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The main thrust of his argument seems to be that developers should be able to engage in price discrimination. That's cool and all, but it seems anti-competitiv
by burnerthrow008 3y ago
The main thrust of his argument seems to be that developers should be able to engage in price discrimination. That's cool and all, but it seems anti-competitive to me as a customer. I don't want to pay more just because I don't have time to write each developer and beg for a discount. Remember, Amazon famously had to back down from advertising different prices to Americans in urban and rural areas due to customer backlash.
While I partially sympathize with the ostensible desire to be able to offer great customer service under the guise of refunds for unexpected downtime in SaaS apps, it's hard to see how this won't be abused by developers: Won't every app just offer App Store refunds to convert customers to 3rd party payment?
I suspect that's the actual reason these things are wanted. I completely understand that many people think 30% is too high (and maybe it is!), but it's hard to see how 0% isn't too low.
What would be his reaction if Apple enabled all these customer service options he supposedly wants, but at a cost to the developer? For example, a code for first-responders to download the app for free, but the developer still pays 20% of the store price. Or a customer refund, where Apple keeps 20% instead of 30%. After all, it's not about the money, but actually about offering great customer service. So he'd go for that, right?
- brightball 3y agoThe thing is, why should you have to pay extra to offer better customer service? With a product like Hey, you're signing up for their email service. You might use that service on your desktop, web browser, Android phone or iPhone. It's more than a little nuts on Apple's part to try to force a product like that through the iPhone system, especially because if I start using an email account I'm going to continue using it whether I have an iPhone or not. Should Microsoft get a cut if I connect to my email account through a desktop app? The mobile app is merely 1 of many interfaces to the service. In Jason's case, he's arguing that they are setup to run a business to offer service to their customers...all of their customers. Apple forcing him to fracture his users into iPhone vs everybody else is just bad business before you factor in any cut at all.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]