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> Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. [...] [Those] stores would filter out a huge am

> Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. [...] [Those] stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store. While I'd love to live in a universe where this could actually happen, in reality this is a pipe dream. The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose, and what makes the most money. Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model. Any app store that tried to have such principles would find that they get almost no devs willing to add their apps, and those that did would get barely any sales compared to their less scrupulous peers (rendering the store unable to stay solvent at worst, or having almost no effect on the wider market at best)

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose But that's the problem with a generalist store. They're leaving too much money on the table to exclude those things, so they include them, and then the store is full of crap and you can't trust anything. If anyone could start a store then you could have a store operated by a tiny startup with low overhead who only has to pay one or two salaries and can therefore be sustainable with only a tiny fraction of the market, because they have a niche. Which enables the quality store to exist, and serve all of the customers who prefer that.
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  I feel like you're missing the point that the existence of such a niche store would have no effect on the "money left on the table" of the main app store. To affect the main store, they would have to a) Put their app on the niche store and not on the main store (which would lose them money; fewer people will go to a niche store and buy a paid app than a freemium app. Therefore, developer have no incentive to do this) b) Alternatively, they could release both the niche paid app and the free-main-store app, in which case consumers have little incentive to pick the pay-up-front one - so no change there. Sure, such a store could exist (and should), but it will be a blip on Apple's radar (and all the more reason they should just allow sideloading)
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Put their app on the niche store and not on the main store (which would lose them money; fewer people will go to a niche store and buy a paid app than a freemium app. Therefore, developer have no incentive to do this) You're assuming that all customers want the same thing. Right now if you want to make a paid non-freemium game, no one can find it because the freemium games will have more downloads and the main store sorts by popularity. The customers who want such games hate this too, but because the main store has no competitors, they're just as stuck with it. And since customers can't find them, developers don't make them. If you had a store that has only non-freemium games, the developer who makes one can go there and actually reach their customers, because being at the top of the list on a store with 1% of the market generates more sales than being on page 5000 of the main store's search results where even fewer people will see it. And then more of those games actually get made, which grows the market for the alternate store, which allows more of those games to get made. Meanwhile that store doesn't take a huge chunk out of the main store's market, but it takes a percent or three. Many other niche stores each take a little share. And then a big store that competes directly with the main store but only charges 3% instead of 30% takes the rest.
lapcat 3y ago
> The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose, and what makes the most money. No, it's because Apple threw the App Store together very quickly (after realizing that the "sweet solution" of web apps wasn't going to fly), and in order to accelerate this process they directly cloned the iTunes Music Store in almost every way. This turned out to be a complete disaster and resulted in a race to the bottom, because the music store was designed to sell 99 cent songs, not software that may have traditionally been $99, or at least $29. One of the best ways to get visibility is to be in the "top charts", which makes a kind of sense for music, because all singles and all albums are more or less the same price, but to get into the top charts for software you've got to optimize for volume rather than price. In so many ways, trying to sell apps like songs completely destroyed the software market. Indeed, it wasn't great for the music market either. Apple convinced the music publishers to unbundle albums and resulted in a race to the bottom there too. Musicians need the money from album sales; very few can "make it up in volume" with just hit singles. > Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model. Only because of the downward pressure from the mobile market.
livueta 3y ago
The existence of F-Droid demonstrates the existence both of devs willing to list apps in restrictive "stores" and of users who seek such software. Even assuming commercialized stores, that proposed race to the bottom dynamic doesn't hold up - Walmart is not the only retailer. People are happy to pay for quality and curation.
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  I use F-Droid (mostly just for Termux) on Android. It's an entirely different thing than GP was proposing. It's a host for FOSS apps that don't expect to be paid for the delivery of their software. Its existence essentially zero effect on the existence of freemium/SaaS apps the play store, which is kind of evidence for my point.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose But that's the problem with a generalist store. They're leaving too much money on the table to exclude those things, so they include them, and then the store is full of crap and you can't trust anything. If anyone could start a store then you could have a store operated by a tiny startup with low overhead who only has to pay one or two salaries and can therefore be sustainable with only a tiny fraction of the market, because they have a niche. Which enables the quality store to exist, and serve all of the customers who prefer that.

LordDragonfang 3y ago
I feel like you're missing the point that the existence of such a niche store would have no effect on the "money left on the table" of the main app store. To affect the main store, they would have to a) Put their app on the niche store and not on the main store (which would lose them money; fewer people will go to a niche store and buy a paid app than a freemium app. Therefore, developer have no incentive to do this) b) Alternatively, they could release both the niche paid app and the free-main-store app, in which case consumers have little incentive to pick the pay-up-front one - so no change there. Sure, such a store could exist (and should), but it will be a blip on Apple's radar (and all the more reason they should just allow sideloading)
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Put their app on the niche store and not on the main store (which would lose them money; fewer people will go to a niche store and buy a paid app than a freemium app. Therefore, developer have no incentive to do this) You're assuming that all customers want the same thing. Right now if you want to make a paid non-freemium game, no one can find it because the freemium games will have more downloads and the main store sorts by popularity. The customers who want such games hate this too, but because the main store has no competitors, they're just as stuck with it. And since customers can't find them, developers don't make them. If you had a store that has only non-freemium games, the developer who makes one can go there and actually reach their customers, because being at the top of the list on a store with 1% of the market generates more sales than being on page 5000 of the main store's search results where even fewer people will see it. And then more of those games actually get made, which grows the market for the alternate store, which allows more of those games to get made. Meanwhile that store doesn't take a huge chunk out of the main store's market, but it takes a percent or three. Many other niche stores each take a little share. And then a big store that competes directly with the main store but only charges 3% instead of 30% takes the rest.

lapcat 3y ago

> The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose, and what makes the most money. No, it's because Apple threw the App Store together very quickly (after realizing that the "sweet solution" of web apps wasn't going to fly), and in order to accelerate this process they directly cloned the iTunes Music Store in almost every way. This turned out to be a complete disaster and resulted in a race to the bottom, because the music store was designed to sell 99 cent songs, not software that may have traditionally been $99, or at least $29. One of the best ways to get visibility is to be in the "top charts", which makes a kind of sense for music, because all singles and all albums are more or less the same price, but to get into the top charts for software you've got to optimize for volume rather than price. In so many ways, trying to sell apps like songs completely destroyed the software market. Indeed, it wasn't great for the music market either. Apple convinced the music publishers to unbundle albums and resulted in a race to the bottom there too. Musicians need the money from album sales; very few can "make it up in volume" with just hit singles. > Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model. Only because of the downward pressure from the mobile market.

livueta 3y ago

The existence of F-Droid demonstrates the existence both of devs willing to list apps in restrictive "stores" and of users who seek such software. Even assuming commercialized stores, that proposed race to the bottom dynamic doesn't hold up - Walmart is not the only retailer. People are happy to pay for quality and curation.

LordDragonfang 3y ago
I use F-Droid (mostly just for Termux) on Android. It's an entirely different thing than GP was proposing. It's a host for FOSS apps that don't expect to be paid for the delivery of their software. Its existence essentially zero effect on the existence of freemium/SaaS apps the play store, which is kind of evidence for my point.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]