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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

#791

Post by kspacewalk2 »

Podgajski wrote: post #787
timtom39 wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do wonder what percentage of Apple stock is owned by pension funds and the like, i.e. The Regular Person, once you unwind the levels of indirection (mutual funds, etc). It is surely a double digit percentage, but high, low? No idea. Pretty high. The S&P 500 has ~7% apple stock which means many peoples retirement accounts have several percentage points of apple stock.

So Apple takes 30% of your money from one hand and gives you back 3% with the other?

"Apple" takes and gives nothing. "Apple" is a collective figment of imagination of its shareholders, which people typically picture as dastardly moneybags living in mansions, but often forget to also picture, like, themselves, in retirement.

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

#792

Post by rootusrootus »

LMYahooTFY wrote: post #775
rootusrootus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of people have forgotten that we had proprietary services before the web became a thing. E.g. Compuserve, Prodigy.

Those services died relatively quickly in the face of what GP is describing.

Indeed they did. Why do we now think it's possible to go back to that?

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

#793

Post by kemayo »

threeseed wrote: post #140
kemayo wrote: post #119

This is the same strategy that Apple pursued for dating apps in the Netherlands, after a court there forced them to allow third-party payments a year or two ago. Their argument is that the 15/30% is a general fee for use of their infrastructure (App Store, etc), and so they'll subtract the approximate cost of payment processing if you're handling it yourself but you'll still have to pay the rest of the fee to them. A…

> Their argument is that the 15/30% is a general fee for use of their infrastructure No Apple's argument is that this is a fee for everything e.g. SDKs. As well as being a highly lucrative distribution channel.

I felt a lot could be covered under "etc", I'll admit. :D

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

#794

Post by matwood »

sofixa wrote: post #612
ben_w wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> and by the relatively low fees of only 30%. 30% is low compared to what? Mafia extortion rates?

At the time it was low compared to any retail software distribution. If (a big if) a developer could get on a carrier App Store (they existed) it was much more than 30%.

Go back and watch the keynote. Developers cheered because 30% was so much lower than any other stores available at the time.

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

#795

Post by zamalek »

rchaud wrote: post #782
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company. This is in the same vein as "this cause is supported by teh evil Amerika, hence it must be evil" line of thinking, typically espoused by self-declared anti-imperialists (who are often mere anti-US-imperialists). >make a few people who already have everything even…

It's invalidated because a real-world alternative already exists (Android sideloading) and hasn't required Google to hold everyone's hand or to use their toll roads to distribute the product.

And the Play/Android store is still wildly successful.

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

#796

Post by kspacewalk2 »

amplex1337 wrote: post #765
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company. This is in the same vein as "this cause is supported by teh evil Amerika, hence it must be evil" line of thinking, typically espoused by self-declared anti-imperialists (who are often mere anti-US-imperialists). >make a few people who already have everything even…

Does this make them a better company? You are allowed to not like the way a company does business but still own an ETF that profits from their success. I still would never own an Apple item out of principal. Their marketing, hype and fanboyism are their prime success factors it feels like. It's funny but since the rise of the iPhone I feel like society has gone straight downhill, not that they have been the only play…

No, they aren't better, nor are they worse, they just are. Evaluate their behaviour on the merits of their behaviour, not based on their size or what kind of image their PR efforts have successfully projected into our brains (they're all about amazing design! and the other guys motto is don't be evil! and these guys over here have "open" in their name and they're basically like a non-profit with lofty, humanity-altering goals!).

You're welcome to project general failings of society onto the emergence of the iPhone (but not Android because Google maybe isn't nearly as evil I mean it's in their motto). And there's tons of hype and fanboyism associated with their products. But they are good products. After ditching Windows back in 2008, I've haven't yet had a compelling reason to switch OSes again in my career as a software engineer. Their higher-end devices are absurdly priced but my employer buys them for me, maybe that's why.

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

#797

Post by tivert »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #751
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.

What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company. This is in the same vein as "this cause is supported by teh evil Amerika, hence it must be evil" line of thinking, typically espoused by self-declared anti-imperialists (who are often mere anti-US-imperialists). >make a few people who already have everything even…

> What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company.

What's incredible is how people waste their tiny amount of personal energy defending their exploitation by a corporation that has vastly more resources than them and objectively does not need their help.

Apple is probably the poster child for effectively using marketing to brainwash their customers into identifying with them in a cult-like manner. That cult was close to the only thing sustaining them through the 90s.

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

#798

Post by toasterlovin »

guax wrote: post #466
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…

I think the difference is that amazon is not a platform. You sell on Amazon because it is where everyone is and they did that by burning lots and lots of cash to ensure everyone margins cannot be larger than a paper atom. Now that they're trying to capitalize on it they're becoming worse as a store and I can't remember last time I used them (in NL). If you buy an iphone there is no one to compete, Apple does not have…

> Amazon does not take 9% if you sell somewhere else

So we do sell on other e-commerce platforms and you’re never gonna guess what their fee structures are.

(Basically the same as Amazon’s)

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

#799

Post by that_guy_iain »

justinclift wrote: post #108
judge2020 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the developer agreement. Via user lolinder ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020745 ): > Apple is already pretty clear in its developer agreement [0] that the 30% commission is for "its services as Your agent and/or commissionaire" (Schedule 2 3.4), not for its services as a payment processor. They are contractually allowed to take the 30% fee out of paym…

> It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the developer agreement. Mind you, you can be blocked from doing needed Apple dev stuff (eg sign binaries, etc) until you've manually logged into your Apple account and clicked on the "I accept" button whenever they change terms. This happened to us (sqlitebrowser.org) in recent weeks, as our CI just stopped working one day. It turns out there was a new develo…

> There's literally no choice but to sign the things - regardless of terms - if you want your users to have software that runs.

I suspect the EU will at some point, they have haven't already, make terms that must be accepted to continue void.

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

#800

Post by zamadatix »

threeseed wrote: post #132
judge2020 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the developer agreement. Via user lolinder ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020745 ): > Apple is already pretty clear in its developer agreement [0] that the 30% commission is for "its services as Your agent and/or commissionaire" (Schedule 2 3.4), not for its services as a payment processor. They are contractually allowed to take the 30% fee out of paym…

Will be interesting to see Epic file a lawsuit questioning the legality of per-sale licensing models for SDKs. You know given they charge exactly the same way for Unreal Engine.

The case has been about whether preventing others from competing on pricing is anticompetitive not whether having pricing should be illegal in itself. Whether that's about the App Store or the SDK it would be extremely odd to suddenly expect Epic to instead try to argue it's the payment model that's the problem not the anti-competitiveness of only allowing 1 option.
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