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The Apple store seems good for small apps because the “tax” pays for discovery/marketing, distribution, billing & payment, lends credibility to the application,

by wand3r 8y ago

The Apple store seems good for small apps because the “tax” pays for discovery/marketing, distribution, billing & payment, lends credibility to the application, etc. This is especially true for single purchases. Recurring revenue is a much different proposition— even for small or first time apps. A player like netflix which handles it’s own marketing, payment and all other ancilliary services doesn’t need to anything the apple store is offering other than distribution. I would understand if apple took $1 or some one time download fee but to regularly claim 30% of Netflix revenue seems like a stretch. While I think apple could make the case that they signed up through iOS, i think it is equally fair for Netflix to disable this option.

arielm 8y ago
Agreed on subscriptions. While paid and freemium apps benefit from being in the store (discovery, etc), recurring revenue models are much more difficult to optimize and maintain. That’s not something the store really helps with. This is why both Apple and Google introduces the reduced rate after the first year of subscription, which in my opinion will eventually become the norm from the get go. It’s only a letter of time. Ultimately, even such seemingly large losses are still a really small fraction of Apple’s bottom line. Once more apps find ways to do this is when Apple will start noticing.
gcb0 8y ago
> The Apple store seems good for small apps that is fine if you ever show up as featured. Which is 1% of the apps, and even then, from already big companies after they spent the marketing money. Other than that, for distribution (really?) and payment, there are tons of alternatives/competition the small apps cannot even consider. App store is nothing other than a racketeering scheme where you have to pay if you can't "protect" yourself against. It is "robber barons"/"ma-bell"/etc all over again.
- improbable22 8y ago
  As a data point, which I don't think is a huge outlier: I have paid $5 for lots of apps I like, which I would never ever have gotten around to paying for on someone's website -- partly trust, partly just mental overhead. But whether the app is $4 or $6 makes zero difference to me. I don't think I found any of these through their listings or search, maybe those could be better? But the space is huge, maybe random blogs etc. can do better than any centralised store.
- sjwright 8y ago
  In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%. After you pay for manufacturing and distribution (shipping shrink-wrapped boxes of CD-ROMs, multilingual manuals and a unique serial number to retailers in Alaska and Singapore is definitely not free) a developer would be lucky to end up with one third of the retail price in their pocket. The Apple app store is actually a huge improvement over that model; it just seems unfair because digital sales shouldn't cost much, right? Right?? Well, Apple created the marketplace. They spend a lot of money making that marketplace work correctly, keeping their software platforms and merchant facilities robust for customers and developers, and putting that marketplace in the hands of hundreds of millions of people. They built this opportunity for devlopers and every developer who has built an app did so knowing exactly what the terms were. If you don't like it, don't complain after you voluntarily and knowingly agreed to the terms.
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    > In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%. In the past, you bought hardware that could run software from more than one retailer.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      You still can, if that is you want. You are free to make that choice. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate if you didn't object to my right to choose a managed ecosystem if that is what I prefer. I like the Apple ecosystem the way it is, thank you very much.
      - chii 8y ago
        > You are free to make that choice. i do not believe that apple allows you to sideload apps without jailbreaking (which voids warranty iirc). Therefore, the user is not free to make that choice.
        sjwright 8y ago
- rconti 8y ago
  But even if you DON'T show up as featured, maybe you're one of the 10 vetted apps that do what yours does, instead of 1 out of 100 on the Play Store. I think that's what's being discussed here.
  - dirkgently 8y ago
    > you're one of the 10 vetted apps that do what yours does, instead of 1 out of 100 on the Play Store. 1. Citation needed (because looks like you are pulling these numbers out of your ass). 2. And by your argument, looks like people have more choices on Android. Who would have thought?!
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't be a jerk on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines so often that I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
      - dirkgently 8y ago
        Good riddance.
electic 8y ago
> The Apple store seems good for small apps This is simply not true. As a small app developer, I can tell you first hand that Apple only promotes and supports larger apps in the ecosystem. It is the exception, not the rule, when they promote a smaller app. As a developer, you are on your own on the marketing and discovery front. The billing infrastructure you allude to would be easily replaceable with a dozen or so startups and wouldn't warrant a 30 percent hit that Apple charges.
- hinkley 8y ago
  I have to agree with grandparent. You can't scale down international infrastructure like this. The cost per sale for someone managing a store for you has a certain minimum cost per month plus an amount per sale and per return. Of course they're going to hype the big games. It's opportunity cost. Advertisement leads to sales, but feeding a hype train gets you more. If they stop advertising the hot new game to showcase yours then that person is not getting promoted. The guy who had no problems ignoring your game gets promoted and now everybody answers to them. Is it awesome? No. Do I like it? Not really. But it's rational, and getting large companies to be rational is often better than you can expect.
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    The fallacy there is that their push to promote big Warner is mostly promoting toxic games that milk and dime users because freemium games is where money is at. It's no coincidence that on both stores you cannot filter out apps that have in app purchases
    - LoSboccacc 8y ago
      s/Warner/earners/ sorry
  - threeseed 8y ago
    Except that Apple doesn't hype the big games. They never have. Go look through the Today/Games section right now. All of the featured games will be from super high quality indie developers. It isn't the ones that make the most money.
vbezhenar 8y ago
I don't think that Netflix needs distribution. Netflix needs Apple's permission to run its software on its users devices. That what they are paying for. I doubt that many people would discover Netflix brand via AppStore browsing or that Netflix would struggle to serve .ipa file downloads.

