10 ms·

I am a former App-dev. I hope Apple burn in hell for that 30% scam. Daylight robbery, should be ordered to pay back atleast 5 years back.

• DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  An argument I've heard is that - looking back to the 1990s when software was sold in boxes in retail stores - was that the publisher, packager, retailer, credit-card processor, et al. combined would take 60%+ - so Apple's 30% means we're getting a good deal... I suppose I'd be okay with a 30% fee if Apple didn't charge us $99 to maintain a developer account... I thought the $99 was meant to cover the costs of curating the Apple App Store, so what added-value does the 30% cover then?
  • tosers4 6y ago
    Having to pay is by itself a filter. So, some curation is done.
    • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      Yes, I'm really relaxed about the $99 fee as it keeps a lot of half-baked software out of the store. On the other hand the 30% fee would stop me putting my software in an app store. I know the usual argument is they will deliver extra customers however that argument seems dubious when there are 2 million other apps fighting for attention.
      • tosers4 6y ago
        The only reasonably argument for such a big % fee is that when software was shipped physically you would even have bigger "fees", as GP was saying. People are willing to pay for those 30%, as long as iOS has an healthy supply of apps, apple will keep it.
      • watermelon0 6y ago
        I'd prefer having a half-baked option, as opposed to not having an app for something. $99 per year seems quite a lot, if you are not planning on making money with the apps.
  • grezql 6y ago
    The difference is that there was room for other publishers, packager, retails, cc-processors to compete. So that naturally evolved to the much better deal we have today. But with Apples Duo-/monopoly, in 20 years we will have same 30% fee.
  • macspoofing 6y ago
    >I suppose I'd be okay with a 30% fee if Apple didn't charge us $99 to maintain a developer account Those two things aren't remotely equivalent. $100 for a dev account is peanuts. It's there to support the iOS dev ecosystem and isn't unreasonable. It should be a non-issue. 30% of app revenue, on the other hand, equates to thousands or millions of dollars depending on how popular your app is. That actually makes a material difference.
    • t-writescode 6y ago
      But isn't 30% approximately the same you'll see portioned out from you if you put your game on Steam?
      • lexs 6y ago
        Well you could go to Epic which only takes 12%, Windows doesn't prevent you from doing so
      • foepys 6y ago
        But Valve let's all developers generate as much free keys as they want to sell on other platforms and doesn't require devs to route all in-game transactions through Steam.
• jamil7 6y ago
  What platform do you work on now?
  • grezql 6y ago
    B2B - I create software for small-to-medium companies :)