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I'm wondering how this will eventually play out if most companies start requiring Apple/Google to allow third-party apps to use their own payment system. The c

I'm wondering how this will eventually play out if most companies start requiring Apple/Google to allow third-party apps to use their own payment system. The commission fee that Apple charges, 30% is partially to cover operating/marketing etc. Obviously, Apple makes a good profit off the App Store these days, even though Jobs said he'd be happy if it was break even at best. Here's an analogy I've been thinking on about this whole thing. The iPhone (or whatever phone you want) is the equivalent of a Walmart store. If you want your product to be sold in Walmart, you have to send it to their distribution center (ie App Store) and Walmart will handle sending that product out, etc. Walmart will handle the credit card transactions, etc and pay you the negotiated rate for your product (Yes, odds are Walmart buys your product first, then sells it, but with credit lines, etc it's almost the same thing). Does Walmart allow you to go in, put your product in the store and sit there with a square device and sell your stuff? Amazon is more analogous of physical to app in the sense that Amazon is the transaction point but may or may not actually maintain control of the product. So what's the end game? I suspect if Apple/Google has to allow developers to collect their own fees, Apple will start charging paid apps to be in the App store. They will continue to allow free apps to be shown, but if you want to charge for your App either one time or subscription, you'll have to pay an upfront fee to be listed. And that charge may depend on the number of downloads.

metalliqaz 5y ago
I don't have to go into a Walmart if I want to shop.
ToruiDev 5y ago
But at least for apple you already pay a 100$/year fee for them to distribute your apps.
- MDWolinski 5y ago
  I'm sure Apple will say that fee is to help pay for the development of the developer tools.
  - giyokun 5y ago
    Because Apple doesn't need those tools internally to develop their OS and apps?
sumedh 5y ago
> If you want your product to be sold in Walmart No one is forcing you to go through Walmart. The problem with IOS is that you are forced to go through Apple. A user cannot pay, download and install the app directly from a developers website.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Nobody is forcing you to sell to iOS, though.
  - belorn 5y ago
    We can go up the whole chain and in the end the root platform are nations. If you want access to citizens in a country you got to go through that nations laws, and nobody is forcing apple to sell iOS in Korea.
  - sumedh 5y ago
    That argument does not work when there are only two service providers in town, Apple and Google.
    - ubermonkey 5y ago
      It works precisely because there is an alternative with less onerous rules. It works even better because the alternative provider is BY FAR the larger player. Apple is a minority player in mobile.
      - sumedh 5y ago
        Why do you think Apply reduced their fees for small developers and now allow developers to let their customers know that cheaper payment options are available, they know they are abusing that position so to stave off regulations they did that.
ballenf 5y ago
Walt Disney looked at Disneyworld/land as ideally break even. Sad how they both lost the battle for vision to the accountants. Disney parks now feels like a nightmare game with IAP at every turn. You grind through ride lines or can pay to skip them. Food, toys, etc that you see everyone else enjoying and feel a nearly irresistible pull to buy.
IsoldesKnight 5y ago
> The iPhone (or whatever phone you want) is the equivalent of a Walmart store. The major difference here is that while I don't own the Walmart store, I do own my phone. What is allowed to be sold in the store is determined by Walmart, just as what's installed on my phone should be determined by me, the owner.
- MDWolinski 5y ago
  Ownership is a valid point. I'm not arguing either course, I'd like to see the ability to be able to install Apps myself just as I do on a Mac or PC mostly because I'm tired of the forced puritism of companies these days.
WA 5y ago
> The commission fee that Apple charges, 30% is partially to cover operating/marketing etc. Then by all means, please charge me separately for these things. Because I don’t need them. Apple doesn’t do marketing for me, never promoted my app. People find my app through my own marketing channels. Charge me roughly 2 % for In App Purchases just like Stripe and PayPal. Charge me a traffic fee for whatever download traffic I cause. This way, I at least benefit from my app being only like 5 MB in size. If I want to be featured on the App Store, charge me. The rest like App Store listing? Covered by my $100 developer fee.
- jamil7 5y ago
  > Then by all means, please charge me separately for these things. Because I don’t need them. Apple doesn’t do marketing for me, never promoted my app. People find my app through my own marketing channels. This, maybe it was different in the early days but they do literally nothing to help you market your app until you've already driven enough traffic to it yourself for them to take notice. If you do get featured you get an email indicating that you might get featured and need to design and submit app store banner artwork with a whole list of things that you're not allowed to display.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  > Charge me roughly 2 % for In App Purchases just like Stripe and PayPal. This is so disingenuous and I'm so tired of seeing Apple's fee pegged at 30% (even though it 15% for the VAST majority of developers) and then turn around and pretend Stripe/PP offer anything close to 2%. Paypal is 3.5% + $0.49 Stripe is 2.9% + $0.30 At low price points (you know, the price points that almost all IAP/Paid App are at save for longer, like annual, subscriptions) your fee is still substantial. If you are lucky Apple will create a special provision for 3rd party payment providers that will provide subscription/cancellation/refund/etc infrastructure. If they don't do that then you can expect the above rates to be even higher. 2% is only obtainable with a more bare-bones payment processor so you will have to build quite a bit up and any company providing full "app payment services" is going to charge more than Stripe/PayPal. Heck, even the prices I listed for Stripe are the lowest they go (unless you are doing over 1.5M annually and qualify for bulk/volume pricing) and if you want things like fraud protection that's extra. Oh you want to calculate tax? Extra .5%. Fraud protections? $.05 or $.07/per transaction extra. Chargeback protection? Extra .4%, and the list goes on.

