I see your Drucker and raise you Friedman:
MILTON FRIEDMAN, 1970
I guess Apple will find other ways to get there 30% cut, which likely will hurt small developers.
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South Korea Passes Bill Banning Apple From Requiring Developers to Use App Store In-App Purchase System
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I guess Apple will find other ways to get there 30% cut, which likely will hurt small developers.
That I understand, in our country they do it quite a lot - hate it, the companies are always running out of money, always get extra cash from country (tax payers) and you can get better service from private companies and sometimes it will be even cheaper.
Haven't small developers already had the 30% cut for 13 years?
Is there any shortage of small developers in the App Store?
My point is that if they upfront cost go up they have to front that before any money comes and the see if it will even sell so 30% or now 15% at the back end is less risky and a better deal.
I see. Thanks.
Though Apple could have a 0% cut and some developers would still have trouble making a living with apps.
It's tough out there!
But yes... a reduction in fees can only help. And with the other piece of news announced tonight... there are A LOT of changes coming to the App Store.
Fun times ahead!
Well, private company will run more efficient than government owned entity. Overall, it is private company to make money. What is the best way to make money? More efficiency. But this would be in expense of workers, especially lower skill jobs.
I also agree most of industries should be run by private owned companies.
But for certain industries, especially essential services, like: education, health care, utilities, public transits etc. These type of services should always run by government. I don’t believe in a second privatization of these sector will be in interest of public.
Private school exist where rich and wealth’s kids already way ahead kids from middle class. They will receive better education, more importantly they have more opportunities than average kids. This will result rich become rich and poor become poorer.
Health care SHOULD not be private, no one should in position of choice health care and food. If anything we can learn from this pandemic, it is important of health care and why should every citizen get care they need without worrying about money.
Choice for what is the question? You mean givingup my credit to thousands of developers that don't know teh first thing about running a store?
Whatch. Most developers will charge the same amount and claim the same thing as Apple. Just less secure. They'll have to. They need to pay another 3rd party for a payment system or pay to develop their own. Not to mention, it won't be convenient either.
But but but... I was told Apple needed to get knocked down a peg... they have too much control over the entire industry, apparently.
Apple. Monopoly. Bad. And all that jazz.
Multiple nations are investigating Apple for anti-competitive practices. Oh noes!
Well... this is what you get!
For the record... I agree with you. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of "this is great for consumerz!" that people are celebrating now.
It'll be interesting the see what other App Store changes come over the next couple years. I think there are a few more active lawsuits pending! Yay!
Apple does not just give updates for free. How much did you pay for Numbers? For Pages? For iPhoto? You can point to success in their hardware business as a justification for them giving those for free. But history shows that it is highly unlikely their dominance will last. What then? And software developers should feel justified getting a 100% free ride on their ecosystem, their cloud platform and delivery system, etc?
NO WAY. Apple has 20,000,000 registered developers. That's $2 BILLION. There's no freakin way it costs anywhere near $2 Billion to run the App Store. The 'overhead' is a support team to do reviews and their data hosting. The majority of their other development costs are fixed costs. There's just no way they're spending $2B to operate the App Store. So that 30% is ALL GRAVY as they say. Pure profit. Estimates are that the App Store is running on about 85%+ margins.
Apple is absolutely NOT entitled to "make what it can get." It cannot do so if it violates antitrust and other business laws. There are laws in place for a reason. "Price fixing" for example, is illegal. They wouldn't be able to conspire with another phone maker to not sell phones below a certain price, for example.
30% is not some standard commission rate. It became more popular with digital platforms because Apple set that amount, which Google followed, and others followed suit since Apple & Google were able to keep the commission that high. Others (like Steam, etc.) are going to be forced to open up their marketplaces too.
Also this argument of the Apple Developer program being an "opt in" program if Developers don't like the commissions rate and fees they don't have to join. Well, that's not feasible in today's world... no company can expect to have a Mobile App of any kind (such as online banking, food delivery, etc. etc.) without having an iOS App too OR they'd be out of business. That's how big Apple's marketshare became. They dominate such a huge % of the overall market. No company can avoid not creating an App for iOS or they're going not going to be able to have an App for their customers and business.
