Meaning, using Apple, you can't do that. There's a huge difference.
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Apple's EU Core Technology Fee Could Bankrupt Freemium App Developers
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I think you are still not seeing the problem. As a seller, you don't have to sell at Amazon. You don't like Amazon? Don't sell at Amazon. You can reach the same people by other means. But you cannot create a software for iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, watchOS without paying Apple something. It should not be on Apple to decide whether you can create a software for a customer you want to reach to. That is the whole idea.
I don't think you're seeing the problem. Apple built the platform. Apple hosts the apps. Apple maintains the platform. Apple improves the platform. And, Apple has amassed a very valuable customer base.
You build an App for the iPhone because of all of those reasons. And it's silly to try to say you should get that all for free. Silly. Be a normal business and pay the cost of business.
You, my friend, don't seem to understand what a monopoly is and what dangers it can cause, and the whole purpose of DMA.
Here's the silliest part of the arguments being made here...
IF I had the same business model that Apple has with the iPhone and IOS, and I had 20% market share and was NOT deemed a "Gatekeeper" by the EU, then none of your arguments of "APPLE SHOULD GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE" would be considered valid. You'd understand that's simply how business operates.
The point of the DMA, as you all keep telling us, is that Apple is a gatekeeper, and thus, you feel that certain restrictions must be placed on Apple.
But, the EU hasn't mandated that all businesses operate in the way specified in the DMA, because the EU knows this is absolutely normal business practice.
IF I had the same business model that Apple has with the iPhone and IOS, and I had 20% market share and was NOT deemed a "Gatekeeper" by the EU, then none of your arguments of "APPLE SHOULD GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE" would be considered valid. You'd understand that's simply how business operates.
The point of the DMA, as you all keep telling us, is that Apple is a gatekeeper, and thus, you feel that certain restrictions must be placed on Apple.
But, the EU hasn't mandated that all businesses operate in the way specified in the DMA, because the EU knows this is absolutely normal business practice.
Do you? Name me a few countries that state that a 30% market share is a "monopoly." Even the DMA doesn't designate Apple as a monopoly.
Yes, it’s what Apple doesn’t have in the cellphone market. Saying Apple has a monopoly in the iPhone market is like saying that Honda has a monopoly on the Honda Civic market.
At best, the argument that "Apple Must Provide These Services For FREE" is conditional on their being a "Gatekeeper." The EU is, in effect, stating that these are extraordinary circumstances because of Apple's gatekeeper status, and as such, the EU is taking the extraordinary measure of limiting normal business practices.
I'd still disagree with the EU, but the argument would be grounded in a rationale. But all of you who are simply saying that Apple MUST give things away for free just because it's the right thing to do and they are greedy if they don't...simply are completely outside of rationality, and outside of the DMA itself. You just hate Apple and are using the DMA as a hammer.
I'd still disagree with the EU, but the argument would be grounded in a rationale. But all of you who are simply saying that Apple MUST give things away for free just because it's the right thing to do and they are greedy if they don't...simply are completely outside of rationality, and outside of the DMA itself. You just hate Apple and are using the DMA as a hammer.
Dear Spotify...I'd like your customer list please. I'm a band with a great album, and I'd like to contact all of your customers directly and sell them my new album. Oh, and I'd like that for free. OK?
Zero sympathy. “Freemium” apps deserve this… live by the sword, die by the sword. Death by a thousand gems.
Devs and users have no responsibility to cater themselves to protect apples shareholders, just like Apple doesn’t give a damn of what devs and customers suffer. I certainly won’t care if Apple is bleeding money or getting quadruple the market value.
Wait, let's unpack this...
You're saying Devs have no responsibility toward Apple, but that Apple has a responsibility toward Devs?
Or, put another way: Business B has no responsibility toward Business A, But Business A has a responsibility to Business B?
