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Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh

by nolok 6y ago

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay through the provider they can negotiate and then pay you back the cost they owe you. It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's setup like a tax.

MperorM 6y ago
Or do like apple and charge both!
darkwizard42 6y ago
But is the work of the app store flat fee for an app? I think if you have a massive userbase and drop an update etc. this requires way more of Apple's resources to keep up with, it should probably be a sliding scale right?
- nolok 6y ago
  I don't understand your point. If you're serving a file from AWS to ten people or to a massive userbase what happens ? Does AWS pricing change once you have a certain amount of traffic ? No, you pay per GB delivered. Apple should offer that kind of pricing, or a price per user (download) if they want. And Apple should also be free to offer the % as an alternative if they wish, "don't want to bother with details ? Just stay entirely within Apple's system and pay 30% and that's it". But not strip the possibility of paying by use. Because again, if I have 500 millions users, delivering a 5 MB update costs the same for a 5$ sub as it does for a 50$ sub, yet Apple's bills 10 times more to the second one.
  - dropofwill 6y ago
    AWS price per GB actually goes down as you reach different monthly checkpoints. To me it seems like payment processors are a more direct comparison and they usually do a combination of flat fee + percentage.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Note however that payment processors are actually charging in proportion to their costs, because one of their major costs is fraud for which the cost (if it occurs) is proportional to the amount of the charge.
    - xxs 6y ago
      Payment processors bear the risk of fraud and extra checks for large sums. App stores have effectively zero risk.
  - nicky0 6y ago
    Your flat fee model would really suck for free apps.
    - nolok 6y ago
      Nobody stops Apple from offering an alternative "if your app is 100% free then there are no fees for you at all", beside the 100$/year they already have to pay.
    - username90 6y ago
      Advertisements in apps is a way to circumvent the app store fee currently, yes. That is bad, it means that ads pay close 50% more compared to selling apps compared to what they should, meaning Apples policy likely massively increased the number of ad based apps compared to purchasable apps. Forcing them to pay their fair share makes sense for everyone.
    - kevingadd 6y ago
      There's already a flat fee for free apps (the developer fees), and every customer has already paid a flat fee (buying the phone)
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  You still don't end up at "percent of revenues" but rather some kind of AWS-like bandwidth charge for distribution. Which the developer should be able to opt out of by self-hosting.
  - jpttsn 6y ago
    Should they also be able to opt out of the font stack Apple licensed, and bring their own free font garbage? Opt out of the battery controller and encryption libraries, to roll their own for cheap?
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      You're now talking about things (software) that cause Apple to incur no marginal cost. It's not unreasonable at that point to expect that they choose between allowing you to decline the charge for them and do without or provide those things for free.
- voxic11 6y ago
  Why would the amount of work change depending on the size of the userbase? Isn't it more a function of the complexity and maybe the purpose of the application? Even if it did then the current model makes no sense since they don't charge free apps with huge userbases anything at all!
- kristiandupont 6y ago
  In that case, the Facebook app should be paying the highest premium. But as it stands they are charged $100 per year.
sirsinsalot 6y ago
Abstractly AWS sort of _do_ charge you a % of your revenue. For the resources you consume from AWS for $C, those resources should be generating a revenue for you of $R, if $R<$C then you're making a loss from those resources. If you're making a profit, AWS takes a cut in line-step with how much resource you use (and therefore how much profit you make). This assumes that as your needs increase, your profit increases and so does your AWS bill. Granular, PAYG billing is really just a tax on what you _should_ be converting to profit in some sense. At least, it's an interesting way to look at capital allocation and ROI.
- nolok 6y ago
  By your metric anything you pay is a % of your revenue, I think you understand what I meant in the context I meant it. Imagine a scenario where you realize you can double your prices without changing anything else nor losing customer, therefore only changing your revenue by doubling it. Your AWS bill doesn't change. Your Apple store bill doubles. This is factually a tax on revenue.
  - sirsinsalot 6y ago
    I did understand you, and wasn't disagreeing. Just offering up a comparison as someone currently doing AWS price projections based on unit costs / CLV and seeing a fairly even margin on AWS resource usage vs revenue-per-resource. Cost plus and all that. It struck me at the time, that the granular billing allows AWS to function less like a product seller and more like a tax. A weak comparison granted.
yummies 6y ago
The most ridiculous example of this is Tesla's offering of in-app Autopilot upgrades. At $10k, imagine what Apple's cut is, for absolutely no value added.
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  It's interesting that this seems more shocking even though it's not much different than Apple collecting 30% on one thousand $10 purchases.
  - nolok 6y ago
    It's because Apple's actual costs are pretty much fixed (storage, bandwidth, ...) so clearly on a low price / many customer scenario it seems fairer. That's why a per usage pricing would be fairer. And yes, the app having one thousand $10 purchases would pay way more than the app having a single $10000 purchase, but that's the point.
    - AlexandrB 6y ago
      But for Spotify or other apps that sell content Apple is not providing storage, bandwidth, or anything else. They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards).
      - nolok 6y ago
        > But for Spotify or other apps that sell content Apple is not providing storage, bandwidth, or anything else. Indeed, I missed that layer when answering you. That's makes it even worse and unfair. > They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards). And working with Visa doesn't stop you from offering Mastercard or Paypal or others. Apple mandates you use them.
      - xxs 6y ago
        >e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards It's capped in the EU - 0.3% for credit card, 0.2% for debit ones. That fee includes all the risks of chargebacks and fraud processing.
AlexandrB 6y ago
I recently had a change of heart on this issue when the prevalence of fraudulent apps on the App Store was documented[1]. It's hard to argue that Apple is providing significant benefit to either consumers or developers for their 30% cut when they seem incapable of reigning in obvious fraud. In addition, I think Apple pushing subscriptions as a solution for long term app funding (instead of upgrade pricing or other options) has resulted in apps as simple as text editors or todo apps needlessly becoming subscription services. Apple didn't invent SaaS, but they sure did popularize it for consumer-facing apps. Overall, Apple has not been a good steward of the App Store. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-to-spot/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-to-sp...
