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Those cuts are egregiously large, IMHO. Those platforms should be hacked into pieces until competition forces them to fall (or have their pricing regulated lik

by ardy42 8y ago

Those cuts are egregiously large, IMHO. Those platforms should be hacked into pieces until competition forces them to fall (or have their pricing regulated like a utility's).

vntok 8y ago
Their billion users seem pretty content to use them in spite of the numerous alternatives.
chillacy 8y ago
I have a mac app which is exclusively available on the App Store, so I pay 30% of my revenue to Apple. I could spin up my own system but then I have to build out payments (credit card processing fees), distribution, updates, beta testing, and figure out discoverability. In the end, my app isn't big enough to build these things out myself, but at least if I wanted to I could. Different story on iOS.
- maksimum 8y ago
  > beta testing, and figure out discoverability I feel like these two are much harder than the others. How does the app store help you with beta testing? Isn't discoverability basically a lottery?
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Oh yea, I get beta testing from hockeyapp since testflight isn't out for the mac. By discovery I mean lots of users go on the app store and search for apps to download directly, no marketing or SEO needed. Adding the website, trials, SEO, etc helped a bit probably, but my app seems to just live on app store organic searches.
- ardy42 8y ago
  I'm not saying those platforms don't provide value and that they shouldn't charge anything, I'm just saying that 30% is egregiously high. I don't know what Apple's App-Store operation costs are, but my gut feel is 5-10% would be more realistic rate to charge.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    30% is high, I agree. And I also pay over 30% to the government for taxes after that too. But at the end of the day what can I do? There's not really competition to drive the commissions down. If another app store came up and offered 10% commissions and the audience I'd go there instead.

by ardy42 8y ago

Those cuts are egregiously large, IMHO. Those platforms should be hacked into pieces until competition forces them to fall (or have their pricing regulated like a utility's).

vntok 8y ago

Their billion users seem pretty content to use them in spite of the numerous alternatives.

chillacy 8y ago

I have a mac app which is exclusively available on the App Store, so I pay 30% of my revenue to Apple. I could spin up my own system but then I have to build out payments (credit card processing fees), distribution, updates, beta testing, and figure out discoverability. In the end, my app isn't big enough to build these things out myself, but at least if I wanted to I could. Different story on iOS.

maksimum 8y ago
> beta testing, and figure out discoverability I feel like these two are much harder than the others. How does the app store help you with beta testing? Isn't discoverability basically a lottery?
- chillacy 8y ago
  Oh yea, I get beta testing from hockeyapp since testflight isn't out for the mac. By discovery I mean lots of users go on the app store and search for apps to download directly, no marketing or SEO needed. Adding the website, trials, SEO, etc helped a bit probably, but my app seems to just live on app store organic searches.
ardy42 8y ago
I'm not saying those platforms don't provide value and that they shouldn't charge anything, I'm just saying that 30% is egregiously high. I don't know what Apple's App-Store operation costs are, but my gut feel is 5-10% would be more realistic rate to charge.
- chillacy 8y ago
  30% is high, I agree. And I also pay over 30% to the government for taxes after that too. But at the end of the day what can I do? There's not really competition to drive the commissions down. If another app store came up and offered 10% commissions and the audience I'd go there instead.