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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

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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
    Payment processors bear the risk of fraud and extra checks for large sums. App stores have effectively zero risk.
- nicky0 5y ago
  Your flat fee model would really suck for free apps.
  - nolok 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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)
    - nicky0 5y ago
      We are talking about a flat fee per app delivery here.
AnthonyMouse 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
In that case, the Facebook app should be paying the highest premium. But as it stands they are charged $100 per year.

nolok 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
  Payment processors bear the risk of fraud and extra checks for large sums. App stores have effectively zero risk.
nicky0 5y ago
Your flat fee model would really suck for free apps.
- nolok 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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)
  - nicky0 5y ago
    We are talking about a flat fee per app delivery here.

AnthonyMouse 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago

In that case, the Facebook app should be paying the highest premium. But as it stands they are charged $100 per year.