Snap is 'Happy' to Pay Apple's 30% Commission Rate, Says Evan Spiegel

[topdrawer]

Good thing that Apple charges $99/yr to get into the App Store, eh?

If I have a free App with no IAP, then Apple gets their $99 and nothing else. I could have 100 or 100 thousand or 100 million users downloading that App, but somehow Apple thinks they only need $99.

Is $99 really enough to pay for this + XCode + app reviewers? No. I'd rather see a real usage-based charge for App store resources instead of skimming % from IAPs.

if a free app is popular and getting lot of downloads on the app store, it is adding value to the iphone. people will buy apple products to use those apps. apple benefits from popular apps being on their platform.

app reviews are mostly automated.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

TC getting crafty y'alll, slipping a brown paper envelope to Spiegel 😎

 

[Rogifan]

No app deserves a free ride to use Apple’s servers and APIs to sell their own products while giving Apple 0.0%. Imagine if Best Buy had to stock empty boxes that referred you to buy their products on Amazon? And Amazon didn’t pay a cent for the privilege?

Once I download an app from the App Store and then decide to buy something in it is it still using Apple’s servers? Going by your logic if I buy toilet paper via the Target app Apple should get 30% of that transaction.

 

[Rogifan]

Good thing that Apple charges $99/yr to get into the App Store, eh?

If I have a free App with no IAP, then Apple gets their $99 and nothing else. I could have 100 or 100 thousand or 100 million users downloading that App, but somehow Apple thinks they only need $99.

Is $99 really enough to pay for this + XCode + app reviewers? No. I'd rather see a real usage-based charge for App store resources instead of skimming % from IAPs.

That makes the most sense. Of course it wouldn’t be the cash cow that IAP (especially within games) is. Apple makes billions off of all these IAP micro-transactions.

 

[Td1970]

Talk about kissing someone’s butt.

 

[Rogifan]

And that is not even the half of it. Apple runs the marketplace, advertises the products, provides the resources to have the products developed in the first place, and enables the electronic commerce and collects the bills from subscribers, and no where is it ever prevented (Like Epic from selling vbucks on its own and using them as a subscription). In fact you could even have an outside App Store to market the products on the web, collect subscriptions and sign users up, then have them download from the App Store. - 0% commission.

If only Apple would charge what the market charges, like hmm lets see, the market charges - oh wait, 30%! Damn apple, not a penny more!

Maybe Epic should propose a fixed fee service, some ungodly amount every month, but no commission, continued presence on the App Store, continued privacy and security from the App Store, and sell all its subscriptions on its own!

There are nearly 2 million apps in the App Store. Most apps aren’t advertised by Apple. In fact I’ll bet the majority of apps on people’s iPhones are not there because of Apple advertising them.

 

[ktecac]

i know its basically just PR attempt, trying paint snap as a 'yeah we totally care about your privacy too! we would have been trying to protect your privacy even if apple didn't go this direction for sure!' but i still like when companies acknowledge the fact they owe most (or a great portion) of their success to the situation the App store and Apple provided them, and that its possible to still be unimaginably wealthy while playing by the rules of that ecosystem.

 

[ipponrg]

Snapchat is an example where it needs Apple/Android to exist. So yeah taking in 70% instead of 0% would be preferred.

 

[chucker23n1]

Blink twice, Evan. We'll rescue you from Tim!

 

[topdrawer]

i know its basically just PR attempt, trying paint snap as a 'yeah we totally care about your privacy too! we would have been trying to protect your privacy even if apple didn't go this direction for sure!' but i still like when companies acknowledge the fact they owe most (or a great portion) of their success to the situation the App store and Apple provided them, and that its possible to still be unimaginably wealthy while playing by the rules of that ecosystem.

not all apps are social time sucks propped up by investors waiting for an actual profitable company to buy them. some actually make a product that is trying to make it by selling something without angel investors.

 

[bobmans]

Does Snapchat even offer IAP? I've never seen the option to purchase something inside snapchat...

 

[topdrawer]

i don't use snap chat. but doesn't snap chat have some sort of payment feature between users? how will snap chat feel if apple required apple pay for those transfers instead and demanded 30%?

 

[Adescalso]

Can someone help explain why this is even in court? I used to work in retail and the markup in stores was generally 50% or more so how is this different? The most popular jacket in our line had an 86% markup and I don’t see them getting sued by some whinny multi billion dollar corporation.

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

No amount of platform "enhancements" can fix Snap's horrendous experience. I've never seen a more cryptic UI in a phone app and probably never will.

 

[8707908]

Evan Speigel is a simp biotch

 

[Black Magic]

So Steam, Playstation and Microsoft all charge 30 percent, but Apple following suit and the lawsuits start?

 

[IG88]

Snap's ship has sailed. At this point, he will do anything to make it relevant again.

Can you elaborate a bit? I don't use it so I don't have a feel for what it used to be vs current relevance.

 

[IG88]

So Steam, Playstation and Microsoft all charge 30 percent, but Apple following suit and the lawsuits start?

Microsoft hasn't locked down all Windows apps to be solely coming from their App Store either. There would be major outrage if they attempted it too.

 

[8707908]

Snap's ship has sailed. At this point, he will do anything to make it relevant again.

it’s still the best place to get 20 year olds to send you nudes.

 

[Black Magic]

Microsoft hasn't locked down all Windows apps to be solely coming from their App Store either. There would be major outrage if they attempted it too.

Because MS didn't have vision and came to the game last. The App Store was like this from the beginning so there was no sudden change and the outrage started recently because some 3rd party companies are greedy and want to make more money off the back of Apple's engineering and vision. They want Apple to take less so they can take more.

 

[IG88]

Because MS didn't have vision and came to the game last. The App Store was like this from the beginning so there was no sudden change and the outrage started recently because some 3rd party companies are greedy and want to make more money off the back of Apple's engineering and vision. They want Apple to take less so they can take more.

Windows allows side loading. You are not forced to download only from their App Store.
Same with MacOS.
Same with Android.

Cook just admitted on the stand, that this is about $$.

"If we allowed developers to link out like that, we would give up our monetization."

 

[chucker23n1]

Can someone help explain why this is even in court? I used to work in retail and the markup in stores was generally 50% or more so how is this different? The most popular jacket in our line had an 86% markup and I don’t see them getting sued by some whinny multi billion dollar corporation.

One difference is that you effectively only get two stores to choose from: Apple App Store, Google Play Store.

(There's things like Amazon Appstore on Android, but they're extremely small.)

There's a duopoly at play here, for devices that are increasingly central to our lives.

 

[chucker23n1]

Windows allows side loading. You are not forced to download only from their App Store.
Same with MacOS.
Same with Android.

Windows RT did not allow side loading, and Microsoft was absolutely toying with that idea. They just happened not to be sucessful.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

So Steam, Playstation and Microsoft all charge 30 percent, but Apple following suit and the lawsuits start?

No you see, here’s a completely unrelated stream of words that are supposed to indicate why only Apple can’t do a thing! That’s pretty much every response you’ll get on this, thought I’d summarize all of them for you.

 

[RedRage]

Can someone help explain why this is even in court? I used to work in retail and the markup in stores was generally 50% or more so how is this different? The most popular jacket in our line had an 86% markup and I don’t see them getting sued by some whinny multi billion dollar corporation.

Once you sold that jacket you’re done. You’re not collecting 30% of everything purchased while wearing that jacket lol