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I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around why this is such a huge deal to people. Opinions are fine, everyone can have one but I always see Apple's

by selykg 6y ago

I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around why this is such a huge deal to people. Opinions are fine, everyone can have one but I always see Apple's payment options as a massive win as a consumer. 1. Subscriptions are easily monitored from a single page. 2. Before subscriptions renew I get emailed, not all services do this, shame on those that do not and a magic renewal transaction goes through without notifying you first 3. Trusting a single entity (Apple) with payment is easier for me to stomach than giving my credit card info to a dozen or more different sites/services manually 4. The user experience is vastly better using Apple's solution than having to enter all of my billing info by hand each time or with Bitwarden even which can get things wrong often enough I always have to double check. As a developer you gain the advantage of users being able to easily purchase, and users have a credit card assigned to their Apple ID making purchases incredibly easy. I'd argue, without proof anyway, that this probably results in purchases you'd never get otherwise due to how easy and seamless it is. The 30% cut is a lot, but I think in general there are big benefits for users, maybe the developers don't see it that way, but as a user I would NEVER use something other than Apple's payment solution in the App Store. So if you're asking for that option and I seen you were charging more for it through Apple's solution and less through some other service I'd immediately not pay for your app. Simple as that. You'd basically lose me as a potential customer. Edit: because apparently line breaks are fun

jsnell 6y ago
So you talk about how great paying through Apple is for both parties. But you want the developers to be forced into it, rather than have a choice. If it's so beneficial to the developer, why would they choose not to make that choice. (Answer: because it actually isn't.) And then when it comes to the benefit to the customer, it turns out that you actually don't value paying through Apple either: you're only interested in paying through them if it's also the cheapest option. All of these conveniences are not worth even one cent to you when the rubber hits the road.
evan_ 6y ago
In the case of Hey they don't want to have ONLY App Store subscriptions, they want to support people who don't use iPhones. That means they'll have to set up a whole extra infrastructure for dealing with app store subscriptions on top of the infrastructure for dealing with their own subscriptions. That's a non-trivial amount of work and ongoing support they didn't want to do.
spankalee 6y ago
For services like Netflix and hey.com they're not primarily iOS apps. They're services usable from multiple platforms and devices. I shouldn't have to use iOS to manage my Netflix subscript just because I downloaded the iOS first.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  > I shouldn't have to use iOS to manage my Netflix subscript just because I downloaded the iOS first. Or EVER.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
> as a user I would NEVER use something other than Apple's payment solution in the App Store Would you choose to pay Hey's subscription $142/year to be able to pay on the App Store, instead of $100/year paying on the web? Or if it was available, would you pay Adobe's Creative Cloud for $906/year in the App Store or $636 on the web? I'd choose to pay slightly more for the convenience for very small subscriptions too. But for large ones that's too much difference.
- selykg 6y ago
  I would choose not to use the app unless there was very clearly value for the cost. If a service was literally doing as you say, charging more through Apple's App Store vs their site, I would choose not to use that app. At all. Part of the real appeal is the pro-consumer parts of the App Store. Like I said, being informed before renewal is something that very few services do but Apple does for any subscription. Edit: to be clear, I think even $99 is too expensive for Hey.com. This is my opinion. Some people may find value there, but I don't think Hey does enough to justify being more expensive than Fastmail (which also has important features, to me, that Hey doesn't).
  - ckrailo 6y ago
    My favorite part is where the Hey app can't even copy Fastmail and put the same note in the app description because the rules randomly became stricter to maximize profits. ("Note: You must be either a paid subscriber or have verified your trial Fastmail account to use this app. You must be online to access your mail.")
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
You're effectively taking the position of "fuck the business for trying to survive". Amazon makes billions, why didn't they just pay the 30%? Because their margins are 5% at best. Survival. Not even wealth. And the argument you're making can ONLY be used to support the position that "well then why isn't Apple just the only company in the world and everyone is forced by law to use them?" Because that's the long-term outcome of the thinking you are describing. People have options, people want options. One of the things Apple does is refuse to allow developers to use specific banks to receive payments! So now they get to tell people what bank to use? And the bigger they get, the bigger they will bully themselves into literally every market decision on the planet. Oh but it's all OK because it's a closed platform. Bully for you that your experience with Apple/In-App payments has turned out well, but the companies I work with ABSOLUTELY HATE THEM. Customer service, when it is necessary, is absolutely impossible. Refunding pro-rated amounts is also impossible, which means they're forced to refund all or nothing - and Apple still keeps its cut. Mobile devices are used now more than websites, so mobile presence is REQUIRED for survival. This has given the two monopolies, Apple and Google, alot more power than frankly they deserve.
- veilrap 6y ago
  Apple users bought into the ecosystem. It's not the only ecosystem in town, it's not even the biggest ecosystem in town. Consumers can choose the platform they want to buy into.
- selykg 6y ago
  Not really the stance I'm taking. If your product has such a high overhead that the listed price for that product is so high that if you add the 30% back in no one would buy then you're probably doing a poor job of pricing your product, or your overhead is too high. Basecamp makes money hand over fist. DHH has some of the most expensive sports cars in the world. I would hazard a guess that even at $100/yr, Hey costs less than 50% of that to actually run. Similar email services cost around $50/yr give or take $10, and they're making profit at that cost. I don't particularly want to line DHH's pockets even more. Now, admittedly Basecamp pays their employees pretty well so that's a consideration, too. I'm all for the normal employees getting paid well, but I don't think someone like DHH should be making money like he is. Every time I see him bitching about this topic on Twitter I immediately think "oh, he's going to buy himself another one off Koenigsegg from the profits of this" Na. DHH gets no love from me. I'd feel more sorry for the smaller developers, but DHH, nope, not gonna be on his side ever.

