5 ms·

> On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store Apple makes a cut: they charge developers a not insignificant yearly fee of 99 US

> On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store Apple makes a cut: they charge developers a not insignificant yearly fee of 99 USD per seat, they sell iOS devices and services at great profit, they happily earn 15-30% from in-app purchases and subscriptions wherever developers choose to use those features, they earn 30% on any apps that choose to be paid, and they reserve the right to set a minimum price if free apps inconvenience them. (But free apps very much do not inconvenience them, ever, and this idea that they do and Apple of all companies is doing all this from the goodness of their hearts is a disease). The only reason Apple needs more of a cut here is because their shareholders would probably sue them if they stopped.

djxfade 6y ago
The 99 USD fee is not per seat
- wwright 6y ago
  Even if it was, that’s definitely not significant. Each engineer is probably paid more per day than that. (I’m not a fan of the flat 30% charge, but developer program fees are not a challenge for any group with a revenue stream if any kind.)
  - dylan-m 6y ago
    Yeah, I meant per developer. Wires crossed. But it certainly doesn't matter what each engineer is paid. Apple has 20 million registered developers. [Edit: And let's say a third of them pay that fee, which is admittedly probably a stretch. The finer details are not my point here other than to say here's a bunch of money that comes in no matter what] I don't care what those developers are making: that's serious income right there. If Apple think they are entitled to more, that's their problem, but don't act like they're making any kind of sacrifice here, and for fuck's sake people need to stop trying to convince themselves that Apple are their friends.
    - cwhiz 6y ago
      It’s not $99 per developer, either. https://developer.apple.com/support/purchase-activation/ https://developer.apple.com/support/purchase-activation/
    - LeonB 6y ago
      20 million * $99 certainly is real money. For a popular income generating app, the $99 will make an insignificant impact on the marginal cost. But the vast vast majority of apps are not in that category, and the $99 does have an impact.
      - christoph 6y ago
        Also, the enterprise accounts are $299 and I imagine other than the overhead of the initial on-boarding checks, these generally have pretty low overheads as the enterprise signed apps go through no review process.
      - wolco 6y ago
        It limits the types of apps found in iOS.
        hombre_fatal 6y ago
        And it limits spam.
    - ksec 6y ago
      The latest figure is now 23 million developers. I often wonder how they count those developers numbers if it was not paid Apple Developer programme.
    - JimDabell 6y ago
      It still seems like you’re confused about what’s being paid here. There is no per seat / per developer / per engineer fee. "A developer" in this context means an individual person, not an entire organisation. An organisation pays $99/yr to publish on the App Store. That covers all their developers, whether they have one or a hundred. In addition to that, you don’t have to pay anything to be a registered developer. It’s free to register as a developer. You pay the fee to publish on the App Store. Apple having "20 million registered developers" doesn’t translate into the vast sum of money you seem to think it does. The income comes from the number of organisations publishing on the App Store, which is surely far lower than 20 million considering there’s an order of magnitude fewer apps in the App Store than that and publishers can publish many more than a single app with their account.
  - bigiain 6y ago
    > Each engineer is probably paid more per day than that. Except for parts of the world where that's closer to a week or months worth of pay...
    - bottled_poe 6y ago
      It looks like you may be out of touch with the global market
      - ac29 6y ago
        There are substantial portions of the world where median income per household is 10000USD or less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
        dkersten 6y ago
        Do people who live there own an iphone or a macbook? If not, how are they developing for those devices?
        solarengineer 6y ago
        They often take a bank loan to buy a Mac + iPhone for the whole office, and devs take turns working on it and programming on it. The Apple Account would be for one person ("the company").
        mantas 6y ago
        That's where hackintoshes come in. Technically development doesn't require a physical device too. Of course, UX is likely to be kinda poor when working in simulator only. But that's how it goes.
        mantas 6y ago
        And software developers make few times the median in such places. Source: am developer in a country you describe
    - 6y ago
giancarlostoro 6y ago
We're also all very quick to forget not only do they profit off the developer license tiers, but also the selling of hardware. The cheapest brand new Mac you can get is a Mac Mini, used to be $100 cheaper, that alone is per developer so the true costs are much higher.

djxfade 6y ago

The 99 USD fee is not per seat

wwright 6y ago
Even if it was, that’s definitely not significant. Each engineer is probably paid more per day than that. (I’m not a fan of the flat 30% charge, but developer program fees are not a challenge for any group with a revenue stream if any kind.)
- dylan-m 6y ago
  Yeah, I meant per developer. Wires crossed. But it certainly doesn't matter what each engineer is paid. Apple has 20 million registered developers. [Edit: And let's say a third of them pay that fee, which is admittedly probably a stretch. The finer details are not my point here other than to say here's a bunch of money that comes in no matter what] I don't care what those developers are making: that's serious income right there. If Apple think they are entitled to more, that's their problem, but don't act like they're making any kind of sacrifice here, and for fuck's sake people need to stop trying to convince themselves that Apple are their friends.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    It’s not $99 per developer, either. https://developer.apple.com/support/purchase-activation/ https://developer.apple.com/support/purchase-activation/
  - LeonB 6y ago
    20 million * $99 certainly is real money. For a popular income generating app, the $99 will make an insignificant impact on the marginal cost. But the vast vast majority of apps are not in that category, and the $99 does have an impact.
    - christoph 6y ago
      Also, the enterprise accounts are $299 and I imagine other than the overhead of the initial on-boarding checks, these generally have pretty low overheads as the enterprise signed apps go through no review process.
    - wolco 6y ago
      It limits the types of apps found in iOS.
      - hombre_fatal 6y ago
        And it limits spam.
  - ksec 6y ago
    The latest figure is now 23 million developers. I often wonder how they count those developers numbers if it was not paid Apple Developer programme.
  - JimDabell 6y ago
    It still seems like you’re confused about what’s being paid here. There is no per seat / per developer / per engineer fee. "A developer" in this context means an individual person, not an entire organisation. An organisation pays $99/yr to publish on the App Store. That covers all their developers, whether they have one or a hundred. In addition to that, you don’t have to pay anything to be a registered developer. It’s free to register as a developer. You pay the fee to publish on the App Store. Apple having "20 million registered developers" doesn’t translate into the vast sum of money you seem to think it does. The income comes from the number of organisations publishing on the App Store, which is surely far lower than 20 million considering there’s an order of magnitude fewer apps in the App Store than that and publishers can publish many more than a single app with their account.
- bigiain 6y ago
  > Each engineer is probably paid more per day than that. Except for parts of the world where that's closer to a week or months worth of pay...
  - bottled_poe 6y ago
    It looks like you may be out of touch with the global market
    - ac29 6y ago
      There are substantial portions of the world where median income per household is 10000USD or less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
      - dkersten 6y ago
        Do people who live there own an iphone or a macbook? If not, how are they developing for those devices?
        solarengineer 6y ago
        They often take a bank loan to buy a Mac + iPhone for the whole office, and devs take turns working on it and programming on it. The Apple Account would be for one person ("the company").
        mantas 6y ago
        That's where hackintoshes come in. Technically development doesn't require a physical device too. Of course, UX is likely to be kinda poor when working in simulator only. But that's how it goes.
      - mantas 6y ago
        And software developers make few times the median in such places. Source: am developer in a country you describe
  - 6y ago

giancarlostoro 6y ago

We're also all very quick to forget not only do they profit off the developer license tiers, but also the selling of hardware. The cheapest brand new Mac you can get is a Mac Mini, used to be $100 cheaper, that alone is per developer so the true costs are much higher.