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2020 is very different from 2008. Palm and PocketPC devices were "organizers" and not primary computing devices (as smartphones are today, for some users), so t

2020 is very different from 2008. Palm and PocketPC devices were "organizers" and not primary computing devices (as smartphones are today, for some users), so there was a lot less at stake back then. Additionally, companies like Stripe have made integrating payments _way_ easier than it was back then. Hosting downloads is not difficult either. As noted in the Stratechery article, developers not only give up 30%, but give up a customer relationship and can't even issue refunds! They can't do upgrades, either. It's not just the 30%, it's the flexibility in payment models as well. I don't know that prices would drop, but more developers would have a sustainable business.

scarface74 6y ago
PocketPC apps were written using MFC and a subset of C# - the same APIs used for Windows. They were very much capable of general purpose apps.
giantrobot 6y ago
Late model PDAs and early smartphones (Treo, Blackjack, N95, etc) were capable devices. The paid software for these you'd see were office suites, PIMs, e-mail clients, and games. Of course these weren't as capable as 2020 devices but we're not talking early Palm Pilots. Payment processors like Stripe aren't new, there was PayPal, Kagi, and others before 2008. Handling payments is a non-trivial task for a small developer, the same goes for handling user accounts/data. They're not insurmountable problems but they're a lot more effort than Apple or Google just sending you money when people buy your app. Hosting is worse than payments as it costs the developer money and keeps costing money. If your app gets a popularity spike instead of getting a revenue spike you get a huge hosting bill. I think you've got it entirely backwards, more developers have sustainable businesses because of the App Store than without. Payment processing, hosting, managing user data? That shit is easy for big companies or it's an extant expense so mobile app sales aren't adding real overhead. So for Microsoft, Adobe, and Epic those aren't problems. They could easily sell their stuff without the App Store/Play Store and in fact currently do so. For the many thousands of small developers that aren't Epic payment processing and hosting are big costs as is advertising they need to even be found. Before the App Store mobile app aggregators charged money to get listed and wanted bribes to be featured. Epic et all might see their overhead drop from Apple's 30% to maybe 10%. They pocket the extra revenue and prices don't change for consumers. For many thousands of developers their overhead goes from Apple's 30% to 50-60% doing it in house. So Epic rakes in even more money and small developers get the shaft.

scarface74 6y ago

PocketPC apps were written using MFC and a subset of C# - the same APIs used for Windows. They were very much capable of general purpose apps.

giantrobot 6y ago

Late model PDAs and early smartphones (Treo, Blackjack, N95, etc) were capable devices. The paid software for these you'd see were office suites, PIMs, e-mail clients, and games. Of course these weren't as capable as 2020 devices but we're not talking early Palm Pilots. Payment processors like Stripe aren't new, there was PayPal, Kagi, and others before 2008. Handling payments is a non-trivial task for a small developer, the same goes for handling user accounts/data. They're not insurmountable problems but they're a lot more effort than Apple or Google just sending you money when people buy your app. Hosting is worse than payments as it costs the developer money and keeps costing money. If your app gets a popularity spike instead of getting a revenue spike you get a huge hosting bill. I think you've got it entirely backwards, more developers have sustainable businesses because of the App Store than without. Payment processing, hosting, managing user data? That shit is easy for big companies or it's an extant expense so mobile app sales aren't adding real overhead. So for Microsoft, Adobe, and Epic those aren't problems. They could easily sell their stuff without the App Store/Play Store and in fact currently do so. For the many thousands of small developers that aren't Epic payment processing and hosting are big costs as is advertising they need to even be found. Before the App Store mobile app aggregators charged money to get listed and wanted bribes to be featured. Epic et all might see their overhead drop from Apple's 30% to maybe 10%. They pocket the extra revenue and prices don't change for consumers. For many thousands of developers their overhead goes from Apple's 30% to 50-60% doing it in house. So Epic rakes in even more money and small developers get the shaft.