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Competitor offers $9.99/mon sub. You counter at $8.99. Another competitor lowers even further at $6.99. A few years later, market saturated with copy cat apps o

by xyst 3y ago

Competitor offers $9.99/mon sub. You counter at $8.99. Another competitor lowers even further at $6.99. A few years later, market saturated with copy cat apps offering .49-.99/mo apps.

xoa 3y ago
This only works if you assume perfect fungibility and thus price is the only differentiator. That obviously is not true outside of the most trivial apps, rather there is a spectrum of price, features, UX, privacy and other considerations. A price discount might be helpful in terms of marketing to get people to take a look at your product in the first place vs a competitor, since even if it was far superior there's always some cost to switching. However, it's generally not sufficient to get everyone to stay either. The reason I'm paying money at all is because it's delivering value to me that is higher then the price I pay. If the original application is 50% more expensive but delivers 2-3x (or 10x+, a lot of apps are so cheap that if it costs me even a single digit number of extra hours per year in time it utterly drowns out the purchase price) the value, I'm not going to move to something inferior just because it's cheaper. Offering more tools to let devs convince people to give something a shot is an interesting move, but to actually beat out competitors and have customers stay still requires being, well, competitive right?
Someone 3y ago
That’s not what this feature seems to be about. FTA: “There’s a slight catch here: According to 9to5Mac, the discount is only good while the customer’s other subscription is active”
- DistractionRect 3y ago
  Exactly, this isn't a race to the bottom, it's squeezing blood from a stone: It's hey you have Netflix but not Hulu, would you get Hulu too if it was a little cheaper? Hulu gets some money, Apple gets a cut of the Hulu subscription in addition to preexisting the Netflix subscription, customer gets a small break.
  - stephenr 3y ago
    As much as the article paints this as being a way to “steal” customers, I dont think that’s what its about at all. I think it’s about: “Hey you have a subscription to Super X from Foo Co, you can get a discounted subscription to Super Y from Foo Co, and/or W Plus from Bar Inc”. Think of it as a way to bundle subscriptions, but the bundle isn’t limited to a single developer. A while ago Nebula had a deal with Curiosity Stream (I don’t know if either offer subs via the App Store, it’s just an example): this could facilitate that kind of deal.

by xyst 3y ago

Competitor offers $9.99/mon sub. You counter at $8.99. Another competitor lowers even further at $6.99. A few years later, market saturated with copy cat apps offering .49-.99/mo apps.

xoa 3y ago

This only works if you assume perfect fungibility and thus price is the only differentiator. That obviously is not true outside of the most trivial apps, rather there is a spectrum of price, features, UX, privacy and other considerations. A price discount might be helpful in terms of marketing to get people to take a look at your product in the first place vs a competitor, since even if it was far superior there's always some cost to switching. However, it's generally not sufficient to get everyone to stay either. The reason I'm paying money at all is because it's delivering value to me that is higher then the price I pay. If the original application is 50% more expensive but delivers 2-3x (or 10x+, a lot of apps are so cheap that if it costs me even a single digit number of extra hours per year in time it utterly drowns out the purchase price) the value, I'm not going to move to something inferior just because it's cheaper. Offering more tools to let devs convince people to give something a shot is an interesting move, but to actually beat out competitors and have customers stay still requires being, well, competitive right?

Someone 3y ago

That’s not what this feature seems to be about. FTA: “There’s a slight catch here: According to 9to5Mac, the discount is only good while the customer’s other subscription is active”

DistractionRect 3y ago
Exactly, this isn't a race to the bottom, it's squeezing blood from a stone: It's hey you have Netflix but not Hulu, would you get Hulu too if it was a little cheaper? Hulu gets some money, Apple gets a cut of the Hulu subscription in addition to preexisting the Netflix subscription, customer gets a small break.
- stephenr 3y ago
  As much as the article paints this as being a way to “steal” customers, I dont think that’s what its about at all. I think it’s about: “Hey you have a subscription to Super X from Foo Co, you can get a discounted subscription to Super Y from Foo Co, and/or W Plus from Bar Inc”. Think of it as a way to bundle subscriptions, but the bundle isn’t limited to a single developer. A while ago Nebula had a deal with Curiosity Stream (I don’t know if either offer subs via the App Store, it’s just an example): this could facilitate that kind of deal.