In-App Purchase Rules • Hacker News Board

Re: In-App Purchase Rules

#81

Post by mthoms » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #73

mthoms wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple claims to have "hundreds"[0] of reviewers (which was notable to me because they didn't say "thousands"). So, we know it's somewhere between 200 and 1999. Just for fun, let's say it's 1500. Again, just for fun let's calculate: 1500 reviewers x $50,000 = $75 million. So, their (likely) largest expense is 0.5% of their total revenue. Even if I'm off by a factor of 10, the numbers are absolutely mind-blowing.

I'm not sure why total revenue would be what to compare to the costs against. Apple is profitable precisely because they don't, as a company, have many/any "loss leaders". Each unit within the company is expected to financially contribute to its margins. That was one of the (many) changes Jobs brought to Apple when he returned. I'm also not sure how a reviewers salary would be $50,000. Where'd you get that number?

>I'm not sure why total revenue would be what to compare to the costs against.

Why not? I was just trying to do some back-of-the-napkin math to ballpark the profitability of the app store "for fun".

>Apple is profitable precisely because they don't...

Cool. That has nothing to do with this particular comment chain.

>Where'd you get that number?

The 50k was totally made up. Do you have a better guesstimate? Lower or higher? Keep in mind this would be the average among their global reviewer workforce, not just US.

But... it doesn't matter though, does it? Whether their reviewer costs are 0.5% or 1.0% of their revenue doesn't really move the needle. At all.

Re: In-App Purchase Rules

#82

Post by function_seven » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #73

mthoms wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple claims to have "hundreds"[0] of reviewers (which was notable to me because they didn't say "thousands"). So, we know it's somewhere between 200 and 1999. Just for fun, let's say it's 1500. Again, just for fun let's calculate: 1500 reviewers x $50,000 = $75 million. So, their (likely) largest expense is 0.5% of their total revenue. Even if I'm off by a factor of 10, the numbers are absolutely mind-blowing.

I'm not sure why total revenue would be what to compare to the costs against. Apple is profitable precisely because they don't, as a company, have many/any "loss leaders". Each unit within the company is expected to financially contribute to its margins. That was one of the (many) changes Jobs brought to Apple when he returned. I'm also not sure how a reviewers salary would be $50,000. Where'd you get that number?

"Total revenue" is probably a bad choice of words by parent. We're looking at just the revenue from the App Store. It does not include revenue from phones, computers, wearables, or anything else. Just the sum total they collected from their 30% cut.

Re: In-App Purchase Rules

#83

Post by XCSme » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

jeff_tyrrill wrote: post #25

The rules are complex but the principle is simple. Apps are required to use in-app purchase if: (1) The customer relationship originated in the app; and (2) The primary nexus of the purchased item is to improve the purchaser's personal in-app experience. Rules get complex around edge cases even when the principles are simple. Sometimes Apple makes the wrong call on those edge cases based on those principles (Hey, Wor…

> The customer relationship originated in the app

Why does that matter if the one who brought the customer to download the app in the first place it was you, through your own promotion, and not Apple? Apple should take their cut only if they promoted the app to the user that would have not installed it otherwise.

Re: In-App Purchase Rules

#84

Post by Razengan » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

nodamage wrote: post #79

Razengan wrote: post #46

Let's say Apple allows everything that Epic etc. is asking for. Would it really be better for everyone? ---- The problems with letting all apps advertise external payment systems: • Someone may publish a free app to avoid paying anything to Apple, and then charge users [an asston of] money to ""unlock"" via an alternate payment system. • Users may not be able to see a list of all in-app purchases (and their guarantee…

> The problems with letting all apps advertise external payment systems: I don't think this list is very compelling because external payment systems are already permitted for physical goods and it doesn't seem to be a huge problem that you give your credit card to Uber and Grubhub and Amazon separately. > The problems with allowing third-party app stores on iOS: On the other hand I largely agree with this, mandating…

> as some kind of developer mode where you are thoroughly warned that you're going out of bounds of normal app distribution.

Yes, but enabling that mode would need to be a very deliberate process that nobody could possibly get “tricked” into. Think of the people who are not so tech-savvy at all.

Something like a sandboxed developer/hacker environment that requires a computer to enable and gets disabled on every restart (to help with panics where shit behaves unexpectedly) would be ideal, and should satisfy everyone.