Apple's behavior has been the definition of monopolistic. Forcing out Spotify to favor their own Music service is proof of that. They can't use DIFFERENT rules for different companies and then force out any of their competitors.
We should bookmark this comment and refer back to it when the quarterly results come out and the headlines are:
"Android Dominates Mobile Market with 85% Market Share"
But yes... I see what you mean. It's very difficult to have a successful mobile app in the modern world without an iOS version. And because of Apple's crazy rules... it sometimes limits what you can do. Or it affects your bottom line.
Hopefully this step... and future steps... will foster a new improved App Store that will make more people happy.
Here's my napkin math on the this topic.
Minnesota and Arizona Bills Aim to Let Developers Skirt Apple's In-App Purchase Rules
Here's my thinking. App Store profits is derived from two areas. The cost of running the App Store (which doesn't change, because the number of developers is assumed to be fairly constant), and the revenue from games and IAPs (which is variable in nature). We also know that about 85% of...
forums.macrumors.com
Summary:
1) Estimated margins of 40%, requiring 20% cut to break even. This works out to total costs of 11-12 billion.
2) Assume 10 million registered developers, for annual income of 1 billion.
But I guess we will never know for certain until Apple publishes their own numbers.
The two big questions:
1. Will Apple reduce fees or simply raise fees to compensate?
2. If Apple does reduce fees will developers cut prices, thus helping the consumer, or simply pocket teh windfall?
Most assuredly.
True, as long as they follow the law they are entitled to charge whatever they want; and no one is claiming Apple is conspiring to keep a 30% fee.
More to the point, why should developers be allowed to pocket the windfall if Apple cuts fees, since the " NOT entitled to "make what it can get." " would apply to them as well. They were living with 70%, why should they get 85% instead of consumers benefiting from a price cut?
It's actually pretty reasonable compared to historical commissions and markups.
So if competition is good, and you have options such as Android, Steam, etc. why haven't rates come down? Why haven't 3rd party app stores for Android come out and drastically cut rates and scooped up large swaths of developers?
That is simply a cost of doing business, no less than rent in a high traffic area for a B&M store. Apple has a large market share but Android is bigger; and either way big does not make a monopoly make.
Not necessarily, the ultimate question is "is the consumer harmed by, say, higher prices than absent the behavior?" Stores can feature house brands, for example to the detriment of other brands or charge for shelf space. Apple is not forcing you to use Apple music instead of Spotify; and IIRC Apple Music was cheaper than Spotify, which is a benefit to the consumer.
Not to mention web site development, a legal team to comply with local laws and tax compliance, localization costs, payment processing, etc.
I bet Apple would love the 30% to be pure gravy and not contributing to their fixed and variable costs.
See Abazigal post above.
Sure, always within the backdrop of doing business legally.
No, but apple could double the price of their phones. Maybe sales would tank, but they could.
It is and has been around for longer than the app store.
Becoming popular is not the same as unprecedented.
Is this your opinion, or a fact? Because the last I looked websites are very popular.
Pretty sure there are businesses that don't have an app, who only have a website.
In your opinion, not legally.
When did they force out spotify?
Sure they can't. But the app store has been in business for 13 years and apple has done a pretty good job with it. I understand devs want complete access, no fees, complete freedom to apples user base. But that's not how it works.
While I can only speculate, reduced fees won't get into consumers hands, imo.
It is way to long and I only watched first 3 minutes. I in position that if genius is genius, they will shine whether in public school or private school.
I am against private school in general, because it create this unequal opportunity for privileged few and unprivileged many . This divide will only grow as generation pass down.
Society must create a way to allow class movement. What we seeing right now is rich stays rich, middle class family stay at middle class and poor stay poor. And rich is getting richer and middle class is sinking.
I am not really good at expressing my opinion. But I think you understand my position
Apple still has an advantage: people are lazy. Apple's IAP will still be the most widely used way of doing things because of how easy it is. To say that they'll have a free ride on Apple is preposterous.
