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Of course a competing App Store can offer lower prices, they don't bear any of the costs for developing and managing the iOS ecosystem Apple spent billions over
by mythz 6y ago
Of course a competing App Store can offer lower prices, they don't bear any of the costs for developing and managing the iOS ecosystem Apple spent billions over a decade building (that many other companies lost fortunes failing to compete against). They can just popup a virtual store in someone else's successful established platform and access a market of 1B+ credit cards they had no hand in creating where they can dictate their own margins for selling virtual goods - somehow feeling entitled to get a free ride on the massive development & maintenance infrastructure costs that is subsidized by the App Store.
Strange most other markets don't just let everyone to sell their products (physical or virtual) on their markets at no cost [1].
[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...
- modeless 6y agoApple profits handsomely from the iOS ecosystem every time someone buys an iPhone to access it, or buys a Mac because Apple won't allow building iOS apps without one, or pays the annual developer program fee. They don't need to triple or quadruple dip to be the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.
- mythz 6y agoiOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free, continually invested in, advanced, developed & updated. Apple is allowed to have more than one business model on the platform they built, which was their primary focus that reshaped the company at a great opportunity cost to their other businesses. Ultimately the Company bet paid off & became successful against a number of incumbents who lost fortunes trying to compete in Mobile OS's. The App Store is now one of their major sources of revenue for having built a successful platform (a category they helped pioneer). The nominal annual fee is a cost for accessing the dev tools only, it's in no way a royalty-free cost to sell products on one of the most lucrative markets in the world - that's what their standard royalty % (unchanged from the outset) covers.
- sumedh 6y ago> iOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free How is it given for free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.
- mythz 6y agoYou're paying for the phone, there is no cost nor can you pay for iOS. The current and all future versions is & always has been free.
- modeless 6y agoIt's nonsensical to take a product that can't be purchased in pieces and separate the pieces to call one half free. iOS has always been included but it will never be free.
- sumedh 6y agoCan I just buy the hardware at a cheaper price without the OS, if not then its not free, its part of the total cost.
- mythz 6y agoThat's nonsensical, if you could buy the hardware cheaper or iOS separate then you would be paying for iOS, you can't, Apple doesn't sell iOS, it gives it away. The cost for new iOS versions is irrelevant to the cost of hardware it's running on, it's free for all their devices for as long as they meet the hardware requirements for running new versions. You could buy an iPhone and put a jail break OS on it, you're still paying the full amount for the device.
- Hamuko 6y ago>You could buy an iPhone and put a jail break OS on it, you're still paying the full amount for the device. If I buy a new TV and throw the remote in the trash, the remote was not part of the cost of the TV? Also, "jail break OS"? Isn't that just iOS?
- bwilli123 6y agoApple here is no different than the Telcos wanting to avoid only being paid for just being dumb pipes. If everybody else is making money building on that basic service they want a piece of that pie too.