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> We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have. Its not based on how much money they have. Its how

> We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have. Its not based on how much money they have. Its how they've managed to accumulate the money - by gouging devs.

kridsdale1 3y ago
[flagged]
- pompino 3y ago
  >Why do you get to run a business off it for free? There isn't a divine commandment as to what rights we "should" have. We vote, fight, protest and get to make up our own rights. >They spend hundreds of millions on SWE salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use. They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. At least see it and acknowledge it. I don't feel like paying for an Apple executives BMW car payment. But you do you.
  - Ma8ee 3y ago
    > There isn't a divine commandment as to what rights we "should" have. We vote, fight, protest and get to make up our own rights. Not in America. The only venue to change you have is to spend, or not spend money somewhere. Since people think they profit more from developing apps for iOS than not developing apps for iOS, Apple’s profit is “right”. And a century or so of indoctrination has made most Americans believe that this is just the natural order of things.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    This isn't about rights. You already have all the rights you need here. You would like others to work for nothing, or for what you care to give them, instead of the price they offer their services at, and you'd like to vote, fight and protest until they work for your price.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > You would like others to work for nothing, So like developers working on macOS or Windows? It's so horrible that Apple has allowed third party developers to exploit them for for free for over 40 years now...
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        It's not horrible, because they chose it. The price Apple offered there was $0. No one forced them.
        qwytw 3y ago
        Well yeah, obviously. Because Apple benefited a lot more from developers making apps/etc. for their platform than the other way around. Now that the balances has shifted (of course only on mobile) Apple became a lot more exploitative.
- jzl 3y ago
  It’s a symbiotic relationship Yes, exactly. It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. Apple is already getting their cut of the symbiotic relationship by selling their massively profitable iPhone hardware, full stop. Any chance you remember the first year of the iPhone when there were no third party apps? Other than being a good phone, it was basically just a technological novelty, and that was about it. Third party apps are literally what give value to the iPhone (and other iOS devices).
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    Cydia was live on iOS before Apple's App Store. Which is to say, I agree.
  - ankit219 3y ago
    I have never fully agreed with this premise. On the face of it, yes apps help people stay on the store. But at the same time, Apple does come up with many good apps. Comparing it to the first iPhone is probably valid. They saw the writing on the wall and opened the gates, but could have easily chosen the other way of doing it themselves. No one wins in this scenario - nor the devs, nor the users, nor Apple. But it's not as clear as "Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place". Idly wondering, say you don't download any third party app and neither does anyone. You can still surf the internet for the most part. You can still connect with others via FaceTime/iMessage. You can still check mails etc. Things you won't be able to do is play games, go on dates, browse tiktok, book a cab (though all that is possible through safari but not a great experience). A caveat here: The original 30% was on infinitely reproducible digital goods only. Which is 80-90% gaming skins and artifacts and digital subscriptions. Don't know if that is still the case.
  - jrowen 3y ago
    It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. And developers need a solid platform with users willing to pay money. I feel like you have the wrong answer to the chicken and egg problem. The first iPhone was a marvel to pretty much everyone, and blew everything else at the time out of the water. I don't recall much sentiment of people being disappointed about the lack of apps, because there was no reason to expect that at that point. Just being able to use a lot of the web like you would on a computer was a massive leap from a RAZR or whatever. This is not to defend the 30% tax or anything, but I don't think it does any good to downplay the value they've built. The elephant in the room with your argument is that, if it were true, app developers would simply flock to Android and Apple would be forced to course-correct.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  >They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. You can get about 1.1 terabytes of data transfer out from Amazon S3 to Internet for $100.
  - ryanbrunner 3y ago
    And anyone on Apple's scale is paying orders of magnitude less than that, even through Amazon.
