4 ms·

> than sure the percent needs to be lowered and I am not arguing that Yes to 0% and any percentage of revenue should be made illegal. Google and Apple can char

> than sure the percent needs to be lowered and I am not arguing that Yes to 0% and any percentage of revenue should be made illegal. Google and Apple can charge whatever fixed values they want or even charge based on a wide variety of vectors but a % of revenue should be explicitly illegal that kind of blatant rent seeking is a quintessential example of something the government needs to stamp out.

mynameisvlad 5y ago
Apple and Google are providing a service, so why exactly should they not get a cut of revenue? To be clear, 30% is too much, but aside from payment handling and taking on fraud risk as a result of that (3-4% is generally the industry standard for card not present transactions), they provide a subscription management/payment API for IAPs, as well as app packaging and distribution, reviews, etc. That certainly is worth more than 0%.
- jeltz 5y ago
  No, industry standard for online credit card transactions is 1-1.5% in the EU and 2.5-3% in the US. Even back in 2008 before 3d secure was common and before the EU regilations we as a tiny online casino had 2.5% fees. 30% is between 10 and 20 times a reasonable fee.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Isn't the fraud risk still generally born by credit card companies at the end of the day? I think we can legitimately talk about the costs of maintaining the app-store as a marketplace, and we can talk about the future costs of providing updates free of charge in perpetuity and orchestrating the infrastructure to host those various downloads... but that's about where their service offering ends. App review is a joke, the rating systems on both platforms as absolute trash and often gamed by publishers (remember Uber's in app prompt about how many stars you'd give them that forwarded you to the app-store if you gave them 5 and otherwise just offered you an internal complaint form if you gave them anything else? Everyone does that). I'd question whether Apple and Google are really providing a service or just exploiting a captive market.
  - lxgr 5y ago
    > Isn't the fraud risk still generally born by credit card companies at the end of the day? No – for online/e-commerce payments, the liability is generally with the merchant, not the card issuing bank. If it was about risk/fraud, debit cards would be an economic non-starter, as their interchange is capped to 0.05% + 0.24$ for almost all issuers. EU issuers also get by (probably not too comfortably so, but still) with the recently introduced interchange cap of 0.3%/0.2%.
  - mynameisvlad 5y ago
    > Isn't the fraud risk still generally born by credit card companies at the end of the day? Absolutely not, the bank initiates a chargeback, which the payment processing network directs back to the one who handled the payments. They generally are then tasked with "proving" the purchase is authorized. Enough chargebacks, even fraudulent ones, and the payment provider cuts ties with you (although, at Google scale, I don't see this happening) as you're too great a risk. > App review is a joke, the rating systems on both platforms as absolute trash and often gamed by publishers (remember Uber's in app prompt about how many stars you'd give them that forwarded you to the app-store if you gave them 5 and otherwise just offered you an internal complaint form if you gave them anything else? Everyone does that). The implementation being a joke doesn't mean it's not a service with COGS that need to be accounted for.
  - desiarnezjr 5y ago
    Nope. All fraud and chargebacks go back to the merchant/seller. The processor will immediately hold those funds in question pending a dispute or resolution around the fraud or chargeback. On top of that there's a hefty fee for any fraud or chargeback that's not refundable even if it's resolved in your favor. Usually in the range of $40 per instance.
    - alam2000 5y ago
- morepork 5y ago
  Apple and Google (and others) also allow loading credit using physical cards that you purchase at retail stores. I believe the stores get around a 5-10% margin on these, i.e. you buy a $100 gift card, and the store only pays Apple/Google $90-95. There is a definite cost to all these so 0% is unreasonable. Epic is trying to be the "good" games distribution store and they reportedly take a 12% cut. Something around there, maybe down to 10% would be a reasonable place for Apple/Google to be.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Unfortunately Epic can't honestly comment on what cut they're taking while their storefront loses immense amounts of money[1] - I agree that a lower percentage is probably a lot more reasonable but I don't think EGS can serve as that example. 1. https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-has-sunk-dollar500m-into-the-epic-games-store-doesnt-expect-to-make-a-profit-until-2027/ https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-has-sunk-dollar500m-into-the-ep...
    - tomnipotent 5y ago
      > can't honestly comment on Of course they can, but we can acknowledge it's a moving target. I'm at least confident it will be better than Steam. > loses immense amounts of money This is the same for any growth business/product where you front-load marketing and business development costs, and is not an indicator of future trends.
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      Losing money at first is how almost everything works.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        I know that Silicon Valley is a hell of a drug but starting a business by burning two hundred million dollars a year that you haven't yet earned is not how nearly anything works. It only works for tech startups and it's bizarre since tech doesn't actually cost that much money.
    - 5y ago
kitsunesoba 5y ago
Doesn't this ignore the reality that a service with many of subscribers puts dramatically more strain on marketplace systems than a service with only a few subscribers? For example, a smalltime dev isn't going to see hardly any refunds, but a dev on the scale of Epic Games is going to be seeing something on the order of tens or hundreds per minute. Should that not be accounted for? That said, this could be accomplished with tiered fixed fees. An indie dev would probably land in a low rung where costs are tiny, where a triple-A game studio would get charged substantially more.
olliej 5y ago
Apple provides software updates for devices for years after they been paid for. Apple and google both providedthe CDN bandwidth for incredibly popular “free” software for which they do not receive a penny. The revenue from paid services covers that support. Would I prefer the cut was lower, but at the same time the 15% (for most)-30% cut seems to match every other platform

mynameisvlad 5y ago

Apple and Google are providing a service, so why exactly should they not get a cut of revenue? To be clear, 30% is too much, but aside from payment handling and taking on fraud risk as a result of that (3-4% is generally the industry standard for card not present transactions), they provide a subscription management/payment API for IAPs, as well as app packaging and distribution, reviews, etc. That certainly is worth more than 0%.

