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I feel like the real outrage here should be for developers who already pay a fee for the privilege of being Apple developers, give up 30% of their revenue for t

I feel like the real outrage here should be for developers who already pay a fee for the privilege of being Apple developers, give up 30% of their revenue for the privilege of being inconsistently judged by app review, and now need to fork over extra money just to have their exact app name appear when searched. It’s insulting to the dev community who drove the success of the app store and arguably iOS in general. No amount of “we love our devs” PR can reconcile this.

thr0wawayf00 4y ago
> It’s insulting to the dev community who drove the success of the app store and arguably iOS in general. No amount of “we love our devs” PR can reconcile this. Apple built this market to control it completely, you could see it coming from miles away. It seems like the big move nowadays is build your market (i.e. "platform") and you get to be judge, jury and executioner. How did you see something like this playing out? I just don't understand how people still aren't cynical enough to see this kind of thing coming.
- datadata 4y ago
  People might be able to see it coming, but could still be enticed by the riches to be made for a while by playing the game even while knowing how it ends.
  - munificent 4y ago
    Or simply be making the rational economic choice given a lack of better alternatives.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >you get to be judge, jury and executioner. This has been the case with every single instance of software repositories (aka app stores). Remember the whole ffmpeg and libav schism that was fueled in part by repo maintainers imposing their dogmatic will? Or more recently Debian and whether to include non-free code in its installers (aka local repository)? I can't quite grasp why this doesn't appear immediately obvious to anyone. The only truly free ecosystem is something like Win32, where developers are free to write whatever they want, publishers are free to sell whatever they want where- and however they want, and the operating system is dependent on that free ecosystem for continued relevance.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Software repositories can distribute whatever software they want, the examples you've given are of arbitrary decisions made by repo owners. Furthermore, Win32 isn't an 'ecosystem', it's just a set of APIs you can target to pantomime software behavior. It doesn't relate to software distribution whatsoever, just as the Darwin/XNU kernel doesn't handle packaging. In fact, you've done a very good job of highlighting the problem with the iPhone. MacOS' software distribution works because it offers a distribution-agnostic API for native apps, same as Windows. iOS/iPadOS don't expose those interfaces to the user, which means the only way to 'install' an app is with Apple's good graces. Compared to Debian, where you can still install non-free packages regardless of how it exists in the repo, Apple's status quo is considerably more restrictive (and abusive).
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Given that you can add whatever repos you want on Debian and/or install packages directly outside of any repo - and that people actually do just that for the non-free stuff - how is it any less free than Windows?
- jdgoesmarching 4y ago
  I’m not an Apple dev, but their app store is around 60% of global market share for apps and I don’t fault people for choosing food on the table over platform ideology. I’m also not interested in this zero empathy game of “you should have known better” when the power imbalance is this severe. I lay the fault at the feet of Apple, where it belongs. Tangentially, I think the tech community needs to be prepared to examine its assumptions about how much control large companies should have over their platforms as they start to resemble utilities. We can’t keep pretending that a duopoly represents real market choice.
  - tracker1 4y ago
    Is it really a duopoly even.. it's more like two Monopolies of similar markets.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    IMHO, there's a difference between 'Platform companies squeeze as much revenue as they can by controlling their developers' and 'I can't believe Apple would do this!' The latter gets annoying. Apple has always been just as cutthroat of a business as anyone else, albeit with a different model (hardware) and better branding/PR. But see how much difference the hardware model makes when the market's down for a bit and Apple needs to juice revenue...
  - thr0wawayf00 4y ago
    > I’m not an Apple dev, but their app store is around 60% of global market share for apps and I don’t fault people for choosing food on the table over platform ideology. I don't either, but if that's the decision, then where do people come off thinking that they're owed something for participating in a market that they never had a controlling share of in the first place? That's what I don't get. I don't judge people for wanting to put food on the table, but don't act like you're then owed goodwill or whatever for making the rich people richer if that's the way you truly see it. You're supporting capitalism upfront and expecting some sort of vague socialism on the back end. How many times are people gonna get disappointed before they realize that big corporations don't care about them and never have?
purpleblue 4y ago
As a user, I love the fact that the App Store has an extra pair of eyes to at least try to keep some consistency. It may suck for iOS developers but as an end user it feels safer than Android.
- tracker1 4y ago
  Yeah... have to disagree there... I don't think they do nearly the QA/QC that their pricing model would have you believe. They'd have to just flat charge $100 for every time you submit a new app version for it to be that way, or closer to it and that would require much smaller cut of revenue to make sense. Meaning less overall money to apple, but higher quality over quanity. For a practical example, see what LinkedIn did a few years back... I trust nobody, and am largely disinclined to install any/most applications.
  - leaflets2 4y ago
    What did LinkedIn do a few years back?
    - tracker1 4y ago
      They setup an email proxy on people's phones to capture all the mail going in and out.
      - leaflets2 4y ago
        Wow that made me slightly laugh. Ok now I've read a bit, at least people had to do sth to get it installed, but still... You meant the Intro app I suppose, https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-in-the-middle-attack-experts/102683/ https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-...
yazaddaruvala 4y ago
My guess, knowing nothing: Apple will drop the AppStore payments commission to 3% (for the first $X MM of payments). I don't love Ads based rev stream, but Apple needs some revenue source for the AppStore. Currently the 30% of virtual goods payments is getting a lot of scrutiny. They have already started to reduce it to 15% in many cases. It just makes sense that this will get reduced to 3% over time. Apple is pivoting to Ads so that they can reduce the % without much of an impact to their top and bottom line.
shostack 4y ago
Not much different from Amazon, Google, or even grocery stores and retail.