    - Hamuko 3y ago
      I mean, if you were self-distributing your iOS app right now instead of having Apple do it, and you had to look up how much transferring data in the terabytes costs, you'd just use Cloudflare R2 instead. I'd be willing to bet that, all things being equal, most apps would save money if the developers were self-distributing them instead of using the App Store.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        > most apps would save money if the developers were self-distributing them instead of using the App Store There must be a reason why almost all games are still published on Steam despite the 30% though. The increased customer reach almost always outweighs the additional revenue (and this also applies to major companies like EA, Ubisoft etc. who have tried building their own storefronts).
        seec 3y ago
        The thing is that you can't really talk about Steam like other platforms. They are already competing with themselves on price somehow. Games that are launched on Steam do not cost more than they do elsewhere in the first place, and secondly people very often buy on sales at prices low enough that it doesn't make sense to look elsewhere for the convenience of having it all in one place. There are also plenty of big games with publishers big enough that they have their own platform (EA, Ubisoft, Epic, Microsoft) and depending on many things their games may or may not be on Steam also. Steam also accepts keys purchased from elsewhere so in principle even if most of your sales are somewhere else, it is better to have it on Steam. I also think you Steam is offering some valuable community/platforms tools. Not much of this applies to the Apple app store. The truth is the reason people use it is because that's the only thing allowed. If peoples could install apps from anywhere with its own self-update mechanism (like sparkle or something more modern like a hybrid web-app) I doubt it would be used as much appart from free stuff from developers that do not want to figure out distribution. If there was a large price difference, most people wouldn't use it, just like most people do not go to the more expensive supermarket unless they absolutely have to.
- thayne 3y ago
  And if no one wrote apps for iOS how many people would buy iPhones and iPads? Yes, it is a symbiotic relationship. But Apple has better position to negotiate, because it is as single entity, and have a lot more resources than the the other side. If all the app developers were able to organize and boycott apple, they might be able to force Apple to negotiate better terms. But that would probably result in many of the smaller companies going out of business, unless the boycott was very short lived. > Your $100 does not cover it. There are almost 2 million apps on the app store. Assuming there is roughly 1 developer license per app, (some developers will create multiple apps with a single license, but others will have multiple licenses to develop a single app), that is at least in the ballpark of "hundreds of millions on SWE". And that doesn't include revenue from selling the devices themselves.
  - camillomiller 3y ago
    You just proved your point wrong. Hundreds of million is peanuts, and it’s very improbable that it covers anything near the HR costs of Apple’s App Store infrastructure and department.
    - dvdkon 3y ago
      If Apple can't run the App Store just on developer fees, then I'm sure somebody else could. But that's conveniently not allowed.
  - ikiris 3y ago
    Where do you think those app developers / apps originally came from. Huge amounts of people bought those iphones first man.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      So what? Shut down the App Store tomorrow, and forcibly delete all non-Apple-authored apps off of everyone's iPhones. Watch everyone flock to Android, no matter how much they claim to hate it. Watch Apple's stock drop into the toilet. Apple needs all their third-party developers just as much as those developers need Apple -- more than at least some of those developers need Apple.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. I mean, let's be real here. Most people even if Apple fully allowed other payment processors would still opt into Apple's payment. Easiest to setup, most visible and familiar interface for consumers, and lets them push liability back to Apple. So they'd still get 30% from many consumers. This angle only applies in a situation where you think 1) the pareto principle applies and 2) all of that 20% decided to roll their own payment processing, which isn't trivial nor a risk many want to take onto themselves. It'd take a lot more than a dozen megacorps doing this to make Apple sweat. And if this does happen, it sounds like a service issue a that point. If you can offer all that convenience but people don't view it as worth 30%, then maybe the rate should be re-negotiated. >They spend hundreds of millions on SWE salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use they spend hundreds of millions to get other businesses to do business with them, and still charge many upfront costs along the way. Back then, we simply called that the cost to do business. Adtech also spends hundreds of millions each on salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use. I don't exactly feel I owe those companies for their labor since I'm (the dev) not the primary point of revenue.
- NineStarPoint 3y ago
  Would Apple even approve something going on the app store that tried to do things in ways that were that non-standard? More generally it’s not like you can choose to host your own servers or, in forgoing all of Apple’s work, not have to pay that 30%. When Apple isn’t going to let you do things another way, they don’t get to argue that all of the benefits they do provide are what people are paying for. People have to pay the price to be allowed on the ecosystem at all.
