4 ms·

The idea that "Apple" has "a sense of entitlement" is click-baiting anthropomorphizing from someone monetizing eyeballs. It's not even supported in his text.

• smoldesu 3y ago
  > Discounts for nothing would just be a giveaway. Then charge people for it. Apple has an annual developer registration fee, they should cover their platform costs using that instead of an arbitrary surcharge. If you want us counting our blessings, Apple also generously "gives away" access to a browser and phone app that don't see the need for all-encompassing payment processing. Those aren't giveaways though, those are basic features that have existed since before the App Store was an app. Apple's insistence on conflating their value is a textbook case of bundling. Apple can be justified in charging whatever they want for their App Store if comparable services have a chance to compete. Nobody is prevented from sticking with OEM defaults if they choose.
  • dylan604 3y ago
    The developer's fee is for the SDK and other software. It has nothing to do with the store. Why this is confused feels very disingenuous to me. No vendor selling product through a 3rd party store EVER receives 100% of the retail price. They always sell at wholesale which is a much steeper rate than 30%
    • pests 3y ago
      But that then means Apple runs a forced monopsony. Is that any better? Sure, let's assume you actually wholesale your app to Apple knowing they are going to add a 30% cut on top. Where do I go if I want to sell it to another App Store to distribute for me?
      • dylan604 3y ago
        This is the part that I agree with, and is the only valid argument out of all of these emotional whining of not making all of the retail pricing. The fact that only one store is allowed to exist makes it a hinky situation grey area for me. I personally don't have an issue with it, as I will not just jump to any ol app store UNLESS they can prove they are not allowing absolute shite malicious stealing nefarious devs to infect the store. I have 0 trust that will happen though. We'll see what the next store decides to take as their cut though. If they come out and take 30%, I will laugh.
    • swexbe 3y ago
      But the sdk is free? You only need the license when you want to publish.
      • dylan604 3y ago
        Okay, so you are paying for the publishing. It's still not the same thing as selling wholesale to a retailer which is where the confusion seems to be. I realize I'm on a forum catering to the devs that really want all of the pennies and feel like selling their apps at a whole price is unheard of.
• jncfhnb 3y ago
  3. Was caused by epics work. And it’ll continue to grow.
  • jbverschoor 3y ago
    Epic filled in August/September 2020. They changed the rate in November. The trial started 6 months later. I don’t think it’s because of epic.
    • zamadatix 3y ago
      Small timeline correction: the rate changed in January, they only announced it in November. I don't know that it was specifically Epic alone, and Apple certainly wouldn't outright say "we're doing this to help strengthen our ongoing legal arguments with these specific companies", but between Epic, legal complaints from other high profile companies like Spotify, and antitrust investigations in EU opening all at the same time just before that announcement time it seems an awful large coincidence to have a press release drop about how they're cutting the commision for 98% of developers to 15% but managing to leave 95% of the total revenue at the 30% rate with no influence from these external factors at the time.
    • Zuiii 3y ago
      I think it was. Apple saw the writing on the wall and changed it. Hopefully, they'll see the writing on the wall again and lower it further. 15% is still too high, and what activities it's levied against is so ridiculous that I expect law makers to continue to intervene. Either apple behaves or it's golden goose will die from a thousand cuts. Their choice.
• echelon 3y ago
  The smartphone is the most essential device in the world. Two companies have more control than entire governments. They tax everything and control what can be done in the mobile space. Mobile means taking photos, dating, ordering dinner at a restaurant, navigating, buying at the store, presenting an officer your state ID, looking for a new home, reading the news, scheduling meetings, answering calls from loved ones, ... E V E R Y T H I N G. The uses of mobile have outgrown these two companies, and it's time the control these two companies have is rescinded by worldwide regulators. First class web installs must be supported, and moreover they cannot come with a scare wall. Furthermore, Apple and Google shouldn't be allowed to control which technologies can be used (JIT, runtimes, browsers, dynamic apps), which payments/login rails can be used, etc.
