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I see this, and it just makes me think that if they had, we'd be seeing posts that say, "Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 10% commission for so long)

I see this, and it just makes me think that if they had, we'd be seeing posts that say, "Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 10% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 5% or 3% for all, ...".

vorpalhex 4y ago
30% is an insane amount.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  How does it compare to a regular bricks & mortar retail store? Shelf fees, etc? Edit: downvoted for asking a question? Thanks HN.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    How much warehouse space does it take to sell 3,000,000 copies of fortnite? How much shrink did they have?
    - Nasrudith 4y ago
      The shrinkage is called chargeback and processing fees.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        Great so that's 3.5% Where is the other 26.5% coming from?
        NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
        How many people do you think Apple employees whose job is solely or primarily-centered around iOS developer relations, tools, support, store infrastructure etc. etc?
        oblio 4y ago
        Random guess? Maybe N employees, paid $5-10bn per year. Maybe $5-10bn in all the other expenses. In 2020 Apple made $60bn from the AppStore. Apple makes outrageous amounts of money from first mover advantage and a humongous moat but I guess we're ok with that.
        sealeck 4y ago
        This isn't the point – the point is that because Apple has a monopolistic position they are not forced to compete and provide better service.
  - oaiey 4y ago
    How does that compare to CDN, stripe Integration, a fancy certificate and a shop web page. That is the question. It is software distribution.
    - ksec 4y ago
      Exactly. I wish people stop using Retail as a counter argument, especially when 99.999999999% of them have no idea how Retail works.
- laserlight 4y ago
  How much is a fair amount? Who decides that and how?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    The market, through competition.
    - laserlight 4y ago
      Thanks for the clarification, because your previous comment seemed to contradict.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        Oh, is there a competitor to the app store that will let me get apps for my iOS devices?
        laserlight 4y ago
        Your reply reads quite snarky. I don't think further discussion would be productive, so I won't continue.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - Bud 4y ago
      Is "the market" going to magically provide all the substantial benefits of an Apple-run store for apps, too? No. It's not. "The market" is going to say: sorry users, fuck that, y'all can just magically research all this and provide your own security and privacy from here on out. Which is impossible, of course. Result: much poorer user experience for the vast majority of users. Which is why Apple did it their way in the first place. No, it was not because of revenue. Anyone who says that is either lying or is incredibly lazy and hasn't looked up where Apple actually makes its money.
- Bud 4y ago
  Did you research Apple's costs for running the App Store, screening apps for security, etc., before making this blanket statement? I'd wager not.
  - sealeck 4y ago
    But they're not billing on the basis of how much it technically costs them to provide these services. If we had a competitive ecosystem then we would expect Apple's prices for payment processing to be at least within an order of magnitude of (for example) Stripe's. Of course security screening is expensive, but it's also not that expensive (e.g. a typical software company might have a 10-30% profit margin, so in some cases apple accounts for roughly half the operational expenses of a company – i.e. the company pays as much, or more, money to apple as it does to its entire payroll)
  - kaba0 4y ago
    Do you seriously believe all these things are big expenses? They barely do any screening.
neop1x 4y ago
30% is almost 1/3 of the app price! It is higher than income tax in most countries. It is stealing money from developers because their app is not successful due to being released on App Store, it is successful because it is a great product and people would buy it on whatever store it would be available. Developers were just unable to publish it in another store or use a different payment processor with lower fees.

vorpalhex 4y ago

30% is an insane amount.

rootusrootus 4y ago
How does it compare to a regular bricks & mortar retail store? Shelf fees, etc? Edit: downvoted for asking a question? Thanks HN.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  How much warehouse space does it take to sell 3,000,000 copies of fortnite? How much shrink did they have?
  - Nasrudith 4y ago
    The shrinkage is called chargeback and processing fees.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Great so that's 3.5% Where is the other 26.5% coming from?
      - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
        How many people do you think Apple employees whose job is solely or primarily-centered around iOS developer relations, tools, support, store infrastructure etc. etc?
        oblio 4y ago
        Random guess? Maybe N employees, paid $5-10bn per year. Maybe $5-10bn in all the other expenses. In 2020 Apple made $60bn from the AppStore. Apple makes outrageous amounts of money from first mover advantage and a humongous moat but I guess we're ok with that.
        sealeck 4y ago
        This isn't the point – the point is that because Apple has a monopolistic position they are not forced to compete and provide better service.
- oaiey 4y ago
  How does that compare to CDN, stripe Integration, a fancy certificate and a shop web page. That is the question. It is software distribution.
  - ksec 4y ago
    Exactly. I wish people stop using Retail as a counter argument, especially when 99.999999999% of them have no idea how Retail works.
laserlight 4y ago
How much is a fair amount? Who decides that and how?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  The market, through competition.
  - laserlight 4y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, because your previous comment seemed to contradict.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Oh, is there a competitor to the app store that will let me get apps for my iOS devices?
      - laserlight 4y ago
        Your reply reads quite snarky. I don't think further discussion would be productive, so I won't continue.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - Bud 4y ago
    Is "the market" going to magically provide all the substantial benefits of an Apple-run store for apps, too? No. It's not. "The market" is going to say: sorry users, fuck that, y'all can just magically research all this and provide your own security and privacy from here on out. Which is impossible, of course. Result: much poorer user experience for the vast majority of users. Which is why Apple did it their way in the first place. No, it was not because of revenue. Anyone who says that is either lying or is incredibly lazy and hasn't looked up where Apple actually makes its money.
Bud 4y ago
Did you research Apple's costs for running the App Store, screening apps for security, etc., before making this blanket statement? I'd wager not.
- sealeck 4y ago
  But they're not billing on the basis of how much it technically costs them to provide these services. If we had a competitive ecosystem then we would expect Apple's prices for payment processing to be at least within an order of magnitude of (for example) Stripe's. Of course security screening is expensive, but it's also not that expensive (e.g. a typical software company might have a 10-30% profit margin, so in some cases apple accounts for roughly half the operational expenses of a company – i.e. the company pays as much, or more, money to apple as it does to its entire payroll)
- kaba0 4y ago
  Do you seriously believe all these things are big expenses? They barely do any screening.

neop1x 4y ago

30% is almost 1/3 of the app price! It is higher than income tax in most countries. It is stealing money from developers because their app is not successful due to being released on App Store, it is successful because it is a great product and people would buy it on whatever store it would be available. Developers were just unable to publish it in another store or use a different payment processor with lower fees.