6 ms·

The top 1% of app store publishers drive 80% of new downloads

39 points by elorant 7y ago

buboard 7y ago
The only platform that is still monetizable for the little man is the web. I hate to say it but developers brought this to themselves. The amount of pumping and hyping that mobile development got over the years is through the roof. You don't need an app for that. (But then again, developers make money making the apps, not by selling them)
- mrtksn 7y ago
  How do you monetize the web these days? I don't remember the last time I visited a website that is not an established publication or a storefront for a giant corporation. Google doesn't return interesting lesser-known websites too, it would prefer to bring me an unrelated page from a well-established site instead of something that is new and coming. Not sure why websites would be any more monetizable than apps, with apps you can actually sell something. On the Apps, you can compete on quality. On the web, the only metric is pageviews.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    If you browse Reddit or HN for any nontrivial amount of time you'll hit someone's personal blog/project/app/whatever.
    - mrtksn 7y ago
      Most of the time It's just a blog that will receive some traffic until the novelty wears out. Probably much better monetizable on Youtube, the ad revenue from few hours fame is not paying any bills. Sometimes it's a service that helps you do something but the website part is irrelevant, just a landing page for the service. Not really a web business. I think the crypto people had some success in these things. The money for the small guy, I think, is in growing social media accounts and do advertorials. edit: is SEO spamming still a thing?
  - t0ughcritic 7y ago
    Agree with this. No small or new projects can ever be discovered given keywords and links are hyper optimized and new indies may not have funds to market it.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >The only platform that is still monetizable for the little man is the web. I hate to say it but developers brought this to themselves. Em, brought what to themselves? Developers make tens of billions from the app stores... That's larger than what the overall app market was in the 90s (including enterprise apps). Of course if there are 1 million developers with apps out there, they shouldn't all expect to (a) hit the jackpot, or (b) make a decent living. There's tons of fluff in the 2 million apps+ in iOS Store, for example, and 90% of everything is crap. You, the parent, take a look at the apps in your PC or phone. Or take a look at the webapps you use. Are they some random distribution of what's available? Or do you have mostly the basic apps everybody almost has (e.g. Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, Word, Sublime Text, Photoshop, etc, you know, famous apps, or their FOSS famous alternatives, Vim, GIMP, etc), and the rest are a handful of outliers? Well, everybody else does the same. Nobody choses at random for it to be a random distribution, people use what others use, so the most popular apps get even more popular, and you have a power law distribution.
saagarjha 7y ago
Honestly, the numbers quotes in the article were better than I expected. There’s a reasonable number of people who seem to be making large amounts of money, and even in the bottom 99% the average isn’t essentially zero. I’m curious what the median App Store publisher makes, though.
- amelius 7y ago
  > I’m curious what the median App Store publisher makes, though. I'm guessing less than the average of the 99% tail. But you also have to wonder how serious the median publisher really is.
notadoc 7y ago
A bit surprised it's not higher than that. Who browses the App Store?
- DenisM 7y ago
  Are you forgetting search? I think most people download what's hot and the rest are searching for a given term.
- bogwog 7y ago
  I believe the scientific term is "a metric fuckton of people". Just look up any stories from people who had their apps featured on the store. I think the reason for the distribution is just due to the terrible discovery on the Appstore/Google Play. It's completely hopeless to rely on users stumbling across your app on the store, and the only real way to get users is by advertising/paid user acquisition. The problem with that of course is that you need significant funding to run a successful ad campaign, and "the little guy" is not likely to have that funding nor the knowledge/experience. And of course just like websites have learned how to game the Google search algorithm, they can do the same for the app stores, which the top publishers certainly have done.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
    I frequently go hunting for fun new games or old gems I've missed. The play store is consistently awful. I've been seeing the same awful games and apps advertised too me for years. I want to see new games and apps, not just new games and apps from massive sweat shops pumping out garbage, which is what I get now. Virtually every app or game that I install is discovered outside off the play store. It's blatantly clear to me that Google caters to the big companies at the expense of innovators. So much for don't be evil or whatever that slogan they never honored was.
prometheus76 7y ago
Pareto distribution strikes again! This is a non-story.
DenisM 7y ago
The same dynamics as with pop music. App business is show business to a large degree (specifically the part where people largely buy from the top list or from friend's recommendation).
chriselles 7y ago
Zipf’s Law on meth?
m3kw9 7y ago
Microcosm of the wealth gap
nickgrosvenor 7y ago
This is the way it always will be. Power law
- symplee 7y ago
  Unless an outside force acts upon it. In the future, all distributions will be uniform. And everyone will finally be happy* *(whether they like it or not.)
willart4food 7y ago
The looooooooooong tail.
Richard_East 7y ago
Here are the stats for Steam, for upcoming games: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-6JbKsDY1HeCwFC6ZE6fMeHw/edit#gid=2089134878 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-... Top 1% varies greatly, responsible for about 30-80% of customer interest, depending on the week.
scarface74 7y ago
On a related note, I find it strange how often HN posters are complaining about “Apple’s 30% cut”. Most of the revenue from apps come from big publishers who write games with in app consumables targeting “whales”. It’s not like indy developers who wouldn’t get discovered anyway would all of the sudden have sustainable businesses of Apple reduced their cut to 10%.
- t0ughcritic 7y ago
  The margins don’t work out for UA with Apples cut. Think of it as tax you pay on income. It’s harder to compete if you are smaller if you pay the same tax as entrenched players. So yes extra margin would help, and a flat tax doesn’t help. Also given that Apples store is a monopoly, it makes it even more unfair.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Well, off the top of my head I know two independent developers who are making a go of it and have since basically the App Store started. Marco Arment (Instapaper and now Overcast) and David Smith (at least a dozen apps). Software has zero marginal cost. You either have to a product that incentivizes people to pay more or enough paying customers to be sustainable. Independent developers can do the same scammy techniques that the big boys use - go after whales or advertising. Or the less scammy free with ads with an in app payment to get rid of ads and optional in app purchases that aren’t pay to win (like Crossy Roads).