  • kanbara 3y ago
    normal people don't care about web apps or app stores. they care that they can tap-to-pay securely and effortlessly, and that there are pretty background photos for contacts. they care about mostly first party apps and tiktok and web browsing, and no they don't care about chrome or firefox or safari. developers need to realise most of the world just wants a phone that works, and outside of nerds, they don't give a crap about who pays what to whom. personally, as an engineer, i don't want any third party doing OS-level tampering or opening up secure areas of the hardware, nor do i want random power-hungry runtimes and code being ran. i want my phone to work the way it was sold to me, and i don't want meta or some leet haxxor's apps or app stores
    • PeterStuer 3y ago
      You can have it your way. Nobody is forcing the alternative on you. Unfortunatly, the masses of people that do not want it that way for now can not.
  • robocat 3y ago
    > dating, ordering dinner at a restaurant, buying at the store Paraphrase: Apple/Google provide access to the internet therefore they 100% control access. You might use your argument for a mall or a credit card! Not saying that Google/Apple are not monopolies especially in payments as you point out: I'm just suggesting to avoid using strawman examples that don't support your thesis!
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  "[N]o snooping by Apple..." What does this mean, exactly. Is there some Apple competitor that does snooping. (There are certainly third parties doing some snooping on Apple users.) Is Apple not planning to ramp up its advertising services business. According to its SEC filings it is dead set on advertising. How does one prove that Apple does not use data from customers for its commercial gain. The company is ridiculously secretive and non-transparent. Apple is acting as an intermediary to peoples' use of their computers, for communication or otherwise, storing vast amounts of personal data on Apple's computers instead of the owner's. It's no different than any other so-called "tech" company in that regard. The company _wants_ more customer data. And the "no premature end of life" is untrue IME. Perhaps there is some creative definition of "premature" I am not aware of. The owner decides what is and is not premature. I have older Apple hardware that is crippled thanks to "updates". Maybe the term "entitlement" is taken from Apple's announcement. That's the term Apple used to describe what developers might be eligible to receive from Apple.
  • appplication 3y ago
    > How does one prove that Apple does not use data from customers for its commercial gain. The company is ridiculously secretive and non-transparent. Apple does use customer data for commercial gain. But it does so anonymously and in an aggregated fashion. I think it’s fair to be skeptical here, but Apple does take their users data privacy much more seriously than their competitors. I think it helps to understand where their value proposition is aligned compared to the competition. At Apple, privacy and security are core features of the product. They tend to push personalization features down to the device level to avoid building customer profiles in the cloud. They are generally ok with not releasing a feature if they cannot do so in a way that respects data security and privacy. Compare this to Google, whose philosophy is that customer data is important to protect, but they expect their customers are alright with Google building a highly tailored profile to them. Google tends to process customer data in the cloud and shares this profile across their product lines. They believe that they can build better products and features by centralizing customer data. For Apple, there isn’t any reason for them to try to get a secret edge by telling the public they’re not using data and secretly doing so. Their customers would be rightfully weirded out if they saw over-personalized products in ways they didn’t authorize. A large part of their competitive moat is actually denying companies like Facebook access to their users data.
• yashasolutions 3y ago
  Something I struggle to understand: any revenue generated by your business and connected to your app, grant them the right to have 30% of this income. Even if the customer existed beforehand (Ex: Web app SaaS, now building a mobile version.) For every customer now using the app you have to give them 30% of the subscription, even if no transaction happen on the app, even if the app is a tiny subset of the functionalities of your business. There is no business logic. They do it just because they can. And they can because the App Store is the only store on the iPhone. Microsoft was sued (and lost) for pushing Internet Explorer with every Windows install, but Apple can push its own store on iOS (and not only push, but limit the installation of other stores on their system) I struggle to see how this is any different. It seems the same and even worse.
  • amazingman 3y ago
    >Something I struggle to understand: any revenue generated by your business and connected to your app, grant them the right to have 30% of this income. Even if the customer existed beforehand (Ex: Web app SaaS, now building a mobile version.) For every customer now using the app you have to give them 30% of the subscription This is not true.
    • yashasolutions 3y ago
      After double checking, it seems that Subscription Guidelines under "3.1.3(f) Free Stand-alone Apps" don't need to give money to apple. So you are correct, my statement wasn't entirely exact. However the core of the issue remain: the whole conversation around the fees is because there is no competition allowed. Let other app store exists and the problem is fixed.