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Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

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Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#171

Post by JimDabell »

MindSpunk wrote: post #147
JimDabell wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would basically make indie development impossible We aren’t talking about indie development though. People like to paint a picture of a small, scrappy startup or beleaguered solo dev being held back by Apple’s crushing 30%, but that isn’t the case. Unless you are earning more than a million dollars a year through the App Store alone, you don’t pay 30%, you pay 15%. And if you earn more than that, you still only pay…

Let's run the numbers for indie development. Say you're a team of 3. Your game takes 2 years to develop. You spend on salary for 3x2 years. You've spent ~$600,000 so far. Let's assume you haven't had any other sources of operational costs like software licenses for your art tools (3D modelling, 2D drawing, music production, sound production, game engine), marketing expenditure, development hardware, outside contracti…

> You've spent ~$600,000 so far.

> If you pull $800,000 in the first year

This is not what people have in mind when you talk about poor little indie devs being unable to cope with 30%. We’re talking about a well-funded operation that can run for years without revenue.

> So if we want to talk about Apple's 15% it's actually worse.

Paying 15% is not worse than paying 30%.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#172

Post by Nevermark »

para_parolu wrote: post #133
bloomca wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about that. I am sure if the court would force them to allow sideloading, they'll make sure to never promote your app if you decide to offer both options to the users.

And that’s fair. Apple doesn’t have to provide services to businesses

Punishing developers for not exclusively using their App Store would be clearly uncompetitive.

If they have to allow other stores, then they are not going to be allowed to punish developers for using them.

(Assuming the lowest bar possible in anti-competitive resolution follow through.)

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#173

Post by Nevermark »

JustExAWS wrote: post #99
Hammershaft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup founders can choose between many models of funding, VCs, etc. Starups cannot choose between different ways of accessing willing customers over iOS, they have to comply with a %30 cut and a jungle of regulations that act in Apple's interest. These two examples aren't the same, even just on the basis of market power.

Startups aren’t paying 30% of sales unless they have more then $1 million in revenue coming through the App Store, they are selling access to digital goods and even then, they can still sell access to subscriptions and services outside of the App Store and now they can link directly to their website from the App Store thanks to the courts ruling - at least in the US.

Many startups are still losing money at $1M ARR. So getting a bump up to 30% of revenue at $1M can be catastrophic.

Investors don't want large percentages of pre-profit money being siphoned off by Apple.

Generally speaking, an optimized win-win fee would be some percentage of profits, not revenue.

That might be far too difficult to manage, accounting wise. But we can safely say that 30% of revenue, would translate to an extreme percentage of profit. Apple is extorting from many companies.

One sign of anticompetitive behavior is when a company is leveraging things in their favor so hard, it seems quite plausible that they are actually harming themselves. Killing of developers, by charging massive fees even to money losing developers, is not a good long term strategy.

But the power to extract money even from those it causes real pain, is hard to turn down when quarterly numbers keep coming up.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#174

Post by spect88 »

close04 wrote: post #167
anilgulecha wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations: 1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base. 2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users. 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the faste…

On #3, Meta could have done it for Android and I don't think they did. Actually if Android is a god estimation of how it looks like with 3rd party stores, it won't be super disruptive. Unless the iOS market is so lucrative it will garner far more interest.

> Actually if Android is a god estimation of how it looks like with 3rd party stores, it won't be super disruptive.

Google Play has fewer restrictions though. Apple doesn't even allow alternative browser engines. Until last year they didn't allow any emulators.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#175

Post by qwytw »

anilgulecha wrote: post #141
earthnail wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not until alternative stores become competitive. Realistically they have such a monopoly thar you end up in a chiclen and egg situation. Their monopoly is so large that noone wants to distribute via small alt stores, meaning alt stores never get large.

A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations: 1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base. 2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users. 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the faste…

> 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the fastest growing store in a matter of a week.

Why? They don't do this on Android.

At then end of the day the number of active users would fall if they do this. That's unavoidable. So what incentives do they have to not distribute on the App Store? It's not like (unlike in Epic's case) Apple is requiring Facebook to hand over 30% of its revenue.

fdroid is of course great. Extremely niche and not that significant, though.

> Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users.

Amazon tried that on Android. Of course I would expect Google to do much better but that doesn't mean a lot.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#176

Post by crossroadsguy »

jmull wrote: post #45

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.) Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

I wonder what Apple's bigger fear is - losing that ~30% cut, which is massive, or when they have to compete with alternative app stores and when finally people see how forward "software finesse" has come to in 2025 and how pathetic Apple's software/service ecosystem has been, losing most of the remaining whatever reduced cut it was; i.e. getting hammered at both ends. I think that's why they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the curtain as it is on the grand stage of privacy theatre.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#177

Post by crossroadsguy »

para_parolu wrote: post #133
bloomca wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about that. I am sure if the court would force them to allow sideloading, they'll make sure to never promote your app if you decide to offer both options to the users.

And that’s fair. Apple doesn’t have to provide services to businesses

As long as they clearly give the option, at the time of first setup - or an upgrade, to select which app store becomes default; and make it very easy to change default app store later, just like default browser, default search engine et cetera. But they must not be allowed to disallow for the reason that "you are on another app store, we don't like you, go away!".

Yup, it's then fair and they can keep the banner in their App Store that screams at font size 38 "This Journal App Is Da Best", "No Other Note App Has Been Made Greater Than This One".

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#178

Post by pen2l »

People here miss the value of a tightly moderated walled garden: I don't have to worry about downloading things that are misleading or are chock full of dark patterns, because it has been vetted by an App Store that I trust. And when I download an app with a subscription through App Store, I can see any time how much it costs, I can cancel it any time no fuss: https://www.iphonelife.com/sites/iphonelife.com/files/styles...

Meanwhile, any subscription I sign up for through another channel, I have to wade through a sea of dark patterns to reach a cancel screen.

This is why I choose to have an iPhone, because the garden is walled and I can relax. If you want freedom to have multiple different app stores, Android is a better option for you.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#179

Post by Cthulhu_ »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #70
jmull wrote: post #45

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.) Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

> But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. This the answer. The app store monopoly doesn't really matter, the real tyranny is needing Apple's cryptographic blessing to run software on our own computers. This should be literally illegal. Restore our computer freedom and their app store rent seeking becomes irrelevant.

It's a tradeoff. You may have the knowledge and risk awareness to install anything, circumvent protections like you still can on MacOS, but the vast majority does not and should not have that power; this led to huge botnets during the Windows XP era when many internet connections were first set up. They overcompensated with Vista, asking permissions for everything so people developed a kneejerk "just hit accept". The iPhone came out not long after, with a safety by default - which invariably meant restricting what a user can and cannot do and install on their system.

I think it's been a net positive overall. The percentage of people that want to do and install more with it is small.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#180

Post by whatsupdog »

pen2l wrote: post #178

People here miss the value of a tightly moderated walled garden: I don't have to worry about downloading things that are misleading or are chock full of dark patterns, because it has been vetted by an App Store that I trust. And when I download an app with a subscription through App Store, I can see any time how much it costs, I can cancel it any time no fuss: https://www.iphonelife.com/sites/iphonelife.com/files/sty…

Everybody should have a choice. You have a choice to go through Apple. The developer should have a choice to bypass Apple.
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