What I think folks are missing is what the fee gets you and why it matters. Very few people seem to know that CloudKit exists. A few data points:
Cloud Kit comes with:
- 200 TB of Content Delivery Network (with most companies charging 7-15 cents/gigabyte)
- 1 PB of Object Storage (see the price of S3)
- 10 TB of NoSQL database
- Application Logs
- Application Telemetry
- App versioning
- Continuity and cross app sync
The reason the App Fee as a precent model and built such a viable ecosystem is because Apple absorbed so much of the up front infrastructure cost and risk. You can build an app without a single back end service of your own. If your game went viral and you had a million downloads with the rev share model, you didn't incur any additional cost, Apple had you covered. You don't have to worry about scaling to support however many updates of your hundred meg to mulit-gig app a week. Apple takes care of it all. It levels the playing field for small and big apps to not have to worry about how to get their app out.
Apple has very real costs of distribution and management of the apps. The reason the in-app purchase stuff matters, is something like Fortnite for example, that was a large file with a large base, every single update cost Apple money, not Epic. It's not Epic's servers that support millions of concurrent downloads. It's not Spotifys servers that deal with it. It's Apples CDN, which has grown so large to support app updates that no one else can even do it, sans maybe Akamai. Think of the size of fortnite, how many updates there are, how many installed users and how many TB a day that works out to be. Apple loses money on Fortnite being in the app store if they can't get some in-app revenue.
The core tech fee is switching from a rev share model to a consumption based model, which is how anyone staking out on their own would pay anyways. All these free apps that side load or change to this new business model have to get used to it. The internet is not free. The distribution costs are big and real. Apple solved for it for everyone whether you are a trillion dollar game company or someone getting started for the first time. The scale component matters. Look at Minecraft and how many issues they had with downloads, payment lockouts, support, etc. Apple has created a system where the next big game can go as big as it wants to without the developers having to worry about any of that, they just sit back and collect the checks.
TL;DR: So the store analogy isn't accurate above, it's about the distribution. Apple has the entire trucking network and logistics network that gets you from a product you make to the shelves and you don't worry about the rest. If you don't want to use to Apple taking a %, you have to pay for each item you get on shelves. The alternative is if you make a widget that gets popular, you have to figure out how to get it to all 25,000 stores yourself. Which likely means you are paying someone for distribution, if not Apple, but you aren't practically going to build a trucking network yourself.
Also, please take a look at what else Apple gives devs for the cut. People don't realize how much of our apps we use are built on frameworks Apple gives out. RealityKit, HealthKit, HomeKit, UIKit, CoreML, etc. A lot of the features we use were not built by the devs, but built on top of stuff Apple gave them.
App fees = Rev Share... Win win for everyone. Equal footprint for everyone, big or small.
Cloud Kit comes with:
- 200 TB of Content Delivery Network (with most companies charging 7-15 cents/gigabyte)
- 1 PB of Object Storage (see the price of S3)
- 10 TB of NoSQL database
- Application Logs
- Application Telemetry
- App versioning
- Continuity and cross app sync
The reason the App Fee as a precent model and built such a viable ecosystem is because Apple absorbed so much of the up front infrastructure cost and risk. You can build an app without a single back end service of your own. If your game went viral and you had a million downloads with the rev share model, you didn't incur any additional cost, Apple had you covered. You don't have to worry about scaling to support however many updates of your hundred meg to mulit-gig app a week. Apple takes care of it all. It levels the playing field for small and big apps to not have to worry about how to get their app out.
Apple has very real costs of distribution and management of the apps. The reason the in-app purchase stuff matters, is something like Fortnite for example, that was a large file with a large base, every single update cost Apple money, not Epic. It's not Epic's servers that support millions of concurrent downloads. It's not Spotifys servers that deal with it. It's Apples CDN, which has grown so large to support app updates that no one else can even do it, sans maybe Akamai. Think of the size of fortnite, how many updates there are, how many installed users and how many TB a day that works out to be. Apple loses money on Fortnite being in the app store if they can't get some in-app revenue.
The core tech fee is switching from a rev share model to a consumption based model, which is how anyone staking out on their own would pay anyways. All these free apps that side load or change to this new business model have to get used to it. The internet is not free. The distribution costs are big and real. Apple solved for it for everyone whether you are a trillion dollar game company or someone getting started for the first time. The scale component matters. Look at Minecraft and how many issues they had with downloads, payment lockouts, support, etc. Apple has created a system where the next big game can go as big as it wants to without the developers having to worry about any of that, they just sit back and collect the checks.
