4 ms·

The argument is - what happens when all non apple apps stopped working on the iPhone

kcplate 5y ago
A straight up mental fantasy exercise with zero possibility of ever becoming reality so ultimately what good is going through the exercise? One, you would never get the complete boycott that it would require to have an impact—-very few app publishers relying on app profits would risk a profitable app just to prove the point, especially if the publisher is a publicly traded company. You would have to rely on activist super small (single dev or two) app studios for your strikers and, no offense to those smaller studios, those apps generally are not the ones that people will miss beyond a mild irritation. Two, for every app participating in the boycott, there would be a similar app that didn’t participate that could backfill. The non-participating apps would be well known within a day or two and would start displacing striking apps pretty much immediately.
- random314 5y ago
  I am not sure why you are arguing with me. I am paraphrasing the article which you seemed to have misunderstood in your original comment. Of course, this is a hypothetical because the app developers are fragmented while Apple is a single entity. The blog argues that to be fair, Apple should donate 30% of its iPhone revenue to app developers as an iPhone without 3rd party apps is fundamentally crippled. The meta argument is that Apple taking a 30% cut of app revenue is fundamentally unfair. Apple has set a new precedent with the 30% cut. Operating systems such as windows, macOS and unix that came before iOS never demanded a 30% cut of app revenue installed on the device. Would you also be supportive of Microsoft and Unix vendors demanding 30% of revenue generated by applications on their operating system - starting 2022?
  - kcplate 5y ago
    I was speaking to the pointlessness of a hypothetical boycott, not arguing directly with you. I disagree that the device is crippled without 3rd party apps. It may not be quite as useful or perhaps fun, but it would still be a far more useful device than a Motorola Razr phone or a Blackberry. Yes it’s a new premise. Apple provides an app market to 1.65B devices to app developers with little entrance risk to the devs much beyond the elbow grease they spent creating the app. How much more money and effort would a developer have to spend to get their app that level of exposure without the App Store? A lot, and all of it amounting to real dollars at risk with no guarantee of payoff. What’s truly at risk publishing at the App Store? Nothing but a publishers time. Even the 30% you pay to Apple only hits if you are making money. It’s a commission, they marketed and sold the app for you, handled the transaction, distribution, and dropped some cash in your bank account. 30% in my mind is pretty cheap for what you get. Any other business that relied on third parties services to handle the marketing, sales, shipping, and finance transaction of the product would not bat an eye if those costs ran to 30%. As for Unix and Windows deciding to charge a fee? That wouldn’t bother me a bit if they were marketing, selling, and handling the transaction for my app. Do it.

A straight up mental fantasy exercise with zero possibility of ever becoming reality so ultimately what good is going through the exercise? One, you would never get the complete boycott that it would require to have an impact—-very few app publishers relying on app profits would risk a profitable app just to prove the point, especially if the publisher is a publicly traded company. You would have to rely on activist super small (single dev or two) app studios for your strikers and, no offense to those smaller studios, those apps generally are not the ones that people will miss beyond a mild irritation. Two, for every app participating in the boycott, there would be a similar app that didn’t participate that could backfill. The non-participating apps would be well known within a day or two and would start displacing striking apps pretty much immediately.

random314 5y ago
I am not sure why you are arguing with me. I am paraphrasing the article which you seemed to have misunderstood in your original comment. Of course, this is a hypothetical because the app developers are fragmented while Apple is a single entity. The blog argues that to be fair, Apple should donate 30% of its iPhone revenue to app developers as an iPhone without 3rd party apps is fundamentally crippled. The meta argument is that Apple taking a 30% cut of app revenue is fundamentally unfair. Apple has set a new precedent with the 30% cut. Operating systems such as windows, macOS and unix that came before iOS never demanded a 30% cut of app revenue installed on the device. Would you also be supportive of Microsoft and Unix vendors demanding 30% of revenue generated by applications on their operating system - starting 2022?
- kcplate 5y ago
  I was speaking to the pointlessness of a hypothetical boycott, not arguing directly with you. I disagree that the device is crippled without 3rd party apps. It may not be quite as useful or perhaps fun, but it would still be a far more useful device than a Motorola Razr phone or a Blackberry. Yes it’s a new premise. Apple provides an app market to 1.65B devices to app developers with little entrance risk to the devs much beyond the elbow grease they spent creating the app. How much more money and effort would a developer have to spend to get their app that level of exposure without the App Store? A lot, and all of it amounting to real dollars at risk with no guarantee of payoff. What’s truly at risk publishing at the App Store? Nothing but a publishers time. Even the 30% you pay to Apple only hits if you are making money. It’s a commission, they marketed and sold the app for you, handled the transaction, distribution, and dropped some cash in your bank account. 30% in my mind is pretty cheap for what you get. Any other business that relied on third parties services to handle the marketing, sales, shipping, and finance transaction of the product would not bat an eye if those costs ran to 30%. As for Unix and Windows deciding to charge a fee? That wouldn’t bother me a bit if they were marketing, selling, and handling the transaction for my app. Do it.