Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
App Store Small Business Program's Lower Fees Cost Apple Less Than 5% of Revenue
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Capitalism = Competition = Better Products & Lower Prices for Consumers
Why does that not apply to Apple or the AppStore?
.
I literally just stated why in the response that you quoted.
How is competition supposed to result in better-run app stores when developers are obviously going to opt for those with far less onerous rules?
Is the google play store better managed than the iOS App Store due to the presence of more choices? If anything, Google seems to be far less interested in running and maintaining it properly because there’s far less money to be made from it.
There is currently a mismatch between what the developer and consumer wants. What I like about the iOS App Store is that because there is no other alternative, Apple is able to use this as leverage to force developers to accept terms which while onerous to them, are beneficial to me as the end user.
Take sign-in-with-Apple for example. Apple is able to use its control over the App Store to force developers to support this. This is obviously a good thing for me, because it offers me more choice, and better privacy. Yet it’s clearly something you don’t see many developers enthusiastic about supporting, because amongst other things, it potentially means fewer people using sign-in-with facebook, which in turn means less user data for them.
But what the developer thinks or wants is moot when there is no alternative to the iOS App Store.
Offer another App Store alternative and what will the developer do? Simply remove his app from the iOS App Store and move it to the competing App Store, who, in order to win his business, promises not to be as strict when it comes to vetting and policing the apps on said platform.
Which brings me back to my earlier point. What is good for the developer may not necessarily be good for me as the consumer.
Second, app prices will not drop because they are already priced at a revenue-maximising level. Unlike physical goods, software has no / little marginal costs. So developers will simply keep any extra revenue for themselves rather than pass on these savings to the consumer.
So back to my original point - competition is only good for me insofar that it gives me more of what I want. More apps stores would give developers more of what they want. And therein lies the problem - our interests and priorities as consumers and developers are not always so perfectly aligned.
It illustrates that Apple does in-deed have a Complete & Total Stranglehold on App Discovery !
Some percentage of the 99.9% of apps that qualify for 15% are held back from success simply because the App Store is catastrophically broken, & has been since inception.
It was ONLY AFTER Cook realized that iPhone Unit Sales had stalled-out three ? years back, that they started to put ANY effort into the App Store.
It was, & has been, a Token effort !
The App Store could blossom under a different Apple CEO.
Tim is a Manufacturing Operations Efficiency Specialist.
NOT a good fit for things like innovation OR the App Store !
Some percentage of the 99.9% of apps that qualify for 15% are held back from success simply because the App Store is catastrophically broken, & has been since inception.
It was ONLY AFTER Cook realized that iPhone Unit Sales had stalled-out three ? years back, that they started to put ANY effort into the App Store.
It was, & has been, a Token effort !
The App Store could blossom under a different Apple CEO.
Tim is a Manufacturing Operations Efficiency Specialist.
NOT a good fit for things like innovation OR the App Store !
Apple in November launched the App Store Small Business Program, which drops App Store fees from 30 percent to 15 percent for all developers who earn less than $1 million from the App Store, and it turns out the price drop isn't costing Apple much money.
To say that $587M is not "much money" is.... I don't even know what it is. $587M is an insane amount of money lol. Even for a $2T company.
The hell with Windows Phone,just look at Palm OS and Windows Mobile (came out around roughly the same time as Palm OS, not to be confused with WP)... ESD (electronic software distribution sites) were taking a 65% cut (you read that correctly, the majority goes to the site people). As per their terms and conditions, if they catch you selling your app cheaper somewhere else, they cut you off. Like with selling outside Android apps outside of Google Play, many people back then didn't feel comfortable buying outside of some of those places, so you were stuck in a rut.
(*I* still use a Palm OS device, but the rest of the world... not so much. It would've helped to have close to a trillion in the bank like Apple and Google, but, oh well)
If your government were to double or triple your taxes, would you still have the same, cheery outlook? What if your company continued to give you pay decreases? I get services can provide value, but just like how Apple and other companies look after their bottom lines, so do developers.
Most on the iOS App Store can't even make $142... that's just enough to pay the annual $99 fee, after Apple takes their 30% cut, but before taxes.
So this is a win-win, right? Doesn't hurt Apple's bottom line too much. Apple happy. Investors happy. And developers certainly happy. Small change to Apple certainly aint small change to the small time dev.
Would you feel happier if Apple dropped their own level of markup and instead used more of an industry standard like the markup on a pair of jeans at your local shop etc? Would you feel that more fair than Apple taking 15%/30%?
It works just fine for me to use, I get the apps I want, and can search for what I need; so how is it catastrophically broken?
let's just look at amazon's kindle store. they will charge you either 30% or even 65%, unless you fit in their suggested pricing scheme ($2.99 < book price <$9.99).
but in the better case (you get 70%) you will be subject to the highest ever prices one could ask for 'download data fees', by paying $0.15/MB. so if you want to sell an ebook with some images/pictures in it, prepare for getting ripped off in the way most mobile operators would go green from envy.
so you decide to sell a crafts book at 'regular street price', say for $15 - boom, 65% goes down the drain.
ok, then, you try to go for the 70% royalty version, but due to the high quality images your book is ~20MB in size, so the scheme looks: ($9.99 - VAT) * 0.70 - 20 * 0.15, depending on VAT, you might easily lose almost the same 60%.
kdp.amazon.com
whereas you can sell your books apple Books for 30% and you get an end to end seamless software support for writing, layout, publishing for free. regardless of size, price, or anything else.
sure it's not "the app store" but probably the closest thing to it.
but in the better case (you get 70%) you will be subject to the highest ever prices one could ask for 'download data fees', by paying $0.15/MB. so if you want to sell an ebook with some images/pictures in it, prepare for getting ripped off in the way most mobile operators would go green from envy.
so you decide to sell a crafts book at 'regular street price', say for $15 - boom, 65% goes down the drain.
ok, then, you try to go for the 70% royalty version, but due to the high quality images your book is ~20MB in size, so the scheme looks: ($9.99 - VAT) * 0.70 - 20 * 0.15, depending on VAT, you might easily lose almost the same 60%.
Digital Book Pricing Page
kdp.amazon.com
whereas you can sell your books apple Books for 30% and you get an end to end seamless software support for writing, layout, publishing for free. regardless of size, price, or anything else.
sure it's not "the app store" but probably the closest thing to it.
but epic, Spotify and many others do have their own ecosystem, they take payment on their own website, same as Amazon does. But Amazon sells physical goods so is allowed to sell in their app without giving Apple 30% but as Spotify is selling a service they can’t sell it in their app via their own ecosystem.
Did they give you any reason? I think they changed mine a back ago. Still doesn't mean I'd get 85% of sales as proceeds due to sales and VAT taxes I suppose.
It's perfect that Sensor Tower is providing estimates on Apples' revenue, as to keep everybody honest.
Just thinking out loud... the race to the bottom does not always create better products, for example tools and electronics seem to only last for a few years (cheaper construction/fragile) nowadays instead of decades (hearty construction/not fragile).
The 30% only applies to revenue *beyond* 1 million. A developer who makes 1.1 million will have paid 16.36%.
$1 million at 15% + 0.1 million at 30% = 16.36% of the total or $180,000.
It's about half what they spend on legal fees every year, or 0.5% of their quarterly revenue, or what they make in an afternoon. For some perspective.
You need to go to your developer account and sign up for it. They don't just give it to everybody.
Totally agree re: perspective. But it's a larger chunk of their profit. And it's still $587M which would fund a massive amount of R&D.