If I recall people were pretty happy with the 30% when the App Store first launched. Granted that was a decade ago and times have changed.
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Apple Drops App Store Fees to 15% for All Developers Making Under $1 Million From App Store
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The argument is that fees for big apps support infrastructure for the free ones. Reducing the fees for all - big and small - undermines that argument somewhat.
First it’s a reduction on the first $1m. Then why not the first $2m? Then it snowballs and everyone pays 15%.
I for one, cannot wait for the 15% decrease in prices as the devs reset their pricing structure - after all the 30% was causing the customers to pay higher prices, right?
If a dev keeps the extra 15%, they have lost all credibility for any whining about any other companies pricing since they are just taking that 15% right to their bottom line.
(not holding my breath)
If a dev keeps the extra 15%, they have lost all credibility for any whining about any other companies pricing since they are just taking that 15% right to their bottom line.
(not holding my breath)
Germany uses a system that requires a second degree polynomial. I’d have to check the math but I think the reason for this is to have a smoothly rising marginal tax rate without any jumps.
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If you own a building or apartment and rent it out at a higher rate than your cost of capital, you are also rent seeking.
Maybe I am misunderstanding but going from 207350 to 207351, one has to pay 3% more tax.
Developers often enough create separate LLCs for different apps. Would Apple aggregate the revenue from all of them?
On the upside, I know how to read:
“All developers who earned under $1 million in 2020 are able to qualify for the program”
Pretty sure that doesn’t apply to Epic.
I *was* happy. I'm not complaining even now. Just sad about my missing swimming pool
Eh, they’re not worth the work in upkeep anyway lolI *was* happy. I'm not complaining even now. Just sad about my missing swimming pool
sounds complicated. Simpler just to make it marginal: 15% for the first $1 million and 30% for any revenue from $1,000,001 onward.
Only for the remainder of that year. The next year the developer will pay full 30% on the $1,000,100.
"Yes this is my question. Is it 15% up to $1M annual sales and then 30% for anything over $1M?" => No, it is not a marginal commission which to me would have been better and more simpler to implement.
"Or is it once a developer gets to $1M+ annual sales and stays there it’s 30% from the first dollar?" => Here's how I understand it; Once a developer hits $1 million revenue, they will pay 30% commission for any revenue that they make the remainder of the year. The next full year the developer will pay full 30% on all revenue as long as it remains above $1 million a year.
That would make the most sense; avoid the whole requalify issue. For really big developers the and Apple the $150k is a rounding error.
I can see Epic making an argument that this actually favors their case:
1) developers wouldn't have had this discount had they not complained (which is what Epic is doing). There's no normal market means to cause prices to decrease because of lack of competition in app stores.
2) that Apple can easily discount by 50% shows how high Apple's profit margins are - an argument that Apple's fees are exorbitant.
3) that Apple is discriminating against large developers like them. In a normal functioning market, larger customers would receive lower prices, not higher ones.
In any case, lower fees do benefit a lot of people. It's just unfortunate that lower fees had to come by via such a process.
1) developers wouldn't have had this discount had they not complained (which is what Epic is doing). There's no normal market means to cause prices to decrease because of lack of competition in app stores.
2) that Apple can easily discount by 50% shows how high Apple's profit margins are - an argument that Apple's fees are exorbitant.
3) that Apple is discriminating against large developers like them. In a normal functioning market, larger customers would receive lower prices, not higher ones.
In any case, lower fees do benefit a lot of people. It's just unfortunate that lower fees had to come by via such a process.
I agree it would have been the better way to go. I find it amusing how Apple is spinning this as a an “App Store small business program” rather than how they did the change with subscriptions. This seems more like PR. And won’t stop anti-trust issues because the developers complaining the loudest don’t qualify for this.
Exactly, it is another bad Apple's marketing scam, to make them look like good guys. It is still the same since after 1M everybody gets charged 30%. Although it is a welcome change for small developers, not much changed. Still reapping off everybody. This actually proves developers' points, that what Apple is charging is outrageously high.
It is the same they do with the hardware. They give you a new MacBook Pro with 8GB Memory and 256 SSD in 2020, kind of joke. Just to show that the starting price is lower but very few people will consider a "Pro" with 256 SSD.
It is the same that happened when the problem with the keyboards in all laptops happened and they wanted to look like good guys by offering free keyboard replacements for a "Lemon" that should have been recalled.