- 6510 3y ago
  I look at it like this. If someone is doing it you have to do it too, you cant run a competitive business if your competitor is taking 30%. It is not something you chose to do but you have to. The most important angle is what this grows into. Apple doesn't have to make hardware. They can simply stop doing that and live on rent alone. Hardware is hard work. It might just be that they have to stop doing it. How much they put the squeeze on who and who makes how much money isn't even important. This is not beneficial to the industry or to society. After the age of working your ass off while starving comes the age of contributing and thriving, this period ends with the age of entitlement. You do the work, I enjoy the benefits. we can only afford so much of that before our civilization turns into a hell hole. You will be working day and night to make ends meet while I have all the time and resources in the world to figure out how I'm going to take just a little bit more from you. It's not about wealth, people should be able to EARN whatever they EARN. It isn't even about mortality, we can go back to the age of working your ass off while starving, we know how to do that. The bigger issue is to have people in control who cant tie their own shoes. It sets us up for total failure. It takes one small incident to end humanity.
  - kridsdale1 3y ago
    > Apple doesn't have to make hardware. They can simply stop doing that and live on rent alone. This is what Valve discovered. Nobody in 2004 would have thought the best developer in the world would stop making games.
  - seec 3y ago
    To be honest it seems like what it is for the younger generation in life generally. A nice legacy from the boomers and unsurprisingly Apple is a very big boomer company. I think many here do not see this since they earn enough that those considerations are kind of irrelevant, but I believe current Apple problems reveal a systemic problem across society. Apple acts like an old entitled asshole who just want to capture value for not doing much because one day they did something good and I feel in general this is exactly what the current governing generation is doing...
- guax 3y ago
  Apple wrote their kernel from zero?
  - kridsdale1 3y ago
    No, that’s why I excluded posix parts of the operating system. That’s from Berkeley.
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  There's a point where the phone becomes similar to infrastructure, and allowing a single market actor to charge 30% tax on anyone using the roads, for any business conducted where someone took a road to get there, is ridiculous. I'm not saying the App Store is infrastructure-like. But the market share of Apple is so large, and it's quasi-impossible to conduct consumer business without being required to have a native app... that it's starting to be infrastructure-like. Can a viable B2C online business exist without being present via a native app? It seems untenable due to consumer expectations. Consumers also expect to be able to drive to coffeeshops, yet road providers don't charge 30% taxes on coffeeshop revenues.
  - MilaM 3y ago
    > I'm not saying the App Store is infrastructure-like. It is infrastructure-like. Try to live in modern society without a smartphone. It will be very difficult. Not impossible, but much less convenient.
    - AYBABTME 3y ago
      I meant I'm not ready to say that it is, I have not solidified this as a fact in my own mind. I'm contemplating.
  - seer 3y ago
    It’s no surprise countries like india are indeed treating phones as infra, with their whole government stack centered around smartphones. You’re forced to have and use one, but in return you get free transactions, strong identity and various other perks. It _is_ a monopoly, but the monopoly is the government so everyone has a say on how its run and audited. It’s still strange to me how the states allows private companies to do things the at should be public goods/services.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Apple was just fine building all those platform SDKs for macOS without charging people to write apps for it. Why should iOS be any different? The servers do not cost 30% of all sales on the platform. Not even close. But none of that matters. Very few businesses set their prices based on how much it costs them to provide their goods or services. They charge what the market will bear. The problem is that there is no "iOS app distribution market"; Apple controls it, 100%, so they can set prices wherever they want, without regard to competition.
  - TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
    I feel the App Store is one thing differentiating Apple from Android phone manufacturers. Money from the App Store gets reinvested in the entire iPhone supply chain. Whereas in the case of Android, App Store money goes to Google only. It also encourages Apple to support their phones long term as its preferred that you stay on your aging iPhone and keep spending at the App Store then risking you leaving the Apple ecosystem because Apple allows their older phones to become obsolete. Android manufacturers on the other hand have every incentive to obsolete your phone ASAP because you buying a new phone is the only way they make money.
