4 ms·

>In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Unless I am misreading somehow, this i

by curt15 3y ago

>In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Unless I am misreading somehow, this is an unusual position. Software developers don't sell their software to Apple. They sell to the end users. Unless an intermediary rebrands the software and takes ownership of customer acquisition and support, software users are the customers of the software developers.

pdonis 3y ago
> software users are the customers of the software developers Yes, but the users are also customers of the owner of the software platform that the developers are developing for. And the owner of the platform gets to set the platform's rules. Microsoft's standard practice for many years was to watch for which third party Windows applications were becoming popular, and build those features into one of their own products, thus cutting the market out from under the third party developer. I'm actually surprised that Apple hasn't done more of that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Except Apple did exactly what you just said Microsoft did to third party devs, and then also banned their apps off the appstore to boot because they do what their OS now does out of the box, like the famous keyboard for the Apple Watch.[1] At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps since you're not forced to use their store to sell to Windows users. Apple's grip of the iOS AppStore can be a poison pill for many devs who's livelyhood depends on Apple's automatic ML ban hammer and arbitrary rules which can change as they see fit with no warning. https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf-view https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf...
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps True; but that also means third parties can lose even more when MS pulls the rug out from under them. The developer of the third party keyboard app you refer to said, according to the article you referenced, that they lost a year of revenue. Some third party Windows devs were forced into bankruptcy.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      So according to you, Apple's copying an app then banning that developer's app off the Appstore is better than Microsoft's copying an app's features while still allowing it to be sold, because in Apple's documented case one developer lost "only" a year of revenue, while in your imaginary Microsoft example, a company we don't know of went bankrupt? You're just a gift that keeps on giving. How do you come up with this reasoning?
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > copying an app then banning that developer's app off the Appstore is better than copying an app's features while allowing it to be sold? I said no such thing. I said, by implication, that losing a year's revenue, but still having a functioning company, is better than being forced into bankruptcy. Also, that in no way means that causing a third party app developer to lose a year's revenue is not a bad thing to do. Of course it is. However, in both cases, the root cause is that the owner of the platform wants to run their platform in a way that third party devs don't like. And ultimately, unless the users of the platform care enough to force the platform owner to change, third party devs are simply going to be out of luck. It sucks, but that's the fact. Third party Windows apps today are for things that MS doesn't care enough about to implement themselves, because Windows users don't care that third party devs get a raw deal. Third party iOS apps are going to end up the same way, unless iOS users start to care about the sucky position third party devs are in. Which, as far as I can tell, they don't.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
pflats 3y ago
Suppose an author uploads their book to ExamplePrint Inc, a one stop shop that prints made-to-order books for customers. The reader goes to ExamplePrint and buys the book. ExamplePrint prints a softcover copy of the book on the spot and ships it out to the reader. The user pays ExamplePrint, who pays the author some fraction of the user's money. The reader is a customer of ExamplePrint and reading the author's book. This is the analogy Apple would like to use for their app store. Apple's print time is almost instantaneous and the marginal costs are closer to zero.
- MilaM 3y ago
  Nice analogy. The problem is, that ExamplePrint is the only shop the author can use to reach his customers. There is also PrintExample (Android), but it's customer base has zero overlap with ExamplePrint. Therefore the author has no choice but to use ExamplePrint's service.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gls2ro 3y ago
    Your example is actually showing why it is the customer of ExamplePrint that choose to read that book and not the customer of that book that choose to print it at ExamplePrint. Because if it is the customer of the book that wants to print it they are always welcome to go to PrintExample. But the situation is actually reverse: the customer entered ExamplePrint because they choose ExamplePrint first and then saw the book there. They might not read that book if they would not have been a customer of ExamplePrint => do they are in fact a customer of ExamplePrint that choose to read something they found there.
    - MilaM 3y ago
      I don't agree. Without the authors, the printer has no business. No one is going to want to be customer of ExamplePrint to buy books with empty pages. The problem is, that because of size and technological obstacles, ExamplePrint can dictate the conditions for the authors. The relationship is very asymetrical. The only way out is to have laws that make this limited marketplace fair for all three sides. Hence the EUs attempt at regulating the so called getekeepers.