Apple and Google (and other tech giants in their own sectors) have every economic incentive to act as profit-maximising oligopolies, so governments will wade in now and again to stop this becoming too egregious.
There are 1 billion iPhone users and 2.5 billion Android users, which is basically every adult in the entire economically developed world. That's a level where governments get involved no matter what. South Korea is just the first of this series of dominos. Apple really needs to try and delay the others falling.
Comparisons with Sony, Steam, etc. are fine philosophically as they present the same questions, but there is a huge public policy difference between regulating how a company treats 10 million PS5 owners vs how two companies treat 3.5 billion phone users.
I think the end game - many decades from now - might be that Apple and Google are reduced to platform providers more like a telephone company than the gatekeepers they are now. No-one is suggesting that AT&T should have had a 30% cut of a sale concluded over the phone and I can see society reaching a point where that is the view taken of the phone manufacturers. Apple in an 'App Store neutrality' world would be less profitable, but I expect still massively so.
There are 1 billion iPhone users and 2.5 billion Android users, which is basically every adult in the entire economically developed world. That's a level where governments get involved no matter what. South Korea is just the first of this series of dominos. Apple really needs to try and delay the others falling.
Comparisons with Sony, Steam, etc. are fine philosophically as they present the same questions, but there is a huge public policy difference between regulating how a company treats 10 million PS5 owners vs how two companies treat 3.5 billion phone users.
I think the end game - many decades from now - might be that Apple and Google are reduced to platform providers more like a telephone company than the gatekeepers they are now. No-one is suggesting that AT&T should have had a 30% cut of a sale concluded over the phone and I can see society reaching a point where that is the view taken of the phone manufacturers. Apple in an 'App Store neutrality' world would be less profitable, but I expect still massively so.
If teh goal is consumer benefit then the size of the consumer base for popular products such as consoles should not be a determinate if they should be subject to the same regulations.
While I understand and agree someone with your sentiment, reducing the App Store to simply a platform greatly reduces Apple's interest in continuing to spend money on it as well as to find alternate ways to extract revenue from apps. Free apps, for example, may be greatly reduced if the fees to gain access to tools, get certifications, etc, go up significantly.
I don't see this push as for the end user as much as a few large developers are looking for ways to increase their revenue at Apple's expense, while still enjoying all the benefits the app store brings them.
How is it preposterous. If an app developer can choose any way to implement payment… can he not do away with IAP all together? This is the part I don’t understand. People have been saying on here how great this is, that it gives the consumer more choices. How so? It gives the app developer more choices. If Apple has to host their apps on their servers, push through updates, etc.. but the developer can require the consumer to re-route to their website to pay… where they don’t have to pay any commission at all to Apple… how would that not be a free ride? I already have to do this with a few services. I forget which at the moment. Maybe YoutubeTV was one. I don’t think you can even pull up your account plan info and payments at all… it tells you you have to access all that from a web browser. That’s not more choice for me. It’s just a different choice, and not mine. You are assuming they can add these alternate payment options, but will continue to allow IAP to those that want it. How do you know that will continue to be the case?
Edit: Yes, just checked and YouTube TV is one of them. See screenshot. It does not allow me to view or change my plan at all in the apps. I have to go to my account on a browser. What’s worse.. it wvwn required me to have a gmail account to use their service. So to repeat: I HAVE NO IAP OPTION. This is not more choice for me. It’s a pita.
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Think back to the day before the iPhone changed the way mobile phones worked. The only way to get access to any apps on your phone was to buy then directly from the mobile provider (such as AT&T). That included very simple apps, as well as ring tones. Remember having to pay a buck or more to get a 15 second snippet of a song to use as a ringtone? The margins on those purchases was a lot higher than 30% too. Yes, the immediate predecessors to the current era of phones (WinCE, Blackberry, etc) did also allow for some alternative methods to get access to some apps, but these devices never really took off as dominant platforms (Blackberry with consumers or WinCE at all) at the time so most apps were purchased from the AT&Ts/Verizons/3s/etc of the world.
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