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An in-app purchase system isn’t an App Store, and isn’t remotely similar. You get worldwide access to hundreds of markets in dozens of localized stores all in a

An in-app purchase system isn’t an App Store, and isn’t remotely similar. You get worldwide access to hundreds of markets in dozens of localized stores all in a system that makes billions of customers feel secure in purchasing from you. You also get Appleto distribute your apps for free as well! Spotify alone uses terabytes a day distributing to free users. Opening up to other app stores would be a disaster for developers. Less secure, more scam are and malware, more confusing, lower consumer confidence, Balkanized app search, higher dev costs to support more stores, and for what? 20% fees at best? Apples margins are publicly documented, no one could run a profitable app store for less than 20%.

yulaow 6y ago
> Apples margins are publicly documented, no one could run a profitable app store for less than 20%. How can you say that if apple didn't allow the competition to exist? We cannot see if someone can innovate enough to cut that margin maybe even far more than what apple made you think is the "minimum to be profitable" because apple does not allow that Isn't this exactly the startup playing field? When there is a market standard of which some pseudo monopolist says "well no one can do better than this" and then a innovative competitor joins in and distrupts?
- valuearb 6y ago
  What are you going to cut? Security? App Review? Are you going to refuse to distribute free apps? How come Google Play doesn’t cut their fees?
  - yulaow 6y ago
    Start giving the chance to competitors to enter the market, then if they cannot undercut apple you are right. Until they can't even try, we don't know. Maybe they will even just "compete orthogonally" instead of just trying to work around the parameters you talk about. I don't know... maybe a store without IAPs will be born where games cost more but you get the full game and you know the author is not gonna try to gamify-casino you. Maybe someone will make a store which allows me to buy an app both for android and iOS in a single purchase at a lower price than buying both separately. Maybe whatever, I don't know, but I for sure want to know what I could get.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      I’m a developer and I don’t want alternate apps stores making the developer and customer experience more complicated, less secure and more confusing, all in hopes someone might charge me significantly lower fees. Google Play is proof that lower fees isn’t going to benefit devs. No third party store has been able to use lower fees to take any significant market share.
ac29 6y ago
Do they break out specific App Store revenues and costs somewhere? I see Net sales for "services" (which presumably includes App Store) at $13.1B last quarter and the cost of sales for "services" at $4.3B. If that was entirely off the 30% App store cut, they clearly would not need anywhere near the 30% to cover their costs (net sales are >3x cost of sales). But, lumped together with other services its hard to say anything specific about App store. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20-Q3_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20-Q3_Consolidated_Fin...

yulaow 6y ago

> Apples margins are publicly documented, no one could run a profitable app store for less than 20%. How can you say that if apple didn't allow the competition to exist? We cannot see if someone can innovate enough to cut that margin maybe even far more than what apple made you think is the "minimum to be profitable" because apple does not allow that Isn't this exactly the startup playing field? When there is a market standard of which some pseudo monopolist says "well no one can do better than this" and then a innovative competitor joins in and distrupts?

valuearb 6y ago
What are you going to cut? Security? App Review? Are you going to refuse to distribute free apps? How come Google Play doesn’t cut their fees?
- yulaow 6y ago
  Start giving the chance to competitors to enter the market, then if they cannot undercut apple you are right. Until they can't even try, we don't know. Maybe they will even just "compete orthogonally" instead of just trying to work around the parameters you talk about. I don't know... maybe a store without IAPs will be born where games cost more but you get the full game and you know the author is not gonna try to gamify-casino you. Maybe someone will make a store which allows me to buy an app both for android and iOS in a single purchase at a lower price than buying both separately. Maybe whatever, I don't know, but I for sure want to know what I could get.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    I’m a developer and I don’t want alternate apps stores making the developer and customer experience more complicated, less secure and more confusing, all in hopes someone might charge me significantly lower fees. Google Play is proof that lower fees isn’t going to benefit devs. No third party store has been able to use lower fees to take any significant market share.

ac29 6y ago

Do they break out specific App Store revenues and costs somewhere? I see Net sales for "services" (which presumably includes App Store) at $13.1B last quarter and the cost of sales for "services" at $4.3B. If that was entirely off the 30% App store cut, they clearly would not need anywhere near the 30% to cover their costs (net sales are >3x cost of sales). But, lumped together with other services its hard to say anything specific about App store. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20-Q3_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20-Q3_Consolidated_Fin...