    - albert180 3y ago
      Do you seriously believe this? It's Apple that's blocking you from installing any apps or updates when you don't receive iOS Versions Updates anymore, while Google Play doesn't care about it, as long as the app itself is still developed for that version. Also they make more than enough money from the Hardware itself, they just take the profits off the software purchases.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > that's blocking you from installing any apps or updates Technically that’s the app developers who do that.
        albert180 3y ago
- greysphere 3y ago
  You just described most games.
  - kridsdale1 3y ago
    I am aware.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > Why do you get to run a business off it for free? So Microsoft did all of this on Windows (or Apple itself for that matter for macOS) due to entirely altruistic reasons? Also platforms need developers a whole lot more than developers need specific platforms. You can always go and works at a bank or something. Apple would be skewed with no 3-rd party developers they always knew it. > They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Maybe the ads on the app store would more than cover it? Not only do you need to pay 30% you also have to pay extra for placement so that Apple wouldn’t put your competitors apps at the top of the results when users search for your app?
  - blasphemers 3y ago
    It's like people don't remember windows phone failed because of a lack of third-party apps.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
To be fair, roughly half of Apple's money is made from hardware. The app store is extremely lucrative and apparently 70%+ of their revenue from the App store is just leeching off of mobile games, but Apple can definitely survive without the app store if push came to shove. BUT, I will also mention that part of its market capture comes from all the charges on devs even before the rev share. You need apple equipment to develop, and they (apparently) don't sell server racks anymore for businesses to scale off of, nor any legitimate form of emulation. You have a small cost per year to have a developer account, and a cost to submit your app for review. Then if you care about visibilty they have their own ad discovery program you can pay into. So I did disagree with a brief judge statement about how "It's possible to skirt around Apple's innnovation for free...". Apple controls and charges for the entire pipeline, even before you launch the app.
- jb1991 3y ago
  > a cost to submit your app for review They charge you to submit an app? Is this new? When I worked as an iOS developer this was not a thing but that was many years ago.
  - __m 3y ago
    No they don’t
  - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
    You pay 99 per year. But this definitely doesn’t cover their cost. The review process is very labor intensive on their side
    - munk-a 3y ago
      As someone who has developed a commercial app and spent time on the app store - their review process is a joke... there are non-compliances all over the store and I suspect a lot of their review process is highly automated.
      - 3y ago
camillomiller 3y ago
This is a biased view that disregards basic available metrics. Apple is a hardware company. Developers are instrumental to its devices success and a point can be made that 30% might be too high of a fee. On the other hand many of those developers wouldn’t have a job in the first place if it wasn’t for Apple creating the App Store.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the argument shifts back to "well they got paid already". So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics back to being "a public commons"?
  - pompino 3y ago
    Agreed, While there may be people who think they're defending Apple "on principle", I hope those folks also realize that there is no "principle" that is ingrained in nature. We're all just making up rules, laws, taxes, as we go along. Just because a law or article of constitution is old, doesn't make it any more 'natural' than others. There is no "right" of any student for their debt to be forgiven, but we want to do it anyway. Apple has taken advantage (as have others) of a ridiculously broken tax code, availed of the strong US legal system, property rights, etc. How about we shift the balance back?
  - kergonath 3y ago
    > I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the argument shifts back to "well they got paid already". Do you account for the fact that it might not be the same people making both arguments? Most websites’ readerships are not monoliths and even on HN there are plenty of people with different perspectives, and who are not necessarily vocal in the same threads. > So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics back to being "a public commons"? That’s an interesting argument, but it’s usually not discussed with any nuance. Basically there are several layers: - are we entitled to Apple opening their platforms? (AFAICT the opposite would be a first though the EU seems to be going that way) - is Apple entitled to profit from the App Store in principle? (Some people are arguing that they are not, but they are a fringe; Epic lost their argument about that) - is 30% too much? (But then, where is the line? It’s more or less the standard for closed platforms Where would you put your “public commons”? Did this ever happen?
jacquesm 3y ago
Oh no, those devs would have certainly passed the difference on to the consumer.

