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Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

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Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#41

Post by cma »

lloyddobbler wrote: post #4

“A 30% revenue share can easily be the difference between a company that can afford to scale, hire new employees, and reinvest in its product, and one that is perpetually struggling to stay afloat.” This brought up a fun thought exercise for me. Pretty sure that Y Combinator would argue that giving away 7% of one's company for access to intangible (but beneficial) things like funding, advisors, etc, is completely wor…

7% of equity is worth far less than 7% of gross, equity ultimately gets paid on what you can make net.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#42

Post by x0x0 »

lloyddobbler wrote: post #4

“A 30% revenue share can easily be the difference between a company that can afford to scale, hire new employees, and reinvest in its product, and one that is perpetually struggling to stay afloat.” This brought up a fun thought exercise for me. Pretty sure that Y Combinator would argue that giving away 7% of one's company for access to intangible (but beneficial) things like funding, advisors, etc, is completely wor…

I'm not sure how offering an investment in a highly competitive market (dozens of incubators, thousands of vcs) is comparable to raising the cost of payment processing 900%. Alongside all the other bad acts that Apple does, mostly inhibiting your ability to provide good customer service to your customers. Or even continue a billing relationship if they migrate from ios -> android/pc.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#43

Post by johnecheck »

foobarian wrote: post #39
dlcarrier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A family member of mine has an Apple phone, and the lack of availability of not just open source software but even freeware or freemium software astounds me. They make it so difficult to distribute anything, that it's not worth it unless you are getting significant revenue. This means that often the only option is something extremely scammy that charges monthly for the most trivial capabilities. Of course, Apple gets…

You know how we got here? It used to be a free-for-all where grandma could download any software off the Internet on her Windows computer. You know how the rest went. I honestly don't mind it. It's so easy to recommend an iPhone to non-technical users, knowing the app store is still not compromised with low quality/malicious garbage. (Sure it requires a bit of expectation attenuation but the Android app stores are wo…

This is an argument for gating the free-for-all behind a setting technical users can find, not demanding 30% of revenue if a dev would like access to apple users. The security aspect is real, but this is really about maximizing profits by monopolizing access to anyone with an iPhone.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#44

Post by chupchap »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #14

I don’t know. You could just as well say, “A 3% merchant fee can easily be [… ruinous to a bunch of companies]”, and I’d be talking about Stripe, a Y Combinator company. In Europe they manage to cap interchange fees at 10x less, and there’s no less “payments innovation” or more “fraud” or whatever some nice red headed LISP brothers or some insightful patio furniture guy will say is eating into the 3% merchant fees. P…

I don't understand why transaction fee is a percentage as it takes the cost of transferring money is the same irrespective of the amount. There should be a reasonable cap. For example 2% for any transaction less than $2, and $0.2 for any larger transactions. Why do we still have this charade of collecting money and then giving some pittance back to the customer in the form of credit card points?

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#45

Post by jmull »

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want.

But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want.

(Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.)

Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#46

Post by addaon »

Hammershaft wrote: post #35
lloyddobbler wrote: post #4

“A 30% revenue share can easily be the difference between a company that can afford to scale, hire new employees, and reinvest in its product, and one that is perpetually struggling to stay afloat.” This brought up a fun thought exercise for me. Pretty sure that Y Combinator would argue that giving away 7% of one's company for access to intangible (but beneficial) things like funding, advisors, etc, is completely wor…

Startup founders can choose between many models of funding, VCs, etc. Starups cannot choose between different ways of accessing willing customers over iOS, they have to comply with a %30 cut and a jungle of regulations that act in Apple's interest. These two examples aren't the same, even just on the basis of market power.

> Starups cannot choose between different ways of accessing willing customers over iOS

What? They can offer an SPA, or a traditional web page. They can offer a hardware device. They can make an android app compelling enough to convert users.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#47

Post by dangus »

jmull wrote: post #45

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.) Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac.

It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#48

Post by ryandrake »

johnecheck wrote: post #43
foobarian wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know how we got here? It used to be a free-for-all where grandma could download any software off the Internet on her Windows computer. You know how the rest went. I honestly don't mind it. It's so easy to recommend an iPhone to non-technical users, knowing the app store is still not compromised with low quality/malicious garbage. (Sure it requires a bit of expectation attenuation but the Android app stores are wo…

This is an argument for gating the free-for-all behind a setting technical users can find, not demanding 30% of revenue if a dev would like access to apple users. The security aspect is real, but this is really about maximizing profits by monopolizing access to anyone with an iPhone.

When a normal user is highly motivated to install software, there is no such distinction from a "technical user". He wants to install AnimeWallpapersTotallyNotATrojan.app. The operating system disallows it. Then he just does a search for how to install AnimeWallpapersTotallyNotATrojan.app on iOS, and finds 20 tutorials walking him through the steps to ungate the install.

You can make the expert mode dialog say "Clicking this button will erase your hard drive, drain your bank account, and give your dog cancer" and people will still click it.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#49

Post by epohs »

dangus wrote: post #47
jmull wrote: post #45

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.) Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac. It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.

Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one?

I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#50

Post by foobarian »

ryandrake wrote: post #48
johnecheck wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an argument for gating the free-for-all behind a setting technical users can find, not demanding 30% of revenue if a dev would like access to apple users. The security aspect is real, but this is really about maximizing profits by monopolizing access to anyone with an iPhone.

When a normal user is highly motivated to install software, there is no such distinction from a "technical user". He wants to install AnimeWallpapersTotallyNotATrojan.app. The operating system disallows it. Then he just does a search for how to install AnimeWallpapersTotallyNotATrojan.app on iOS, and finds 20 tutorials walking him through the steps to ungate the install. You can make the expert mode dialog say "Click…

Grandma: Help me, Joey! After the neighborhood kid helped me install the coupon code app (he said something about expert mode, he is very smart!) my phone runs slow and crashes. :-(

Me: ...

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