- egocentric 6y ago
  Thank you for being open-minded. Since the article you posted, I’ve uncovered a lot more about the prevalence of fraudulent apps on the App Store: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-scams-fraud-review-enforcement-top-grossing-kosta-eleftheriou https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...
- joshstrange 6y ago
  > has resulted in apps as simple as text editors or todo apps needlessly becoming subscription services I'm torn on this. Of course I prefer to pay once for software but that's not really realistic in today's world where iOS (or Android) development is rarely "Write once, post online, walk away". It's an ongoing process and there aren't very many apps out there that are "done" (even the big players). I understand that my Drafts subscription goes to pay the developer on an ongoing basis to support the product and add new features.
  - inetknght 6y ago
    > I'm torn on this. Of course I prefer to pay once for software but that's not really realistic in today's world where iOS (or Android) development is rarely "Write once, post online, walk away". It's an ongoing process and there aren't very many apps out there that are "done" (even the big players). Why is that? The user interface hasn't significantly changed since the iPhone was launched. Why do apps need to be rewritten so many times? Why should users pay once for software and then... need to pay for the same software again in 2 years even though there's really nothing that has improved? Pay for a text editor? Why the hell wasn't a text editor well written on the first iPhone?
LatteLazy 6y ago
The issue here is that Spotify can easily pay 10k for being listed despite making billions. Meanwhile anyone making freeware, open source or small apps and just trying to get started is fucked.
- nolok 6y ago
  Not an issue, already solved in many market: offering the normal pricing doesn't stop the provider (here Apple) to offer other special terms to those who want them. Example in another market: you can buy an Unreal Engine license, or you can get it for pretty much free but then owe a % of sales. Nobody is saying Apple cannot offer an alternative "30% all included flat price", the complaint is about them offering ONLY that.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    The issue is that if Apple lose a tonne of money when Spotify decides to go flat fee, someone has to make up that difference. So smaller Devs lose out as they're currently being subsidised...
    - nolok 6y ago
      Free apps maybe, but then again the "all free" is a myth since there are costs to pay by someone, and Apple is free to keep subsidizing them if they so desire (because an entirely free app is good for their customers). But non free apps with a smaller base you would be surprised I guess. Storage for hosting and GB for bandwidth is incredibly cheap. To give a frame of reference AWS pricing is currently at $0.023 per GB for storage and $0.09 per GB for bandwith out. That means 30% of a $0.50 sub is enough for covering the entire storage + distribution costs of one gigabyte for that user (and that's assuming you need to store an entire copy for each user, which you don't). Yes, there are other costs (website, review, ...), but then again how many subs are $0.50 ?
- ziml77 6y ago
  But what if you're selling content that you aren't making more than 30% profit on? There's flaws for both flat and percent. Something more nuanced might be required.
tomasreimers 6y ago
Your argument applies equally well to payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.) and, as a society, we seem to be okay with them just taking ~2% of Revenue despite their underlying costs (largely) being a flat fee. I'm not saying it's okay, simply that there's precedent fairly ingrained in our economy.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  I'd argue that their cost scales to the price paid because credit card processors are taking on the liability for those transactions. Additionally, a 2% fee is nearly inconsequential. If Mastercard and Visa demanded 30%, there would be literal riots.
  - dhdhhdd 6y ago
    And yet interchange rates in Europe are capped at around 0.2%. 2% is still a lot of money.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      It does stack up, but if the cost was too high, many businesses wouldn't work with the credit processors. Amex is an example of this. There's payment options that avoid this retailers could incentivize. And Apple and Google charge 15 times that because there's no way around them.
- nolok 6y ago
  But that's not a 1:1 comparison because you are not forced to use them, you're free to go to another one, or not take them and use checks or cash or bitcoin or whatever you want. If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view. Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming and saying "30% is way too much" wouldn't be out of nowhere.
  - Evan__ 6y ago
hk1337 6y ago
Technically, AWS doesn't bill on percentage but they do bill on how long something is being used and how much data is run through whatever you're using, plus a number of other charges.
- nolok 6y ago
  ... So usage, entirely different from revenue. If you manage to double your price without changing how much resources you need to use, AWS bill doesn't change. Apple's bill doubles.
tolmasky 6y ago
They should take whatever percentage they want, even 100%, as long as they allow alternative ways to get apps onto the iPhone and to charge for in-app purchases. The problem isn’t that their price is too high, it’s that it’s the only game in town. Allow alternatives and then the price they choose can compete with the rest of them. We can see exactly how valuable of a service it really is.
- nolok 6y ago
  Oh I absolutely agree. Like another commenter said below, another similar thing are payment processors fees, but it works because 1. you're free to use another one, or checks, or cash, or bitcoin, or anything else, and 2. the EU has strongly regulated their fees and imposed massive limits on what they can charge in %.
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    But are they similar? One could argue that Visa and PayPal have a monopoly on payments processed via the Visa network/PayPal credit. Consumers are free to choose another ecosystem, but if they don't, the business is forced to make business with them. Similarly, the consumer can choose to buy an Android (or have to phones/tablets), but if they choose Apple only, the business needs to work with Apple.
    - trinix912 6y ago
      Yes, but if you have a VISA card you can still withdraw the money and pay in cash right? That's an alternative that doesn't involve switching over to another ecosystem. Also, the EU regulations cap the fees and set up identical rules for everyone (unlike Apple where its own services are left through without a second thought even though they don't necessarily operate to the code).
      - Sebb767 6y ago
        > Yes, but if you have a VISA card you can still withdraw the money and pay in cash right? That's an alternative that doesn't involve switching over to another ecosystem. Isn't VISA somewhat similar to an ecosystem? It's not perfect (you can not switch over all apps when switching from/to Android), but you still need to change something on your side. Yes, exchanging a plastic card is easier than switching a phone, but it's not fundamentally a different paradigm. > Also, the EU regulations cap the fees and set up identical rules for everyone I agree that this is a good idea, but it's not a fundamental problem with Apple's payment structure.
