13 ms·

Paying for updates has been the standard software model for ages, and with good reason. It still takes money to update and add new features. It still takes time

by epse 7y ago

Paying for updates has been the standard software model for ages, and with good reason. It still takes money to update and add new features. It still takes time. To some extent new users can pay for this, but then developers have to severely limit the time spent on updates in order to nod spend too much, or they risk not even making a profit on the first version. That is why most "big" software packages these days are either subscription based, or pay-per-update. We've all come to expect apps to get free updates, but it's not a sustainable business model.

taurath 7y ago
And Apple taking 30% of that... for what? Payment processing is a 4% thing. It’s in the app developers interest to make it not have errors. It’s just for access to the market. That is the only value Apple truly brings, outside of the brand and a privacy commitment
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Considering no one else seems to be able to sell access to a similar market, it seems to be a valuable thing to sell.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    How would you sell access to the iOS market? If you're just saying 'they have full control so they can set the price', well yeah, but that doesn't automatically make it reasonable to give up most of your control and hand out 30% of your revenue in order to pick up additional customers. It seems like today in 2019 more people are deciding the customers aren't as profitable as they look.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      I’m saying they have full control of something buyers want, so they can charge 30%. If their revenue starts going down due to their customers deciding 30% isn’t worth it, then the seller (Apple) will have to consider dropping their price if they want to continue selling.
- dijit 7y ago
  People get hung up on apple having a 30% entrance fee, but that didn't come out of nowhere. I work in the video games industry and access to steam or other first parties (Sony/Microsoft) is 30%, no negotiations. You could argue that first parties such as sony/microsoft have subtle costs involved such as printing of disks, but that's paid for before market by the publisher. The thing you pay for is: content distribution (in the case of digital downloads such as steam), 'signing' and access to market.
  - jdnenej 7y ago
    The amount of value steam provides on top of payment processing and distribution is immense. Valve basically single handedly created Linux gaming. Their client is so many years ahead of everything else with the forums, workshop, broadcast streaming, streaming to your tv, gamepad support and gamepad virtualisation as well as a mountain of developer side APIs for things like inviting friends to games. Apples 30% would seem a lot more fair if it was possible to side load and install alternative app stores In comparison apples offering is little more than "we have a huge captive audience on a proprietary system. Pay us or miss out on half of the market"
    - lilyball 7y ago
      Apple meanwhile created the entire OS and all of the developer APIs that your apps rely on, including things like Metal that games rely on. And Apple gives this all away for free.
      - jdnenej 7y ago
        That should be included in device cost. It is unacceptable that they prevent users who paid for the device from installing programs outside of apples walled garden
        mratsim 7y ago
        Console developers would like to have a word with you.
- SyneRyder 7y ago
  Considering Microsoft cut their percentage take to 5% on the Microsoft Store [1], it shows that Apple is really charging 30% just because developers keep letting them get away with it. [1] https://download.cnet.com/news/microsoft-store-slashes-revenue-cut-to-just-5-percent-app-developers-get-the-rest/ https://download.cnet.com/news/microsoft-store-slashes-reven...
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    That's because nobody uses the Microsoft Store.
    - kevingadd 7y ago
      You can claim the MS Store is an outlier because "nobody uses it" (maybe? got numbers? it's obviously not #1, though) but other stores offer lower cuts as well. Epic made a big deal out of their lower cut (~12%) compared to the other stores and developers seem to be paying attention.
      - stoobs 7y ago
        Mostly because they're throwing buckets of money at the developers for exclusive deals, not because it's a better product offering in any way, or has a better audience.
