I find developers complaining about Apple's app-store pricing methodology and customer buying preferences to be fascinating.
In the history of software development, can anybody point to any store or mass method of software distribution that has been as lucrative as the App Store? Or any other system that has seen such a low percent of piracy compared to such high sales?
I wonder if this new generation of developer, the iOS developer, has seen a few mobile developers strike it rich, and now have become a tiny bit entitled to this dream of App Store riches. When the truth has always been that you don't get rich with apps that don't become crazy popular (indeed throughout most of software development history even that wasn't enough to ensure significant profits).
If a developer doesn't want to sell an app for .99 USD, or for .99 CAD/AUD/etc, they are free to charge (roughly) whatever they want for it. The truth is that *way* more money is made (overall) when software is priced below the magic 'no-brainer' threshold for consumers. Absolutely this comes with its own issues, but the proof is in the billions and billions of dollars worth of cheques that have been printed for iOS developers.
You do capture some realities of the software industry, however you miss a lot about Apple, and the mobile market in general:
0. Apple makes all the rules - We cannot just sell anything we want.
1. It's arguable that iOS never would have been so big if they didn't attract developers to the platform. But now that iOS has become so successful, they've added "barriers" to success by 1) forcing 5 copies for 1 sale via Family Share, and 2) removing app discoverability features from the store. The software licensing terms of mobile inherently had a higher potential because mobile phones mapped to one sale per person - this was different than one PC per household that resulted in one sale in the past - Family Share killed this.
2. Apple has complete control over the App Store and changes terms or breaks rules at their will. Both Family Share and removal of discovery features were forced with no warning. Anki drive was a marketing only app in the store between June and October '13 until their hardware shipped - this was in clear violation of the store rules - but 50 million in SFO VC buys influence - Apple clearly picks winners.
3. By exerting so much control, Apple has completely removed the "strike it rich" possibility for small developers. How many games were "just ok" when they first appeared on the platform, but then improved greatly from the reinvested traction they received by being noticed on the new releases list, which is now gone.
4. Gaining "featured" status is perceived as nothing more than luck. Add that to the long history of app rejection mysteries and you have a situation that has never existed in any software market.
5. No other platform has the app market that Apple does. Apple got the app development environment right (native code = power). But now consumers are segmented into buckets based on their need or want of apps - if they want a platform with a rich set of apps they buy an iPhone, if not, they buy droid. Sure, the big names are on those other platforms (Facebook, etc), but there is no where near the number of total apps, so claiming there is a market for mobile development beyond iOS is not really valid.
I would not have an issue if Apple allowed us to sell anything we want directly to consumers and allowed other "stores" on the iPhone. The Mac platform has this capability. Developers have competition on the platform, so should apple.
