241–250 of 474 posts
It is a heafty price to pay, I could understand 30% in the early days, but the volume they’re dealing with now does make it feel unfair. Surely the solution to this is Progressive Web Apps, WebGL etc? At some point, they’ll distrust themselves
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Justifying price you charge for something based solely on cost, isn't the way that capitalism works. Price is purely a function of supply and demand. If app makers decide that it's not worth the 30% cut that Apple charges to reach the But realistically, the developers who are making the most money are the ones doing in app purchases for coins, loot boxes, etc. It's not exactly costing them anything to "produce" more…
No, justifying price based on cost is usually valid because of real competitive pressures in the world. Very few things deviate too far from underlying costs. Apple is a rare special case that has a lot of market power and brand premium. Retail stores take on massive working capital and inventory costs. Of course their 'cut' is going to be higher, and it will be the same in every other retail chain because of the sim…
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And that’s why if your business is based on selling a commodity like Android phones and PCs, you’re stuck selling low margin products where you can compete on price. That also explains why it’s impossible to make real money selling either Android phones or Windows computers.
"it’s impossible to make real money selling either Android phones or Windows computers" No. 99% (well not quite, but most) of the economy works this way. It's almost an entirely thin margin business world. Very, very few companies are making sweet margins unless there is some sneaky reason i.e. political patronage, niche markets, etc. etc.. Drugs and Healthcare work on high margins depending on how you look at it. Bu…
Homes - homes sell based on location, school zoning, demographic make up (sad but true), etc. and new home builders can often sell at a premium based on services and customization
Cars - sell based on brand more than costs
Furniture -- One word - Ikea
Exercise equipment - Peleton vs NordicTrack
Even upscale restaurants have higher margins than lower scale ones.
Groceries - Whole Foods
Clothes - completely based on brand
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People keep saying Apple adds no value but bringing millions of paying customers and a trusted storefront does in fact have lots of value for most apps. This is exactly the value Steam brings on PC. Being locked down or not is a red herring to the value argument, people sell on Steam because of simple math: the millions of additional paying customers outweighs the commission Valve demands.
Valve has competitors in the PC games storefront market. On iOS, there is (for all practical reasons) no other storefront. People would be stuck on the App Store even if they were to charge something ridiculous like 50%, because there's no where else to go.
And they should. We are fast approaching a world where all markets are walled-in by a few international companies. I've had clients of mine go under because Amazon decided to close their accounts and they depend on the platform to sell their wares. Imagine how hard it is to sell stuff online if you're barred from ebay and amazon... and there is no legal recourse to appeal those bans. Same goes for app stores, what ha…
Can we discuss alternative to these big platforms? This is the only long term solution to the problem. Decentralization is need of the hour. Why isn't etherium based solutions gaining traction even after repeated backlash by these big platforms on multiple fronts.
How much would it cost for developers to do all this themselves? Every single individual developer? People seem to forget what things were like before the App Store.
Now one could question the percentage itself, and ask if it is a reasonable number, but when you consider the time and effort and investment that would otherwise be required,
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My GF and I recently moved from NYC to Los Angeles and an Uber driver once asked her "Are you from NY?", "Yes, why?", "Because your rating is so low and people from NYC usually have really low ratings." We checked her rating and it's 4.5 or so. But it's funny, she looks like a deadbeat here because of more discerning/critical NYC Uber drivers who gave her 4 stars 50% of the time.
Los Angeles has serious grade inflation across the board wrt social ratings. Their yelp reviews are completely unreliable, everything is 4 or 5 stars. I'm used to Chicago where even a great restaurant can have 3 stars because everyone is so picky, and the 4 or 5 stars are reserved for the truly extraordinary.
I think Apple’s fee is more than fair for many developers. Free hosting, they do all sorts of payment compliance/fraud/tax stuff for you. To a small developer I think it’s a huge boon. But once you become BIG (Candy Crush, Fortnight, Netflix, Amazon) that advantage no longer applies. Those companies are all capable of doing all the payment stuff on their own. And when you’re doing Fortnight business that 30% is a TON…
Even this will never happen; consumers are locked into cell contracts and can't just switch phones on the whim of the latest outrage cycle, and companies can't afford to burn $xxM/day to make any kind of impact. Without regulation, iOS will always be a walled garden.
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Using a monopoly to squeeze excessive fees that happen to be exactly the same as the fees for a competitive market? There seems to be a logic breakdown there.
There's no logic breakdown at all: publishers can get better terms by going with an competitor to Steam, such as GMG, GoG, Origin, Microsoft Store, or just release the app on their own website/platform. It's functionally impossible to release an app on iOS without paying Apple. Compared to the 0% of self-publishing, Apple's fees are excessive.
Apple's fees aren't excessive because they offer their services and provide their value to every app published through their store. Yes, they could offer a way to publish the app without those features and not charge the fee but that would further complicate the experience for users. I mean, technically, companies are absolutely allowed to host apps for users to side load themselves. It's just that no one wants to do that because it's not worth it when the costs Apple are taking are actually reasonable.
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People keep saying Apple adds no value but bringing millions of paying customers and a trusted storefront does in fact have lots of value for most apps. This is exactly the value Steam brings on PC. Being locked down or not is a red herring to the value argument, people sell on Steam because of simple math: the millions of additional paying customers outweighs the commission Valve demands.
Valve has competitors in the PC games storefront market. On iOS, there is (for all practical reasons) no other storefront. People would be stuck on the App Store even if they were to charge something ridiculous like 50%, because there's no where else to go.
Predictably, this is where the goalposts have moved[1] but it's really orthogonal to whether there's value or not. Also as pointed out elsewhere, Steam is in a competitive market and charges the same commission. Also in Apple's favor is the well attested to value of the App Store vs Google Play and others in terms of raw revenue.
[1] 'Predictably' as in "Being locked down or not is a red herring to the value argument" in grandparent