3 ms·

These conversations always rapidly devolve into the same old generic iOS versus Android nonsense. But I'd like to try to keep a super narrow scope here. The spe

by 40four 6y ago

These conversations always rapidly devolve into the same old generic iOS versus Android nonsense. But I'd like to try to keep a super narrow scope here. The specific problem Epic and others are fighting here is "App Store payment system and control over app downloads" Now to be fair, as far as 'App store payments' goes, both Google & Apple charge the 30% fee on all transactions. The reason Epic is battling Apple here mostly has to do with the 'walled garden', and the fact Apple's 'control over app downloads' is totally locked down. Epic avoids the Google play 30% fee by having users side-load the APK, so that's a fight for another day I suppose. Now, for the 30% fee problem. Does anyone really think that is fair an equitable? Come again? They hover up 3/10ths of all business transactions? It just seems so obvious to me that the answer is absolutely not. There is no way I can twist my brain to believe there is any justification for that. If the issue is that it costs Apple (& Google) a lot of money to maintain servers and infrastructure to provide the app store services, then there are other ways to charge developers to cover this cost, and even make some profit. Apple charges $100 a year for the 'Apple Developer Program'. This yearly fee model is the fair way to do this I think. You could add more tiers too this that scale with usage. $100 for the entry level package, and that covers 'X' amount of usage. There could be enterprise tiers for huge customers like Epic. They are using more of the resources of the app store, then they should pay more. I'm sure Epic would be happy to pay, IDK I'm just making up a number, something like $500K a year for their developer license instead of 30% of every transaction. I'm just spitballing here, I've not fully formed all these ideas, and I don't know what fair pricing for tiers & usage would exactly look like. But I think most of us can agree a system like that would be much more fair and equitable. I have just never heard a convincing argument of why Apple & Google deserves to own 3/10ths of all the business on their platforms.

sdfhbdf 6y ago
Just wondering if you've seen apple's pretty recent annoucement of the App Store Small Business Program which for the first $1 million reduces that "tax" to 15%. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...
gretch 6y ago
There is no such principle in our free society of what is and isn’t a fair and equitable business transaction. The only tool we have for that is what the market (supply and demand) will yield. I can take a tiny piece of carbon, call it a diamond and sell it for 50,000. Is it fair and equitable? Should that be allowed? I can take a white T shirt and print a red Supreme logo on it and sell it for 100x cost of production. Is that fair and equitable? Should it be allowed? The development cost for a book is about $10 dollars of ink and paper. Each copy is printed and distributed for 1 dollar. It took the author 10 hours to write. But the knowledge and insights are extremely valuable. Is it fair and equitable for the author to charge $100 for a copy of this book? If 30% isn’t allowed, is 29% okay? How about 28%? What exactly is this magic number where things become okay? Don’t businesses have the right to try and profit and not just break even? (If not why would anyone start a new business venture) If you would argue that we shouldn’t have a free market and the govt should set all the prices in the economy, well that’s a different philosophy entirely. It’s not very popular for a host of reasons
- 40four 6y ago
  I mean sure, you’re getting really deep and philosophical on economics here. I’m happy to have that conversation too, but I think it’s a different conversation, and one we should have over some beers :) I’m not sure how you took it as far as me arguing against free markets, but I was just trying to speak of my perception of this very specific example. I don’t think it’s fair for them to take 3/10ths of every business on their app stores. That simple. I don’t think the markets think it’s fair either, but they don’t have much choice. At least not on Apple’s platform. I don’t think the government should ever set the prices by default, but if the market and the government decide it’s not fair then they can step in. That’s the whole point of anti-trust laws. Of course businesses have the right to make a profit. I did mention the system I proposed could cover their costs and make some profit. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that. They should make profit on the app stores. But the current model is particularly offensive to me. I don’t think there is a magic number. I think the idea that all monetary transactions have to go through them and they get a percentage at all is dumb. At it’s heart app stores are just a means of distributing software. Why should they get a cut of the businesses? Maybe we could compare it to credit card transactions. The card reader networks take a 3% cut and we’re all ok with that. They provide the infrastructure to allow the transactions to happen, sure I guess they earned it. If you forced me to pick a ‘magic’ number then I would say it should be similar to that. If Google and Apple took 3-5% none of this would even be a discussion. We probably wouldn’t even care enough to fight it, and they’d still be making money hand over fist on their app stores. Which to be fair aren’t even the main part of their business. It’s just a side huddle for them. But 30% is the kind of cut title loans and pawn brokers take. No way in hell that’s reasonable for a service to distribute software. I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this, especially about the differences between Google and Apple in this regard, but I’ll stop there. I’ve ranted enough tonight:)

by 40four 6y ago

sdfhbdf 6y ago

Just wondering if you've seen apple's pretty recent annoucement of the App Store Small Business Program which for the first $1 million reduces that "tax" to 15%. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...

gretch 6y ago

There is no such principle in our free society of what is and isn’t a fair and equitable business transaction. The only tool we have for that is what the market (supply and demand) will yield. I can take a tiny piece of carbon, call it a diamond and sell it for 50,000. Is it fair and equitable? Should that be allowed? I can take a white T shirt and print a red Supreme logo on it and sell it for 100x cost of production. Is that fair and equitable? Should it be allowed? The development cost for a book is about $10 dollars of ink and paper. Each copy is printed and distributed for 1 dollar. It took the author 10 hours to write. But the knowledge and insights are extremely valuable. Is it fair and equitable for the author to charge $100 for a copy of this book? If 30% isn’t allowed, is 29% okay? How about 28%? What exactly is this magic number where things become okay? Don’t businesses have the right to try and profit and not just break even? (If not why would anyone start a new business venture) If you would argue that we shouldn’t have a free market and the govt should set all the prices in the economy, well that’s a different philosophy entirely. It’s not very popular for a host of reasons

40four 6y ago
I mean sure, you’re getting really deep and philosophical on economics here. I’m happy to have that conversation too, but I think it’s a different conversation, and one we should have over some beers :) I’m not sure how you took it as far as me arguing against free markets, but I was just trying to speak of my perception of this very specific example. I don’t think it’s fair for them to take 3/10ths of every business on their app stores. That simple. I don’t think the markets think it’s fair either, but they don’t have much choice. At least not on Apple’s platform. I don’t think the government should ever set the prices by default, but if the market and the government decide it’s not fair then they can step in. That’s the whole point of anti-trust laws. Of course businesses have the right to make a profit. I did mention the system I proposed could cover their costs and make some profit. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that. They should make profit on the app stores. But the current model is particularly offensive to me. I don’t think there is a magic number. I think the idea that all monetary transactions have to go through them and they get a percentage at all is dumb. At it’s heart app stores are just a means of distributing software. Why should they get a cut of the businesses? Maybe we could compare it to credit card transactions. The card reader networks take a 3% cut and we’re all ok with that. They provide the infrastructure to allow the transactions to happen, sure I guess they earned it. If you forced me to pick a ‘magic’ number then I would say it should be similar to that. If Google and Apple took 3-5% none of this would even be a discussion. We probably wouldn’t even care enough to fight it, and they’d still be making money hand over fist on their app stores. Which to be fair aren’t even the main part of their business. It’s just a side huddle for them. But 30% is the kind of cut title loans and pawn brokers take. No way in hell that’s reasonable for a service to distribute software. I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this, especially about the differences between Google and Apple in this regard, but I’ll stop there. I’ve ranted enough tonight:)