kridsdale1 3y ago

[flagged]

pompino 3y ago
>Why do you get to run a business off it for free? There isn't a divine commandment as to what rights we "should" have. We vote, fight, protest and get to make up our own rights. >They spend hundreds of millions on SWE salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use. They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. At least see it and acknowledge it. I don't feel like paying for an Apple executives BMW car payment. But you do you.
- Ma8ee 3y ago
  > There isn't a divine commandment as to what rights we "should" have. We vote, fight, protest and get to make up our own rights. Not in America. The only venue to change you have is to spend, or not spend money somewhere. Since people think they profit more from developing apps for iOS than not developing apps for iOS, Apple’s profit is “right”. And a century or so of indoctrination has made most Americans believe that this is just the natural order of things.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  This isn't about rights. You already have all the rights you need here. You would like others to work for nothing, or for what you care to give them, instead of the price they offer their services at, and you'd like to vote, fight and protest until they work for your price.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > You would like others to work for nothing, So like developers working on macOS or Windows? It's so horrible that Apple has allowed third party developers to exploit them for for free for over 40 years now...
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      It's not horrible, because they chose it. The price Apple offered there was $0. No one forced them.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        Well yeah, obviously. Because Apple benefited a lot more from developers making apps/etc. for their platform than the other way around. Now that the balances has shifted (of course only on mobile) Apple became a lot more exploitative.
jzl 3y ago
It’s a symbiotic relationship Yes, exactly. It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. Apple is already getting their cut of the symbiotic relationship by selling their massively profitable iPhone hardware, full stop. Any chance you remember the first year of the iPhone when there were no third party apps? Other than being a good phone, it was basically just a technological novelty, and that was about it. Third party apps are literally what give value to the iPhone (and other iOS devices).
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  Cydia was live on iOS before Apple's App Store. Which is to say, I agree.
- ankit219 3y ago
  I have never fully agreed with this premise. On the face of it, yes apps help people stay on the store. But at the same time, Apple does come up with many good apps. Comparing it to the first iPhone is probably valid. They saw the writing on the wall and opened the gates, but could have easily chosen the other way of doing it themselves. No one wins in this scenario - nor the devs, nor the users, nor Apple. But it's not as clear as "Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place". Idly wondering, say you don't download any third party app and neither does anyone. You can still surf the internet for the most part. You can still connect with others via FaceTime/iMessage. You can still check mails etc. Things you won't be able to do is play games, go on dates, browse tiktok, book a cab (though all that is possible through safari but not a great experience). A caveat here: The original 30% was on infinitely reproducible digital goods only. Which is 80-90% gaming skins and artifacts and digital subscriptions. Don't know if that is still the case.
- jrowen 3y ago
  It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. And developers need a solid platform with users willing to pay money. I feel like you have the wrong answer to the chicken and egg problem. The first iPhone was a marvel to pretty much everyone, and blew everything else at the time out of the water. I don't recall much sentiment of people being disappointed about the lack of apps, because there was no reason to expect that at that point. Just being able to use a lot of the web like you would on a computer was a massive leap from a RAZR or whatever. This is not to defend the 30% tax or anything, but I don't think it does any good to downplay the value they've built. The elephant in the room with your argument is that, if it were true, app developers would simply flock to Android and Apple would be forced to course-correct.
Hamuko 3y ago
>They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. You can get about 1.1 terabytes of data transfer out from Amazon S3 to Internet for $100.
- ryanbrunner 3y ago
  And anyone on Apple's scale is paying orders of magnitude less than that, even through Amazon.
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    I mean, if you were self-distributing your iOS app right now instead of having Apple do it, and you had to look up how much transferring data in the terabytes costs, you'd just use Cloudflare R2 instead. I'd be willing to bet that, all things being equal, most apps would save money if the developers were self-distributing them instead of using the App Store.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > most apps would save money if the developers were self-distributing them instead of using the App Store There must be a reason why almost all games are still published on Steam despite the 30% though. The increased customer reach almost always outweighs the additional revenue (and this also applies to major companies like EA, Ubisoft etc. who have tried building their own storefronts).