jeltz 5y ago
No, industry standard for online credit card transactions is 1-1.5% in the EU and 2.5-3% in the US. Even back in 2008 before 3d secure was common and before the EU regilations we as a tiny online casino had 2.5% fees. 30% is between 10 and 20 times a reasonable fee.
munk-a 5y ago
Isn't the fraud risk still generally born by credit card companies at the end of the day? I think we can legitimately talk about the costs of maintaining the app-store as a marketplace, and we can talk about the future costs of providing updates free of charge in perpetuity and orchestrating the infrastructure to host those various downloads... but that's about where their service offering ends. App review is a joke, the rating systems on both platforms as absolute trash and often gamed by publishers (remember Uber's in app prompt about how many stars you'd give them that forwarded you to the app-store if you gave them 5 and otherwise just offered you an internal complaint form if you gave them anything else? Everyone does that). I'd question whether Apple and Google are really providing a service or just exploiting a captive market.
- lxgr 5y ago
  > Isn't the fraud risk still generally born by credit card companies at the end of the day? No – for online/e-commerce payments, the liability is generally with the merchant, not the card issuing bank. If it was about risk/fraud, debit cards would be an economic non-starter, as their interchange is capped to 0.05% + 0.24$ for almost all issuers. EU issuers also get by (probably not too comfortably so, but still) with the recently introduced interchange cap of 0.3%/0.2%.
- mynameisvlad 5y ago
  > Isn't the fraud risk still generally born by credit card companies at the end of the day? Absolutely not, the bank initiates a chargeback, which the payment processing network directs back to the one who handled the payments. They generally are then tasked with "proving" the purchase is authorized. Enough chargebacks, even fraudulent ones, and the payment provider cuts ties with you (although, at Google scale, I don't see this happening) as you're too great a risk. > App review is a joke, the rating systems on both platforms as absolute trash and often gamed by publishers (remember Uber's in app prompt about how many stars you'd give them that forwarded you to the app-store if you gave them 5 and otherwise just offered you an internal complaint form if you gave them anything else? Everyone does that). The implementation being a joke doesn't mean it's not a service with COGS that need to be accounted for.
- desiarnezjr 5y ago
  Nope. All fraud and chargebacks go back to the merchant/seller. The processor will immediately hold those funds in question pending a dispute or resolution around the fraud or chargeback. On top of that there's a hefty fee for any fraud or chargeback that's not refundable even if it's resolved in your favor. Usually in the range of $40 per instance.
  - alam2000 5y ago
morepork 5y ago
Apple and Google (and others) also allow loading credit using physical cards that you purchase at retail stores. I believe the stores get around a 5-10% margin on these, i.e. you buy a $100 gift card, and the store only pays Apple/Google $90-95. There is a definite cost to all these so 0% is unreasonable. Epic is trying to be the "good" games distribution store and they reportedly take a 12% cut. Something around there, maybe down to 10% would be a reasonable place for Apple/Google to be.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Unfortunately Epic can't honestly comment on what cut they're taking while their storefront loses immense amounts of money[1] - I agree that a lower percentage is probably a lot more reasonable but I don't think EGS can serve as that example. 1. https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-has-sunk-dollar500m-into-the-epic-games-store-doesnt-expect-to-make-a-profit-until-2027/ https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-has-sunk-dollar500m-into-the-ep...
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > can't honestly comment on Of course they can, but we can acknowledge it's a moving target. I'm at least confident it will be better than Steam. > loses immense amounts of money This is the same for any growth business/product where you front-load marketing and business development costs, and is not an indicator of future trends.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Losing money at first is how almost everything works.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I know that Silicon Valley is a hell of a drug but starting a business by burning two hundred million dollars a year that you haven't yet earned is not how nearly anything works. It only works for tech startups and it's bizarre since tech doesn't actually cost that much money.
  - 5y ago

kitsunesoba 5y ago

Doesn't this ignore the reality that a service with many of subscribers puts dramatically more strain on marketplace systems than a service with only a few subscribers? For example, a smalltime dev isn't going to see hardly any refunds, but a dev on the scale of Epic Games is going to be seeing something on the order of tens or hundreds per minute. Should that not be accounted for? That said, this could be accomplished with tiered fixed fees. An indie dev would probably land in a low rung where costs are tiny, where a triple-A game studio would get charged substantially more.

olliej 5y ago

Apple provides software updates for devices for years after they been paid for. Apple and google both providedthe CDN bandwidth for incredibly popular “free” software for which they do not receive a penny. The revenue from paid services covers that support. Would I prefer the cut was lower, but at the same time the 15% (for most)-30% cut seems to match every other platform