39 points by elorant 7y ago

The only platform that is still monetizable for the little man is the web. I hate to say it but developers brought this to themselves. The amount of pumping and hyping that mobile development got over the years is through the roof. You don't need an app for that. (But then again, developers make money making the apps, not by selling them)

mrtksn 7y ago
How do you monetize the web these days? I don't remember the last time I visited a website that is not an established publication or a storefront for a giant corporation. Google doesn't return interesting lesser-known websites too, it would prefer to bring me an unrelated page from a well-established site instead of something that is new and coming. Not sure why websites would be any more monetizable than apps, with apps you can actually sell something. On the Apps, you can compete on quality. On the web, the only metric is pageviews.
- diminoten 7y ago
  If you browse Reddit or HN for any nontrivial amount of time you'll hit someone's personal blog/project/app/whatever.
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    Most of the time It's just a blog that will receive some traffic until the novelty wears out. Probably much better monetizable on Youtube, the ad revenue from few hours fame is not paying any bills. Sometimes it's a service that helps you do something but the website part is irrelevant, just a landing page for the service. Not really a web business. I think the crypto people had some success in these things. The money for the small guy, I think, is in growing social media accounts and do advertorials. edit: is SEO spamming still a thing?
- t0ughcritic 7y ago
  Agree with this. No small or new projects can ever be discovered given keywords and links are hyper optimized and new indies may not have funds to market it.
coldtea 7y ago
>The only platform that is still monetizable for the little man is the web. I hate to say it but developers brought this to themselves. Em, brought what to themselves? Developers make tens of billions from the app stores... That's larger than what the overall app market was in the 90s (including enterprise apps). Of course if there are 1 million developers with apps out there, they shouldn't all expect to (a) hit the jackpot, or (b) make a decent living. There's tons of fluff in the 2 million apps+ in iOS Store, for example, and 90% of everything is crap. You, the parent, take a look at the apps in your PC or phone. Or take a look at the webapps you use. Are they some random distribution of what's available? Or do you have mostly the basic apps everybody almost has (e.g. Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, Word, Sublime Text, Photoshop, etc, you know, famous apps, or their FOSS famous alternatives, Vim, GIMP, etc), and the rest are a handful of outliers? Well, everybody else does the same. Nobody choses at random for it to be a random distribution, people use what others use, so the most popular apps get even more popular, and you have a power law distribution.