ziml77 6y ago
For some reason a flat fee hadn't even crossed my mind, but that makes a lot of sense. The cost of an application doesn't change the distribution costs at all.
- vlozko 6y ago
  There’s fixed components to the cost as well as variable ones. Storage/CDN distribution is relatively fixed. I would say so is access to developer tools and APIs. What’s variable are services that an app may take advantage of, such as push notifications, geolocation queries, iCloud access, and App Store approvals. More established companies tend to release new versions on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > What’s variable are services that an app may take advantage of, such as push notifications Why are push notifications an Apple service? Wouldn't we be better off moving that into the apps?
    - npunt 6y ago
      Apple runs APNS which handles delivery of non-local notifications to all iOS devices.
    - rockinghigh 6y ago
      So you can receive notifications even when the app is closed.
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Doesn't seem worth it.
        carstenhag 6y ago
        Saves a ton of battery, goes through all firewalls etc. Same applies to Google's Firebase push notifications.
devmunchies 6y ago
i'm fine them charging whatever percentage they want, as long as they open up app downloads so i can download an app from safari.
rickdeveloper 6y ago
~This is a really bad idea in my opinion because the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps, which hurts small developers and benefits big corporations disproportionately. An app like Facebook, which is downloaded billions of times, does cost Apple significantly more than a small indie app used by, say, thousands. You can't get around that. Having the small indie app paying for Facebook (indirectly) is a lot worse than the current system. Worse, Apple is unlikely to decrease its profit margin. This would mean small developers and big corps pay an equal share in the profits Apple is going to make.~ ~A better idea would be to have a free tier and take a percentage above that. The first $1000 are a lot more valuable to the creator than everything beyond that.~ edit: OP said per download, misread it. That makes sense.
- nolok 6y ago
  > the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps No it would not, it would be distributed by usage. If you wonder "would that possibly work ?", welcome to the internet, it works that way. And it doesn't stop apple from offering special terms you can opt in for a flat 30% fee or entirely free if your app is entirely free (or ad supported) too.
- austinkhale 6y ago
  This is a strange take considering Facebook is distributed for free in the App Store with the current model. Apps paying the 30% tax _already_ subsidize Facebook’s distribution.
  - charwalker 6y ago
    Does FB have in app purchases on iOS? If so, is 30% going to Apple as the processor?
    - lukeschlather 6y ago
      Facebook is completely ad-supported. I guess the hole in Apple's revenue model is that they don't charge 30% of ad sales (of course I think this demonstrates how absurd the whole idea of charging a % of subscription revenue is.)
balls187 6y ago
AWS bills their services on usage. If AWS ever offered billing as a service (ala Stripe) they would most definitely charge you a % of the transaction amount, along with a flat rate per transaction. Apple doesn't charge developers 30% of revenue; they charge 30% of revenue made from purchasing from the app store, and in-app purchases.
paulpan 6y ago
Agreed, though the same could be argued for credit card payment processors like Visa and Mastercard taking a 2-2.5% cut of every transaction. Shouldn't they also just be regulated to only accept a fixed amount instead? I'm genuinely curious why this example isn't brought up more often and is just assumed to be the norm. The irony in this % discussion is that Apple tried to use the same rationale against Qualcomm in their radio modem feud - Qualcomm wanted to charge a % on device price for using their radio modems whereas Apple pushed for a fixed amount. I'm sure AWS would love to bill % of revenue but perhaps due to competition, they can't do that.
- tokyoseb 6y ago
  Credit card fees are already regulated the EU, i.e. card interchange fees are capped at 0.3%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union As to why it's not a fixed payment: I'm not sure if some of their costs/liabilities would scale with the size of the transactions?
  - nolok 6y ago
    Vast oversimplification: it's because of chargebacks and fraud. It works kind of like an insurance, someone needs to take the loss at some point and fixed amount doesn't work for that (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales). That's why when EU capped the fee "so low" we also massively pushed for 3D secure deployment, so those lower fees would still easily cover it.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales) I've come to the viewpoint that this would be a good thing. I think we've moved too far in the direction of never paying for anything with cash.
      - adwn 6y ago
        And why would that be?
lovelyviking 6y ago
Forget about 30%! What about 100$ each year for the right to properly run your own application on your own iphone/ipad if you want it to work offline longer than a week? Or am I missing something?
- donmcronald 6y ago
  > Or am I missing something? That’s cheap compared to the code signing racket on PC.
  - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    It's honestly about the same, cost wise. $100 for Apple, I've seen as low as $170 for Windows. If anything, Apple is worse because I require an Apple device to sign, though you can work around that with hosted CI. Apple actually arbitrarily adjusts the price for non-US regions. For some reason they want twice as much from me here.
    - donmcronald 6y ago
      You need an EV one to get past SmartScreen and I don’t even think they sell them to individuals (business only).
  - megous 6y ago
    Why would you need to sign your own apps?
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    The developer pays the code signing fee once instead of each end user paying the fee on an ongoing basis. Not comparable
  - xnyan 6y ago
    Huh? I run a few of my own programs on mac, linux, and windows - have not paid a cent to do so.
    - 6y ago
fnord77 6y ago
> Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? hey, thanks for the great business model idea!
AnonHP 6y ago
> Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? ... > It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's setup like a tax. I'm curious if you've ever made the same argument for credit cards, debit cards and the like. All of them charge a percentage to the seller too (and many a times it's a fixed fee plus a percentage). I do believe that 30% is quite high for Apple's poorer management of the App Store with respect to scams and other aspects (see the lawsuit against Apple by the developer of FlickType, Kosta Eleftheriou). And it's not just the 30% or 15% alone that the developer bears, but also the annual $99 developer program membership fee.
- nolok 6y ago
  I did, the EU did, and as a result their fees got massively regulated in the EU, below 0.5% ; on top of other reasons why this comparison is not fair and equal as discussed in many comments below (no market monopoly associated, and percentage actually matching the costs and expanses of those card issuers to their own providers [banks] as opposed to apple's fee being disconnected from the reality of the underlying costs).
