341–350 of 385 posts
I’m not an App Store seller so I have no idea what this means. You can’t just pick any number that you want to sell your app for? You have predetermined prices set by Apple?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends how you define the market. They are 100% a monopoly for the iOS apps market.
And Ferrari is a 100% monopoly supplier of Ferrari engines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not sure why it should limit developers to that system but it certainly makes the system attractive/useful for many. Because most developers are presumably experts in programming* and whatever the domain of their app is* (game, drawing program, whatever) and not experts in the psychology of pricing (unless it's a pricing app I suppose!). Now so what? They could allow you to pick a predetermined price or type whatev…
The problem with appeal to authority on this is the same could have been said last week about why it wasn’t like this. It doesn’t make it any more reasonable it just explains it is the way it is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple uses price points rather than having developers explicitly specify prices because they're currency-independent: you specify a price point and Apple chooses appropriate prices for each of the ~175 different storefronts where your app could be available. Apple then periodically adjusts the international prices as exchange rates fluctuate, to keep them in parity with the US prices at the same tiers. The alternativ…
Thank you for clarifying this. This is such an Apple thing to do. Frankly it doesn't matter what the exact price is. All economics are approximate.
So, never having bothered with Apple hard-/software I am a bit confused... A developer can't just set a price for something? But then out of the first 10000 natural numbers, Apple semi-arbitrarily select a set of 900 "known-good" numbers that work well for prices? Like, as if the other numbers are somehow bad prices? If you charge someone $7,43 for something, the ghost of Steve Jobs will start haunting you? That's, l…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
To be fair, Americans (and anyone else) are right to resent sales taxes. And I’m saying that as an American who’s far to the left of what some call “socialism” in Europe. Sales taxes are highly regressive, disproportionately impacting those least able to afford them.
On the tax side, there are other factors you might want to optimize, like how distortionary the tax is and how effective it is at raising revenue.
On the spending side, a regressive tax + a progressive government redistribution policy can end up being progressive overall. For example, any tax can be made to be as progressive as you want by redistributing some of the revenue as a UBI.
Sales taxes/VATs are very effective at raising revenue and are less distortionary than most of the alternatives. This makes them good for funding redistributive policies. They won't tax billionaires out of existence, but they're a good tool for states to have in their toolbox.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only difference is that you can choose two kinds of evil for something required for everyday life, while you can live without a car or choose from several different ones. Owning the former platform is great power that shouldn’t be unilaterally controlled by a private company.
My parents get by entirely fine without a mobile device (smart or feature). It's convenient, but not required.
I took one look at that and thought "fuck this". If you're a hobbyist with zero interest in making money off your apps, then you get a giant middle finger from Apple.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple uses price points rather than having developers explicitly specify prices because they're currency-independent: you specify a price point and Apple chooses appropriate prices for each of the ~175 different storefronts where your app could be available. Apple then periodically adjusts the international prices as exchange rates fluctuate, to keep them in parity with the US prices at the same tiers. The alternativ…
Thank you for clarifying this. This is such an Apple thing to do. Frankly it doesn't matter what the exact price is. All economics are approximate.
Apple handling price/international conversions and currency fluctuations seems immensely useful.