551–560 of 944 posts
Always hated apple for their putrid business practices. Add this to the pile.
Been running linux (popos) for donkey years and I entertained the thought I should go back to Apple and get the MacbookPro-16 (which is probably the best laptop you can buy imho).
Then I remembered all this crap that Apple does and dismissed it.
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You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much more than a banking app. It just focuses on the receiver of the money than the sender. I think Apple is slowly killing apps with this policy. Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else. This will likely be much stronger in countries where iPhones do not have the same market share as in the US.
Honestly I wouldn't be that shocked if Apple tried demanding a 30% royalty on bank deposits and bills paid using iPhone apps. They've decided the future of their company depends on being huge assholes about it.
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30% was always excessive. I suspect developers are looking for these workaround because of the 30%. If Apple had asked for, say, 10%, would there be as many developers looking for loopholes? I don't know. Apple perhaps should ask for compensation for "vouching for" the developer's app, hosting the app, distributing the app. But Steam shows us another model where the developer themselves pay a modest up-front cost to…
Steam takes 30% cut, though?
Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1] Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78% [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs. Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were…
> Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. We can say this to any company, "$X could reduce price by $Y and still make $Z profits", but it doesn't really make any sense. Making profits is what makes a company a company instead of a non-profit organization.
Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1] Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78% [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs. Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were…
One company's margin, is other company's opportunity.
Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1] Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78% [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs. Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were…
When the App Store first launched I think 30% was pretty fair fee for Apple to collect, but that was a long time ago, and before IAP/Subscriptions. Apple might still be entitled to some percentage but they've expanded to cover more and more things (like this Patreon change or Kindle back in the day) and now we have moved far, far beyond the pale. Apple (perhaps like all corporations but I'm focusing on Apple) is a gr…
It was the opposite. US mobile operator stores charged upward of 50% to sell stuff on their feature phones, with cherry on top in the form of paid submissions.
Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1] Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78% [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs. Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were…
What really makes it uncomfortable is that Apple isn't just a neutral marketplace. They control the OS, the distribution channel, and the payment rails, so creators and platforms like Patreon can't realistically opt out
Apps bad. Web good. Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path?
> Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path? Because the web is still barely usable for anything more complex than showing a few lines of static text and an image? Because for almost as long as (modern) mobile apps exist the web was even less usable? Because even now you can whip up a fast complex mobile app with 60fps animations and native behaviours probably in minutes? While on the web you're luck…
I struggle (and mostly curse) to figure out what swipe gesture to use to get simple stuff to just work. Not super sure all the 60fps animations and wizz-bang behaviours are being used the way you think they are.
#include
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Apps are usually built so people can't skip ads. Its the only reason to have an app. Other than esoteric reasons like "we also have an app because x,y,z also have apps".
Yep, it's the driving force why I rarely install apps. If the mobile site doesn't work well, it's a good filter that I shouldn't use it. (Doom scrolling trap). For those that are not aware, on Android you can install Firefox and Ublock-Origin. Life saver!