9 ms·

I want mozilla to charge a reasonable price for app developers. Basically, not 30%, but 10%. I want them to be self sustaining and successful, but also apply pr

I want mozilla to charge a reasonable price for app developers. Basically, not 30%, but 10%. I want them to be self sustaining and successful, but also apply pricing pressure on the other markets who are just charging waaayyyy too much. I can't believe even MS is getting into the game, making an app used to be free...

graue 14y ago
I was confused by this statement, which I think you're referring to: "Firefox add-ons are free and those for Firefox OS will certainly be free also." I'm not sure if that means there will be no paid apps for Firefox OS, or that Mozilla won't take a cut on paid apps, or just that Mozilla won't charge developers a fee to list an app. I hope it's the last option. They should allow paid apps and take a small cut, as you said, so they have a funding source other than Google, increasingly their competitor. But they have time to figure out the funding aspect. I just looked up the story about the latest Google/Mozilla deal in December (I'd forgotten the details), and it turns out it's almost $900 million over three years: https://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almost-300m-per-year-in-search-deal-besting-microsoft-and-yahoo/ https://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almo...
- zabraxias 14y ago
  There will be paid apps and there will be free apps. Submitting an app will not cost anything and can currently be done at https://marketplace.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ https://marketplace.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/
Osmose 14y ago
MDN currently says it's 30%: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Apps/Marketplace_Payments https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Apps/Marketplace_Payments It might be useful to bring your idea up on the marketplace mailing list, if for nothing else than to get context on why the current number was chosen: http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#dev-marketplace http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#dev-marketplace
Danieru 14y ago
In order to provide phone-bill based billing, opposed to credit card based, Mozilla will need a large healthy margin. Phone companies want semi-ridiculous fees which make paypal & credit card's 3% look generous. Yet I think Mozilla would be wise to leave phonebilling open as an option. Carriers demand profit and are scared of Apple making them redundant. That 30% is thus leverage and running things close to cost at 10% would reduce Firefox OS's appeal to carriers. At the end of the day Mozilla needs to keep the carriers happy to succeed.
sbuk 14y ago
Before you make such demands, it is not perhaps a good idea to understand where that 30% fee goes? Hosting, distribution, payment collection etc are an important part of an app market and they aren't free.
zobzu 14y ago
I agree so much. Not-for-profit asking 30% ? Really? Really-really? Yes sure you need money to go on making stuff, but as much as Apple and Google? Give me a break. That's for-profit, nothing more, nothing less. Want devs? Well, just take whatever is needed to drive the infrastructure, not a penny more.
- Synaesthesia 14y ago
  Remember, Apple doesn't make any money off the App Store, analysis has shown it's a pretty much break even business.
  - ordinary 14y ago
    I would be interested in seeing the numbers on this, as I have a hard time figuring out how they could not make a huge profit on selling other people's work.
    - cmelbye 14y ago
      http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20008540-37.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20008540-37.html is one of many results on Google with the numbers.
      - ordinary 14y ago
        Thanks for the link. It may not be a cash cow in comparison to the rest of Apple's business, but a 44% gross profit margin sounds pretty substantial to me.
        jaredsohn 14y ago
        I think you misread that article. In the most basic sense, it isn't possible for Apple to get 44% profit margin when developers get 70%. Here's how I understand the argument in the article (but keep in mind the numbers are as of 2010 so they aren't current.) Basically, the article is saying that Apple claimed that developers earned $1 billion through 2010. Since developers earn 70%, the total revenue coming into Apple would be a billion / .7 = 1.428 billion giving them a profit of $428 million (matching the figure in the article). Then the article does some estimations about how much of that $428 million goes to the credit card company and is used for processing instead of being Apple's profit and calculates that Apple only gets 44% of their 30% as profit. (Although comments on the article suggest that Apple might be able to get more favorable deals with the credit card company than what was used in the estimations.) So if you trust the article's credit processing fee assumptions, then Apple gets $189 million of the $1.428 billion which is about 13%. And if you factor in their costs for free apps ($81 million is cited in the article), the effective percentage becomes ((189-81)/189) * 13% = 7%. Edit: I'm pretty sure these numbers are the right interpretation of the article. Somebody in the comments mentioned that the 44% should be 14% net profit since it matches some graph that I haven't seen and that seems similar to the 13% I got in the above calculations.
simonh 14y ago
Making an app is still basically free, and if your app is free publishing to most App stores is also free. Marketing and distributing professional apps on a commercial scale has never been free. That's what App stores do.
- stuaxo 14y ago
  ? How is making an app basically free ... paying a developer for 3 - 6 months is quite expensive, then artwork and sound.
green7ea 14y ago
They won't lock down the distribution source as Apple does so you might have competition among marketplace providers. If you think 30% is too high, you are free to create your own marketplace with a 10% cut.

