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> the App Store dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for developers Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? iOS developme

> the App Store dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for developers Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? iOS development requires a proprietary toolchain only available on Apple hardware, programming languages hardly used elsewhere, not to mention the $99/year developer fee and the litany of vague and arbitrarily enforced rules and content guidelines for App Store release.

whatshisface 8y ago
Video game console development historically has often required thousands of dollars in special equipment and sometimes even a special relationship with the console manufacturer.
- heydenberk 8y ago
  Good point. So if our point of comparison is video game consoles, the barriers to entry have indeed been lowered. But is that the right point of comparison?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Before the App Store, you had to have relationships with each carrier to get on thier app stores or you could write independent apps but no one would find you. They also took a 70% cut - not a 30% cut.
    - simonh 8y ago
      It's worth bearing this in mind. Almost everyone expected the App Store fee to be 50%. Opening at 30% was considered stunningly low, to the point where it was almost considered unfair to other platform owners because it was felt Apple was subsidizing the system, taking profitability out of the App store business.
      - antaviana 8y ago
        I remember reading in Steve Jobs biography book that he had the rule of making a 30% of sales in deals with third parties. Sometimes this was not remotely possible so in those cases the numbers had to be massaged so that he could see his 30% and approve the deal.
jonplackett 8y ago
I'd never made an app, never written C#, and i got an app on the appstore within a few weeks and being downloaded around the world soon after. And that was 7 years ago before they made dealing with all the certificates not insanely annoying. If that's not a low barrier to entry i don't know what is. In a way the barrier has increased recently with a lot of new requirements for apps (designing for the notch etc) and appstore listings and worrying about privacy policies etc.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  I think 7 years ago it was a matter of luck. Does your app look good? Yes? Ok- Did your app overlap with Apple? No? Ok- Release your app! And thanks for paying apple 2500 dollars in various unavoidable payments. Hoping React Native Javascript saves me from apple.
jasode 8y ago
stratechery wrote: "the App Store dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for developers" To which you replied: "Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? [...] , not to mention the $99/year developer fee" His baseline for "lowered barriers" was retail channel distribution.[1] Think of shrinkwrapped packaged software like Quicken on the shelves of CompUSA, OfficeDepot, Costco, and boxes of videogames at GameStop. Yes, $99 is a barrier but it's much less than the millions of dollars in capital required to get retail stores to carry your boxed software. [1] if you click on the url link behind "lowered the barriers", you'll be directed to this page illustrating retail distribution: https://stratechery.com/2013/friction/ https://stratechery.com/2013/friction/
- 0xfeba 8y ago
  Interesting. In hindsight, the retail store distribution model of software lasted far longer (and still does) than it ever should have.
  - Veelox 8y ago
    I think you are underestimating how much easier high speed internet enabled downloading of software over buying a CD
    - vvanders 8y ago
      Yeah, I very clearly remember a "the sky is falling" sentiment when Steam launched a download only version of Half-Life 2. Or take Netflix, very few thought that would be the streaming juggernaut that it is into today. Alas poor Blockbuster, we knew you well.
- hinkley 8y ago
  The telcos were taking 70% of the gross before the Apple store came along. A big reason people flocked to iOS was the hope of finally turning a profit, because Apple more than doubled the developer’s take. That was a huge barrier. What % is Apple taking now? I know they lowered it a bit but I don’t recall what the new numbers ended up at.
acdha 8y ago
Before the App Store selling mobile apps required negotiating with every carrier individually, and they priced based on your perceived ability to pay. We had clients who were interested until they were quoted around $50k per carrier just for the privilege of being listed!
- panic 8y ago
  The old Palm smartphones let you run whatever you wanted on them.
  - acdha 8y ago
    Yes but relatively few people had them and the carriers were trending in the direction of taking away flexibility. If Palm had hung around longer, I'd bet that one of them would have tried the locked down store there as well.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 8y ago
Compared to previous mobile phone development? Yes, absolutely. Compared to getting into PC retail sales? Yes, absolutely. Compared to web development? No barriers at all, but hard to earn money other than by ads. Compared to PC shareware? Well, that did have a lower barrier to entry and did make lots of money for id Software. This might genuinely have been the lowest barrier to entry platform that it was possible to earn money on.
d--b 8y ago
The barrier was the _distribution_. Before the app store, you'd have to make a website of some sort to sell your app. And then you'd have to advertise your app, and so on. The app store does all that for you, so that you just build your app and that's it.
dalbasal 8y ago
Barriers are things that prevent you from doing stuff. To start a bank, you need billions, a reputation and friends in the industry and central bank approval. Even a whip smart billionaire would struggle. Getting into the app store requires £1k of hardware, enough programming chops to learn a new language and the sort of bureaucratic hurdles you might encounter signing up to a cable tv contract. If you don't have the chops you can hire them. Apple do control the whole system via a tight bottleneck, but barriers aren't high. The web is lower still, but that's about the lowest barrier to entry for anything.
- Aloha 8y ago
  I think starting a bank involves high hundreds of thousands, or millions - but I'm in the US - starting a bank is actually pretty easy here compared to other countries.
lev99 8y ago
Video game consoles require approval before they will even send the SDKs.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
"Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? " Just about everything that came before. Getting an app on a phone before meant you had to go through the carrier's store, where they had a 70/30 split, with you getting 30%. There's also selling your software in a box on a store shelf, where the distributor takes 50% off the top.
valuearb 8y ago
LOL. I remember giving Ingram MicroD 50% of sales just to get stocked, then spending tens of thousands on advertisements, and on store sales promotions just to get them to order our software from Ingram MicroD. That after spending tens of thousands on printing manuals, boxes and duping disks. And you want to talk about vague and arbitrary rules, just try to figure out why the stores that said they’d promote your software buried it in the back and returned it after cashing your checks. My favorite was trying to get paid by Ingram MicroD. “It’s been 90 days, you agreed to pay within 45”. “Oh sorry it’s friday, we only cut checks on Thursdays” “Oh, you didn’t get your check? I’m sorry, I’d like to help but it’s thursday, we only cut checks on Tuesdays ..... oh I don’t know why she told you that, we never cut checks on Thursdays” “The good news is I went ahead and cut your check, even though it’s only Wednesday. The bad news is our CEO is out of the office, so it isn’t signed yet ..... oh, I’m nit sure when he’ll be back, it’s a family vacation.”

