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Kid, when I started in software development we had to give 50% of our revenues to Ingram-MicroD, plus co-op (marketing) dollars, and pay for printing manuals, b
by valuearb 9y ago
Kid, when I started in software development we had to give 50% of our revenues to Ingram-MicroD, plus co-op (marketing) dollars, and pay for printing manuals, boxes, copying disks, and shrink-wrapping out of the rest. Then with what was left we'd pay for advertising, development, and support.
Apple created a market where they host all of your content, give you your own free marketing pages for each product, pay for all the costs of distributing your content world-wide, and pay developers tens of billions of dollars a year. That they only ask 30% is one for the greatest deals software developers have ever had.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago"Kid" There is no need to be condescending, this is HN not Reddit.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoThe issue isn't whether or not 30% is a reasonable amount. The issue is that no one else is allowed to compete with them to do it better or cheaper. Maybe someone else wants to take a 70% cut will do such a fantastic job of marketing that it would be worth it. They should be allowed to do so. Maybe some larger app developers want to handle distribution and marketing in-house. They should also be allowed to do so.
- valuearb 9y agoThe freedom you want is called jailbreaking. Stores created for it never found much success. Or you can build android or web apps, and find similar freedoms. Apple built a huge market in part because they provided security and quality. iOS Customers like that Apple vets iOS apps so much more rigorously than Google Play and other Android stores. You want to take advantage of the huge market Apple built so carefully, by having Apple throw out all those protections for you. Or you want to take advantage of it while denying Apple any of the revenues. Both are cluelessly self centered and selfish.