Google Follows Apple's Lead By Reducing Play Store Fee for App Subscriptions

[MacRumors]

Google revealed on Thursday that it would follow Apple's lead in lowering the amount of money app developers must pay for mobile subscriptions processed through the company's Play Store (via The Verge).

Adoption of the subscription model by iOS developers has increased over recent months, causing some controversy within the app-using community. Apple incentivized developers to sell their apps for a recurring fee instead of a one-time cost when it made changes to its App Store subscription policies in September of last year.

Usually, Apple takes 30 percent of app revenue, but developers who are able to maintain a subscription with a customer longer than a year see Apple's cut drop down to 15 percent.

Google is adopting the same policy for subscriptions in its Play Store - an Android developer selling a subscription service will be eligible for the cut if the customer in question has been subscribed for more than a year. The company plans to bring the change into effect starting January 2018.

As The Verge notes, Google is trying to stay competitive with Apple by offering a reduction in its fees. This way the company ensures that subscription services like Spotify don't try to bypass the Play Store in an effort to avoid paying the fee. But it also encourages developers to work harder to keep users subscribed for longer, given that the free reduction doesn't take effect until 12 months into the initial subscription.

Article Link: Google Follows Apple's Lead By Reducing Play Store Fee for App Subscriptions

 

[scarecrowmac]

I wonder what the statistics are for subscriptions that last over a year. I can’t imagine it would be very high?

 

[vicviper789]

I understand Devs need to keep an income stream but every time a paid app switches to subscription without putting it in the changelog, I immediately delete and never look back.
Geocaching, Hi-Definitely Radar, and several other apps pulled this. It's not as big of an issue when a free app switched to subscription but I paid for those and felt robbed when they wanted me to pay for what I already paid for.

$1-$10 a month isn't that bad on its own but when I have 20-30 apps nagging for monthly payments (especially after I paid for the original, full featured version) it gets pretty expensive.

There are a ton of cool apps I would love to use but ended up not buying a iPad pro because of the subscriptions for all these apps (and the $50 price increase).

 

[thisisnotmyname]

I thought this already happened about a year ago?

 

[JM]

I understand Devs need to keep an income stream but every time a paid app switches to subscription without putting it in the changelog, I immediately delete and never look back.
Geocaching, Hi-Definitely Radar, and several other apps pulled this. It's not as big of an issue when a free app switched to subscription but I paid for those and felt robbed when they wanted me to pay for what I already paid for.

$1-$10 a month isn't that bad on its own but when I have 20-30 apps nagging for monthly payments (especially after I paid for the original, full featured version) it gets pretty expensive.

There are a ton of cool apps I would love to use but ended up not buying a iPad pro because of the subscriptions for all these apps (and the $50 price increase).

Shady **** like that when the developer can't be honest about the change to subscription is infuriating.

A similar thing happened with Yahoo weather when they added ads and only marked the update as "bug fixes and performance enhancements": it was so ****ed up.

 

[ethanwa79]

I understand Devs need to keep an income stream but every time a paid app switches to subscription without putting it in the changelog, I immediately delete and never look back.
Geocaching, Hi-Definitely Radar, and several other apps pulled this. It's not as big of an issue when a free app switched to subscription but I paid for those and felt robbed when they wanted me to pay for what I already paid for.

$1-$10 a month isn't that bad on its own but when I have 20-30 apps nagging for monthly payments (especially after I paid for the original, full featured version) it gets pretty expensive.

There are a ton of cool apps I would love to use but ended up not buying a iPad pro because of the subscriptions for all these apps (and the $50 price increase).

As a long-time iOS app developer myself I can sympathize with you. Our company is going through the same problems right now where we may switch to a subscription model.

Honestly, we wish there was a better way, but when users get mad and complain that our full-featured app that took more than a few years to make costs the same as a McDonalds Happy Meal, it's frustrating for the developer. It's almost just not worth it (almost), especially for niche apps.

I wish Apple would allow devs to charge for major updates (2.0 -> 3.0) in an easier way beyond just releasing an entirely new app to the store.

 

[sevvere]

Both companies forget that it was the app developers that allowed their operating systems /devices to become as prominent as they are.

There are multiple reasons why Blackberry failed in the end.. But a big one was lack of apps. Barnes and Noble had their HD Nook which had a great screen for the time.. But no full fledged app store until at the very end they got google play... Too late.

This reduction in fees for subscriptions will only entice developers to adopt this model. I haven't touched Ulysses since they switched... And bought Scrivener to replace it. I do not mind paying for upgrades because I can at least keep the outdated version if its good enough for me. I will never pay for a subscription app just to use it.

 

[CarpalMac]

As a long-time iOS app developer myself I can sympathize with you. Our company is going through the same problems right now where we may switch to a subscription model.

Honestly, we wish there was a better way, but when users get mad and complain that our full-featured app that took more than a few years to make costs the same as a McDonalds Happy Meal, it's frustrating for the developer. It's almost just not worth it (almost), especially for niche apps.

I wish Apple would allow devs to charge for major updates (2.0 -> 3.0) in an easier way beyond just releasing an entirely new app to the store.

In turn, I feel for you as a developer. This is one of the biggest problem with the app store - customer expectations have been set at rock bottom prices, in the early days developers immediately raced to the bottom by pricing apps at ~59p. It's a hard baseline to creep back up from.

It is insane and unrealistic, it massively undervalues the work many good devs have done. Yet people will pay £3 for a coffee each weekday morning, hell lots of people on this site seem very keen to pay £1000+ for a phone, but suddenly scream bloody murder when an app costs more than 79p...

Personally I won't pay for apps that use the subscription model, as said above - the costs all add up.

 

[Seoras]

"Google follows Apple's lead".
Like a dog on a leash, always have done always will do.

 

[Urban Joe]

I dunno. Seems like Apple and Google could care less about the small shop developer. They must feel that unless an app goes viral and hits the jackpot it doesn't deserve to exist. Its a shame they have such control over the market. At this point they both should be under anti-trust investigation.