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The Missing App Economy (2022)

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Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#41

Post by invalidOrTaken »

TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #26
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Thanks for this comment — I edited the original for clarity. I'm talking about crypto as in Ethereum, which are designed to resist centralization. HN wrongly thinks of crypto as a financial system (which it can do, for good and bad reasons thanks to its permissionlessness), instead of a family of methods for making composable, decentralized protocols with built-in economics (blockchains).

But why do these protocols need built-in economics? No user is going to want to have a wallet that slowly drains as they use the web -- it's just not convenient and will be thoroughly rejected by the mainstream. Compare this to something like torrenting - people give, people take. Sure, indexing is centralized, but once you have the index, it's all p2p. That's the direction decentralization should be taking, instead…

>No user is going to want to have a wallet that slowly drains as they use the web -- it's just not convenient and will be thoroughly rejected by the mainstream.

You don't need the mainstream, you just need the cool kids. The mainstream will follow---or not.

As for why anyone would want this, there is a very compelling reason---no ads.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#42

Post by spacebanana7 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #29
spacebanana7 wrote: post #8

I recommend spending some time on OnlyFans to see what social networks can look like without the App Store. Video fundraisers, paid messages, creator subscriptions, tips, interactive live streams and tiered subscriptions all work together to allow creators to flourish financially. Apple’s 30% rules cripples YouTube’s ability to imitate these features and even restricts the viability of these features for platforms li…

The App Store doesn't prevent any of this (though, the App Store won't distribute porn) - it just requires a 30% cut. What's OnlyFan's cut of all those transactions? Youtube can imitate these features on it's website, where it can surely do a better job due to scale. Twitch does this - arguably OnlyFans is largely modelled on Twitch.

> What's OnlyFan's cut of all those transactions?

Onlyfans takes 20%.

If Apple had a stripe connect like API which charged 30% then the business activities I mentioned would probably be viable, if painfully expensive.

To make social payments at present, a company would have take In App Purchases revenue into its own bank account then distribute those funds to creators. This usually requires some kind of money transfer licence depending on jurisdiction. There’d also be cost in performing KYC checks on all creators and covering another layer of currency conversion (again depending on jurisdiction).

That kind of setup is possible at the moment, but hard to sustain without adding at least another 10%+ to the fee.

And the operations side of managing chargebacks, payment timings and refunds through the IAP platform stacked on top of your own money transfer business would be very painful.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#43

Post by rchaud »

manmal wrote: post #19
spacebanana7 wrote: post #8

I recommend spending some time on OnlyFans to see what social networks can look like without the App Store. Video fundraisers, paid messages, creator subscriptions, tips, interactive live streams and tiered subscriptions all work together to allow creators to flourish financially. Apple’s 30% rules cripples YouTube’s ability to imitate these features and even restricts the viability of these features for platforms li…

> Video fundraisers, paid messages, creator subscriptions, tips, interactive live streams and tiered subscriptions As a user, that doesn’t sound great to be honest.

Are you a user of this particular product though?

I personally don't play video games anymore because single-player is largely an afterthought, and they no longer come in a box costing $20-50. That was my mental model of the games business, but the industry has moved on to DLCs, microtransactions, subscriptions etc. And seeing as how gaming is bigger than ever, the majority appears to have accepted the pricing changes that I did not.

Similarly, those that pay for porn have likely had to adjust to the changing realities of that industry.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#44

Post by madeofpalk »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #42
madeofpalk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Store doesn't prevent any of this (though, the App Store won't distribute porn) - it just requires a 30% cut. What's OnlyFan's cut of all those transactions? Youtube can imitate these features on it's website, where it can surely do a better job due to scale. Twitch does this - arguably OnlyFans is largely modelled on Twitch.

> What's OnlyFan's cut of all those transactions? Onlyfans takes 20%. If Apple had a stripe connect like API which charged 30% then the business activities I mentioned would probably be viable, if painfully expensive. To make social payments at present, a company would have take In App Purchases revenue into its own bank account then distribute those funds to creators. This usually requires some kind of money transfe…

Those businesses are already viable, without App Store, as evidenced by Twitch and OnlyFans.

App Store deserves plenty of criticism, Youtube's failure to produce a viable ecosystem for accepting tips for videos is not Apple's fault.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#45

Post by arsome »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #41
TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do these protocols need built-in economics? No user is going to want to have a wallet that slowly drains as they use the web -- it's just not convenient and will be thoroughly rejected by the mainstream. Compare this to something like torrenting - people give, people take. Sure, indexing is centralized, but once you have the index, it's all p2p. That's the direction decentralization should be taking, instead…

>No user is going to want to have a wallet that slowly drains as they use the web -- it's just not convenient and will be thoroughly rejected by the mainstream. You don't need the mainstream, you just need the cool kids. The mainstream will follow---or not. As for why anyone would want this, there is a very compelling reason---no ads.