      - Konnstann 7y ago
        The Epic store doesn't need to make money, they have Fortnite for that. A barebones store missing features that even the worst online marketplaces have, is just their attempt to become the new "monopoly" if they can get enough of steam's customer base. Once the platform matures and they stop throwing money at devs and giving away free games, we'll see what changes they make, if any.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      I don't think negative economy of scale applies here.
    - 7y ago
- Razengan 7y ago
  > And Apple taking 30% of that... for what? Payment processing uhhh.. hosting and bandwidth for potentially millions of downloads and updates and your videos and screenshots? Covering user refunds? A reviews and feedback system? Crash logs? Showing you in user searches? The Editor's Choice and Featured Apps lottery? Invitations to develop for yet-to-be announced platforms? Giving your users peace of mind that your app is sandboxed and cannot indulge in hanky panky?
  - ajscanlan 7y ago
    None of which you can opt out of. I'd happily host my own apps and pay the hosting/bandwidth than pay the $99 a year for Apple Developer Account + 30% of all sales. But Apple won't let me, if I want my app to run on iOS I have no choice BUT to use their bandwidth.
    - alunchbox 7y ago
      Ah, 30% of the ~3 billion Tinder or any successful business is worth it for "band width"? Yeah, no. Not sure how this even became a norm for people to look so blindly. It's absolutely insane to even think about.. we're almost talking about 1 3rd of the entire business value for hosting!?
- awinder 7y ago
  30% is high but it’s not just payment processing, it’s payment fraud insulation, download bandwidth, and marketplace amplification (people finding your app without knowing they’re looking for your app). Apple also drops subscription costs from the second year on to 15% which is coming back to reality. I personally find the subscription model way more sustainable & less user hostile than the paid versioning upgrade model, the grand majority of the industry is also in agreement there. So there’s a lot of bad smells from this developer that they just want to run a shoddy business and not that there’s a big problem with Apple.
  - kkarakk 7y ago
    >marketplace amplification this never happens, if you JUST upload your app to the store and think it will take off coz it has good features then good luck. In reality you have to upload and then pay some app advertisement agency to feed your app to the multiple tech blogs to inorganically promote it. App store is full of inorganically promoted trash nowadays
    - awinder 7y ago
      I'm not saying apple takes you from 0 to millions of downloads, I'm saying that the marketplace does find you new customers. I buy/subscribe to lots of stuff that I find through the editor callouts or through organic search and Apple has a probably wildly inflated number for how much they drive downloads, but its definitely higher than 0%.
    - xienze 7y ago
      What would be "organic promotion" in your mind? You're right that you can't just throw something out there and expect it to get popular. Either you've gotta pimp it out to tech blogs and forums in the hopes that people notice it or you pay someone else to handle it.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    > it’s payment fraud insulation Stripe charging 3-4% or less per transaction _doesn't_ include fraud insulation?? > download bandwidth So does a free / $20 CloudFlare account.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
twoslide 7y ago
That is a good point, is creating a new app feasible within the app store? It seems if there are enough new features added, then it would become a new app which would be chargeable as a new purchase (with a discount code for users of the existing app). Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", etc) or very occasionally launch a new product.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Lots of developers do this.
- anoncake 7y ago
  > Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", etc) or very occasionally launch a new product. How about numbers?
ferzul 7y ago
Worked well enough before every app became a security hole waiting to happen. I'd be happy with paid updates if the trade-off was you stay off the network. No cloud sync, no analytics, just standard local APIs. I mean, software companies used to turn a profit without data mining our souls to Satan.