  - carstenhag 6y ago
    The EU regulated the Intercharge fees of credit/debit cards, but not the total fees that a Payment Service Provider can charge a merchant. Those can still be 3-4% or so.
- lutoma 6y ago
  There's no monopoly on credit cards though. There's multiple providers, some countries have their own (cheaper) debit card networks, and you can still pay with cash.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  > I'm curious if you've ever made the same argument for credit cards, debit cards and the like. All of them charge a percentage to the seller too (and many a times it's a fixed fee plus a percentage). I always thought debit was a fixed fee. I just looked up one of the most common processors in Canada and it says the max fee is $0.035 going as low as $0.02 if you fall into a market segment that skews towards less than $20 per transaction. I intentionally pay debit for everything and keep a low fee, low interest credit card with no perks.
makecheck 6y ago
Especially since Apple hosts free apps that support themselves only through other means (e.g. ads). Thus, even a 100% fee would do nothing to cover App Store costs in those cases. Worse, a lot of these “free” apps are made by huge companies like Facebook that really could afford to pay the huge sums it must cost to enable their apps. People like to focus on the percentage fee while conveniently not mentioning a lot of other things that matter: - Every developer that isn’t a huge company offering apps “for free” is subsidizing the cost of App Store upkeep for those big companies that do not lose any 30% fees. - Apple basically won’t pay you for months unless you’ve passed a certain threshold. Thus, Apple “makes money” by being able to hold onto your money interest-free for awhile, multiplied by all the apps that are not making a lot of money. - Every developer of any size must pay $100 PER YEAR so “free apps” always make Apple money anyway. This fee does not go away even if you haven’t been paid by Apple in awhile. - Despite $100 per year, developers can be mistreated by Apple (e.g. review time delays, bogus rejections, bugs left unfixed in developer tools). Yet it is abundantly clear that Apple does not treat developers equally.
heisenbit 6y ago
Functional pricing i.e. pricing according to what it is worth to the buyer is an indicator for a monopoly. This was one of the arguments that were used to go after IBM way back so there long standing precedence.
dheera 6y ago
Likewise with delivery driver tips. Why is it a percentage of the order instead of a flat fee/tip? (Get rid of tips and pay fairly, seriously). The driver doesn't know what's in the box. They don't need to know what's in the box. At most it should be based on the size or weight of the box but not what's in it. What's next, tipping hotel bellhops based on the value of items in your luggage? Got a $5000 camera in there? Oh yeah that'll be a 1% or $50 tip. Oh, it's just $100 of clothes? I guess it'll be $1.
osrec 6y ago
I think the abolition of percentage fees needs to happen across a bunch of industries. Property, recruitment, certain aspects of finance (e.g. money transfer). It's really really annoying, and it feels like people put up with it because "that's how it's always been done".
aylmao 6y ago
I agree that it's like a tax. The fact that, like taxes, there's no way to get around it is IMO the damaging part. You have to use their payment infrastructure: rolling out your own or using a competing one is out of the question.
travisgriggs 6y ago
Do open/free apps still need to pay these flat prices to be listed, downloaded, reviewed?
jollybean 6y ago
The 30% cut is fine - VISA charges a % and so do many other businesses. It's the 'market power / monopoly' issue that is the problem. Apple needs to allow 3rd part app stores and direct downloads and that's it. They can keep their 15%/30% if they think the market will allow that. The 'security' issue is a canard because the Android world is not effectively less secure. Moreover, Apple could still make certain security/notarization requirements, strictly technical. Too many people are weirdly supportive of their control - it's totally fine and frankly understandable if you want to 'just use the App Store' - but it's not good to limit others. Vertical consolidation within industries is usually a bad thing, not always, but it's definitely bad when these power/monopolies are created. On the other side of the equation, Apple has a 'Monopsony' in other areas as well (exclusive buyer by force) which can be looked at. The M1 chip, design, great apps - compete there, but indirect downloads, 'self repair', probably battery/disk/memory upgrade replacement etc. should be open.
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dathinab 6y ago
The most ridiculous thing is it's a 30% cut on all in-app purchases and not allowing an alternative payment provider. For in-app purchases the service is ONLY a payment service and nothing more. Industry standard cuts for payment providers are lessen then 5%, often much less like e.g. 1.5%. So IMHO this is basically extortion. For app purchases it's still an absurd cut as nearly all "costs" apple has per app are fixed. The cost which are not are super small. Furthermore most other "running" costs are more associated with the user then the app. (E.g. Os dev cost). And if you now want to argue with "but they provide a messaging service" and similar don't forget that they effectively prevented any 3rd party message services (btw. google did so too). So we can't even say if it's a grate service, we have no realistic comparison as any was already killed at he roots before it could came to be. Just imagine Microsoft effectively ("de-facto") preventing you from using any mail service but Outlock and also forces any "notifications messages" through Outlock and also prevents applications from using polling effectively so that you have to use interlock any messenger, chat app, and similar with Outlock or it won't work properly. This would be ridiculous, but that is basically what Google and Apple did on smartphones. So yeah, basically Apple de-facto forces you to use a set of services you might not want to use while taking extortion level cuts for what is basically a payment service (which is also forced onto you) and reasoning that "they need to do so because all the nice services they provide for free".
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pmart123 6y ago
You could make the argument that features like Touch ID and Face ID were significant R&D investments by Apple with the benefits accruing to the companies with the most in-app purchases via lowering purchasing friction. Therefore, those apps should face a higher cost burden. Another way Apple could do it though is charge for each API interaction. For instance, each time a user accessed their camera through an app, it would cost the developer X cents. New features could have more expensive API's and older features perhaps would be free for developers.
ksec 6y ago
>It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. And the same Apple sued Qualcomm for charging them percentage of iPhone. Although I do think the percentage is a good way to ensure fair distribution ( with a Cap on maximum ). The idea is that the higher grossing Apps ( or Phones ) would be subsidising the lower cost Apps ( or Phones ) for those innovation. And again, I still think the money part is besides the point. Why do Apple gets to pull an App down simply because they dont like their world views.