      - seec 3y ago
        The thing is that you can't really talk about Steam like other platforms. They are already competing with themselves on price somehow. Games that are launched on Steam do not cost more than they do elsewhere in the first place, and secondly people very often buy on sales at prices low enough that it doesn't make sense to look elsewhere for the convenience of having it all in one place. There are also plenty of big games with publishers big enough that they have their own platform (EA, Ubisoft, Epic, Microsoft) and depending on many things their games may or may not be on Steam also. Steam also accepts keys purchased from elsewhere so in principle even if most of your sales are somewhere else, it is better to have it on Steam. I also think you Steam is offering some valuable community/platforms tools. Not much of this applies to the Apple app store. The truth is the reason people use it is because that's the only thing allowed. If peoples could install apps from anywhere with its own self-update mechanism (like sparkle or something more modern like a hybrid web-app) I doubt it would be used as much appart from free stuff from developers that do not want to figure out distribution. If there was a large price difference, most people wouldn't use it, just like most people do not go to the more expensive supermarket unless they absolutely have to.
thayne 3y ago
And if no one wrote apps for iOS how many people would buy iPhones and iPads? Yes, it is a symbiotic relationship. But Apple has better position to negotiate, because it is as single entity, and have a lot more resources than the the other side. If all the app developers were able to organize and boycott apple, they might be able to force Apple to negotiate better terms. But that would probably result in many of the smaller companies going out of business, unless the boycott was very short lived. > Your $100 does not cover it. There are almost 2 million apps on the app store. Assuming there is roughly 1 developer license per app, (some developers will create multiple apps with a single license, but others will have multiple licenses to develop a single app), that is at least in the ballpark of "hundreds of millions on SWE". And that doesn't include revenue from selling the devices themselves.
- camillomiller 3y ago
  You just proved your point wrong. Hundreds of million is peanuts, and it’s very improbable that it covers anything near the HR costs of Apple’s App Store infrastructure and department.
  - dvdkon 3y ago
    If Apple can't run the App Store just on developer fees, then I'm sure somebody else could. But that's conveniently not allowed.
- ikiris 3y ago
  Where do you think those app developers / apps originally came from. Huge amounts of people bought those iphones first man.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    So what? Shut down the App Store tomorrow, and forcibly delete all non-Apple-authored apps off of everyone's iPhones. Watch everyone flock to Android, no matter how much they claim to hate it. Watch Apple's stock drop into the toilet. Apple needs all their third-party developers just as much as those developers need Apple -- more than at least some of those developers need Apple.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. I mean, let's be real here. Most people even if Apple fully allowed other payment processors would still opt into Apple's payment. Easiest to setup, most visible and familiar interface for consumers, and lets them push liability back to Apple. So they'd still get 30% from many consumers. This angle only applies in a situation where you think 1) the pareto principle applies and 2) all of that 20% decided to roll their own payment processing, which isn't trivial nor a risk many want to take onto themselves. It'd take a lot more than a dozen megacorps doing this to make Apple sweat. And if this does happen, it sounds like a service issue a that point. If you can offer all that convenience but people don't view it as worth 30%, then maybe the rate should be re-negotiated. >They spend hundreds of millions on SWE salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use they spend hundreds of millions to get other businesses to do business with them, and still charge many upfront costs along the way. Back then, we simply called that the cost to do business. Adtech also spends hundreds of millions each on salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use. I don't exactly feel I owe those companies for their labor since I'm (the dev) not the primary point of revenue.
NineStarPoint 3y ago
Would Apple even approve something going on the app store that tried to do things in ways that were that non-standard? More generally it’s not like you can choose to host your own servers or, in forgoing all of Apple’s work, not have to pay that 30%. When Apple isn’t going to let you do things another way, they don’t get to argue that all of the benefits they do provide are what people are paying for. People have to pay the price to be allowed on the ecosystem at all.
