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Where hard to understand? You don’t have to sell on Amazon and deal with their commissions but people do. A news website doesn’t have to allow Google to crawl

Where hard to understand? You don’t have to sell on Amazon and deal with their commissions but people do. A news website doesn’t have to allow Google to crawl them since they complain that Google takes their ad revenues - yet they do. And Apple would get no cut if Candy Crush were on the web and even the cut they would get from using Apple Pay (not in app payments) are standard credit card payments. But kids who probably don’t have access to credit cards still can use in app payments along with people who don’t have credit cards at all who can use Apple gift cards. I gave up a reliable reference from a well known analyst about Aggregation Theory. Outside of the App Store, parents aren’t going to give their kids unfettered access to their credit cards compared to parental controls that are available within the App Store. If so many developers are in such a hurry to leave the OS providers App Store, then why don’t the same developers leave the Google Play store where it is allowed? How did that work for Epic with Android? The fact is that game developers - who make up 90% of App Store revenue according to data that came out during the Epic trial - complain about the 30% cut. But they want access not only to Apple’s customers but also to in app purchases so they can use every psychological trick to take advantage of the whales. Neither Google nor Apple care about the Indy developer and the little revenue they make. Are you fighting for the independent developer or the slimy pay to win game developers?

afavour 3y ago
I think my previous comment was very clear: developers should get to choose. If they want to pay a high commission for easy payments they should be able to. If they want to introduce greater friction for a lower cut they should be allowed to do that too. Apple expressly forbids this in native apps. If the PWA platform were more viable it would offer this choice but it isn’t, an Apple has a vested interest in things staying that way. At the very same time they defend their restrictions upon native apps in court citing the web as an alternative platform. It’s very convenient.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Okay, developers can choose on Android. Yet to a first approximation, all of them still use the Google Play Store, why is that? If it’s only mean old Apple stopping developers from using PWAs, then why do Android developers still use Google Play services instead of PWAs, alternate app stores or direct downloads? All of which are available? Candy Crush - still one of the most profitable games in the App Store is not graphic intensive and could be done on the web today and use Apple Pay (normal credit card charges), why don’t they?
  - afavour 3y ago
    Because Candy Crush relies upon being an impulse purchase. If people had to go through five steps to buy it a ton of people would abandon it. That isn’t the same for every app. There are plenty of apps folks would be happy to go out of their way to purchase because they provide a ton of value. But the developers are not allowed to. Again: my argument here is choice. Let developers decide. Your counter is “but one of them is better”. You’re entitled to your opinion but that isn’t a counter argument to letting developers choose what type of payment system they want to use. Apple does not let developers do that and they should. There’s really not much more to the debate than that. If, as you argue, Apple’s ecosystem is better in all aspects then it will win out in a free market. What’s not to like?
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      > Because Candy Crush relies upon being an impulse purchase. If people had to go through five steps to buy it a ton of people would abandon it. But this does apply to apps that make up 90% of the revenue on the App Store. These aren’t numbers I’m making up - it came out in the Epic trial. But even if that’s not the case for the other 10%, the same would apply for the App Store that applies for Amazon in the real world. Smaller merchants still choose Amazon for the conversion and that’s where the customers are when literally anyone can sell from a Squarespace website. > Again: my argument here is choice. Let developers decide. Your counter is “but one of them is better”. You’re entitled to your opinion but that isn’t a counter argument to letting developers choose what type of payment system And that’s the issue - everyone wants to use Apple’s App Store and have their own payment system not avoid the exposure they get from the App Store. Once again, on Android where you can in fact tell users to go outside of the Google ay Store - hardly anyone does. Every Indy developer thinks their little app will be special and they would be okay outside of the App Store. If they can’t even gain traction within the App Store what chances do they have of gaining traction outside of it? It’s not the 15% cut that’s keeping them from succeeding - small developers aren’t paying 30%
      - danShumway 3y ago
        As a reminder, both Android and Amazon are being investigated for antitrust, and part of that complaint for Amazon is that they utilized an algorithm called Project Nessie to raise prices across the web for consumer goods even on 3rd-party storefronts: https://fortune.com/2023/11/02/amazon-algorithm-raise-prices-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit/ https://fortune.com/2023/11/02/amazon-algorithm-raise-prices... These are maybe not the shining corporate examples you want to compare Apple to.

afavour 3y ago

I think my previous comment was very clear: developers should get to choose. If they want to pay a high commission for easy payments they should be able to. If they want to introduce greater friction for a lower cut they should be allowed to do that too. Apple expressly forbids this in native apps. If the PWA platform were more viable it would offer this choice but it isn’t, an Apple has a vested interest in things staying that way. At the very same time they defend their restrictions upon native apps in court citing the web as an alternative platform. It’s very convenient.

scarface_74 3y ago
Okay, developers can choose on Android. Yet to a first approximation, all of them still use the Google Play Store, why is that? If it’s only mean old Apple stopping developers from using PWAs, then why do Android developers still use Google Play services instead of PWAs, alternate app stores or direct downloads? All of which are available? Candy Crush - still one of the most profitable games in the App Store is not graphic intensive and could be done on the web today and use Apple Pay (normal credit card charges), why don’t they?
- afavour 3y ago
  Because Candy Crush relies upon being an impulse purchase. If people had to go through five steps to buy it a ton of people would abandon it. That isn’t the same for every app. There are plenty of apps folks would be happy to go out of their way to purchase because they provide a ton of value. But the developers are not allowed to. Again: my argument here is choice. Let developers decide. Your counter is “but one of them is better”. You’re entitled to your opinion but that isn’t a counter argument to letting developers choose what type of payment system they want to use. Apple does not let developers do that and they should. There’s really not much more to the debate than that. If, as you argue, Apple’s ecosystem is better in all aspects then it will win out in a free market. What’s not to like?
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    > Because Candy Crush relies upon being an impulse purchase. If people had to go through five steps to buy it a ton of people would abandon it. But this does apply to apps that make up 90% of the revenue on the App Store. These aren’t numbers I’m making up - it came out in the Epic trial. But even if that’s not the case for the other 10%, the same would apply for the App Store that applies for Amazon in the real world. Smaller merchants still choose Amazon for the conversion and that’s where the customers are when literally anyone can sell from a Squarespace website. > Again: my argument here is choice. Let developers decide. Your counter is “but one of them is better”. You’re entitled to your opinion but that isn’t a counter argument to letting developers choose what type of payment system And that’s the issue - everyone wants to use Apple’s App Store and have their own payment system not avoid the exposure they get from the App Store. Once again, on Android where you can in fact tell users to go outside of the Google ay Store - hardly anyone does. Every Indy developer thinks their little app will be special and they would be okay outside of the App Store. If they can’t even gain traction within the App Store what chances do they have of gaining traction outside of it? It’s not the 15% cut that’s keeping them from succeeding - small developers aren’t paying 30%
    - danShumway 3y ago
      As a reminder, both Android and Amazon are being investigated for antitrust, and part of that complaint for Amazon is that they utilized an algorithm called Project Nessie to raise prices across the web for consumer goods even on 3rd-party storefronts: https://fortune.com/2023/11/02/amazon-algorithm-raise-prices-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit/ https://fortune.com/2023/11/02/amazon-algorithm-raise-prices... These are maybe not the shining corporate examples you want to compare Apple to.