by nolok 6y ago

MperorM 6y ago

Or do like apple and charge both!

darkwizard42 6y ago

But is the work of the app store flat fee for an app? I think if you have a massive userbase and drop an update etc. this requires way more of Apple's resources to keep up with, it should probably be a sliding scale right?

nolok 6y ago
I don't understand your point. If you're serving a file from AWS to ten people or to a massive userbase what happens ? Does AWS pricing change once you have a certain amount of traffic ? No, you pay per GB delivered. Apple should offer that kind of pricing, or a price per user (download) if they want. And Apple should also be free to offer the % as an alternative if they wish, "don't want to bother with details ? Just stay entirely within Apple's system and pay 30% and that's it". But not strip the possibility of paying by use. Because again, if I have 500 millions users, delivering a 5 MB update costs the same for a 5$ sub as it does for a 50$ sub, yet Apple's bills 10 times more to the second one.
- dropofwill 6y ago
  AWS price per GB actually goes down as you reach different monthly checkpoints. To me it seems like payment processors are a more direct comparison and they usually do a combination of flat fee + percentage.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Note however that payment processors are actually charging in proportion to their costs, because one of their major costs is fraud for which the cost (if it occurs) is proportional to the amount of the charge.
  - xxs 6y ago
    Payment processors bear the risk of fraud and extra checks for large sums. App stores have effectively zero risk.
- nicky0 6y ago
  Your flat fee model would really suck for free apps.
  - nolok 6y ago
    Nobody stops Apple from offering an alternative "if your app is 100% free then there are no fees for you at all", beside the 100$/year they already have to pay.
  - username90 6y ago
    Advertisements in apps is a way to circumvent the app store fee currently, yes. That is bad, it means that ads pay close 50% more compared to selling apps compared to what they should, meaning Apples policy likely massively increased the number of ad based apps compared to purchasable apps. Forcing them to pay their fair share makes sense for everyone.
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    There's already a flat fee for free apps (the developer fees), and every customer has already paid a flat fee (buying the phone)
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
You still don't end up at "percent of revenues" but rather some kind of AWS-like bandwidth charge for distribution. Which the developer should be able to opt out of by self-hosting.
- jpttsn 6y ago
  Should they also be able to opt out of the font stack Apple licensed, and bring their own free font garbage? Opt out of the battery controller and encryption libraries, to roll their own for cheap?
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    You're now talking about things (software) that cause Apple to incur no marginal cost. It's not unreasonable at that point to expect that they choose between allowing you to decline the charge for them and do without or provide those things for free.
voxic11 6y ago
Why would the amount of work change depending on the size of the userbase? Isn't it more a function of the complexity and maybe the purpose of the application? Even if it did then the current model makes no sense since they don't charge free apps with huge userbases anything at all!
kristiandupont 6y ago
In that case, the Facebook app should be paying the highest premium. But as it stands they are charged $100 per year.

sirsinsalot 6y ago

Abstractly AWS sort of _do_ charge you a % of your revenue. For the resources you consume from AWS for $C, those resources should be generating a revenue for you of $R, if $R<$C then you're making a loss from those resources. If you're making a profit, AWS takes a cut in line-step with how much resource you use (and therefore how much profit you make). This assumes that as your needs increase, your profit increases and so does your AWS bill. Granular, PAYG billing is really just a tax on what you _should_ be converting to profit in some sense. At least, it's an interesting way to look at capital allocation and ROI.

nolok 6y ago
By your metric anything you pay is a % of your revenue, I think you understand what I meant in the context I meant it. Imagine a scenario where you realize you can double your prices without changing anything else nor losing customer, therefore only changing your revenue by doubling it. Your AWS bill doesn't change. Your Apple store bill doubles. This is factually a tax on revenue.
- sirsinsalot 6y ago
  I did understand you, and wasn't disagreeing. Just offering up a comparison as someone currently doing AWS price projections based on unit costs / CLV and seeing a fairly even margin on AWS resource usage vs revenue-per-resource. Cost plus and all that. It struck me at the time, that the granular billing allows AWS to function less like a product seller and more like a tax. A weak comparison granted.

yummies 6y ago

The most ridiculous example of this is Tesla's offering of in-app Autopilot upgrades. At $10k, imagine what Apple's cut is, for absolutely no value added.

AlexandrB 6y ago
It's interesting that this seems more shocking even though it's not much different than Apple collecting 30% on one thousand $10 purchases.
- nolok 6y ago
  It's because Apple's actual costs are pretty much fixed (storage, bandwidth, ...) so clearly on a low price / many customer scenario it seems fairer. That's why a per usage pricing would be fairer. And yes, the app having one thousand $10 purchases would pay way more than the app having a single $10000 purchase, but that's the point.
  - AlexandrB 6y ago
    But for Spotify or other apps that sell content Apple is not providing storage, bandwidth, or anything else. They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards).
    - nolok 6y ago
      > But for Spotify or other apps that sell content Apple is not providing storage, bandwidth, or anything else. Indeed, I missed that layer when answering you. That's makes it even worse and unfair. > They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards). And working with Visa doesn't stop you from offering Mastercard or Paypal or others. Apple mandates you use them.
    - xxs 6y ago
      >e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards It's capped in the EU - 0.3% for credit card, 0.2% for debit ones. That fee includes all the risks of chargebacks and fraud processing.