whatshisface 8y ago

Video game console development historically has often required thousands of dollars in special equipment and sometimes even a special relationship with the console manufacturer.

heydenberk 8y ago
Good point. So if our point of comparison is video game consoles, the barriers to entry have indeed been lowered. But is that the right point of comparison?
- scarface74 8y ago
  Before the App Store, you had to have relationships with each carrier to get on thier app stores or you could write independent apps but no one would find you. They also took a 70% cut - not a 30% cut.
  - simonh 8y ago
    It's worth bearing this in mind. Almost everyone expected the App Store fee to be 50%. Opening at 30% was considered stunningly low, to the point where it was almost considered unfair to other platform owners because it was felt Apple was subsidizing the system, taking profitability out of the App store business.
    - antaviana 8y ago
      I remember reading in Steve Jobs biography book that he had the rule of making a 30% of sales in deals with third parties. Sometimes this was not remotely possible so in those cases the numbers had to be massaged so that he could see his 30% and approve the deal.

jonplackett 8y ago

I'd never made an app, never written C#, and i got an app on the appstore within a few weeks and being downloaded around the world soon after. And that was 7 years ago before they made dealing with all the certificates not insanely annoying. If that's not a low barrier to entry i don't know what is. In a way the barrier has increased recently with a lot of new requirements for apps (designing for the notch etc) and appstore listings and worrying about privacy policies etc.

mkirklions 8y ago
I think 7 years ago it was a matter of luck. Does your app look good? Yes? Ok- Did your app overlap with Apple? No? Ok- Release your app! And thanks for paying apple 2500 dollars in various unavoidable payments. Hoping React Native Javascript saves me from apple.

