251–260 of 492 posts
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Can you please explain? It doesn't want to handle the money when you rent a hooker.
But what if I want one-to-few or even one-to-many experience?
Unless, of course, you throw a gangbang, and Apple ends up eating 30% of the price of admission. Imagine the headline!
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> You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion. Please refrain from personal attacks. As you noted in another comment, I'm primarily a Mac developer, and in my experience, the extent of the third-party Mac software market has often been vastly underestimated. Maybe it's just because people aren't familiar with it. There are of course large numbers of us…
That wasn't a personal attack whatsoever. Saying that the market is a wasteland doesn't eliminate the occasional tiny oasis. But compared to the size of the userbase, the market was and remains tiny. People are postulating about some magical greener pastures when the evidence right in front of our eyes, and through the history of the platform, is that it is a fantasy. Jobs is a good proxy. Through the entirety of my…
"You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments"
> Tiny, micro-boutiques that are a little sliver of marginal prosperity in a desolate wasteland of failure.
I would rephrase this to say you're talking about small businesses, which are not sexy or well known, but are both widespread and crucial to the entire economic foundation of the United States.
Unfortunately, App Store revenue is very top-heavy. A few big players, such as Epic, do extremely well on the App Store, but small businesses tend to suffer in the App Store. The total software revenue may be higher now, but the distribution of revenue matters a lot. If the rich get richer, and the rest are stagnant or get poorer, that's only good for the rich, and I wouldn't call it a healthy market, regardless of the totals.
In the App Store era, it's "easier" than before to become a wild success, like Epic. But it's a lot harder for indie developers to make a living. You can't "make it up in volume", and you don't have a huge marketing budget to get to the top of the App Store charts, so you need to charge sustainable prices for software. The App Store "race to the bottom", as well as other business and technical limitations, have really hurt smaller developers. I'm not sure we can, or want to live in a world with only BigCos.
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That's whataboutism. In this post it's about Apple. That others do it doesn't excuse it. And a big difference with Google is that you can sideload or use other stores on Android. And same on Windows, you don't have to use the store.
That's not a big difference, with Android, because nobody is making any money doing that. It doesn't work. I didn't mention Windows. I was discussing platforms where everyone takes a 30% cut. You may say this is mere whataboutism, but anyone who reads Hacker News knows that 99% of the anger and attacks on this practice are directed at Apple. Nobody bitches at Google and Sony and Microsoft for doing the exact same thi…
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Once again Netflix is crowned as the biggest of the Les Incorruptibles on the App Store by Apple since they can get away from not only the 30% charge as it is a reader app but is able to roll their own payments on the web and still scale to many users without in app purchases. There are probably more apps / companies who belong to this group due to secret deals by Apple, but now Apple says: No 30% charge for apps who…
There's nothing "secret". Everybody can roll their own payment in the web. They cannot advertise alternative payment methods in the app . See Spotify as an example.
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> Apple devices OTOH are severely limited regarding sideloading Yes, but for many users this is a premium feature, not a flaw.
That's an incredibly weak claim. The statement is certainly true for some value of 'many', but then so is its opposite. Unless many means, "the vast majority", which certainly is not clear and definitely would need some support, it is a meaningless claim. It is also difficult to see how it is a feature. In a world where additional app stores or side-loading was enabled for those that want it, it wouldn't somehow remo…
So, of iPhone buyers, you're left with two remaining groups:
1. People who care a little bit about side-loading but not enough to choose a difference device.
2. People who don't care about side-loading at all.
Man I just want to have control over my phone is that too much to ask?
( /s for the Apple cultists on HN)
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Not sure if what you're arguing against is judgment calls, or against the fallout of that supreme court ruling, but to address the use of judgment, the nature of curation is that it's not always something that can be put in a set of explicit rules. There's always people that walk right up to and over the line and generally push boundaries and find loopholes, no matter how well written rules are. Human judgment needs…
> Human judgment needs to be a part of the process if a good experience is desired Yeah just to second this I think that a lot of us coming from software backgrounds like to think of laws as being code, fully definable, automatable and capable of covering all edge cases. This isn’t the case. Judgement is required. Not to ruin my own metaphor but I actually think there is a lesson about software as well. Software is n…
problem arises when the method for achieving Judgement isn't codified.
Meaning, while laws and punishment are open to interpretation by the judges, the system by which we appoint judges, their permissions and abilities, are strictly codified, and they must be in order to subdue and reduce corruption.
OK: Your company decides to stop producing specific codified rules -- what is in place to prevent judgement bias and fair interpretation of 'crossing the line'?
The answer, in most cases, is that there is nothing to hold the 'judges' accountable. Nothing to insure fair unbiased decisions. Nothing to insure that they can't hold the position indefinitely without malice.
In other words : The shorter your Terms of Service become, the longer the Employee Handbook must become to prevent corruption and overall unfairness.
Besides that problem, there is the problem where the acceptable behaviors on a platform may wander with society -- this leads to issues where developers may be barred from a platform for behavior which was perfectly acceptable earlier that year without any real warning.
How does one avoid breaking rules if they can't know the rules?
Well, one might say "Play nice.", but the reality is that we all interpret it differently. That's one of the many nice features that comes along with codified law.
This sort of arbitrary judgments-from-heaven is a sign of monopolistic power. You only have a Hobson's choice when it comes to the app store.
I've heard of this thing called "Android". From what I've heard, and I know that this sounds crazy, but it reportedly has a larger market share than Apple does in the mobile space. So any arguments or comments here mentioning "monopolistic power" are, well, I want to be nice about this, but they are a complete fucking joke.
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
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> build something that is scalable? That's probably the point - 1:1 experiences that are not scalable is a drop in the bucket even if they charge a 30% commission.
I beg to differ. I use a website to schedule our baby sitter, but with this rule, it's possible to be an app.
> If your app enables the purchase of realtime person-to-person experiences between two individuals (for example tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training)...
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You have a get a paid Developer account. It costs $99/year for the Developer account which gets provisioning profiles that are valid for a year at a time.
You also have to own a Mac and either an Apple Watch or iPhone to enable two-step verification.