AlexandrB 6y ago

I recently had a change of heart on this issue when the prevalence of fraudulent apps on the App Store was documented[1]. It's hard to argue that Apple is providing significant benefit to either consumers or developers for their 30% cut when they seem incapable of reigning in obvious fraud. In addition, I think Apple pushing subscriptions as a solution for long term app funding (instead of upgrade pricing or other options) has resulted in apps as simple as text editors or todo apps needlessly becoming subscription services. Apple didn't invent SaaS, but they sure did popularize it for consumer-facing apps. Overall, Apple has not been a good steward of the App Store. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-to-spot/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-to-sp...

egocentric 6y ago
Thank you for being open-minded. Since the article you posted, I’ve uncovered a lot more about the prevalence of fraudulent apps on the App Store: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-scams-fraud-review-enforcement-top-grossing-kosta-eleftheriou https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...
joshstrange 6y ago
> has resulted in apps as simple as text editors or todo apps needlessly becoming subscription services I'm torn on this. Of course I prefer to pay once for software but that's not really realistic in today's world where iOS (or Android) development is rarely "Write once, post online, walk away". It's an ongoing process and there aren't very many apps out there that are "done" (even the big players). I understand that my Drafts subscription goes to pay the developer on an ongoing basis to support the product and add new features.
- inetknght 6y ago
  > I'm torn on this. Of course I prefer to pay once for software but that's not really realistic in today's world where iOS (or Android) development is rarely "Write once, post online, walk away". It's an ongoing process and there aren't very many apps out there that are "done" (even the big players). Why is that? The user interface hasn't significantly changed since the iPhone was launched. Why do apps need to be rewritten so many times? Why should users pay once for software and then... need to pay for the same software again in 2 years even though there's really nothing that has improved? Pay for a text editor? Why the hell wasn't a text editor well written on the first iPhone?

LatteLazy 6y ago

The issue here is that Spotify can easily pay 10k for being listed despite making billions. Meanwhile anyone making freeware, open source or small apps and just trying to get started is fucked.

nolok 6y ago
Not an issue, already solved in many market: offering the normal pricing doesn't stop the provider (here Apple) to offer other special terms to those who want them. Example in another market: you can buy an Unreal Engine license, or you can get it for pretty much free but then owe a % of sales. Nobody is saying Apple cannot offer an alternative "30% all included flat price", the complaint is about them offering ONLY that.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  The issue is that if Apple lose a tonne of money when Spotify decides to go flat fee, someone has to make up that difference. So smaller Devs lose out as they're currently being subsidised...
  - nolok 6y ago
    Free apps maybe, but then again the "all free" is a myth since there are costs to pay by someone, and Apple is free to keep subsidizing them if they so desire (because an entirely free app is good for their customers). But non free apps with a smaller base you would be surprised I guess. Storage for hosting and GB for bandwidth is incredibly cheap. To give a frame of reference AWS pricing is currently at $0.023 per GB for storage and $0.09 per GB for bandwith out. That means 30% of a $0.50 sub is enough for covering the entire storage + distribution costs of one gigabyte for that user (and that's assuming you need to store an entire copy for each user, which you don't). Yes, there are other costs (website, review, ...), but then again how many subs are $0.50 ?
ziml77 6y ago
But what if you're selling content that you aren't making more than 30% profit on? There's flaws for both flat and percent. Something more nuanced might be required.

tomasreimers 6y ago

Your argument applies equally well to payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.) and, as a society, we seem to be okay with them just taking ~2% of Revenue despite their underlying costs (largely) being a flat fee. I'm not saying it's okay, simply that there's precedent fairly ingrained in our economy.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I'd argue that their cost scales to the price paid because credit card processors are taking on the liability for those transactions. Additionally, a 2% fee is nearly inconsequential. If Mastercard and Visa demanded 30%, there would be literal riots.
- dhdhhdd 6y ago
  And yet interchange rates in Europe are capped at around 0.2%. 2% is still a lot of money.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    It does stack up, but if the cost was too high, many businesses wouldn't work with the credit processors. Amex is an example of this. There's payment options that avoid this retailers could incentivize. And Apple and Google charge 15 times that because there's no way around them.
nolok 6y ago
But that's not a 1:1 comparison because you are not forced to use them, you're free to go to another one, or not take them and use checks or cash or bitcoin or whatever you want. If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view. Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming and saying "30% is way too much" wouldn't be out of nowhere.
- Evan__ 6y ago

hk1337 6y ago

Technically, AWS doesn't bill on percentage but they do bill on how long something is being used and how much data is run through whatever you're using, plus a number of other charges.

nolok 6y ago
... So usage, entirely different from revenue. If you manage to double your price without changing how much resources you need to use, AWS bill doesn't change. Apple's bill doubles.

tolmasky 6y ago

They should take whatever percentage they want, even 100%, as long as they allow alternative ways to get apps onto the iPhone and to charge for in-app purchases. The problem isn’t that their price is too high, it’s that it’s the only game in town. Allow alternatives and then the price they choose can compete with the rest of them. We can see exactly how valuable of a service it really is.

nolok 6y ago
Oh I absolutely agree. Like another commenter said below, another similar thing are payment processors fees, but it works because 1. you're free to use another one, or checks, or cash, or bitcoin, or anything else, and 2. the EU has strongly regulated their fees and imposed massive limits on what they can charge in %.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  But are they similar? One could argue that Visa and PayPal have a monopoly on payments processed via the Visa network/PayPal credit. Consumers are free to choose another ecosystem, but if they don't, the business is forced to make business with them. Similarly, the consumer can choose to buy an Android (or have to phones/tablets), but if they choose Apple only, the business needs to work with Apple.
  - trinix912 6y ago
    Yes, but if you have a VISA card you can still withdraw the money and pay in cash right? That's an alternative that doesn't involve switching over to another ecosystem. Also, the EU regulations cap the fees and set up identical rules for everyone (unlike Apple where its own services are left through without a second thought even though they don't necessarily operate to the code).
    - Sebb767 6y ago
      > Yes, but if you have a VISA card you can still withdraw the money and pay in cash right? That's an alternative that doesn't involve switching over to another ecosystem. Isn't VISA somewhat similar to an ecosystem? It's not perfect (you can not switch over all apps when switching from/to Android), but you still need to change something on your side. Yes, exchanging a plastic card is easier than switching a phone, but it's not fundamentally a different paradigm. > Also, the EU regulations cap the fees and set up identical rules for everyone I agree that this is a good idea, but it's not a fundamental problem with Apple's payment structure.

