3 ms·

I think in addition to hosting/distribution costs, a reason they charge an annual fee is to weed out spammers, which I think is a good idea. The fee is low enou

by cynix 7y ago

I think in addition to hosting/distribution costs, a reason they charge an annual fee is to weed out spammers, which I think is a good idea. The fee is low enough (equivalent to about 2 cups of coffee per month) that any serious developer should have no problem paying it.

marbiru 7y ago
How does the annual fee weed out spammers exactly? Are there examples on Android of the kind of spam apps you're worried about?
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  It's much harder for them to be anonymous when they had to get their credit card out.
  - marbiru 7y ago
    I'm not trying to be combative but... doesn't Google's one-time fee to make an account do that just as effectively? Or an annual $10 fee, or whatever?
- cynix 7y ago
  Spammers are less likely to keep their apps in the store if there’s an ongoing cost. Or to submit it at all, if the initial cost is high enough.
marbiru 7y ago
Also, I don't want to sound hokey but... $99 might be low enough for your definition of a "serious developer" but it's not affordable for a hobbyist, a student or someone starting out in a low-income country, for example. I can make, host and distribute a website for $0 because nobody owns that ecosystem, and big companies like Github and Heroku think it's worth their while to offer free hosting and distribution to small developers -- I think Apple would do the same if they were in a competitive market, but they charge monopoly pricing because they're (currently) able to.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  but it's not affordable for a hobbyist, a student or someone starting out in a low-income country, for example Neither is an Apple computer which makes your whole point moot.
- cynix 7y ago
  > it's not affordable for a hobbyist, a student or someone starting out in a low-income country, for example. These are probably not their target audience then. > they charge monopoly pricing because they're (currently) able to. iOS has a 22% market share according to the first result on Google. That's not even remotely close to a monopoly.
  - marbiru 7y ago
    > iOS has a 22% market share according to the first result on Google. that's worldwide, in the U.S. they're at 45%. And it's not a traditional duopoly in that there's huge lock-in -- I can buy Coke one day and switch to Pepsi the next (or whatever), but once a customer is on a particular phone they're locked into that platform's app store. So, yeah, I think they're exercising monopolistic pricing when selling access to their app-store.
    - cynix 7y ago
      Why does a higher market share in the US have any significance in this discussion? According to [1] the US only accounts for about 10% of the global smartphone market. As an Australian, I couldn't care less about their US market share. And even if we go by 45%, that's still not close to a monopoly. You're not by any means forced to publish apps on their app store. [1] https://www.countriestoday.com/smartphone-users-by-country/ https://www.countriestoday.com/smartphone-users-by-country/
      - marbiru 7y ago
        hmm, ok, I take your point that the US share specifically doesn't really matter so long as Apple is pricing the developer account globally -- it definitely matters to me (in the sense that many of my users are American iPhone owners) but maybe not for the pricing analysis overall. My bad. I still do think that Apple is employing monopolistic pricing on the app store, though -- they don't have a monopoly on the smartphone market, for sure, and indeed their smartphone prices are (certainly premium but still) constrained by the prices of other competing phones. Once a customer owns an iPhone, though, the Apple app store is the only way to reach them. And Apple's pricing for developer accounts seems to reflect that - I really don't believe $99 is the equilibrium price here, nor that policies like kicking apps out the store as soon as the developer stops paying would survive in a competitive market. I'm absolutely not forced to publish my apps to Apple, and obviously I'm taking the option not to publish them there now. And please don't get me wrong, my apps are super trivial and nobody will actually miss them when they're gone. But it does seem sad to me that both me and my potential future users will lose out (in whatever small way) because of Apple's non-competitive developer account pricing, even when I would have been very happy to pay the fair market rate for a developer account.

by cynix 7y ago

marbiru 7y ago

How does the annual fee weed out spammers exactly? Are there examples on Android of the kind of spam apps you're worried about?

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
It's much harder for them to be anonymous when they had to get their credit card out.
- marbiru 7y ago
  I'm not trying to be combative but... doesn't Google's one-time fee to make an account do that just as effectively? Or an annual $10 fee, or whatever?
cynix 7y ago
Spammers are less likely to keep their apps in the store if there’s an ongoing cost. Or to submit it at all, if the initial cost is high enough.

marbiru 7y ago

Also, I don't want to sound hokey but... $99 might be low enough for your definition of a "serious developer" but it's not affordable for a hobbyist, a student or someone starting out in a low-income country, for example. I can make, host and distribute a website for $0 because nobody owns that ecosystem, and big companies like Github and Heroku think it's worth their while to offer free hosting and distribution to small developers -- I think Apple would do the same if they were in a competitive market, but they charge monopoly pricing because they're (currently) able to.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
but it's not affordable for a hobbyist, a student or someone starting out in a low-income country, for example Neither is an Apple computer which makes your whole point moot.
cynix 7y ago
> it's not affordable for a hobbyist, a student or someone starting out in a low-income country, for example. These are probably not their target audience then. > they charge monopoly pricing because they're (currently) able to. iOS has a 22% market share according to the first result on Google. That's not even remotely close to a monopoly.
- marbiru 7y ago
  > iOS has a 22% market share according to the first result on Google. that's worldwide, in the U.S. they're at 45%. And it's not a traditional duopoly in that there's huge lock-in -- I can buy Coke one day and switch to Pepsi the next (or whatever), but once a customer is on a particular phone they're locked into that platform's app store. So, yeah, I think they're exercising monopolistic pricing when selling access to their app-store.
  - cynix 7y ago
    Why does a higher market share in the US have any significance in this discussion? According to [1] the US only accounts for about 10% of the global smartphone market. As an Australian, I couldn't care less about their US market share. And even if we go by 45%, that's still not close to a monopoly. You're not by any means forced to publish apps on their app store. [1] https://www.countriestoday.com/smartphone-users-by-country/ https://www.countriestoday.com/smartphone-users-by-country/
    - marbiru 7y ago
      hmm, ok, I take your point that the US share specifically doesn't really matter so long as Apple is pricing the developer account globally -- it definitely matters to me (in the sense that many of my users are American iPhone owners) but maybe not for the pricing analysis overall. My bad. I still do think that Apple is employing monopolistic pricing on the app store, though -- they don't have a monopoly on the smartphone market, for sure, and indeed their smartphone prices are (certainly premium but still) constrained by the prices of other competing phones. Once a customer owns an iPhone, though, the Apple app store is the only way to reach them. And Apple's pricing for developer accounts seems to reflect that - I really don't believe $99 is the equilibrium price here, nor that policies like kicking apps out the store as soon as the developer stops paying would survive in a competitive market. I'm absolutely not forced to publish my apps to Apple, and obviously I'm taking the option not to publish them there now. And please don't get me wrong, my apps are super trivial and nobody will actually miss them when they're gone. But it does seem sad to me that both me and my potential future users will lose out (in whatever small way) because of Apple's non-competitive developer account pricing, even when I would have been very happy to pay the fair market rate for a developer account.