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Well they can do all that with a 10% fee too. The author is contending that by adding those restrictions and a high 30% fee, Apple is acting like a monopoly - i
by anilshanbhag 6y ago
Well they can do all that with a 10% fee too. The author is contending that by adding those restrictions and a high 30% fee, Apple is acting like a monopoly - it's their way or the highway.
- vogre 6y agoWhy do you think that fee is unfair?
- skuthus 6y agoBecause you cannot opt for a different store if you don't like the fee. If you want to sell independently, you cant. If you want to sell alternatively, you cant. This excludes many devs and shops from access.
- sanxiyn 6y agoBecause, I guarantee, if iOS app distribution market was competitive, fee would be lower than 30%. 30% fee is a monopolistic rent.
- eigen 6y agoGoogle Play store is also 30%. > For apps and in-app products offered through Google Play, the service fee is equivalent to 30% of the price. You receive 70% of the payment. The remaining 30% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. [https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...]
- sanxiyn 6y agoOneStore fee is 20%.
- d1zzy 6y agoAnd Steam (unless you have a very popular game) and GOG. But it's easy to argue that many of these just derived their rates from what existing similar store fees were. Epic Game Store tried to disrupt this and they're still at it a few years later but for most developers publishing on Steam/GOG nothing changed.
- basch 6y agoSuppose you make the argument that developers, not consumers, pay for the dev kits, language, development, improvement, apis of the os. 30% might appropriately reflect the amount of work in an app that is apples work. 30% of subscriptions on the other hand might not.
- ac29 6y agoFortunately, Apple breaks it down for us: Services net sales in 2019 was $46.2B, and the cost of those sales was $16.8B (source 2019 10-K). They dont specifically break out App store vs other services, but as a whole the services section of their business is very, very profitable, according to their accounting. It remains so even if you throw in the entirety of R&D ($16.2B).
- pwinnski 6y agoWhat evidence do you have that a 10% fee is enough to operate the App Store at the scale Apple does? When the App Store was launched, Steve Jobs said they plan to run it at break-even, no profit, and for quite a few years that was exactly what they did. Now they are profiting from the App Store and clearly could continue to run it as they do on a lower percentage, but I don't think 10% is that number. If they could run it on 10%, they wouldn't have operated it without profit for the first quite-a-few years at 30%!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ac29 6y agoI cant find any evidence in their financial reports of Apple breaking down sales and cost of sales for the App store in early years. I would be very, very surprised though if it was not profitable almost immediately (unless you creatively move around numbers and claim 100% of the iPhone's R&D was a cost of sale for the app store).
- pwinnski 6y agoYou are correct, I am taking their early claims at face value, but they never produced supporting numbers. I would be shocked if their claims weren't true, however. Because of the lack of numbers, I'm not sure how long it was before running at break-even ceased to be a thing, though.
- bwb 6y agoThis is their platform... maybe the gov can make this a legal monopoly like the NFL. And, everyone gets the same % rate, same rules, and no apple competition in apps. Same for Google...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]