ziml77 6y ago

For some reason a flat fee hadn't even crossed my mind, but that makes a lot of sense. The cost of an application doesn't change the distribution costs at all.

vlozko 6y ago
There’s fixed components to the cost as well as variable ones. Storage/CDN distribution is relatively fixed. I would say so is access to developer tools and APIs. What’s variable are services that an app may take advantage of, such as push notifications, geolocation queries, iCloud access, and App Store approvals. More established companies tend to release new versions on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > What’s variable are services that an app may take advantage of, such as push notifications Why are push notifications an Apple service? Wouldn't we be better off moving that into the apps?
  - npunt 6y ago
    Apple runs APNS which handles delivery of non-local notifications to all iOS devices.
  - rockinghigh 6y ago
    So you can receive notifications even when the app is closed.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Doesn't seem worth it.
      - carstenhag 6y ago
        Saves a ton of battery, goes through all firewalls etc. Same applies to Google's Firebase push notifications.

devmunchies 6y ago

i'm fine them charging whatever percentage they want, as long as they open up app downloads so i can download an app from safari.

rickdeveloper 6y ago

~This is a really bad idea in my opinion because the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps, which hurts small developers and benefits big corporations disproportionately. An app like Facebook, which is downloaded billions of times, does cost Apple significantly more than a small indie app used by, say, thousands. You can't get around that. Having the small indie app paying for Facebook (indirectly) is a lot worse than the current system. Worse, Apple is unlikely to decrease its profit margin. This would mean small developers and big corps pay an equal share in the profits Apple is going to make.~ ~A better idea would be to have a free tier and take a percentage above that. The first $1000 are a lot more valuable to the creator than everything beyond that.~ edit: OP said per download, misread it. That makes sense.

nolok 6y ago
> the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps No it would not, it would be distributed by usage. If you wonder "would that possibly work ?", welcome to the internet, it works that way. And it doesn't stop apple from offering special terms you can opt in for a flat 30% fee or entirely free if your app is entirely free (or ad supported) too.
austinkhale 6y ago
This is a strange take considering Facebook is distributed for free in the App Store with the current model. Apps paying the 30% tax _already_ subsidize Facebook’s distribution.
- charwalker 6y ago
  Does FB have in app purchases on iOS? If so, is 30% going to Apple as the processor?
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    Facebook is completely ad-supported. I guess the hole in Apple's revenue model is that they don't charge 30% of ad sales (of course I think this demonstrates how absurd the whole idea of charging a % of subscription revenue is.)

balls187 6y ago

AWS bills their services on usage. If AWS ever offered billing as a service (ala Stripe) they would most definitely charge you a % of the transaction amount, along with a flat rate per transaction. Apple doesn't charge developers 30% of revenue; they charge 30% of revenue made from purchasing from the app store, and in-app purchases.

paulpan 6y ago

Agreed, though the same could be argued for credit card payment processors like Visa and Mastercard taking a 2-2.5% cut of every transaction. Shouldn't they also just be regulated to only accept a fixed amount instead? I'm genuinely curious why this example isn't brought up more often and is just assumed to be the norm. The irony in this % discussion is that Apple tried to use the same rationale against Qualcomm in their radio modem feud - Qualcomm wanted to charge a % on device price for using their radio modems whereas Apple pushed for a fixed amount. I'm sure AWS would love to bill % of revenue but perhaps due to competition, they can't do that.

tokyoseb 6y ago
Credit card fees are already regulated the EU, i.e. card interchange fees are capped at 0.3%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union As to why it's not a fixed payment: I'm not sure if some of their costs/liabilities would scale with the size of the transactions?
- nolok 6y ago
  Vast oversimplification: it's because of chargebacks and fraud. It works kind of like an insurance, someone needs to take the loss at some point and fixed amount doesn't work for that (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales). That's why when EU capped the fee "so low" we also massively pushed for 3D secure deployment, so those lower fees would still easily cover it.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales) I've come to the viewpoint that this would be a good thing. I think we've moved too far in the direction of never paying for anything with cash.
    - adwn 6y ago
      And why would that be?

lovelyviking 6y ago

Forget about 30%! What about 100$ each year for the right to properly run your own application on your own iphone/ipad if you want it to work offline longer than a week? Or am I missing something?

donmcronald 6y ago
> Or am I missing something? That’s cheap compared to the code signing racket on PC.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  It's honestly about the same, cost wise. $100 for Apple, I've seen as low as $170 for Windows. If anything, Apple is worse because I require an Apple device to sign, though you can work around that with hosted CI. Apple actually arbitrarily adjusts the price for non-US regions. For some reason they want twice as much from me here.
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    You need an EV one to get past SmartScreen and I don’t even think they sell them to individuals (business only).
- megous 6y ago
  Why would you need to sign your own apps?
- kevingadd 6y ago
  The developer pays the code signing fee once instead of each end user paying the fee on an ongoing basis. Not comparable
- xnyan 6y ago
  Huh? I run a few of my own programs on mac, linux, and windows - have not paid a cent to do so.
  - 6y ago

fnord77 6y ago

> Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? hey, thanks for the great business model idea!

AnonHP 6y ago

> Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? ... > It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's setup like a tax. I'm curious if you've ever made the same argument for credit cards, debit cards and the like. All of them charge a percentage to the seller too (and many a times it's a fixed fee plus a percentage). I do believe that 30% is quite high for Apple's poorer management of the App Store with respect to scams and other aspects (see the lawsuit against Apple by the developer of FlickType, Kosta Eleftheriou). And it's not just the 30% or 15% alone that the developer bears, but also the annual $99 developer program membership fee.

