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Large customers normally have lots of leverage: "if you don't give me a good deal, I will take my business elsewhere". I run an alternative to the Apple App Sto
by saurik 5y ago
Large customers normally have lots of leverage: "if you don't give me a good deal, I will take my business elsewhere". I run an alternative to the Apple App Store for jailbroken iOS devices (Cydia); and, when I have sold software (which I did "at scale" for a decade) I absolutely was forced to cut deals--sometimes ones extremely lucrative for the developer--to keep the business of my largest clients from not only listing their products (which notably were generally ineligible, for technical reasons as opposed to content ones, from being available in the official App Store) with competing stores or even merely accepting payments themselves, but actively building their own competing stores! Think about it: if you are paying a hefty percentage of your revenue to someone else in fees--and are doing enough volume (as you are a large customer)--you can afford to hire an entire team to work on this problem as the App Store is in no way "magic" or anything... at which point you "may as well" offer the service to others in an attempt to cut the margins of your prior fee recipient. It should be the small customers who generally tolerate the (on a percentage basis) higher fees, as they are willing to pay a potentially "hefty cut" for the privilege of using an off-the-shelf, integrated solution that users trust, as the absolute cost of that larger cut is small, and is thereby unlikely to be large enough to make sense expending a bunch of effort building (and marketing) a bespoke solution (that users might not trust anyway); but if you aren't having to fight for the larger customers, something distorted is happening: that Apple and Google (both, which might be surprising to some but maybe less if you read Epic's lessor-known lawsuit against Google surrounding anticompetitive moves Google has taken--and maybe are now attempting to address, but only now--to lock in their Play Store) feel able to specifically squeeze their largest customers with seemingly no ramification is a testament to the power they possess to control and direct the relevant markets from their respective positions.
- ericmay 5y agoSure, but it’s important to note that over time both companies have carved out special deals and considerations for larger customers. You can read this for yourself in the news and numerous court proceedings where emails have been released showing the companies having these exact discussions. It’s a bit contentious but it appears Epic itself tried to get a special deal from Apple [1]. Why would you even bother asking if they don’t negotiate or cut deals with different app vendors? Apple (and maybe Google idk) even changed/lowered pricing for certain app categories because of developer complaints. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/21/apple-contends-epics-ban-was-a-self-inflicted-prelude-to-gaming-the-app-store/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/21/apple-contends-epics-ban-w...
- samtheprogram 5y agoDo you have a source that Apple’s waived or otherwise modified their cut with other vendors or “app categories”? Your source only shows that Epic attempted to make a deal and failed. Apple then cut the fee for small developers to appease the public _after_ the Epic lawsuit.
- ericmay 5y agoYou can search around for various large companies and deals or discussions they’ve had with Apple. Uber, Netflix, Facebook come to mind. Please note the specific language I used in my comment as well. As an example: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/5/22421734/apple-epic-netflix-in-app-purchase-removal-emails https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/5/22421734/apple-epic-netfli... You’ll have to do some digging too if you’re interested. I can’t remember exactly and now when I search I just get current news as it relates to pricing for different app categories/subscriptions, etc.
- wayneftw 5y agoThank you for your comment. One minor nitpick: The words app store shouldn't be capitalized because Apple does not have a trademark on that term. They have a pending trademark and when Amazon started their "AppStore" app store, Apple took them to court over it and they ended up dropping the case before it was concluded because they would have lost. Of course your iPhone automatically capitalizes it and it's still listed as a trademark on their site because Apple is so petty.
- pulse7 5y ago"because they would have lost" -> we don't know if this would indeed happen because words "app" and "store" are so generic... writing them capitalized does not change this much, because everything you write in a title is capitalized in English language...
- taeric 5y agoIf Apple dropped the case, I think it is fairly safe to assume they saw defeat in their future. Any reason to assume otherwise?
- kalium-xyz 5y agoIt might have been a settlement out of court?