thr0wawayf00 4y ago

> It’s insulting to the dev community who drove the success of the app store and arguably iOS in general. No amount of “we love our devs” PR can reconcile this. Apple built this market to control it completely, you could see it coming from miles away. It seems like the big move nowadays is build your market (i.e. "platform") and you get to be judge, jury and executioner. How did you see something like this playing out? I just don't understand how people still aren't cynical enough to see this kind of thing coming.

datadata 4y ago
People might be able to see it coming, but could still be enticed by the riches to be made for a while by playing the game even while knowing how it ends.
- munificent 4y ago
  Or simply be making the rational economic choice given a lack of better alternatives.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>you get to be judge, jury and executioner. This has been the case with every single instance of software repositories (aka app stores). Remember the whole ffmpeg and libav schism that was fueled in part by repo maintainers imposing their dogmatic will? Or more recently Debian and whether to include non-free code in its installers (aka local repository)? I can't quite grasp why this doesn't appear immediately obvious to anyone. The only truly free ecosystem is something like Win32, where developers are free to write whatever they want, publishers are free to sell whatever they want where- and however they want, and the operating system is dependent on that free ecosystem for continued relevance.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Software repositories can distribute whatever software they want, the examples you've given are of arbitrary decisions made by repo owners. Furthermore, Win32 isn't an 'ecosystem', it's just a set of APIs you can target to pantomime software behavior. It doesn't relate to software distribution whatsoever, just as the Darwin/XNU kernel doesn't handle packaging. In fact, you've done a very good job of highlighting the problem with the iPhone. MacOS' software distribution works because it offers a distribution-agnostic API for native apps, same as Windows. iOS/iPadOS don't expose those interfaces to the user, which means the only way to 'install' an app is with Apple's good graces. Compared to Debian, where you can still install non-free packages regardless of how it exists in the repo, Apple's status quo is considerably more restrictive (and abusive).
- int_19h 4y ago
  Given that you can add whatever repos you want on Debian and/or install packages directly outside of any repo - and that people actually do just that for the non-free stuff - how is it any less free than Windows?
jdgoesmarching 4y ago
I’m not an Apple dev, but their app store is around 60% of global market share for apps and I don’t fault people for choosing food on the table over platform ideology. I’m also not interested in this zero empathy game of “you should have known better” when the power imbalance is this severe. I lay the fault at the feet of Apple, where it belongs. Tangentially, I think the tech community needs to be prepared to examine its assumptions about how much control large companies should have over their platforms as they start to resemble utilities. We can’t keep pretending that a duopoly represents real market choice.
- tracker1 4y ago
  Is it really a duopoly even.. it's more like two Monopolies of similar markets.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  IMHO, there's a difference between 'Platform companies squeeze as much revenue as they can by controlling their developers' and 'I can't believe Apple would do this!' The latter gets annoying. Apple has always been just as cutthroat of a business as anyone else, albeit with a different model (hardware) and better branding/PR. But see how much difference the hardware model makes when the market's down for a bit and Apple needs to juice revenue...
- thr0wawayf00 4y ago
  > I’m not an Apple dev, but their app store is around 60% of global market share for apps and I don’t fault people for choosing food on the table over platform ideology. I don't either, but if that's the decision, then where do people come off thinking that they're owed something for participating in a market that they never had a controlling share of in the first place? That's what I don't get. I don't judge people for wanting to put food on the table, but don't act like you're then owed goodwill or whatever for making the rich people richer if that's the way you truly see it. You're supporting capitalism upfront and expecting some sort of vague socialism on the back end. How many times are people gonna get disappointed before they realize that big corporations don't care about them and never have?

purpleblue 4y ago

As a user, I love the fact that the App Store has an extra pair of eyes to at least try to keep some consistency. It may suck for iOS developers but as an end user it feels safer than Android.

tracker1 4y ago
Yeah... have to disagree there... I don't think they do nearly the QA/QC that their pricing model would have you believe. They'd have to just flat charge $100 for every time you submit a new app version for it to be that way, or closer to it and that would require much smaller cut of revenue to make sense. Meaning less overall money to apple, but higher quality over quanity. For a practical example, see what LinkedIn did a few years back... I trust nobody, and am largely disinclined to install any/most applications.
- leaflets2 4y ago
  What did LinkedIn do a few years back?
  - tracker1 4y ago
    They setup an email proxy on people's phones to capture all the mail going in and out.
    - leaflets2 4y ago
      Wow that made me slightly laugh. Ok now I've read a bit, at least people had to do sth to get it installed, but still... You meant the Intro app I suppose, https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-in-the-middle-attack-experts/102683/ https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-...

yazaddaruvala 4y ago

My guess, knowing nothing: Apple will drop the AppStore payments commission to 3% (for the first $X MM of payments). I don't love Ads based rev stream, but Apple needs some revenue source for the AppStore. Currently the 30% of virtual goods payments is getting a lot of scrutiny. They have already started to reduce it to 15% in many cases. It just makes sense that this will get reduced to 3% over time. Apple is pivoting to Ads so that they can reduce the % without much of an impact to their top and bottom line.

shostack 4y ago

Not much different from Amazon, Google, or even grocery stores and retail.