TL;DR: So the store analogy isn't accurate above, it's about the distribution. Apple has the entire trucking network and logistics network that gets you from a product you make to the shelves and you don't worry about the rest. If you don't want to use to Apple taking a %, you have to pay for each item you get on shelves. The alternative is if you make a widget that gets popular, you have to figure out how to get it to all 25,000 stores yourself. Which likely means you are paying someone for distribution, if not Apple, but you aren't practically going to build a trucking network yourself.
Also, please take a look at what else Apple gives devs for the cut. People don't realize how much of our apps we use are built on frameworks Apple gives out. RealityKit, HealthKit, HomeKit, UIKit, CoreML, etc. A lot of the features we use were not built by the devs, but built on top of stuff Apple gave them.
App fees = Rev Share... Win win for everyone. Equal footprint for everyone, big or small.
And this gives Apple space to interpret however they see fit, as “install” is not defined yet.
Furthermore, just like what you said, malicious developers can now target their rivals by either enticing their user base to do DDOS style app install, or buy overseas labor to do the same level of work. A sudden $2m bill can easily wreak havoc on not so big developers and create tons of drama, while Apple sitting behind collecting those money like nothing happens. I can already smell the blood.
I hope Apple will be punished for introducing such terms in the first place, should DDOS CTF event occur.
Neither have responsibility towards each other. The only responsibility is laid out in their legal contract. Nothing More.
I don’t know why you get somehow Apple would be responsible for anything when before this whole “sideloading”, Apple didn‘t care a dime anyway? If Apple can crush a small dev at will, why said small dev have to bend themselves so Apple can get more money?
I think it would be more like Verizon demanding 30% of all revenue generated from iPhones running on its network because they have "built the network" and "created a valuable user base."
Apple can charge when you use the App Store, it can charge for its developer tools etc, but what it shouldn't be able to do is leverage one area to shut out the competition in another.
Apple doesn't have to host anyone's apps or vet other stores or apps? If Valve wanted to run a games store on iOS and is happy to handle all hosting, payments, tax and whatever other services, why shouldn't they? Why should Apple still receive a fee for every single download?
Pretty sure that app developers know that iOS users spend way more money than Android users.Wouldn't this just drive app developers over to the android side and just completely leave iOS? Isn't this just like Apple shooting themselves in the foot?
Yeah maybe the EU should do something about that. They probably won't, because that would mean doing something that actually IS beneficial and doesn't **** things up.
Loot boxes should be banned everywhere, and microtransations in any game that isn't age restricted to adults only. Evil crap.
Exactly. We agree on this.
Because of the legal contracts you cite above.
Look, you hate Apple. You show it over and over again. Which is fine. But it's clouding your arguments.
Nothing in the way Apple operates, even in the EU, is illegal or immoral. Any business that operates in the same way, in the EU, but without a "Gatekeeper" status is operating under normal business practices. Spotify can "crush" a small record label, in the way you choose to discuss these issues, and people aren't raising pitchforks over the way they operate.
The DMA doesn't say "Apple is evil in how they run their business." It simply says that due to extraordinary circumstances, we are going to limit Apple's normal business practices.
All this anger toward Apple sits completely outside of the realm of the DMA.
Does Apple charge that to the application store owner? if so that like owning a franchise, franchises pay a lot up front whether they make any money off of customers or not.
Stores have always provided better prices for their members, join their store for better prices, pretty common model.
If Verizon wants to operate their business that way, that would be Verizon's choice. It woudln't be evil or greedy. Apple may choose to ban iPhones from operating on Verizon.
Really? You think the DMA mandates this for all businesses? Here's a hint: it doesn't.
Because that's how Apple chooses to operate its business.
If I ran my business exactly the same way, but I weren't considered a "gatekeeper" then you'd have zero problem with my business. So, it's not the business practice you're objecting to. It's the idea that Apple is a gatekeeper.
I don't know anyone who called it patriotism. If anything, we're all ****** off that our tax dollars keep bailing them out every time something goes wrong.