6510 3y ago
I look at it like this. If someone is doing it you have to do it too, you cant run a competitive business if your competitor is taking 30%. It is not something you chose to do but you have to. The most important angle is what this grows into. Apple doesn't have to make hardware. They can simply stop doing that and live on rent alone. Hardware is hard work. It might just be that they have to stop doing it. How much they put the squeeze on who and who makes how much money isn't even important. This is not beneficial to the industry or to society. After the age of working your ass off while starving comes the age of contributing and thriving, this period ends with the age of entitlement. You do the work, I enjoy the benefits. we can only afford so much of that before our civilization turns into a hell hole. You will be working day and night to make ends meet while I have all the time and resources in the world to figure out how I'm going to take just a little bit more from you. It's not about wealth, people should be able to EARN whatever they EARN. It isn't even about mortality, we can go back to the age of working your ass off while starving, we know how to do that. The bigger issue is to have people in control who cant tie their own shoes. It sets us up for total failure. It takes one small incident to end humanity.
- kridsdale1 3y ago
  > Apple doesn't have to make hardware. They can simply stop doing that and live on rent alone. This is what Valve discovered. Nobody in 2004 would have thought the best developer in the world would stop making games.
- seec 3y ago
  To be honest it seems like what it is for the younger generation in life generally. A nice legacy from the boomers and unsurprisingly Apple is a very big boomer company. I think many here do not see this since they earn enough that those considerations are kind of irrelevant, but I believe current Apple problems reveal a systemic problem across society. Apple acts like an old entitled asshole who just want to capture value for not doing much because one day they did something good and I feel in general this is exactly what the current governing generation is doing...
guax 3y ago
Apple wrote their kernel from zero?
- kridsdale1 3y ago
  No, that’s why I excluded posix parts of the operating system. That’s from Berkeley.
AYBABTME 3y ago
There's a point where the phone becomes similar to infrastructure, and allowing a single market actor to charge 30% tax on anyone using the roads, for any business conducted where someone took a road to get there, is ridiculous. I'm not saying the App Store is infrastructure-like. But the market share of Apple is so large, and it's quasi-impossible to conduct consumer business without being required to have a native app... that it's starting to be infrastructure-like. Can a viable B2C online business exist without being present via a native app? It seems untenable due to consumer expectations. Consumers also expect to be able to drive to coffeeshops, yet road providers don't charge 30% taxes on coffeeshop revenues.
- MilaM 3y ago
  > I'm not saying the App Store is infrastructure-like. It is infrastructure-like. Try to live in modern society without a smartphone. It will be very difficult. Not impossible, but much less convenient.
  - AYBABTME 3y ago
    I meant I'm not ready to say that it is, I have not solidified this as a fact in my own mind. I'm contemplating.
- seer 3y ago
  It’s no surprise countries like india are indeed treating phones as infra, with their whole government stack centered around smartphones. You’re forced to have and use one, but in return you get free transactions, strong identity and various other perks. It _is_ a monopoly, but the monopoly is the government so everyone has a say on how its run and audited. It’s still strange to me how the states allows private companies to do things the at should be public goods/services.
kelnos 3y ago
Apple was just fine building all those platform SDKs for macOS without charging people to write apps for it. Why should iOS be any different? The servers do not cost 30% of all sales on the platform. Not even close. But none of that matters. Very few businesses set their prices based on how much it costs them to provide their goods or services. They charge what the market will bear. The problem is that there is no "iOS app distribution market"; Apple controls it, 100%, so they can set prices wherever they want, without regard to competition.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  I feel the App Store is one thing differentiating Apple from Android phone manufacturers. Money from the App Store gets reinvested in the entire iPhone supply chain. Whereas in the case of Android, App Store money goes to Google only. It also encourages Apple to support their phones long term as its preferred that you stay on your aging iPhone and keep spending at the App Store then risking you leaving the Apple ecosystem because Apple allows their older phones to become obsolete. Android manufacturers on the other hand have every incentive to obsolete your phone ASAP because you buying a new phone is the only way they make money.