by curt15 3y ago

pdonis 3y ago

> software users are the customers of the software developers Yes, but the users are also customers of the owner of the software platform that the developers are developing for. And the owner of the platform gets to set the platform's rules. Microsoft's standard practice for many years was to watch for which third party Windows applications were becoming popular, and build those features into one of their own products, thus cutting the market out from under the third party developer. I'm actually surprised that Apple hasn't done more of that.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Except Apple did exactly what you just said Microsoft did to third party devs, and then also banned their apps off the appstore to boot because they do what their OS now does out of the box, like the famous keyboard for the Apple Watch.[1] At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps since you're not forced to use their store to sell to Windows users. Apple's grip of the iOS AppStore can be a poison pill for many devs who's livelyhood depends on Apple's automatic ML ban hammer and arbitrary rules which can change as they see fit with no warning. https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf-view https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf...
- pdonis 3y ago
  > At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps True; but that also means third parties can lose even more when MS pulls the rug out from under them. The developer of the third party keyboard app you refer to said, according to the article you referenced, that they lost a year of revenue. Some third party Windows devs were forced into bankruptcy.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    So according to you, Apple's copying an app then banning that developer's app off the Appstore is better than Microsoft's copying an app's features while still allowing it to be sold, because in Apple's documented case one developer lost "only" a year of revenue, while in your imaginary Microsoft example, a company we don't know of went bankrupt? You're just a gift that keeps on giving. How do you come up with this reasoning?
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > copying an app then banning that developer's app off the Appstore is better than copying an app's features while allowing it to be sold? I said no such thing. I said, by implication, that losing a year's revenue, but still having a functioning company, is better than being forced into bankruptcy. Also, that in no way means that causing a third party app developer to lose a year's revenue is not a bad thing to do. Of course it is. However, in both cases, the root cause is that the owner of the platform wants to run their platform in a way that third party devs don't like. And ultimately, unless the users of the platform care enough to force the platform owner to change, third party devs are simply going to be out of luck. It sucks, but that's the fact. Third party Windows apps today are for things that MS doesn't care enough about to implement themselves, because Windows users don't care that third party devs get a raw deal. Third party iOS apps are going to end up the same way, unless iOS users start to care about the sucky position third party devs are in. Which, as far as I can tell, they don't.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago

pflats 3y ago

Suppose an author uploads their book to ExamplePrint Inc, a one stop shop that prints made-to-order books for customers. The reader goes to ExamplePrint and buys the book. ExamplePrint prints a softcover copy of the book on the spot and ships it out to the reader. The user pays ExamplePrint, who pays the author some fraction of the user's money. The reader is a customer of ExamplePrint and reading the author's book. This is the analogy Apple would like to use for their app store. Apple's print time is almost instantaneous and the marginal costs are closer to zero.

MilaM 3y ago
Nice analogy. The problem is, that ExamplePrint is the only shop the author can use to reach his customers. There is also PrintExample (Android), but it's customer base has zero overlap with ExamplePrint. Therefore the author has no choice but to use ExamplePrint's service.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gls2ro 3y ago
  Your example is actually showing why it is the customer of ExamplePrint that choose to read that book and not the customer of that book that choose to print it at ExamplePrint. Because if it is the customer of the book that wants to print it they are always welcome to go to PrintExample. But the situation is actually reverse: the customer entered ExamplePrint because they choose ExamplePrint first and then saw the book there. They might not read that book if they would not have been a customer of ExamplePrint => do they are in fact a customer of ExamplePrint that choose to read something they found there.
  - MilaM 3y ago
    I don't agree. Without the authors, the printer has no business. No one is going to want to be customer of ExamplePrint to buy books with empty pages. The problem is, that because of size and technological obstacles, ExamplePrint can dictate the conditions for the authors. The relationship is very asymetrical. The only way out is to have laws that make this limited marketplace fair for all three sides. Hence the EUs attempt at regulating the so called getekeepers.