by epse 7y ago

taurath 7y ago

And Apple taking 30% of that... for what? Payment processing is a 4% thing. It’s in the app developers interest to make it not have errors. It’s just for access to the market. That is the only value Apple truly brings, outside of the brand and a privacy commitment

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Considering no one else seems to be able to sell access to a similar market, it seems to be a valuable thing to sell.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  How would you sell access to the iOS market? If you're just saying 'they have full control so they can set the price', well yeah, but that doesn't automatically make it reasonable to give up most of your control and hand out 30% of your revenue in order to pick up additional customers. It seems like today in 2019 more people are deciding the customers aren't as profitable as they look.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I’m saying they have full control of something buyers want, so they can charge 30%. If their revenue starts going down due to their customers deciding 30% isn’t worth it, then the seller (Apple) will have to consider dropping their price if they want to continue selling.
dijit 7y ago
People get hung up on apple having a 30% entrance fee, but that didn't come out of nowhere. I work in the video games industry and access to steam or other first parties (Sony/Microsoft) is 30%, no negotiations. You could argue that first parties such as sony/microsoft have subtle costs involved such as printing of disks, but that's paid for before market by the publisher. The thing you pay for is: content distribution (in the case of digital downloads such as steam), 'signing' and access to market.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  The amount of value steam provides on top of payment processing and distribution is immense. Valve basically single handedly created Linux gaming. Their client is so many years ahead of everything else with the forums, workshop, broadcast streaming, streaming to your tv, gamepad support and gamepad virtualisation as well as a mountain of developer side APIs for things like inviting friends to games. Apples 30% would seem a lot more fair if it was possible to side load and install alternative app stores In comparison apples offering is little more than "we have a huge captive audience on a proprietary system. Pay us or miss out on half of the market"
  - lilyball 7y ago
    Apple meanwhile created the entire OS and all of the developer APIs that your apps rely on, including things like Metal that games rely on. And Apple gives this all away for free.
    - jdnenej 7y ago
      That should be included in device cost. It is unacceptable that they prevent users who paid for the device from installing programs outside of apples walled garden
      - mratsim 7y ago
        Console developers would like to have a word with you.
SyneRyder 7y ago
Considering Microsoft cut their percentage take to 5% on the Microsoft Store [1], it shows that Apple is really charging 30% just because developers keep letting them get away with it. [1] https://download.cnet.com/news/microsoft-store-slashes-revenue-cut-to-just-5-percent-app-developers-get-the-rest/ https://download.cnet.com/news/microsoft-store-slashes-reven...
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  That's because nobody uses the Microsoft Store.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    You can claim the MS Store is an outlier because "nobody uses it" (maybe? got numbers? it's obviously not #1, though) but other stores offer lower cuts as well. Epic made a big deal out of their lower cut (~12%) compared to the other stores and developers seem to be paying attention.
    - stoobs 7y ago
      Mostly because they're throwing buckets of money at the developers for exclusive deals, not because it's a better product offering in any way, or has a better audience.
    - Konnstann 7y ago
      The Epic store doesn't need to make money, they have Fortnite for that. A barebones store missing features that even the worst online marketplaces have, is just their attempt to become the new "monopoly" if they can get enough of steam's customer base. Once the platform matures and they stop throwing money at devs and giving away free games, we'll see what changes they make, if any.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    I don't think negative economy of scale applies here.
  - 7y ago
Razengan 7y ago
> And Apple taking 30% of that... for what? Payment processing uhhh.. hosting and bandwidth for potentially millions of downloads and updates and your videos and screenshots? Covering user refunds? A reviews and feedback system? Crash logs? Showing you in user searches? The Editor's Choice and Featured Apps lottery? Invitations to develop for yet-to-be announced platforms? Giving your users peace of mind that your app is sandboxed and cannot indulge in hanky panky?
- ajscanlan 7y ago
  None of which you can opt out of. I'd happily host my own apps and pay the hosting/bandwidth than pay the $99 a year for Apple Developer Account + 30% of all sales. But Apple won't let me, if I want my app to run on iOS I have no choice BUT to use their bandwidth.
  - alunchbox 7y ago
    Ah, 30% of the ~3 billion Tinder or any successful business is worth it for "band width"? Yeah, no. Not sure how this even became a norm for people to look so blindly. It's absolutely insane to even think about.. we're almost talking about 1 3rd of the entire business value for hosting!?
awinder 7y ago
30% is high but it’s not just payment processing, it’s payment fraud insulation, download bandwidth, and marketplace amplification (people finding your app without knowing they’re looking for your app). Apple also drops subscription costs from the second year on to 15% which is coming back to reality. I personally find the subscription model way more sustainable & less user hostile than the paid versioning upgrade model, the grand majority of the industry is also in agreement there. So there’s a lot of bad smells from this developer that they just want to run a shoddy business and not that there’s a big problem with Apple.
- kkarakk 7y ago
  >marketplace amplification this never happens, if you JUST upload your app to the store and think it will take off coz it has good features then good luck. In reality you have to upload and then pay some app advertisement agency to feed your app to the multiple tech blogs to inorganically promote it. App store is full of inorganically promoted trash nowadays
  - awinder 7y ago
    I'm not saying apple takes you from 0 to millions of downloads, I'm saying that the marketplace does find you new customers. I buy/subscribe to lots of stuff that I find through the editor callouts or through organic search and Apple has a probably wildly inflated number for how much they drive downloads, but its definitely higher than 0%.
  - xienze 7y ago
    What would be "organic promotion" in your mind? You're right that you can't just throw something out there and expect it to get popular. Either you've gotta pimp it out to tech blogs and forums in the hopes that people notice it or you pay someone else to handle it.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > it’s payment fraud insulation Stripe charging 3-4% or less per transaction _doesn't_ include fraud insulation?? > download bandwidth So does a free / $20 CloudFlare account.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

twoslide 7y ago

That is a good point, is creating a new app feasible within the app store? It seems if there are enough new features added, then it would become a new app which would be chargeable as a new purchase (with a discount code for users of the existing app). Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", etc) or very occasionally launch a new product.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Lots of developers do this.
anoncake 7y ago
> Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", etc) or very occasionally launch a new product. How about numbers?

ferzul 7y ago

Worked well enough before every app became a security hole waiting to happen. I'd be happy with paid updates if the trade-off was you stay off the network. No cloud sync, no analytics, just standard local APIs. I mean, software companies used to turn a profit without data mining our souls to Satan.