jasode 8y ago

stratechery wrote: "the App Store dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for developers" To which you replied: "Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? [...] , not to mention the $99/year developer fee" His baseline for "lowered barriers" was retail channel distribution.[1] Think of shrinkwrapped packaged software like Quicken on the shelves of CompUSA, OfficeDepot, Costco, and boxes of videogames at GameStop. Yes, $99 is a barrier but it's much less than the millions of dollars in capital required to get retail stores to carry your boxed software. [1] if you click on the url link behind "lowered the barriers", you'll be directed to this page illustrating retail distribution: https://stratechery.com/2013/friction/ https://stratechery.com/2013/friction/

0xfeba 8y ago
Interesting. In hindsight, the retail store distribution model of software lasted far longer (and still does) than it ever should have.
- Veelox 8y ago
  I think you are underestimating how much easier high speed internet enabled downloading of software over buying a CD
  - vvanders 8y ago
    Yeah, I very clearly remember a "the sky is falling" sentiment when Steam launched a download only version of Half-Life 2. Or take Netflix, very few thought that would be the streaming juggernaut that it is into today. Alas poor Blockbuster, we knew you well.
hinkley 8y ago
The telcos were taking 70% of the gross before the Apple store came along. A big reason people flocked to iOS was the hope of finally turning a profit, because Apple more than doubled the developer’s take. That was a huge barrier. What % is Apple taking now? I know they lowered it a bit but I don’t recall what the new numbers ended up at.

acdha 8y ago

Before the App Store selling mobile apps required negotiating with every carrier individually, and they priced based on your perceived ability to pay. We had clients who were interested until they were quoted around $50k per carrier just for the privilege of being listed!

panic 8y ago
The old Palm smartphones let you run whatever you wanted on them.
- acdha 8y ago
  Yes but relatively few people had them and the carriers were trending in the direction of taking away flexibility. If Palm had hung around longer, I'd bet that one of them would have tried the locked down store there as well.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 8y ago

Compared to previous mobile phone development? Yes, absolutely. Compared to getting into PC retail sales? Yes, absolutely. Compared to web development? No barriers at all, but hard to earn money other than by ads. Compared to PC shareware? Well, that did have a lower barrier to entry and did make lots of money for id Software. This might genuinely have been the lowest barrier to entry platform that it was possible to earn money on.

d--b 8y ago

The barrier was the _distribution_. Before the app store, you'd have to make a website of some sort to sell your app. And then you'd have to advertise your app, and so on. The app store does all that for you, so that you just build your app and that's it.

dalbasal 8y ago

Barriers are things that prevent you from doing stuff. To start a bank, you need billions, a reputation and friends in the industry and central bank approval. Even a whip smart billionaire would struggle. Getting into the app store requires £1k of hardware, enough programming chops to learn a new language and the sort of bureaucratic hurdles you might encounter signing up to a cable tv contract. If you don't have the chops you can hire them. Apple do control the whole system via a tight bottleneck, but barriers aren't high. The web is lower still, but that's about the lowest barrier to entry for anything.

Aloha 8y ago
I think starting a bank involves high hundreds of thousands, or millions - but I'm in the US - starting a bank is actually pretty easy here compared to other countries.

lev99 8y ago

Video game consoles require approval before they will even send the SDKs.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

"Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? " Just about everything that came before. Getting an app on a phone before meant you had to go through the carrier's store, where they had a 70/30 split, with you getting 30%. There's also selling your software in a box on a store shelf, where the distributor takes 50% off the top.

valuearb 8y ago

LOL. I remember giving Ingram MicroD 50% of sales just to get stocked, then spending tens of thousands on advertisements, and on store sales promotions just to get them to order our software from Ingram MicroD. That after spending tens of thousands on printing manuals, boxes and duping disks. And you want to talk about vague and arbitrary rules, just try to figure out why the stores that said they’d promote your software buried it in the back and returned it after cashing your checks. My favorite was trying to get paid by Ingram MicroD. “It’s been 90 days, you agreed to pay within 45”. “Oh sorry it’s friday, we only cut checks on Thursdays” “Oh, you didn’t get your check? I’m sorry, I’d like to help but it’s thursday, we only cut checks on Tuesdays ..... oh I don’t know why she told you that, we never cut checks on Thursdays” “The good news is I went ahead and cut your check, even though it’s only Wednesday. The bad news is our CEO is out of the office, so it isn’t signed yet ..... oh, I’m nit sure when he’ll be back, it’s a family vacation.”