your business a charity, it's a hobby, too. If there are credible signs you will acquire 100m users tomorrow, and you can't walk in to a VC and walk out with a big chunk of money for a small amount of equity, it means you don't have a real busine…

That's the thing about "exposure" though. You have no control over it. You can't plan for it. You are missing the point. 100 million was just a number. The corpses of businesses that scaled past their ability to serve their customers are real. But part of your argument has merit: it's the same reason that "exposure" doesn't create album sales. There's no real chance (really, there isn't) that you have a product that…

    > You can't plan for it.
Sounds like a good way to get sued by your investors.

    > The corpses of businesses that scaled past their ability 
    > to serve their customers are real.
Turns out that a Rails App + someone calling themselves a "Serial Startup CEO" on LinkedIn don't necessarily equate to a business.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#508

Post by minot »

jbooth wrote: post #380
simonh wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By trying to weasel out of paying any US taxes, they can't spend their own money. It's not about avoiding paying any US taxes, it's about avoiding paying US taxes on earnings abroad. This is why so many Americans living abroad are giving up their US citizenship. I'm a Brit living in London and I know several American born friends that have become British citizens to avoid paying both UK and US taxes on their earnin…

"It's not about avoiding paying any US taxes, it's about avoiding paying US taxes on earnings abroad." It's also about structuring earnings so that they happen to be earned abroad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Here are my simple thoughts.

If an entity pays for an Apple product or service in the US, Apple has earned an income. This income is without doubt subject to taxes in the US. As far as I know Apple does pay US taxes on these monies. Do we agree this far?

I don't see why we can fault Apple for not repatriating income it earned abroad. They can do as they please with it as long as they don't bring it back in the US. I'm not saying they shouldn't pay a tax if/when they bring it back. I am just saying we should not demonize them for not bringing it back.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#509

Post by interpol_p »

w4 wrote: post #186

For everyone suggesting that artists are simply being greedy or unreasonable in expecting Apple to pay them during the trial period, I'd encourage you to consider the hypothetical I posted in the last thread about Apple Music's 3 month trial. It might help contextualize the artists' and labels' complaints: > Tomorrow, Apple announces that it will be introducing an "App Store Subscription." For $9.99/month users will…

I'd be interested in getting paid by usage rather than once upfront. And if a free trial period let people get on board that would be fine with me.

I have an app that is "expensive" ($15) but I have dedicated users who paid once four years ago and continue to use the app today. All the major updates since have been free. While I don't know whether the pay-by-usage model would be financially better for me, I'd be pretty open minded about it and wouldn't mind the free trial.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#510

Post by [deleted] »

busterarm wrote: post #504
peteretep wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have a contingency plan for how you will handle - operationally, financially, infrastructure-perspective, monetization - user scaling at speed, then not only is your business a charity, it's a hobby, too. If there are credible signs you will acquire 100m users tomorrow, and you can't walk in to a VC and walk out with a big chunk of money for a small amount of equity, it means you don't have a real busine…

That's the thing about "exposure" though. You have no control over it. You can't plan for it. You are missing the point. 100 million was just a number. The corpses of businesses that scaled past their ability to serve their customers are real. But part of your argument has merit: it's the same reason that "exposure" doesn't create album sales. There's no real chance (really, there isn't) that you have a product that…

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