4 ms·

Wait a moment, how do you get from 5 cents + 1.3% to the 10-20% range all of a sudden?! Electricity and processing power aren't that expensive. They'd probabl

by cnst 6y ago

Wait a moment, how do you get from 5 cents + 1.3% to the 10-20% range all of a sudden?! Electricity and processing power aren't that expensive. They'd probably do just fine if they'd lower the fee to 10%, and stop enforcing that you don't have third-party payments.

sebastien_bois 6y ago
> They'd probably do just fine if they'd lower the fee to 10%, and stop enforcing that you don't have third-party payments. Especially considering they're a) charging a yearly fee and b) selling ads on the AppStore (which as someone else here pointed out is their aim to grow ad sales by clamping down on the ad identifier to make ads outside of the AppStore less useful).
CharlesW 6y ago
> Electricity and processing power aren't that expensive. Surely you don't do "cost plus" pricing for your own services. You do value based pricing for your services. I'd bet that you don't think at all about the electricity and processing costs that it takes to do what you do. Apple is no different.
- readams 6y ago
  It's value that they created only by preventing business from servicing themselves. It's more like demanding payment for not torching your shop than by offering a unique value generating service. If the app store were really so incredibly great for app developers then Apple should have no trouble allowing alternate app stores.
  - baddox 6y ago
    > It's value that they created only by preventing business from servicing themselves. Well, and building a product and ecosystem nearly from scratch that arguably started an industry that’s now around half a trillion dollars a year.
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
10% seems reasonable. I don't think people would scream about 20%, even. (Well, if Apple had made that change a few years ago, they wouldn't; now that they're in an ever-expanding PR disaster of their own making, people might be less amenable to that.) And they could probably have also staved off a fair amount of complaints about in-app purchases with just a different structure. Off the top of my head: - Non-free apps sold on the app store take a 20% cut, up to a max of a $5 fee. (This would be a bit of encouragement for developers to price productivity apps higher than $25; the "race to the bottom" in app pricing has been a deterrent for some classes of apps, in my understanding.) - In-app purchases and subscriptions take a 15% cut, with a drop to 10% for subscriptions in their second year and beyond. - Links to external web payment forms are allowed (with no Apple cut or penalty) in apps that are clients for cross-platform services, e.g., Netflix, Kindle, and so on. There'd be a lot of details and nuance to work out with respect to those last two, but it doesn't seem like it'd be an impossible hurdle to figure out where to draw those lines.
- danilocesar 6y ago
  10% is not reasonable, 1% is not reasonable. The problem is not how much Apple charges, that's up to them. The problem is Apple's heavy hand saying what a user can see, what they can install, and what the developer can say to their users. This is the problem. If they decide to charge zero, it won't fix anything. And don't get me wrong, I think Apple is a great company. But they are sitting in a monopoly today. Maybe some folks here are too young to remember but companies like microsoft got punished in the past for having too much control over people' choices and, in my opinion, it was way softer comparing to what Apple is doing today.
  - mdoms 6y ago
    Yep, the correct amount is the fee that the market dictates. That is, when other app stores and other payment processes are available and developers can be open about the fees on each purchase (eg, "Visa/Mastercard +3%, Apple payment +30%") then the market will soon determine what a fair fee is.
  - sebastien_b 6y ago

by cnst 6y ago

sebastien_bois 6y ago

> They'd probably do just fine if they'd lower the fee to 10%, and stop enforcing that you don't have third-party payments. Especially considering they're a) charging a yearly fee and b) selling ads on the AppStore (which as someone else here pointed out is their aim to grow ad sales by clamping down on the ad identifier to make ads outside of the AppStore less useful).

CharlesW 6y ago

> Electricity and processing power aren't that expensive. Surely you don't do "cost plus" pricing for your own services. You do value based pricing for your services. I'd bet that you don't think at all about the electricity and processing costs that it takes to do what you do. Apple is no different.

readams 6y ago
It's value that they created only by preventing business from servicing themselves. It's more like demanding payment for not torching your shop than by offering a unique value generating service. If the app store were really so incredibly great for app developers then Apple should have no trouble allowing alternate app stores.
- baddox 6y ago
  > It's value that they created only by preventing business from servicing themselves. Well, and building a product and ecosystem nearly from scratch that arguably started an industry that’s now around half a trillion dollars a year.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

10% seems reasonable. I don't think people would scream about 20%, even. (Well, if Apple had made that change a few years ago, they wouldn't; now that they're in an ever-expanding PR disaster of their own making, people might be less amenable to that.) And they could probably have also staved off a fair amount of complaints about in-app purchases with just a different structure. Off the top of my head: - Non-free apps sold on the app store take a 20% cut, up to a max of a $5 fee. (This would be a bit of encouragement for developers to price productivity apps higher than $25; the "race to the bottom" in app pricing has been a deterrent for some classes of apps, in my understanding.) - In-app purchases and subscriptions take a 15% cut, with a drop to 10% for subscriptions in their second year and beyond. - Links to external web payment forms are allowed (with no Apple cut or penalty) in apps that are clients for cross-platform services, e.g., Netflix, Kindle, and so on. There'd be a lot of details and nuance to work out with respect to those last two, but it doesn't seem like it'd be an impossible hurdle to figure out where to draw those lines.

danilocesar 6y ago
10% is not reasonable, 1% is not reasonable. The problem is not how much Apple charges, that's up to them. The problem is Apple's heavy hand saying what a user can see, what they can install, and what the developer can say to their users. This is the problem. If they decide to charge zero, it won't fix anything. And don't get me wrong, I think Apple is a great company. But they are sitting in a monopoly today. Maybe some folks here are too young to remember but companies like microsoft got punished in the past for having too much control over people' choices and, in my opinion, it was way softer comparing to what Apple is doing today.
- mdoms 6y ago
  Yep, the correct amount is the fee that the market dictates. That is, when other app stores and other payment processes are available and developers can be open about the fees on each purchase (eg, "Visa/Mastercard +3%, Apple payment +30%") then the market will soon determine what a fair fee is.
- sebastien_b 6y ago