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As an Apple user and developer, I don't disagree with the gist of the article, but I do have two criticisms: 1) "But that's not the only bad outcome. Some luck

by lapcat 3y ago

As an Apple user and developer, I don't disagree with the gist of the article, but I do have two criticisms: 1) "But that's not the only bad outcome. Some lucky service providers are able to pay the Apple Tax by gouging Apple's customers, raising prices to pay the danegeld. That's the second effect." This is a common but unfortunately gross misunderstanding. The App Store actually devalued software, creating a race to the bottom, and the main reason is that the App Store directly cloned the iTunes Music Store, which itself devalued albums and was designed to sell 99 cent singles. It's a terrible model for selling software. I've written about it before here: "App Store is neither console nor retail but jukebox" https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/jukebox.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/jukebox.html As an indie developer, my biggest problem isn't Apple's cut (which for me is only 15% now); rather it's the expectation of cheap software that the App Store has created. I would be happy to pay 30% or even more if I could charge pre-2008 prices, and if Apple would actually do my marketing for me, as some people ignorantly claim. You can't "make it up in volume". Musicians couldn't make it up in volume either. There are a billion possible customers, but turning possible customers into actual customers is actually very hard, and also expensive. Read Apple's 2019 document "Addressing Spotify’s claims": > A full 84 percent of the apps in the App Store pay nothing to Apple when you download or use the app. That’s not discrimination, as Spotify claims; it’s by design As a software developer, that statement makes me wince. It's an open admission that Apple intentionally devalued software and created the expectation among users that they shouldn't have to pay for it. 2) The title of the article is unfair. Mac users are not the problem, because the Mac is more open than the iPhone — for example, you can install software from outside the App Store — and there are 10x as many iPhone users as Mac users.

skeaker 3y ago
Agreed on 2, and I would even go further: While I think there is definitely something odd to the behavior on display here, dramatizing that as a cult is perhaps too far (though I don't know for sure how I would put it myself). Good thoughts on 1. It does make you wonder how different things would be if apps were priced more similarly to desktop software from the beginning (maybe smartphones would never have caught on?). We're in so deep with 99 cent apps that it's easy to overlook that or take it as a given even though it didn't have to be this way.
- musicale 3y ago
  99 cent pricing wasn't a done deal in the first year of the App store. I wonder what would have happened if Apple (and/or Google) had mandated a price floor for games and if Apple had allowed free, time-limited demos. I greatly prefer "paid" mobile games without obnoxious monetization schemes. Conveniently someone on HN made a web directory for them: https://nobsgames.stavros.io https://nobsgames.stavros.io
musicale 3y ago
As you note, the title is simply wrong. I'm not entirely sure that the anti-fanboy rant is completely misguided, but it ignores the fact that Apple's products - iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, etc. - transformed their respective categories. Cult-like followers and marketing weren't enough to turn iPod Hi-Fi or AppleTV into huge successes. The mobile software market seems like a nightmare, while paid desktop software seems to have been largely replaced by web apps and monopoly subscriptionware. I'd like to hope there are some opportunities, since I'm greatly turned off by mobile monetization hell and bloated and unresponsive web/electron/etc. apps, and the only software I'm even slightly tempted to subscribe to is Apple Arcade. (For games I'd rather pay $30 for a game without gacha microtransaction hell - that's why the Switch is my main gaming handheld; I'm also annoyed that many of my purchased, not-exactly-cheap iOS games are no longer playable due to Apple's complete comtempt for backward compatibility.) I've always thought StopTheMadness looked great but I'm part of the problem since I can't bring myself to pay for it. I also have trouble convincing myself to pay for any Safari extensions on macOS.

by lapcat 3y ago

skeaker 3y ago

Agreed on 2, and I would even go further: While I think there is definitely something odd to the behavior on display here, dramatizing that as a cult is perhaps too far (though I don't know for sure how I would put it myself). Good thoughts on 1. It does make you wonder how different things would be if apps were priced more similarly to desktop software from the beginning (maybe smartphones would never have caught on?). We're in so deep with 99 cent apps that it's easy to overlook that or take it as a given even though it didn't have to be this way.

musicale 3y ago
99 cent pricing wasn't a done deal in the first year of the App store. I wonder what would have happened if Apple (and/or Google) had mandated a price floor for games and if Apple had allowed free, time-limited demos. I greatly prefer "paid" mobile games without obnoxious monetization schemes. Conveniently someone on HN made a web directory for them: https://nobsgames.stavros.io https://nobsgames.stavros.io

musicale 3y ago

As you note, the title is simply wrong. I'm not entirely sure that the anti-fanboy rant is completely misguided, but it ignores the fact that Apple's products - iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, etc. - transformed their respective categories. Cult-like followers and marketing weren't enough to turn iPod Hi-Fi or AppleTV into huge successes. The mobile software market seems like a nightmare, while paid desktop software seems to have been largely replaced by web apps and monopoly subscriptionware. I'd like to hope there are some opportunities, since I'm greatly turned off by mobile monetization hell and bloated and unresponsive web/electron/etc. apps, and the only software I'm even slightly tempted to subscribe to is Apple Arcade. (For games I'd rather pay $30 for a game without gacha microtransaction hell - that's why the Switch is my main gaming handheld; I'm also annoyed that many of my purchased, not-exactly-cheap iOS games are no longer playable due to Apple's complete comtempt for backward compatibility.) I've always thought StopTheMadness looked great but I'm part of the problem since I can't bring myself to pay for it. I also have trouble convincing myself to pay for any Safari extensions on macOS.