4 ms·

I understand that 30% is big, and does have an impact on some business models, but it also acts to align the incentives of the platform-developer with those of

by nickff 6y ago

I understand that 30% is big, and does have an impact on some business models, but it also acts to align the incentives of the platform-developer with those of the app developer. The fact that Apple makes a bunch of money off apps makes it beneficial for them to continue supporting the ecosystem, by providing APIs, functionality, and other support. What surprises me most about Apple's model is why they don't offer better support to developers. It seems that iOS the 'rich users', whereas Android has the 'cheap users', so Apple doesn't even bother improving the developer experience.

lux 6y ago
Cost of framework development is a fair point, and they do continue to add things like ARKit, the Swift language, and a million new submenus in Xcode ;) But that's been true of all OSes for decades and doesn't make iOS specialized compared to macOS or any more deserving of 30% of every developer's gross profits.
- nickff 6y ago
  I never said anything about compensating Apple for framework development costs; my point is about aligning incentives.
- banachtarski 6y ago
  How is that a fair point. Developers don't WANT bespoke frameworks that lock you into a single ecosystem. We would obviously prefer open standards and specifications supported by multiple vendors. The popularity of frameworks such as Flutter and QT or APIs such as OpenGL and Vulkan prove that. The SDKs Apple chooses to provide are entirely elective on their part and we shouldn't pretend that as developers, they deserve to charge us for this.
giobox 6y ago
There have been measurable improvements over years to things like app review times etc, significantly so in some cases. Whether _any_ review process in a store the size of Apple's can justify taking 30% is not obvious to me. As size goes up, costs usually go down in a healthy market. The App Store is barely recognizable in scale vs launch day, but financial terms for developers have barely moved.
- nickff 6y ago
  I have spent a bit of time thinking about this, and can't really come up with a way of calculating a 'justifiable cut' for Apple. Would it be their cost per average app? Should it be a fixed fee with a variable rate on top? Should they license access like the videogame companies used to? Won't these smaller profits further incentivize Apple to offer competing apps in every category, and dis-incentivize quality control of third party apps? My conclusion (so far) is that it's best to let each platform developer choose their business model, and see which one works best. Business models can compete along with hardware and software.

by nickff 6y ago

lux 6y ago

Cost of framework development is a fair point, and they do continue to add things like ARKit, the Swift language, and a million new submenus in Xcode ;) But that's been true of all OSes for decades and doesn't make iOS specialized compared to macOS or any more deserving of 30% of every developer's gross profits.

nickff 6y ago
I never said anything about compensating Apple for framework development costs; my point is about aligning incentives.
banachtarski 6y ago
How is that a fair point. Developers don't WANT bespoke frameworks that lock you into a single ecosystem. We would obviously prefer open standards and specifications supported by multiple vendors. The popularity of frameworks such as Flutter and QT or APIs such as OpenGL and Vulkan prove that. The SDKs Apple chooses to provide are entirely elective on their part and we shouldn't pretend that as developers, they deserve to charge us for this.

giobox 6y ago

There have been measurable improvements over years to things like app review times etc, significantly so in some cases. Whether _any_ review process in a store the size of Apple's can justify taking 30% is not obvious to me. As size goes up, costs usually go down in a healthy market. The App Store is barely recognizable in scale vs launch day, but financial terms for developers have barely moved.

nickff 6y ago
I have spent a bit of time thinking about this, and can't really come up with a way of calculating a 'justifiable cut' for Apple. Would it be their cost per average app? Should it be a fixed fee with a variable rate on top? Should they license access like the videogame companies used to? Won't these smaller profits further incentivize Apple to offer competing apps in every category, and dis-incentivize quality control of third party apps? My conclusion (so far) is that it's best to let each platform developer choose their business model, and see which one works best. Business models can compete along with hardware and software.