by selykg 6y ago

jsnell 6y ago

So you talk about how great paying through Apple is for both parties. But you want the developers to be forced into it, rather than have a choice. If it's so beneficial to the developer, why would they choose not to make that choice. (Answer: because it actually isn't.) And then when it comes to the benefit to the customer, it turns out that you actually don't value paying through Apple either: you're only interested in paying through them if it's also the cheapest option. All of these conveniences are not worth even one cent to you when the rubber hits the road.

evan_ 6y ago

In the case of Hey they don't want to have ONLY App Store subscriptions, they want to support people who don't use iPhones. That means they'll have to set up a whole extra infrastructure for dealing with app store subscriptions on top of the infrastructure for dealing with their own subscriptions. That's a non-trivial amount of work and ongoing support they didn't want to do.

spankalee 6y ago

For services like Netflix and hey.com they're not primarily iOS apps. They're services usable from multiple platforms and devices. I shouldn't have to use iOS to manage my Netflix subscript just because I downloaded the iOS first.

RonanTheGrey 6y ago
> I shouldn't have to use iOS to manage my Netflix subscript just because I downloaded the iOS first. Or EVER.

benhurmarcel 6y ago

> as a user I would NEVER use something other than Apple's payment solution in the App Store Would you choose to pay Hey's subscription $142/year to be able to pay on the App Store, instead of $100/year paying on the web? Or if it was available, would you pay Adobe's Creative Cloud for $906/year in the App Store or $636 on the web? I'd choose to pay slightly more for the convenience for very small subscriptions too. But for large ones that's too much difference.

selykg 6y ago
I would choose not to use the app unless there was very clearly value for the cost. If a service was literally doing as you say, charging more through Apple's App Store vs their site, I would choose not to use that app. At all. Part of the real appeal is the pro-consumer parts of the App Store. Like I said, being informed before renewal is something that very few services do but Apple does for any subscription. Edit: to be clear, I think even $99 is too expensive for Hey.com. This is my opinion. Some people may find value there, but I don't think Hey does enough to justify being more expensive than Fastmail (which also has important features, to me, that Hey doesn't).
- ckrailo 6y ago
  My favorite part is where the Hey app can't even copy Fastmail and put the same note in the app description because the rules randomly became stricter to maximize profits. ("Note: You must be either a paid subscriber or have verified your trial Fastmail account to use this app. You must be online to access your mail.")

RonanTheGrey 6y ago

You're effectively taking the position of "fuck the business for trying to survive". Amazon makes billions, why didn't they just pay the 30%? Because their margins are 5% at best. Survival. Not even wealth. And the argument you're making can ONLY be used to support the position that "well then why isn't Apple just the only company in the world and everyone is forced by law to use them?" Because that's the long-term outcome of the thinking you are describing. People have options, people want options. One of the things Apple does is refuse to allow developers to use specific banks to receive payments! So now they get to tell people what bank to use? And the bigger they get, the bigger they will bully themselves into literally every market decision on the planet. Oh but it's all OK because it's a closed platform. Bully for you that your experience with Apple/In-App payments has turned out well, but the companies I work with ABSOLUTELY HATE THEM. Customer service, when it is necessary, is absolutely impossible. Refunding pro-rated amounts is also impossible, which means they're forced to refund all or nothing - and Apple still keeps its cut. Mobile devices are used now more than websites, so mobile presence is REQUIRED for survival. This has given the two monopolies, Apple and Google, alot more power than frankly they deserve.

veilrap 6y ago
Apple users bought into the ecosystem. It's not the only ecosystem in town, it's not even the biggest ecosystem in town. Consumers can choose the platform they want to buy into.
selykg 6y ago
Not really the stance I'm taking. If your product has such a high overhead that the listed price for that product is so high that if you add the 30% back in no one would buy then you're probably doing a poor job of pricing your product, or your overhead is too high. Basecamp makes money hand over fist. DHH has some of the most expensive sports cars in the world. I would hazard a guess that even at $100/yr, Hey costs less than 50% of that to actually run. Similar email services cost around $50/yr give or take $10, and they're making profit at that cost. I don't particularly want to line DHH's pockets even more. Now, admittedly Basecamp pays their employees pretty well so that's a consideration, too. I'm all for the normal employees getting paid well, but I don't think someone like DHH should be making money like he is. Every time I see him bitching about this topic on Twitter I immediately think "oh, he's going to buy himself another one off Koenigsegg from the profits of this" Na. DHH gets no love from me. I'd feel more sorry for the smaller developers, but DHH, nope, not gonna be on his side ever.