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The race to the bottom was absolutely Apple's fault. Software distribution over the internet existed before the App Store. Even Steam existed before the App S

by oddity 5y ago

The race to the bottom was absolutely Apple's fault. Software distribution over the internet existed before the App Store. Even Steam existed before the App Store. But Apple based the App Store on iTunes, where the songs were 99 cents and curation was a token effort. It took years for Apple to recognize that people needed to be able to find the good apps more than a few hours after they released onto the store.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>The race to the bottom was absolutely Apple's fault. The trend had been in that direction already. The marginal cost of software is pretty close to zero so prices were always going to be squeezed towards that. It probably did accelerate the process though.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Yeah, if it wasn't the App Store, it would just be piracy.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere — something involving asking a developer why they dropped their software price to zero, answer: no more piracy!
jamil7 5y ago
For business software, for consumer software it largely didn’t or was heavily pirated. Apple introduced a purely consumer OS and got consumers used to the idea of paying for software. It didn’t last though, the larger trend was to push the price down to zero. Now users complain about apps having a subscription as if it’s the greedy developers fault that we’re in this position.
throw0101a 5y ago
> The race to the bottom was absolutely Apple's fault. Software distribution over the internet existed before the App Store. Even Steam existed before the App Store. Being a developer on iOS still seems to be a better idea than Android: > Consumer spending on the App Store reached $72.3 billion in 2020 and in the same period, it reached $38.6 billion for Google Play. While in 2019, the consumer spending on the App Store was recorded at $55.5 billion and Google Play Store’s spending stood at $29.7 billion. * https://www.gadgetsnow.com/featured/iphone-users-vs-android-users-how-much-they-spend-on-apps-and-more/articleshow/80143396.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/featured/iphone-users-vs-android-... > According to our data set (€1 billion in mobile revenue since 2017), the average transaction on an iPhone is 26% higher than that on an Android! So even if the conversion rate on an iPhone reduced by 20%, that iPhone traffic will still be relatively more valuable than the Android alternative. * https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/battle-of-the-internet-giants-apple-vs-facebook-june-2021/ https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/battle-of-the-internet-...

by oddity 5y ago

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

>The race to the bottom was absolutely Apple's fault. The trend had been in that direction already. The marginal cost of software is pretty close to zero so prices were always going to be squeezed towards that. It probably did accelerate the process though.

Apocryphon 5y ago
Yeah, if it wasn't the App Store, it would just be piracy.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere — something involving asking a developer why they dropped their software price to zero, answer: no more piracy!

jamil7 5y ago

For business software, for consumer software it largely didn’t or was heavily pirated. Apple introduced a purely consumer OS and got consumers used to the idea of paying for software. It didn’t last though, the larger trend was to push the price down to zero. Now users complain about apps having a subscription as if it’s the greedy developers fault that we’re in this position.

throw0101a 5y ago

> The race to the bottom was absolutely Apple's fault. Software distribution over the internet existed before the App Store. Even Steam existed before the App Store. Being a developer on iOS still seems to be a better idea than Android: > Consumer spending on the App Store reached $72.3 billion in 2020 and in the same period, it reached $38.6 billion for Google Play. While in 2019, the consumer spending on the App Store was recorded at $55.5 billion and Google Play Store’s spending stood at $29.7 billion. * https://www.gadgetsnow.com/featured/iphone-users-vs-android-users-how-much-they-spend-on-apps-and-more/articleshow/80143396.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/featured/iphone-users-vs-android-... > According to our data set (€1 billion in mobile revenue since 2017), the average transaction on an iPhone is 26% higher than that on an Android! So even if the conversion rate on an iPhone reduced by 20%, that iPhone traffic will still be relatively more valuable than the Android alternative. * https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/battle-of-the-internet-giants-apple-vs-facebook-june-2021/ https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/battle-of-the-internet-...