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Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

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Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#101

Post by MBCook »

foogazi wrote: post #34
MBCook wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re sort of trapped between a rock and a hard place. I don’t think what they’re doing is right, don’t take this as defense. On the one hand “services revenue” (their cut from casino/exploitive games) is basically the only thing growing. people who want iPhones have them. People who want iPads have them. The Vision Pro is never going to sell 1 billion units. Wall Street demand growth so they “have to“ keep finding…

> On the other hand, doing this is absolutely alienating every developer. How did so many devs show up if the platform fees are alienating them ?

The iPhone is too big to ignore. That’s where TONS of users are.

But many ignore the iPad. Apple TV apps (outside of streaming video) ain’t doing great. How’s the Watch App Store these days? The Mac App Store is a runaway success right?

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#102

Post by MBCook »

mschuster91 wrote: post #55
MBCook wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple should’ve won the lawsuit. Epic broke TOS they agreed to, got punished, and whined a bunch to the court. They deserved to lose as they largely did. They’re also not innocent. They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with develope…

> They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. There's value to be had in more competition the "middleman" market, too! At the moment, on PC there's a healthy competition between the Microsoft Store, Steam, GOG, Epic Games, EA Origin and probably at least a dozen other smaller platforms, some of which are also available on macOS a…

I agree there’s a benefit.

I’m just saying that Epic is not the underdog little guy some seem to act like they are. This wasn’t a small indie developer sticking up for their rights.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#103

Post by MBCook »

samtho wrote: post #52
MBCook wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple should’ve won the lawsuit. Epic broke TOS they agreed to, got punished, and whined a bunch to the court. They deserved to lose as they largely did. They’re also not innocent. They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with develope…

The ToS isn’t law and we desperately need to stop pretending it is. A ToS a “shrinkwraped” contract. In Apple’s case, it’s enforceability was yet to be tested. We can agree to a lot of things in a contract, but in general, we cannot consent to letting a party break the law at your expense. A judge determined that Apples practices were unlawful and therefore the problematic stipulation of the ToS was struck. This is a…

It’s not law, it’s a binding legal agreement.

This wasn’t some clickwrap thing you have to click through to play Angry Birds, it was the agreement for signing up for the developer program.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#104

Post by dataflow »

detourdog wrote: post #97
dataflow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did brick and mortar stores have a monopoly on software distribution?

They had as much control of what was available one their shelves.

Are you familiar with what a monopoly is? It's not about controlling what's on your shelf, it's about not letting other stores have the monopolized products on theirs.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#105

Post by samtho »

MBCook wrote: post #103
samtho wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ToS isn’t law and we desperately need to stop pretending it is. A ToS a “shrinkwraped” contract. In Apple’s case, it’s enforceability was yet to be tested. We can agree to a lot of things in a contract, but in general, we cannot consent to letting a party break the law at your expense. A judge determined that Apples practices were unlawful and therefore the problematic stipulation of the ToS was struck. This is a…

It’s not law, it’s a binding legal agreement. This wasn’t some clickwrap thing you have to click through to play Angry Birds, it was the agreement for signing up for the developer program.

> This wasn’t some clickwrap thing you have to click through to play Angry Birds, it was the agreement for signing up for the developer program.

Both of these operate under precisely the same principle. The same principle is applied when you sign up for a gym membership, a credit card, or install software on your computer. The validity of the shrinkwrap contract is not something I’m challenging here even if I happen to believe they go against the spirit of contracts.

My point is that there are limits as to what you are able to consent to, legally speaking. You can’t typically sue a company for including something in the ToS that you haven’t yet signed which you believe is unenforceable because you suffered no damage and have no standing in the matter. The way to go about this is to agree to the ToS and challenge its enforceability when, specifically, the target stipulations(s) were enforced by the company you made the agreement with. If this stipulation was not legal for them enforce, then it’s perfectly within the rights of the signer to challenge it.

The other dynamic is that the signer is taking on risk by challenging the validity of the contract either as a whole or in part, therefore it’s not necessary asymmetrical.

There are other situations where a “legal contract” can be thrown out, such as being forced to sign one under duress/threat, or even if someone who cannot consent legally signs it.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#106

Post by librish »

kj99 wrote: post #99
librish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is currently the only thing they're charging for. Like I said, let them unbundle if they want to. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually end up just taking a revenue hit to keep the ecosystem healthy, which would mean more money for developers.

What are you talking about? Where do they say that they are only charging for payment processing?

Right now the only time they take a cut is when they do payment processing. Uber, for example, pays Apple nothing.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#107

Post by kj99 »

librish wrote: post #106
kj99 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Where do they say that they are only charging for payment processing?

Right now the only time they take a cut is when they do payment processing. Uber, for example, pays Apple nothing.

Amazon pays Apple nothing either, because the goods the customer is paying for aren’t being delivered through the App.

This tells us nothing about the charge being only for payment processing.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#108

Post by librish »

librish wrote: post #106
kj99 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Where do they say that they are only charging for payment processing?

Right now the only time they take a cut is when they do payment processing. Uber, for example, pays Apple nothing.

It feels like you're trying to win on semantics here.

Right now you as a developer pay $X for access to their eco system, and on top of that you pay 15/30% of whatever payments they process for you.

You can say "well actually, that 30% isn't all for the payment processing" but I don't why it matters what Apple's intention behind the payment is.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#109

Post by kj99 »

librish wrote: post #108
librish wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now the only time they take a cut is when they do payment processing. Uber, for example, pays Apple nothing.

It feels like you're trying to win on semantics here. Right now you as a developer pay $X for access to their eco system, and on top of that you pay 15/30% of whatever payments they process for you. You can say "well actually, that 30% isn't all for the payment processing" but I don't why it matters what Apple's intention behind the payment is.

Thanks for making the distinction between when you are charged and why then charge is for.

Businesses rarely map charges directly into what is being paid for, because that doesn’t work in practice. Charges are made at a convenient point and then used to pay for the service as a whole. This is common practice across all kinds of business.

This matters because people are claiming they it is just for payment processing and then arguing that 30% is too much, which is clearly a dishonest position.

Re: Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)

#110

Post by turquoisevar »

librish wrote: post #12
threeseed wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because most iOS developers aren't confused about the situation. Apple's commission is for the App Store, SDKs, Developer Support etc. Not just a payment processing fee. And so if there are other stores and payment options which there will be soon Apple is still within their right to collect that fee. As every court around the world has said. They could collect it as a percentage of sales like Epic or just lum…

Then force them to unbundle those fees if they want to collect them. It just doesn't make any sense that some developers have to pay up to 30% of their iOS revenue while others (including huge corporations like Uber, Starbucks, Target etc) pay nothing.

> Then force them to unbundle those fees if they want to collect them.

No, thank you.

I’ve seen what that looks like on the video console side of things. Thousands of dollars for the right of publishing on the manufacturer’s platform (i.e., using their IP) and again thousands for each build that needs to be certified.

Hundreds for smaller indie game devs.

I’m happy with my 15% commission and the $99/year fee. Nice and cheap and I get my money’s worth out of it and then some. Best part, they do well (i.e., I only owe them) when I do well. No upfront cost that’s essentially a gamble. No fee per build.

The more is bundled into a commission tied to my revenue, the better.

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