graue 14y ago

I was confused by this statement, which I think you're referring to: "Firefox add-ons are free and those for Firefox OS will certainly be free also." I'm not sure if that means there will be no paid apps for Firefox OS, or that Mozilla won't take a cut on paid apps, or just that Mozilla won't charge developers a fee to list an app. I hope it's the last option. They should allow paid apps and take a small cut, as you said, so they have a funding source other than Google, increasingly their competitor. But they have time to figure out the funding aspect. I just looked up the story about the latest Google/Mozilla deal in December (I'd forgotten the details), and it turns out it's almost $900 million over three years: https://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almost-300m-per-year-in-search-deal-besting-microsoft-and-yahoo/ https://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almo...

zabraxias 14y ago
There will be paid apps and there will be free apps. Submitting an app will not cost anything and can currently be done at https://marketplace.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ https://marketplace.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/

Osmose 14y ago

MDN currently says it's 30%: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Apps/Marketplace_Payments https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Apps/Marketplace_Payments It might be useful to bring your idea up on the marketplace mailing list, if for nothing else than to get context on why the current number was chosen: http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#dev-marketplace http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#dev-marketplace

Danieru 14y ago

In order to provide phone-bill based billing, opposed to credit card based, Mozilla will need a large healthy margin. Phone companies want semi-ridiculous fees which make paypal & credit card's 3% look generous. Yet I think Mozilla would be wise to leave phonebilling open as an option. Carriers demand profit and are scared of Apple making them redundant. That 30% is thus leverage and running things close to cost at 10% would reduce Firefox OS's appeal to carriers. At the end of the day Mozilla needs to keep the carriers happy to succeed.

sbuk 14y ago

Before you make such demands, it is not perhaps a good idea to understand where that 30% fee goes? Hosting, distribution, payment collection etc are an important part of an app market and they aren't free.

zobzu 14y ago

I agree so much. Not-for-profit asking 30% ? Really? Really-really? Yes sure you need money to go on making stuff, but as much as Apple and Google? Give me a break. That's for-profit, nothing more, nothing less. Want devs? Well, just take whatever is needed to drive the infrastructure, not a penny more.

Synaesthesia 14y ago
Remember, Apple doesn't make any money off the App Store, analysis has shown it's a pretty much break even business.
- ordinary 14y ago
  I would be interested in seeing the numbers on this, as I have a hard time figuring out how they could not make a huge profit on selling other people's work.
  - cmelbye 14y ago
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20008540-37.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20008540-37.html is one of many results on Google with the numbers.
    - ordinary 14y ago
      Thanks for the link. It may not be a cash cow in comparison to the rest of Apple's business, but a 44% gross profit margin sounds pretty substantial to me.
      - jaredsohn 14y ago
        I think you misread that article. In the most basic sense, it isn't possible for Apple to get 44% profit margin when developers get 70%. Here's how I understand the argument in the article (but keep in mind the numbers are as of 2010 so they aren't current.) Basically, the article is saying that Apple claimed that developers earned $1 billion through 2010. Since developers earn 70%, the total revenue coming into Apple would be a billion / .7 = 1.428 billion giving them a profit of $428 million (matching the figure in the article). Then the article does some estimations about how much of that $428 million goes to the credit card company and is used for processing instead of being Apple's profit and calculates that Apple only gets 44% of their 30% as profit. (Although comments on the article suggest that Apple might be able to get more favorable deals with the credit card company than what was used in the estimations.) So if you trust the article's credit processing fee assumptions, then Apple gets $189 million of the $1.428 billion which is about 13%. And if you factor in their costs for free apps ($81 million is cited in the article), the effective percentage becomes ((189-81)/189) * 13% = 7%. Edit: I'm pretty sure these numbers are the right interpretation of the article. Somebody in the comments mentioned that the 44% should be 14% net profit since it matches some graph that I haven't seen and that seems similar to the 13% I got in the above calculations.

simonh 14y ago

Making an app is still basically free, and if your app is free publishing to most App stores is also free. Marketing and distributing professional apps on a commercial scale has never been free. That's what App stores do.

stuaxo 14y ago
? How is making an app basically free ... paying a developer for 3 - 6 months is quite expensive, then artwork and sound.

green7ea 14y ago

They won't lock down the distribution source as Apple does so you might have competition among marketplace providers. If you think 30% is too high, you are free to create your own marketplace with a 10% cut.