But I already have no ads and no payments, so no thanks.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#46

Post by rchaud »

AmpsterMan wrote: post #31
rchaud wrote: post #5

To paraphrase the article: with the Google-Apple mobile duopoly, consumers are stuck between a rock (web apps) and a hard place (native apps). It isn't in Apple's interest to allow web apps on iOS to have feature parity with native apps, because that's where Apple's moat is. It isn't in Google's interest to allow mobile web browsers the freedom to behave like desktop browsers (extensions and filesystem APIs), because…

Would the librem line of phones be an early attempt at what you describe?

No, because they are designed for developers and privacy nuts first, not average customers. Devices like this will never achieve a level of polish necessary for general uptake. Heck, the Moko and N900 died precisely because they were too niche to justify the price.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#47

Post by gumby »

Bonus20230510 wrote: post #39
gumby wrote: post #17

Honestly I prefer a native app to a web app because the web browser is basically an O/S running inside an O/S and there's a annoying amount of gain mismatch / poor coupling between the two. Native (non electron) apps on the Mac just integrate with the other OS capabilities (e.g. text selection, drag/drop all work consistently and interoperate properly; keystrokes, shortcuts, system context menu & integrations, etc ju…

> I don't like apps that are just a wrapper to a web view... Devs are just too aware that they do it to maximise profits and not to maximise UX quality. It's just like Linux guys building console tools and pretending they are better than a (good) UI.

Well, if one is an advocate of PWAs, wrapping it in an app store app should provide an equivalently good and perhaps more user-accessible experience, no?

So my point wasn't to point at the junk apps like, say, the CVS or ATT apps which are simply a web view to a shitty website that is itself just a poorly written skimcoat over a mainframe.

I'm talking about people who put a lot of effort into the web site and then turned it into an app as well to make it easier to run. I'm saying that those provide a crummy experience in practice as well, because in practice I think the web browser experience is rarely that good for anything more than simple functionality.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#48

Post by brookst »

vivegi wrote: post #20
ozten wrote: post #15

One of the biggest problems for "apps" and entrepreneurs is distribution. Everything this article is talking about was true when HTML5 launched (2010 era) and so many mobile device APIs became web standards. What the App store has, that is hard to reproduce, is distribution.

The web already cracked the distribution problem. Javascript on the browser was the only choice for your frontend code , however, WASM is already shipping on all current browsers except IE and Opera Mini (which is a miniscule percentage of browsers in use today). It is just a matter of time where WASM becomes the ABI of choice for crossplatform app development as the binary deployment vehicle where you can program in…

It's not about the technologies of distribution.

Apple's moat is the 1B users who go to the app store to search for apps. No amount of WASM is going to get developers in front of a billion qualified purchasers.

I shipped an app in the App store. Over a few years, I made mid-six-figures from it. I never once begrudged Apple their 30% because without the app store I would have made next to nothing, certainly not enough to justify building and supporting the app. What was I going to do, set up a web page and hope my SEO skills were good enough to get a small trickle of users?

I often wonder if any of the people outraged at Apple's 30% (now often 15%) cut have actually tried to market an application. That is a tiny, tiny price to pay for the upside.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#49

Post by spacebanana7 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #44
spacebanana7 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's OnlyFan's cut of all those transactions? Onlyfans takes 20%. If Apple had a stripe connect like API which charged 30% then the business activities I mentioned would probably be viable, if painfully expensive. To make social payments at present, a company would have take In App Purchases revenue into its own bank account then distribute those funds to creators. This usually requires some kind of money transfe…

Those businesses are already viable, without App Store, as evidenced by Twitch and OnlyFans. App Store deserves plenty of criticism, Youtube's failure to produce a viable ecosystem for accepting tips for videos is not Apple's fault.

Does Twitch allow tips inside its iOS app? Ignore the rest of comment if so.

I agree theses businesses are viable however their iOS App activities are severely limited, thus creating the missing app economy.

Re: The Missing App Economy (2022)

#50

Post by madeofpalk »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #49
madeofpalk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those businesses are already viable, without App Store, as evidenced by Twitch and OnlyFans. App Store deserves plenty of criticism, Youtube's failure to produce a viable ecosystem for accepting tips for videos is not Apple's fault.

Does Twitch allow tips inside its iOS app? Ignore the rest of comment if so. I agree theses businesses are viable however their iOS App activities are severely limited, thus creating the missing app economy.

Surprisingly enough, yes, Twitch does allow tips (Bits) inside its iOS app. They're 30% more expensive than on the web https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/watching-twitch-on-ios-devi.... Same with subs https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/subscriptions-on-mobile
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