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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#211

Post by Dylan16807 »

forest_dweller wrote: post #187
Dylan16807 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can they come from anywhere other than the actual store? If I have a link on my site that takes a customer directly to the store page, and they buy it, then Apple did nothing at all to earn an "affiliate" level payout. They didn't drive any traffic. Or if the customer puts in the exact app name and buys it. > In any event that is a different issue. It's very relevant to whether 30% is reasonable. Apple acts as a le…

> If I have a link on my site that takes a customer directly to the store page, and they buy it, then Apple did nothing at all to earn an "affiliate" level payout. They didn't drive any traffic. The store provides you visibility through promotion on the store page, being listed in search and taking payment for the purchase. This would be no different than if a boxed piece of software was in a brick and mortar retaile…

> The store provides you visibility through promotion on the store page, being listed in search and taking payment for the purchase.

Only the first two are affiliate behavior, and they don't apply to every purchase, and you can't opt out.

> They are still buying through apple.

Right. But that's just facilitating a transaction, which is usually not a 30% cut.

> 30% is reasonable because that is the standard rate in most of these relationships.

Again, standard and reasonable are different things. And again, the problem is you can't choose the type of relationship.

> If it wasn't reasonable people wouldn't publish with Steam, Gog, Nintendo (nintendo lowered the rate if you look at the IGN link to 30% to match other stores).

People get pressured into unreasonable rates all the time...

> Also if it wasn't financially viable with the 30% fee (which has been there since 2011) then people wouldn't publish apps there.

It's always going to be viable for someone to publish. Even with a 90% fee. But surely we can agree that 90% would not be reasonable, even if it was standard?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#212

Post by Qahlel »

jakozaur wrote: post #19

Great move! 30% is a case for antitrust given how big Apple App Store today is. 15% seems reasonable, 10% would be ideal. Though it should be 15% for everybody, no artificial caps. Moreover, I believe once you become a platform there should be an independent nano-courthouse where you can appeal. Today being rejected by Apple, Amazon, or Google platform is equivalent to the economical death penalty for many individual…

%0 is ideal.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#213

Post by indigochill »

pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

It's along the same lines of what Microsoft did when they were being investigated as a monopoly: throw a bone to smaller developers (or in Microsoft's case, kids in school) which actually just grows their market share (in Microsoft's case, kids learn to use Microsoft products and take that to work, in Apple's case, more devs see profitability in the Mac garden).

> Apple / Google’s 30% take is the anti-competitive elephant in the room here

No. They both built a distribution channel on which developers build, but they're not open markets. Those app stores are the property of their respective creators (this is a flaw of the app store paradigm in general, at least for those who want full control over their software).

Both Apple and Google are fully within their rights to charge whatever they want within their app store and enforce whatever capricious whims they like on apps that they distribute. It's the same as traditional book publishers writing their contracts with authors they publish. Which is why open platforms and device jailbreaking remain valuable for those of us who believe in personal ownership of our software.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#214

Post by fakedang »

eecc wrote: post #163
sheeshkebab wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. As a small developer, apples 30% tax never bothered me - seemed excessive but worth it. The arbitrary and weird approval rules is what turned me off their platform. Although I could see how they are trying to appease antitrust regulators with this move - although they should have gone with 0 - 2% range for that. 15% is a substantial markup to price consumers would pay for using apples monopolized mobile softwa…

Imagine the outrage if people learned the markup that distributors make on vegetables and dairy as well as the monopsony power they wield against small farmers!

Wish I could downvote this for fake info, but I'm too new.

Distributors make a pittance for a relatively risky bet on delivering fruit and veggies. Margins are usually below 10%, often close to 5%, and definitely nowhere near 30%. On top of that, there's the added risk of damage happening to the goods in transit and storage, voiding the entire profit. Google and Apple make money by sitting on their asses and taking a slice off a developer's cheque, which is more akin to a usurious mafia slumlord rather than a tech company. Small farmers are on the short end of a stick, but only because by nature small landholdings are not profitable, and farming is a scale operation for production of a commoditized good by nature. App development is not a scale operation - a developer can be easily profitable with a small group of high-paying customers.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#215

Post by Dylan16807 »

xuki wrote: post #203
andybak wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering we're talking about Fortnite I would suggest that it's trivial for anyone who can figure out how to play Fortnite.

If it was trivial they would not bring Fortnite to Play Store at all, but they did.

Being trivial in difficulty doesn't ensure that people want to do it, especially for a free app.

If you want a better experiment, have a play version with normal fees, and a sideload version where v-bucks are cheaper.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#216

Post by e_proxus »

pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

Of course there might be other reasons to scrutinize big companies like Apple, Google etc. but isn’t the best policy the one you don’t even have to implement because the actors in the market acted beforehand already?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#217

Post by baby-yoda »

apple being masters at PR undoubtedly influenced this more than wanting to be more "fair" to all developers. cynical take ahead:

assuming the distribution of app store devs follows a usual power law, this will impact a large number of devs whose revenue makes up a small percent of apple's total take from the app store. 80/20, 90/10, whatever it may be. so id guess their actual revenue hit is probably 5-10% in this specific category. great sounding relative numbers but not much in absolute values.

they'll also play the other side and use the great sounding absolute numbers - ex: "We cut app store commissions in half for over a million small businesses, helping to stimulate the economy in these tough, unprecedented times".

disclaimer: no one expects apple to be a charity, they created and own the app store, their platform their rules, etc. all fine and good but as others have mentioned, without antitrust scrutiny the chances of this happening are far slimmer.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#218

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

This is nice, but I still won't buy any iPhone until I'm allowed to run any app on it, bypassing the app store. Because I live in a country that might force Apple remove necessary apps from its store, and Apple has a history of complying with such requests.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#219

Post by whywhywhywhy »

forest_dweller wrote: post #102
jakozaur wrote: post #19

Great move! 30% is a case for antitrust given how big Apple App Store today is. 15% seems reasonable, 10% would be ideal. Though it should be 15% for everybody, no artificial caps. Moreover, I believe once you become a platform there should be an independent nano-courthouse where you can appeal. Today being rejected by Apple, Amazon, or Google platform is equivalent to the economical death penalty for many individual…

> 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…

> whether people on here like it or not is a standard agreement for these types of business relationship.

Not seeking a cut of almost every transaction going through your OS just because you built the foundations and gatekeep the door was standard too.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#220

Post by randomsearch »

fakedang wrote: post #214
eecc wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the outrage if people learned the markup that distributors make on vegetables and dairy as well as the monopsony power they wield against small farmers!

Wish I could downvote this for fake info, but I'm too new. Distributors make a pittance for a relatively risky bet on delivering fruit and veggies. Margins are usually below 10%, often close to 5%, and definitely nowhere near 30%. On top of that, there's the added risk of damage happening to the goods in transit and storage, voiding the entire profit. Google and Apple make money by sitting on their asses and taking a…

UK typically ~ 3%, learnt that recently and was shocked.
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