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I agree that the $99/year/developer isn’t that much for Apple. The 30% of all sales is probably significant though - the App Store has a lot of users. I don’t

by Fuddh 8y ago

I agree that the $99/year/developer isn’t that much for Apple. The 30% of all sales is probably significant though - the App Store has a lot of users. I don’t necessarily agree that PWA developers have no way of monetising their apps though - if I’m not mistaken they could use ads and subscriptions for their services. These would normally grant a cut to Apple if they were done through the App Store, hence the incentive for apple to delay the implementation of PWAs.

judah 8y ago
$99/year isn't small. There are 2m apps in the iOS App Store today. Each app must pay $99/year. That's $198m/year as a passive income stream for Apple. Factor in 30% of app purchase price, plus 30% of in-app purchases, and you have a significant revenue stream.
- nodamage 8y ago
  This assumes (incorrectly) that every app is released by a different developer with their own account. In reality many of those 2M apps are basically shovelware - with developers releasing dozens if not hundreds of different apps under the same account.
jmull 8y ago
> The 30% of all sales is probably significant though I realized they just announced something on this yesterday, which I found transcribed[1]: "We're happy to announce that this week, we're going to achieve another huge milestone. The money that developers have earned through the App Store will top $100 billion." So if that's the developer's %70 to Apple's 30%, then Apple's share is $43 billion. That's a lot, but over just about 10 years. I don't know how much was, e.g., in the last year, but Apple's revenue is over $200 billion/year, I think, so in terms of percent, it's in the low single-digits. > I don’t necessarily agree that PWA developers have no way of monetising their apps though. I didn't say they have no way of monetizing, just nothing with the reach comparable to the Apple app store. Outside the app store, a PWA developer can charge, e.g., subscriptions. But (1) it's not free (they'll have to create or buy a mechanism for doing so... there are transaction fees too, but much less than 30%); and (2) would entirely lack the discoverability of Apple's app store. Sure, it's perhaps possible that a completing PWA app marketplace could be created and marketed, but it doesn't exist now, and it would take a lot of time and a lot of money. I didn't think Apple generally took a piece of ad revenue from iOS apps. Wasn't it just their own iAd network that took a piece? (Also, I thought that was killed off). [1]https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/04/live-from-wwdc-2018/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/04/live-from-wwdc-2018/

by Fuddh 8y ago

judah 8y ago

$99/year isn't small. There are 2m apps in the iOS App Store today. Each app must pay $99/year. That's $198m/year as a passive income stream for Apple. Factor in 30% of app purchase price, plus 30% of in-app purchases, and you have a significant revenue stream.

nodamage 8y ago
This assumes (incorrectly) that every app is released by a different developer with their own account. In reality many of those 2M apps are basically shovelware - with developers releasing dozens if not hundreds of different apps under the same account.

jmull 8y ago

> The 30% of all sales is probably significant though I realized they just announced something on this yesterday, which I found transcribed[1]: "We're happy to announce that this week, we're going to achieve another huge milestone. The money that developers have earned through the App Store will top $100 billion." So if that's the developer's %70 to Apple's 30%, then Apple's share is $43 billion. That's a lot, but over just about 10 years. I don't know how much was, e.g., in the last year, but Apple's revenue is over $200 billion/year, I think, so in terms of percent, it's in the low single-digits. > I don’t necessarily agree that PWA developers have no way of monetising their apps though. I didn't say they have no way of monetizing, just nothing with the reach comparable to the Apple app store. Outside the app store, a PWA developer can charge, e.g., subscriptions. But (1) it's not free (they'll have to create or buy a mechanism for doing so... there are transaction fees too, but much less than 30%); and (2) would entirely lack the discoverability of Apple's app store. Sure, it's perhaps possible that a completing PWA app marketplace could be created and marketed, but it doesn't exist now, and it would take a lot of time and a lot of money. I didn't think Apple generally took a piece of ad revenue from iOS apps. Wasn't it just their own iAd network that took a piece? (Also, I thought that was killed off). [1]https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/04/live-from-wwdc-2018/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/04/live-from-wwdc-2018/