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US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

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Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#601

Post by yazaddaruvala »

hyperhopper wrote: post #456
jve wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing? I see it as fee for an exchange to access to a huge market of wealthy people (one that can afford an iPhone probably can afford your app). Where entry barrier is extremely low. If you make 100 sales, you don't have to pay much, if you make huge profits off the platform you make huge payments to the platform owner.

They shouldn't have the right to be the gatekeeper in that relationship. The wealthy people own the hardware, the devs own the app. Why does apple get the legal right to demand money in that transaction when it would be better for everyone if they weren't involved

So what about people like me? I buy an iPhone because Apple gatekeeps the apps.

I grew up in the age of torrents and Kazzaa and am tired of spam, malware, bloat, anti virus, etc. I want my phone to be an unbreakable toy, not a computing device.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#602

Post by gene91 »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #345

Amazon sells its Kindle books outside the Apple App Store. Once purchased, the book is available to view in your Kindle app. My guess is that Amazon doesn't pay Apple any $ for books sold there. How is this current practice of Amazon consistent with the (new?) rules in which all sales taking place even outside the store will attract commision from Apple ? It is because Kindle does not offer ANY sales at all through i…

Based on my reading, Apple’s cut of non-IAP purchase only applies if you sign up for the new StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement, and the cut only applies for purchases through the Entitlement link.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#603

Post by ben_w »

andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

> You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life.

True.

> All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

I'm old enough to have developed software before the App Store existed, and remember that everyone was very excited both buy it finally being introduced to iOS, and by the relatively low fees of only 30%.

You're free to argue that 30% is too high, or even that the 15% for small developers is too high, that this is rent-seeking by Apple and only made sense when they were also a small company… but I think this is also true for the businesses trying to convince everyone that it matters, and I think they would like to charge the same sticker price while collecting the difference for themselves.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#604

Post by interpol_p »

jy1 wrote: post #420
toasterlovin wrote: post #258

Some perspective: we sell on Amazon as a 3rd party seller. Amazon takes about 9% of the sale price of our products as their commission (it’s actually 12%, but includes credit card processing). To which you might be inclined to reply, “Ah, but 9% is a reasonable commission, so that’s okay.” But we sell physical goods, which cost money to produce. It’s typical for our products to have 20-25% gross margins. So as a shar…

There's plenty of digital goods with low margins that apple forces a 30% cut. e.g. Spotify, Twitch, Patreon etc. Most of the funds go to the creator. Completely breaks the model when Apple forces a 30% cut of gross. That being said, i'd also argue Apple's app store is a complete monopoly on iPhones. Iphones and app stores are such an essential part of life, they deserve to be neutral a la internet neutrality. Not sur…

I don't think you can sign up for Spotify using in-app-purchase. Once you're in the app it says:

"You can't upgrade to premium in the app. We know, it's not ideal"

You have to go to their site to upgrade your account. Apple gets a 0% cut of Spotify's subscription revenue

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#605

Post by CodinM »

This thread has a lot of weird turns I'd not expect.

"All they do is steal 30% from society" - objectively it's for providing a service, an infrastructure, a very solid user market, a very solid developer experience (you have to build for a limited number of iOS versions, you don't have to test on a gazillion devices with different flavors of Android), a slightly higher income userbase, and a few others.

Seeing the whole thing simply as "theft" boggles my mind, especially coming from people working in or around this industry.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#607

Post by charcircuit »

DeathArrow wrote: post #475
charcircuit wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes This is how all businesses work. If there was no way to make profit then businesses would not exist. Apple spent billions of dollars creating an app platform with a clear monetization model that did not get in the way of them accumulating a lot of valuable apps and users. Developers are not forced to make apps for the platform nor…

>Apple spent billions of dollars creating an app platform with a clear monetization model I don't want their platform forced down my throat. On my PC I can download and install software from wherever I see fit. Had I not being a MacBook Pro user for the time being, I would have a chance to upgrade RAM and SSD without paying twice on the damn device. If anything, I consider Apple being an anti consumer company. What i…

>I don't want their platform forced down my throat.

As a consumer the whole point of buying a computer is to get access to its app platform. It's not forced down your throat it just inherently is a part of the device's identity.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#608

Post by gigatexal »

remus wrote: post #379
andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

I also think apple's 30% cut is excessive, but I don't think this line of argument helps. We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have.

People also need to remember how it was before in the CompUSA or telco provided phones. The retailer or marketplace would take > 30% margins closer to 50% and to get on a pseudo-smart phone before the current smart phone era one had to ask the AT&T's and Verizon's very nicely. But now one can build apps now and publish and just pay the 30% comission or 15% on subscriptions after the second year and look at the explosion in the app marketplace.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#609

Post by bob1029 »

gajnadsgjoas wrote: post #594
bob1029 wrote: post #583

The solution is very simple for me. Stop participating in the native app ecosystems. The way I see it, you get 2 major pieces of value out of these. First, they serve as a B2C marketing channel. Second, they provide access to certain native hardware features & OS integration. The first point is difficult to contend with, but HN and Twitter seem to serve as a fine counterpoint. For native hardware access, I'd recommen…

I think it's not that easy, Telegram tried very hard but got forced into apple restrictions in web browsers, you can read many complaints about it from the founder

Exactly how was telegram forced? Are they trying to operate in both pools at the same time?

I am under no legal contracts with Apple, aside from any EULAs I may have clicked through for iOS, etc.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#610

Post by interpol_p »

toasterlovin wrote: post #258

Some perspective: we sell on Amazon as a 3rd party seller. Amazon takes about 9% of the sale price of our products as their commission (it’s actually 12%, but includes credit card processing). To which you might be inclined to reply, “Ah, but 9% is a reasonable commission, so that’s okay.” But we sell physical goods, which cost money to produce. It’s typical for our products to have 20-25% gross margins. So as a shar…

Just a note that for my business (and many others) Apple takes a 15% cut

Apple will lower their cut to 15% if you earn less than $1 million USD/year across your app businesses, or if you sell subscriptions and your subscribers persist for longer than 1 year (so 2nd - Nth year of subscriptions are split at 85/15)

Not defending the size of their commission, but in practice it does vary from the 30% that is commonly quoted

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