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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#131

Post by hajile »

madeofpalk wrote: post #76
andysinclair wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not aimed at solving your problem, this is aimed at helping us small developers build a more sustainable business on the App Store. We will ultimately build more apps and invest more time in supporting and improving our current apps.

> this is aimed at helping us small developers I doubt this was the aim. It suspect its aim was to fend off all this scrutiny on their App Store business. Who knows whether it'll work in avoiding attention from law makers and regulators, but this will do nothing to address the developer's concerns and problem with the App Store.

It seems to hurt their argument. They don't need that big of a cut for expenses, they just want it and can do whatever they like.

It still doesn't solve the fundamental issue.

Let users have the option of using third-party stores, but losing Apple's safety net. They claim users want that net. If so, the third party stores will go bust. If not, they're simply being anti-consumer.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#132

Post by mensetmanusman »

Interesting move to try to delay anti trust investigations.

The way it is phrased, there will be some income around $1M dollars where you would want to prevent anyone from purchasing an app and pushing you into the 30% fee zone, as it doesn’t seem to apply a 30% fee on earnings above $1M.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#133

Post by forest_dweller »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #127
forest_dweller wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30% is a case for antitrust given how big Apple App Store today is. 15% seems reasonable, 10% would be ideal. Not it isn't a case for anti-trust. 70/30 split whether people on here like it or not is a standard agreement for these types of business relationship. https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut... The judge in the case agreed. > Judge says the 30% rate is the industry rate— references Ste…

>> 30% is a case for antitrust given how big Apple App Store today is. 15% seems reasonable, 10% would be ideal. > Not it isn't. 70/30 split whether people on here like it or not is a standard agreement for these types of business relationship. Huh? They didn't say "standard", they said "reasonable" and "ideal". > Apple are effectively an affialite for your app i.e. they drive traffic to your app through their store.…

> Huh? They didn't say "standard", they said "reasonable" and "ideal".

I should have clarified. They was saying it (the 30%) was a case for antitrust.

> The problem is that they charge that fee no matter where the customers come from, and you can't opt out either.

Can they come from anywhere other than the actual store?

In any event that is a different issue.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#134

Post by cwhiz »

gtsteve wrote: post #21

Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it 3. I ship a new update 4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively. I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can…

This isn’t a problem exclusive to Apple anymore. Google has implemented some draconian nonsense this year to the point where I ended up distributing my Android app as a PWA. I had no problems with Apple.

Apple gets all the headlines, and certainly gets more chatter on HN, but they aren’t alone in this bullshit. As an example... Fortnite was also banned by Google.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#135

Post by breakfastduck »

saagarjha wrote: post #85
lilyball wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple provides value to both end-users and developers. It does not seem unreasonable to charge them both. And if Apple did not charge developers, that would suggest they’d have to raise prices on end-users to make up the difference, which does not seem fair to the users.

But developers provide value to Apple and users as well, and of course already "pay" by writing software for the platform.

Thats fair but kinda like saying a food product producer is already providing value to a store by producing goods but not paying the store any money to host their product.

It doesn't really make sense.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#136

Post by estreeper »

gtsteve wrote: post #21

Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it 3. I ship a new update 4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively. I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can…

> there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser

This is true, but perhaps not as many as some may think! Progressive Web Applications can now do quite a lot on mobile and tablets, with a notable exception of push notifications on iOS.

They are an increasingly interesting option for those whose use case allows it.

https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/10/the-state-of-pwa-suppor...

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#137

Post by supermatt »

monkin wrote: post #45
Nullabillity wrote: post #16

The correct amount is still 0%, from anyone.

Try to run a business for free and come back in few years to tell us how it goes.

Well, to be fair, according to apple it accounts for less than 5% of their $500bn revenue..

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#139

Post by breakfastduck »

varispeed wrote: post #84
HatchedLake721 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you calculated that how?

It's a level that state would take to take care for roads, healthcare, civil service, army and so on. There is no justification for such high % to maintain an app. They could charge per app review and maybe the data transfer fee no more than Amazon S3. Anything else is Apple abusing their monopoly. Developer can't submit their app to an alternative app store because Apple doesn't allow that and it must change.

It's not 'maintain' - its offer all the services that come along with it (integrations, store, download, hosting, authentication).

If you produce a food product, you should expect the store to take a cut of the price before it gets to you.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#140

Post by dalbasal »

I would be interested in hearing the strategic rationale here.

Back in the day, it was novel that google had an influential chief economist. It made sense. Adwords is an auction. Doubleclick's novelties in search ad auctions were proven levers, big levers.

The interesting part (to me) was that the auction didn't just optimize price. It regulated advertiser behaviour. Explicit feedback. Black box. Commentary on black box. It all played a role influencing advertiser behaviour in an economist/regulator way.

These days, that would be quaint. Google has the android ecosystem and play store marketplace. Adwords/adsense is a market too, one that has been dinged for >$1bn monopolism fines. Youtube is a marketplace. Youtube affect content with monetisation algorithms and policies, the recommendation engine, censorship/classification. Appstore. Amazon. Big "markets," with corporate policies looking increasingly like state-scale economic policies.

Even stuff like social media is market-ish. Lots of participants are interacting. Attention& influence stand in for prices, but there are still producers and consumers. Many of them. More than FB can understand in all but the most abstract ways.

The search/seo/antispam codependency was an early exhibit.

Anyway.... besides the superficial similarity, I suspect the logic to this new app store policy is more "tax cut" than "price decrease." My guess: Apple's trying "fix market failures" showing up in data.

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