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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

#71

Post by JimDabell »

maximus_01 wrote: post #55
addaon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You are really trying to say that for a startup trying to build software, say a productivity app or whatever, they should consider launching their own hardware device? They are very different things and would basically make indie development impossible (or really any software company that can't raise hundreds of millions to billions)

> would basically make indie development impossible

We aren’t talking about indie development though. People like to paint a picture of a small, scrappy startup or beleaguered solo dev being held back by Apple’s crushing 30%, but that isn’t the case.

Unless you are earning more than a million dollars a year through the App Store alone, you don’t pay 30%, you pay 15%. And if you earn more than that, you still only pay 15% for long-term subscribers. And of course, all those SaaS companies where the app is just an interface for the larger service pay 0%.

As soon as you start talking about “Apple’s 30%”, you reduce the scope of the argument to the tiny fraction of developers with millions in revenue.

If you do actually want to talk about indie development, you should be talking about “Apple’s 15%”.

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

#72

Post by internetter »

frollogaston wrote: post #68
athrun wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about provisioning for credit losses. Roughly speaking, when a transaction needs to be unwound, if the merchant cannot cover the reversal (for example, because it has defaulted), then the payment processor needs to pony up instead. Note that this isn't an edge case, this is something that happens every day. If the payment processor defaults (gasp!), then the processor's sponsor bank needs to cover it. This is wh…

I wish there were a "the customer is always wrong" way of paying digitally, so that there's almost no fee. Right now the only way is cash.

crypto?

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

#73

Post by Bud »

ianbutler wrote: post #51
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…

The dynamics of 7% of ownership and 30% of ongoing revenue are vastly different. So different in fact that the comparison doesn't hold water.

[dead]

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

#74

Post by zdw »

jchw wrote: post #69
rootusrootus wrote: post #64

If there was more than a duopoly in smartphones, I'd say Apple should be able to have whatever horrible app policy they want, so long as it is clearly communicated to everyone including customers. Let the market decide. But that's not where we are. I think it makes sense to treat both Apple and Google as de facto monopolies with respect to the smartphone market, and impose some regulation on what they have to allow a…

This whole situation is frustrating. Even if there were eight or twelve companies all competing fairly, I'm not sure it would matter: if Apple's approach makes hand-over-fist more money, even though it is much worse for consumers in many regards, it has the chance to unfairly win and for vendors that follow Apple's lead to out-compete vendors that don't. (Don't imagine this world, try to find the parallels you've per…

"much worse for customers" is relative. While in no ways perfect, Apple's walled garden gets rid of a huge amount of the enshittification found on other platforms, and makes it so that downloading a random app is relatively safe and unlikely to nuke your phone, steal your data, etc. Yes all the "allow access to location/photos/etc." are annoying, but at least the user has some level of control and consent.

I do agree that requiring specific platforms is a problem - we don't want a return to the IE6 or Flash-dominated eras where people who weren't on Windows were treated like sub-humans.

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

#76

Post by mrandish »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #54
epohs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's possible they'll allow this on iOS once finer granularity logging of battery usage is pervasive, how fine is anyone's guess, so as to track down what apps, and of whatever provenance, degrade some kpi like user impression of battery life.

This is about money not battery life. Apple makes billions of dollars in highly profitable revenue by cryptographically blocking users from controlling their own devices.

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

#77

Post by JimDabell »

frollogaston wrote: post #60
bentocorp wrote: post #2

I recently wrote about how Apple now has the most hostile developer ecosystem of any major platform: https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/apple-development/ Good to see VCs and Y Combinator now supporting and pushing for change.

I know this isn't the biggest thing, but it's funny how even simple questions have complicated answers in Swift, ex https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39677330/how-does-string...

Strings and Unicode are a lot more complicated than they first appear. I like the way this article puts it:

> Swift’s string implementation goes to heroic efforts to be as Unicode-correct as possible. […] This is great for correctness, but it comes at a price, mostly in terms of unfamiliarity; if you’re used to manipulating strings with integer indices in other languages, Swift’s design will seem unwieldy at first, leaving you wondering.

> It’s not that other languages don’t have Unicode-correct APIs at all — most do. For instance, NSString has the enumerateSubstrings method that can be used to walk through a string by grapheme clusters. But defaults matter; Swift’s priority is to do the correct thing by default.

> Strings in Swift are very different than their counterparts in almost all other mainstream programming languages. When you’re used to strings effectively being arrays of code units, it’ll take a while to switch your mindset to Swift’s approach of prioritizing Unicode correctness over simplicity.

> Ultimately, we think Swift makes the right choice. Unicode text is much more complicated than what those other languages pretend it is. In the long run, the time savings from avoided bugs you’d otherwise have written will probably outweigh the time it takes to unlearn integer indexing.

— https://oleb.net/blog/2017/11/swift-4-strings/

I’d encourage you to read that entire article before describing strings as simple.

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

#78

Post by kelnos »

addaon wrote: post #46
Hammershaft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They can offer a hardware device.

As someone who worked at a company that tried to do this, years ago, that's hilariously laughable, and either you're just incredibly unaware of what that sort of thing takes, or you're arguing in bad faith.

And if you think SPAs or regular websites on mobile Safari can give you the same experience and hardware access as a native app, I'm not sure what to tell you.

> They can make an android app compelling enough to convert users.

Sure, right, now you're just spouting fantasy stories. (And I say this as an Android user.)

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

#79

Post by kelnos »

sokoloff wrote: post #62
maximus_01 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are really trying to say that for a startup trying to build software, say a productivity app or whatever, they should consider launching their own hardware device? They are very different things and would basically make indie development impossible (or really any software company that can't raise hundreds of millions to billions)

You’re arguing that Apple’s App Store, even with its commission, is a better business proposition. I agree, and from that conclude that Apple’s earned their commission/fees.

Just because people will go along with something because they have no other choice, it doesn't mean it's a fair business practice that we should allow.

Apple's deal is still an acceptable business proposition because there aren't any alternatives. Android users don't spend much on apps compared to iPhone users. It's an ok market, but not a great one, and in the US, if you aren't on the iPhone, then you aren't relevant, period.

Maybe if there was an actual competitive market on iOS for app stores, we'd see what app developers actually thought was a good business proposition, not the only take-it-or-leave-it (but if you leave it there's no way to be successful) proposition they have now.

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

#80

Post by doctorpangloss »

athrun wrote: post #57
chupchap wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's about provisioning for credit losses. Roughly speaking, when a transaction needs to be unwound, if the merchant cannot cover the reversal (for example, because it has defaulted), then the payment processor needs to pony up instead. Note that this isn't an edge case, this is something that happens every day. If the payment processor defaults (gasp!), then the processor's sponsor bank needs to cover it. This is wh…

Okay, why does this all work basically the same in Europe, but interchange fees are capped at 0.3% by law? The reason has nothing to do with fraud or technology.
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