saagarjha 7y ago

Honestly, the numbers quotes in the article were better than I expected. There’s a reasonable number of people who seem to be making large amounts of money, and even in the bottom 99% the average isn’t essentially zero. I’m curious what the median App Store publisher makes, though.

amelius 7y ago
> I’m curious what the median App Store publisher makes, though. I'm guessing less than the average of the 99% tail. But you also have to wonder how serious the median publisher really is.

notadoc 7y ago

A bit surprised it's not higher than that. Who browses the App Store?

DenisM 7y ago
Are you forgetting search? I think most people download what's hot and the rest are searching for a given term.
bogwog 7y ago
I believe the scientific term is "a metric fuckton of people". Just look up any stories from people who had their apps featured on the store. I think the reason for the distribution is just due to the terrible discovery on the Appstore/Google Play. It's completely hopeless to rely on users stumbling across your app on the store, and the only real way to get users is by advertising/paid user acquisition. The problem with that of course is that you need significant funding to run a successful ad campaign, and "the little guy" is not likely to have that funding nor the knowledge/experience. And of course just like websites have learned how to game the Google search algorithm, they can do the same for the app stores, which the top publishers certainly have done.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  I frequently go hunting for fun new games or old gems I've missed. The play store is consistently awful. I've been seeing the same awful games and apps advertised too me for years. I want to see new games and apps, not just new games and apps from massive sweat shops pumping out garbage, which is what I get now. Virtually every app or game that I install is discovered outside off the play store. It's blatantly clear to me that Google caters to the big companies at the expense of innovators. So much for don't be evil or whatever that slogan they never honored was.

prometheus76 7y ago

Pareto distribution strikes again! This is a non-story.

DenisM 7y ago

The same dynamics as with pop music. App business is show business to a large degree (specifically the part where people largely buy from the top list or from friend's recommendation).

chriselles 7y ago

Zipf’s Law on meth?

m3kw9 7y ago

Microcosm of the wealth gap

nickgrosvenor 7y ago

This is the way it always will be. Power law

symplee 7y ago
Unless an outside force acts upon it. In the future, all distributions will be uniform. And everyone will finally be happy* *(whether they like it or not.)

willart4food 7y ago

The looooooooooong tail.

Richard_East 7y ago

Here are the stats for Steam, for upcoming games: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-6JbKsDY1HeCwFC6ZE6fMeHw/edit#gid=2089134878 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-... Top 1% varies greatly, responsible for about 30-80% of customer interest, depending on the week.

scarface74 7y ago

On a related note, I find it strange how often HN posters are complaining about “Apple’s 30% cut”. Most of the revenue from apps come from big publishers who write games with in app consumables targeting “whales”. It’s not like indy developers who wouldn’t get discovered anyway would all of the sudden have sustainable businesses of Apple reduced their cut to 10%.

t0ughcritic 7y ago
The margins don’t work out for UA with Apples cut. Think of it as tax you pay on income. It’s harder to compete if you are smaller if you pay the same tax as entrenched players. So yes extra margin would help, and a flat tax doesn’t help. Also given that Apples store is a monopoly, it makes it even more unfair.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Well, off the top of my head I know two independent developers who are making a go of it and have since basically the App Store started. Marco Arment (Instapaper and now Overcast) and David Smith (at least a dozen apps). Software has zero marginal cost. You either have to a product that incentivizes people to pay more or enough paying customers to be sustainable. Independent developers can do the same scammy techniques that the big boys use - go after whales or advertising. Or the less scammy free with ads with an in app payment to get rid of ads and optional in app purchases that aren’t pay to win (like Crossy Roads).