metalliqaz 5y ago

I don't have to go into a Walmart if I want to shop.

ToruiDev 5y ago

But at least for apple you already pay a 100$/year fee for them to distribute your apps.

MDWolinski 5y ago
I'm sure Apple will say that fee is to help pay for the development of the developer tools.
- giyokun 5y ago
  Because Apple doesn't need those tools internally to develop their OS and apps?

sumedh 5y ago

> If you want your product to be sold in Walmart No one is forcing you to go through Walmart. The problem with IOS is that you are forced to go through Apple. A user cannot pay, download and install the app directly from a developers website.

ubermonkey 5y ago
Nobody is forcing you to sell to iOS, though.
- belorn 5y ago
  We can go up the whole chain and in the end the root platform are nations. If you want access to citizens in a country you got to go through that nations laws, and nobody is forcing apple to sell iOS in Korea.
- sumedh 5y ago
  That argument does not work when there are only two service providers in town, Apple and Google.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    It works precisely because there is an alternative with less onerous rules. It works even better because the alternative provider is BY FAR the larger player. Apple is a minority player in mobile.
    - sumedh 5y ago
      Why do you think Apply reduced their fees for small developers and now allow developers to let their customers know that cheaper payment options are available, they know they are abusing that position so to stave off regulations they did that.

ballenf 5y ago

Walt Disney looked at Disneyworld/land as ideally break even. Sad how they both lost the battle for vision to the accountants. Disney parks now feels like a nightmare game with IAP at every turn. You grind through ride lines or can pay to skip them. Food, toys, etc that you see everyone else enjoying and feel a nearly irresistible pull to buy.

IsoldesKnight 5y ago

> The iPhone (or whatever phone you want) is the equivalent of a Walmart store. The major difference here is that while I don't own the Walmart store, I do own my phone. What is allowed to be sold in the store is determined by Walmart, just as what's installed on my phone should be determined by me, the owner.

MDWolinski 5y ago
Ownership is a valid point. I'm not arguing either course, I'd like to see the ability to be able to install Apps myself just as I do on a Mac or PC mostly because I'm tired of the forced puritism of companies these days.

WA 5y ago

> The commission fee that Apple charges, 30% is partially to cover operating/marketing etc. Then by all means, please charge me separately for these things. Because I don’t need them. Apple doesn’t do marketing for me, never promoted my app. People find my app through my own marketing channels. Charge me roughly 2 % for In App Purchases just like Stripe and PayPal. Charge me a traffic fee for whatever download traffic I cause. This way, I at least benefit from my app being only like 5 MB in size. If I want to be featured on the App Store, charge me. The rest like App Store listing? Covered by my $100 developer fee.

jamil7 5y ago
> Then by all means, please charge me separately for these things. Because I don’t need them. Apple doesn’t do marketing for me, never promoted my app. People find my app through my own marketing channels. This, maybe it was different in the early days but they do literally nothing to help you market your app until you've already driven enough traffic to it yourself for them to take notice. If you do get featured you get an email indicating that you might get featured and need to design and submit app store banner artwork with a whole list of things that you're not allowed to display.
joshstrange 5y ago
> Charge me roughly 2 % for In App Purchases just like Stripe and PayPal. This is so disingenuous and I'm so tired of seeing Apple's fee pegged at 30% (even though it 15% for the VAST majority of developers) and then turn around and pretend Stripe/PP offer anything close to 2%. Paypal is 3.5% + $0.49 Stripe is 2.9% + $0.30 At low price points (you know, the price points that almost all IAP/Paid App are at save for longer, like annual, subscriptions) your fee is still substantial. If you are lucky Apple will create a special provision for 3rd party payment providers that will provide subscription/cancellation/refund/etc infrastructure. If they don't do that then you can expect the above rates to be even higher. 2% is only obtainable with a more bare-bones payment processor so you will have to build quite a bit up and any company providing full "app payment services" is going to charge more than Stripe/PayPal. Heck, even the prices I listed for Stripe are the lowest they go (unless you are doing over 1.5M annually and qualify for bulk/volume pricing) and if you want things like fraud protection that's extra. Oh you want to calculate tax? Extra .5%. Fraud protections? $.05 or $.07/per transaction extra. Chargeback protection? Extra .4%, and the list goes on.