$10m gross sales. CTF is $6.2m, reducing $10m to $3.8m in gross profit. Tax is $1.8m, leaving you with $2m. But you still have 10 million copies of your app out there, so your CTF in year two is ANOTHER $6.2m. If you have gross sales in year two of less than $6.2m (which is likely, as most apps sell quickly at first and decline over time -- not to mention your sales in year two ADD to the CTF) then you have to pay Apple more money than you make in gross sales.
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Apple's EU Core Technology Fee Could Bankrupt Freemium App Developers
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how did you get 6.2m from 10m sales for CTF?
the fee is per copy not app price.
$10m - what was the app price?
It's in the original article. The app price in the example is $0.99.
After 35 pages of comments, it gets hard to read everything and remember what's being discussed after all the tangents... let me go re-read it...
Or you could just stick with the current store process for a lot less:
Note the fee calculator doesnt let you set an app price... by inference 10,000,000 installs generating $10,000,000 would make it a $1 app (which isnt a legal value is it?)
I hope they tell Apple they can’t allow Apps to stay on the current terms without the CTF because IMO that is steering developers away from Alternative stores which undermines the spirit of the law.
I believe this was talked about in this thread or another: the whole CTF is a by product of Apple having to break apart their 15/30 commission.
3-5% is standard credit card processing. The CTF was included and sort of blanket covered by the companies/develops who had paid apps. The commission also handled exchange rates, tax filings etc.
I think people also keep getting the $99 developer fee.
Apple developer accounts are free- I have had one since college and never paid a dime. That $99 gives the developer the ability to work closer to Apple to polish their software and if they wish, using Apples massive distribution network to have access to billions of devices.
it's a tool they provided to let devs decide on where to put apps and what it will cost.
it can be tweaked.
this example was probably the worst case scenario (perhaps deliberately chosen?) where there were massive downloads of a cheap app. Of course 50c fee on a $1 app is substantially more than 50c on a $10 one.
Apple have said "stay tuned" on viral hit apps that new/young devs make so they dont go broke.
no it's a price comparison.
you decide how popular your app will be and pick what you want to do.
steering would be Apple putting an Apple Music ad in Spotify and saying "you can buy this music streamer for $1 less".
Steering would be unfair use of your platform to capture a competitors clients.
When Apple Music and Spotify cost the same (one bought thru the app store, one bought outside) with no reference to the other, it's a consumer choice.
Say I want to convert some short videos on my phone.
I do a Search, up pops a few, I look at them, read blurb and reviews, and decide what to buy.
Sometimes the cheapest one, sometimes not.
Based on what appeals to me.
Apple Music appeals to some people (who like better audio quality), some hate the interface.
Spotify has some great playlist recommendations, some hate their whinging and use of the EU.
It's not some Jedi mind trick to get you to buy stuff.
You have a choice.
And it's not that freaking hard to buy a sub outside the app store and sign in.
You dont need a MENSA membership to do it. As millions of customers have shown.
why would you hope that?
devs have had 15 years of following the same rules.
if they dont want to change you shouldnt be able to force them. grrr
Because it is steering, if the CTF was a universal fee it might have a chance to be allowed, that it isn't undermines its legitimacy. I also think that it would be more likely to survive as a one-time new user fee rather than a per download fee.
Incentivizing apps not to take advantage of the benefits of the DMA is steering, it even seems like recent news from Vestager suggests that the EU is thinking that could be steering as well. Steering is putting in place a measure that makes it impossible to use a service.
The rest of your post was not really related to the CTF so I ignored it.
Well you said it WAS steering and suddenly it's "EU thinking that COULD be..."
Also, it isnt IMPOSSIBLE to use a service.
It might be unattractive in some cases.
Hence Apple let devs stay on the same existing plan.
Play semantics all you like. But there is no definitive answer backing up your claims.
In my opinion it is steering. I hope and believe the EU is likely to agree with me. I still think it is steering, however my opinion doesn’t bear the weight of law. This is just you playing the same semantics you accuse me of doing.
If it is impractical or financially catastrophic to do so this is as near as makes no difference to being impossible. Hence why it is a steering mechanism that prevents developers from taking advantage of the benefits they are supposed to reap from the DMA.
I am not playing semantics, I am pointing out that the spirit of the DMA is being violated by Apple’s actions.
If anything that makes the core charge even more bs as you need to explain why is the core charge 6 mil when the App Store as it is only has 125k. That is near a 60x increase.
Or… you are just making up numbers.
In reality, the comparison is 3 mil (30%) vs 4.5 mil for the CTF.
well YOUR OPINION isnt law.
perhaps in future, state up front things are your opinion? Otherwise readers could be confused you have some link with proof...
I'd suggest your pointing out the spirit of the DMA is equally an opinionl...
The EU didnt make any recommendation about charges.
This is what happens when government body wants to control tech.
They have proven to have no idea.
Just like their "fine" that used Worldwide Sales to calculate a EU fine that doesnt go to customers or developers...
Everyone in here makes claims about their opinion, in matters where there is a settled court opinion that has gone through all appeals and there are no new actions, we can cite that as a matter of course. However, when the rules are new and untested we can all read into them our own understanding. My opinion, my understanding, so long as the EU is just looking into the rules and hasn’t actually made a statement there is no need to preface this with the idea that my opinion isn’t law.
I can claim it is steering because in my reading of the DMA it is steering. It puts in place obstacles to developers freely choosing between the existing terms and the new DMA compliant terms. Until the EU comments my reading is as valid as yours.
So is yours? I don’t think it serves the discussion to preface every sentence with “this is just my opinion” we should all be adult enough to know that unless we are discussing established fact or law its all opinion.
I’m going to follow myself up and point out that even in legal matters everything is still opinion. It is the opinion of the court etc… some future decision might reverse an earlier legal opinion, an opinion stands as law for only so long as a combination of the courts and the legislature both agree that it should do so. There are whole legal fields dedicated to reading different interpretations into laws…
Given the fact Apple choose to massive made up numbers for their "core charge" maybe the fine is not big enough.
They used world wide numbers for the fine base because it has to be big enough to force complainces. Safe to say the core fee is going to be shown to be steering and as such apple going to be slapped with the fine.
I was using the number supplied from the orginal poster.
Even at 3mil vs 4.5 mil it does not help Apples case much. If anything even in your prettier numbers Apple looks pretty bad and it is back to steering and trying to not comply with the law. So far Apple's and even the users arguments that it is about security we can show is false due to the short window of time outside of hte EU they will block updates from non Apple app stores. That means it is not about security.
Call it what it is. Apple is being greedy and their is a reason Anti trust is coming down on them world wide.