  - albert180 3y ago
    Do you seriously believe this? It's Apple that's blocking you from installing any apps or updates when you don't receive iOS Versions Updates anymore, while Google Play doesn't care about it, as long as the app itself is still developed for that version. Also they make more than enough money from the Hardware itself, they just take the profits off the software purchases.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > that's blocking you from installing any apps or updates Technically that’s the app developers who do that.
      - albert180 3y ago
greysphere 3y ago
You just described most games.
- kridsdale1 3y ago
  I am aware.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> Why do you get to run a business off it for free? So Microsoft did all of this on Windows (or Apple itself for that matter for macOS) due to entirely altruistic reasons? Also platforms need developers a whole lot more than developers need specific platforms. You can always go and works at a bank or something. Apple would be skewed with no 3-rd party developers they always knew it. > They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Maybe the ads on the app store would more than cover it? Not only do you need to pay 30% you also have to pay extra for placement so that Apple wouldn’t put your competitors apps at the top of the results when users search for your app?
- blasphemers 3y ago
  It's like people don't remember windows phone failed because of a lack of third-party apps.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

To be fair, roughly half of Apple's money is made from hardware. The app store is extremely lucrative and apparently 70%+ of their revenue from the App store is just leeching off of mobile games, but Apple can definitely survive without the app store if push came to shove. BUT, I will also mention that part of its market capture comes from all the charges on devs even before the rev share. You need apple equipment to develop, and they (apparently) don't sell server racks anymore for businesses to scale off of, nor any legitimate form of emulation. You have a small cost per year to have a developer account, and a cost to submit your app for review. Then if you care about visibilty they have their own ad discovery program you can pay into. So I did disagree with a brief judge statement about how "It's possible to skirt around Apple's innnovation for free...". Apple controls and charges for the entire pipeline, even before you launch the app.

jb1991 3y ago
> a cost to submit your app for review They charge you to submit an app? Is this new? When I worked as an iOS developer this was not a thing but that was many years ago.
- __m 3y ago
  No they don’t
- wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
  You pay 99 per year. But this definitely doesn’t cover their cost. The review process is very labor intensive on their side
  - munk-a 3y ago
    As someone who has developed a commercial app and spent time on the app store - their review process is a joke... there are non-compliances all over the store and I suspect a lot of their review process is highly automated.
    - 3y ago

camillomiller 3y ago

This is a biased view that disregards basic available metrics. Apple is a hardware company. Developers are instrumental to its devices success and a point can be made that 30% might be too high of a fee. On the other hand many of those developers wouldn’t have a job in the first place if it wasn’t for Apple creating the App Store.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the argument shifts back to "well they got paid already". So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics back to being "a public commons"?
- pompino 3y ago
  Agreed, While there may be people who think they're defending Apple "on principle", I hope those folks also realize that there is no "principle" that is ingrained in nature. We're all just making up rules, laws, taxes, as we go along. Just because a law or article of constitution is old, doesn't make it any more 'natural' than others. There is no "right" of any student for their debt to be forgiven, but we want to do it anyway. Apple has taken advantage (as have others) of a ridiculously broken tax code, availed of the strong US legal system, property rights, etc. How about we shift the balance back?
- kergonath 3y ago
  > I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the argument shifts back to "well they got paid already". Do you account for the fact that it might not be the same people making both arguments? Most websites’ readerships are not monoliths and even on HN there are plenty of people with different perspectives, and who are not necessarily vocal in the same threads. > So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics back to being "a public commons"? That’s an interesting argument, but it’s usually not discussed with any nuance. Basically there are several layers: - are we entitled to Apple opening their platforms? (AFAICT the opposite would be a first though the EU seems to be going that way) - is Apple entitled to profit from the App Store in principle? (Some people are arguing that they are not, but they are a fringe; Epic lost their argument about that) - is 30% too much? (But then, where is the line? It’s more or less the standard for closed platforms Where would you put your “public commons”? Did this ever happen?

jacquesm 3y ago

Oh no, those devs would have certainly passed the difference on to the consumer.