nolok 6y ago
I did, the EU did, and as a result their fees got massively regulated in the EU, below 0.5% ; on top of other reasons why this comparison is not fair and equal as discussed in many comments below (no market monopoly associated, and percentage actually matching the costs and expanses of those card issuers to their own providers [banks] as opposed to apple's fee being disconnected from the reality of the underlying costs).
- carstenhag 6y ago
  The EU regulated the Intercharge fees of credit/debit cards, but not the total fees that a Payment Service Provider can charge a merchant. Those can still be 3-4% or so.
lutoma 6y ago
There's no monopoly on credit cards though. There's multiple providers, some countries have their own (cheaper) debit card networks, and you can still pay with cash.
donmcronald 6y ago
> I'm curious if you've ever made the same argument for credit cards, debit cards and the like. All of them charge a percentage to the seller too (and many a times it's a fixed fee plus a percentage). I always thought debit was a fixed fee. I just looked up one of the most common processors in Canada and it says the max fee is $0.035 going as low as $0.02 if you fall into a market segment that skews towards less than $20 per transaction. I intentionally pay debit for everything and keep a low fee, low interest credit card with no perks.

makecheck 6y ago

Especially since Apple hosts free apps that support themselves only through other means (e.g. ads). Thus, even a 100% fee would do nothing to cover App Store costs in those cases. Worse, a lot of these “free” apps are made by huge companies like Facebook that really could afford to pay the huge sums it must cost to enable their apps. People like to focus on the percentage fee while conveniently not mentioning a lot of other things that matter: - Every developer that isn’t a huge company offering apps “for free” is subsidizing the cost of App Store upkeep for those big companies that do not lose any 30% fees. - Apple basically won’t pay you for months unless you’ve passed a certain threshold. Thus, Apple “makes money” by being able to hold onto your money interest-free for awhile, multiplied by all the apps that are not making a lot of money. - Every developer of any size must pay $100 PER YEAR so “free apps” always make Apple money anyway. This fee does not go away even if you haven’t been paid by Apple in awhile. - Despite $100 per year, developers can be mistreated by Apple (e.g. review time delays, bogus rejections, bugs left unfixed in developer tools). Yet it is abundantly clear that Apple does not treat developers equally.

heisenbit 6y ago

Functional pricing i.e. pricing according to what it is worth to the buyer is an indicator for a monopoly. This was one of the arguments that were used to go after IBM way back so there long standing precedence.

dheera 6y ago

Likewise with delivery driver tips. Why is it a percentage of the order instead of a flat fee/tip? (Get rid of tips and pay fairly, seriously). The driver doesn't know what's in the box. They don't need to know what's in the box. At most it should be based on the size or weight of the box but not what's in it. What's next, tipping hotel bellhops based on the value of items in your luggage? Got a $5000 camera in there? Oh yeah that'll be a 1% or $50 tip. Oh, it's just $100 of clothes? I guess it'll be $1.

osrec 6y ago

I think the abolition of percentage fees needs to happen across a bunch of industries. Property, recruitment, certain aspects of finance (e.g. money transfer). It's really really annoying, and it feels like people put up with it because "that's how it's always been done".

aylmao 6y ago

I agree that it's like a tax. The fact that, like taxes, there's no way to get around it is IMO the damaging part. You have to use their payment infrastructure: rolling out your own or using a competing one is out of the question.

travisgriggs 6y ago

Do open/free apps still need to pay these flat prices to be listed, downloaded, reviewed?

jollybean 6y ago

The 30% cut is fine - VISA charges a % and so do many other businesses. It's the 'market power / monopoly' issue that is the problem. Apple needs to allow 3rd part app stores and direct downloads and that's it. They can keep their 15%/30% if they think the market will allow that. The 'security' issue is a canard because the Android world is not effectively less secure. Moreover, Apple could still make certain security/notarization requirements, strictly technical. Too many people are weirdly supportive of their control - it's totally fine and frankly understandable if you want to 'just use the App Store' - but it's not good to limit others. Vertical consolidation within industries is usually a bad thing, not always, but it's definitely bad when these power/monopolies are created. On the other side of the equation, Apple has a 'Monopsony' in other areas as well (exclusive buyer by force) which can be looked at. The M1 chip, design, great apps - compete there, but indirect downloads, 'self repair', probably battery/disk/memory upgrade replacement etc. should be open.

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dathinab 6y ago

The most ridiculous thing is it's a 30% cut on all in-app purchases and not allowing an alternative payment provider. For in-app purchases the service is ONLY a payment service and nothing more. Industry standard cuts for payment providers are lessen then 5%, often much less like e.g. 1.5%. So IMHO this is basically extortion. For app purchases it's still an absurd cut as nearly all "costs" apple has per app are fixed. The cost which are not are super small. Furthermore most other "running" costs are more associated with the user then the app. (E.g. Os dev cost). And if you now want to argue with "but they provide a messaging service" and similar don't forget that they effectively prevented any 3rd party message services (btw. google did so too). So we can't even say if it's a grate service, we have no realistic comparison as any was already killed at he roots before it could came to be. Just imagine Microsoft effectively ("de-facto") preventing you from using any mail service but Outlock and also forces any "notifications messages" through Outlock and also prevents applications from using polling effectively so that you have to use interlock any messenger, chat app, and similar with Outlock or it won't work properly. This would be ridiculous, but that is basically what Google and Apple did on smartphones. So yeah, basically Apple de-facto forces you to use a set of services you might not want to use while taking extortion level cuts for what is basically a payment service (which is also forced onto you) and reasoning that "they need to do so because all the nice services they provide for free".

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pmart123 6y ago

You could make the argument that features like Touch ID and Face ID were significant R&D investments by Apple with the benefits accruing to the companies with the most in-app purchases via lowering purchasing friction. Therefore, those apps should face a higher cost burden. Another way Apple could do it though is charge for each API interaction. For instance, each time a user accessed their camera through an app, it would cost the developer X cents. New features could have more expensive API's and older features perhaps would be free for developers.

ksec 6y ago

>It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. And the same Apple sued Qualcomm for charging them percentage of iPhone. Although I do think the percentage is a good way to ensure fair distribution ( with a Cap on maximum ). The idea is that the higher grossing Apps ( or Phones ) would be subsidising the lower cost Apps ( or Phones ) for those innovation. And again, I still think the money part is besides the point. Why do Apple gets to pull an App down simply because they dont like their world views.