by wand3r 8y ago

arielm 8y ago

Agreed on subscriptions. While paid and freemium apps benefit from being in the store (discovery, etc), recurring revenue models are much more difficult to optimize and maintain. That’s not something the store really helps with. This is why both Apple and Google introduces the reduced rate after the first year of subscription, which in my opinion will eventually become the norm from the get go. It’s only a letter of time. Ultimately, even such seemingly large losses are still a really small fraction of Apple’s bottom line. Once more apps find ways to do this is when Apple will start noticing.

gcb0 8y ago

> The Apple store seems good for small apps that is fine if you ever show up as featured. Which is 1% of the apps, and even then, from already big companies after they spent the marketing money. Other than that, for distribution (really?) and payment, there are tons of alternatives/competition the small apps cannot even consider. App store is nothing other than a racketeering scheme where you have to pay if you can't "protect" yourself against. It is "robber barons"/"ma-bell"/etc all over again.

improbable22 8y ago
As a data point, which I don't think is a huge outlier: I have paid $5 for lots of apps I like, which I would never ever have gotten around to paying for on someone's website -- partly trust, partly just mental overhead. But whether the app is $4 or $6 makes zero difference to me. I don't think I found any of these through their listings or search, maybe those could be better? But the space is huge, maybe random blogs etc. can do better than any centralised store.
sjwright 8y ago
In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%. After you pay for manufacturing and distribution (shipping shrink-wrapped boxes of CD-ROMs, multilingual manuals and a unique serial number to retailers in Alaska and Singapore is definitely not free) a developer would be lucky to end up with one third of the retail price in their pocket. The Apple app store is actually a huge improvement over that model; it just seems unfair because digital sales shouldn't cost much, right? Right?? Well, Apple created the marketplace. They spend a lot of money making that marketplace work correctly, keeping their software platforms and merchant facilities robust for customers and developers, and putting that marketplace in the hands of hundreds of millions of people. They built this opportunity for devlopers and every developer who has built an app did so knowing exactly what the terms were. If you don't like it, don't complain after you voluntarily and knowingly agreed to the terms.
- a1369209993 8y ago
  > In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%. In the past, you bought hardware that could run software from more than one retailer.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    You still can, if that is you want. You are free to make that choice. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate if you didn't object to my right to choose a managed ecosystem if that is what I prefer. I like the Apple ecosystem the way it is, thank you very much.
    - chii 8y ago
      > You are free to make that choice. i do not believe that apple allows you to sideload apps without jailbreaking (which voids warranty iirc). Therefore, the user is not free to make that choice.
      - sjwright 8y ago
rconti 8y ago
But even if you DON'T show up as featured, maybe you're one of the 10 vetted apps that do what yours does, instead of 1 out of 100 on the Play Store. I think that's what's being discussed here.
- dirkgently 8y ago
  > you're one of the 10 vetted apps that do what yours does, instead of 1 out of 100 on the Play Store. 1. Citation needed (because looks like you are pulling these numbers out of your ass). 2. And by your argument, looks like people have more choices on Android. Who would have thought?!
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't be a jerk on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines so often that I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
    - dirkgently 8y ago
      Good riddance.

electic 8y ago

> The Apple store seems good for small apps This is simply not true. As a small app developer, I can tell you first hand that Apple only promotes and supports larger apps in the ecosystem. It is the exception, not the rule, when they promote a smaller app. As a developer, you are on your own on the marketing and discovery front. The billing infrastructure you allude to would be easily replaceable with a dozen or so startups and wouldn't warrant a 30 percent hit that Apple charges.

hinkley 8y ago
I have to agree with grandparent. You can't scale down international infrastructure like this. The cost per sale for someone managing a store for you has a certain minimum cost per month plus an amount per sale and per return. Of course they're going to hype the big games. It's opportunity cost. Advertisement leads to sales, but feeding a hype train gets you more. If they stop advertising the hot new game to showcase yours then that person is not getting promoted. The guy who had no problems ignoring your game gets promoted and now everybody answers to them. Is it awesome? No. Do I like it? Not really. But it's rational, and getting large companies to be rational is often better than you can expect.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  The fallacy there is that their push to promote big Warner is mostly promoting toxic games that milk and dime users because freemium games is where money is at. It's no coincidence that on both stores you cannot filter out apps that have in app purchases
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    s/Warner/earners/ sorry
- threeseed 8y ago
  Except that Apple doesn't hype the big games. They never have. Go look through the Today/Games section right now. All of the featured games will be from super high quality indie developers. It isn't the ones that make the most money.

vbezhenar 8y ago

I don't think that Netflix needs distribution. Netflix needs Apple's permission to run its software on its users devices. That what they are paying for. I doubt that many people would discover Netflix brand via AppStore browsing or that Netflix would struggle to serve .ipa file downloads.