Yeah but you're also free to sell your product at Walmart, smaller stores, or any other retailer which may have different rates. With the Apple store you have well....the Apple store.

And Google Play and Amazon’s App Store, and Steam, and Epic, etc etc.

Except it's not the "same" software. If I have to make native iOS and Android apps, I have to essentially create two separate pieces of code.

If I was selling my software at Walmart, I have to change nothing to sell it at Target.

There’s little difference between a software company staffing a small porting/parity team, and a retail product company staffing special AR and buyer management teams to deal with large distributors.

Those don't fit in your comparison here. While Google Play might be seen as the only way, there is nothing to stop you from going to some other store (F-Droid e.g). Also you are not forced as a developer to go Steam or Epic. You could just offer a download from your website. Also, at least with Steam and Epic you can generate keys that you can sell outside of those stores in which you keep 100%. That's choice.

You don't have that choice in iOS.

> While Google Play might be seen as the only way, there is nothing to stop you from going to some other store (F-Droid e.g).

Over upcoming releases of AOSP, Google intends to disable sideloading in Android, except for that tiny tech audience who knows how to enable developer mode and install over the command line. So, both direct APK downloads and F-Droid will be accessible to fewer ordinary Android users than is already the case. Definitely not enough people to build an app business on.

It still allows sideload without developer mode, unlike iOS.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/08/24/android-11-install-...

> Over upcoming releases of AOSP, Google intends to disable sideloading in Android, except for that tiny tech audience who knows how to enable developer mode and install over the command line.

This is a gross and anti-competitive overstep.

Have you got any source for this claim?

You can sell iOS games on Google Play?

If you define “what your software is” so precisely that it must be running on iOS to count as your software, then sure, by definition your software can’t exist on Google Play. But that’s just as ludicrous as manufacturing shirts and defining “what your product is” as “shirts being sold at Walmart,” then complaining that you cannot by definition sell your shirts at Target because they would no longer be your shirts.

I mean, it's not unreasonable to say that "my software" = My binary that is running on a device.

With android, I can have an .apk that is distributed via the play store or I can have that exact same .apk distributed via any other store that exists for that device.

That's a very odd reply. Software are always targeting a platform. Tshirts aren't targeting a specific store.

When there's the internet, why would you sell any software title at Target?

It seems like Apple still likes to give some antiquated metrics for how much cheaper iOS is compared to retail software, but it's never explained why that's the metric.

As for Target, it's a brick and mortar store. Apple do have some hefty expenditures, sure, but they're luxuries (e.g. Making your own CPUs is cool but ultimately not all that for a product that most users won't have even the slightest clue of the trade-offs that went into that decision) - 30% is quite a lot for software, especially in a market like apple's.

I would like to see some good arguments as to why a brick and mortar store deserves a significantly larger cut.

> Making your own CPUs is cool but ultimately not all that for a product that most users won't have even the slightest clue of the trade-offs that went into that decision

Is developing better hardware not a valid reason? It’s too much of a luxury to legitimize fees?

> I would like to see some good arguments as to why a brick and mortar store deserves a significantly larger cut.

They don't get a "cut" at all, they resell the product at a markup (and set their own prices, so they can even sell at a loss if they want to). Totally different dynamic vs. the App Store.

> Totally different dynamic vs. the App Store.

What's the difference?

BTW, Apple regularly sells app store "dollars" at a loss. I once bought a $200 app store gift card for $165 at Costco.

When you sell boxed software in a retail store, you're selling using the wholesale model: it has a retail price of $99 but you're selling it to them -- or more likely your distributor -- for about 40–50% of that price. The distributor takes another 10%, and the retail store gets the difference between that and the retail price they choose to sell it at. This is very distinct from the "agency" model that the App Store uses.

Well: actually, when you sell boxed software in a retail store in 2020, you sell nothing because nobody does that and this is a super stupid comparison for Apple to keep making. The Mac App Store isn't competing with Target and the ghost of CompUSA, it's competing with other online store systems like Paddle, which takes 50¢ + 5%. The iOS App Store is competing with... nothing, in practice, because it's literally the only way to get applications onto your iOS device. Which is kind of what's getting everyone to argue about this, right?

Come on, this is basic stuff. You can sell your product without selling at Target, you effectively can't sell your ios app outside the app store. It's not so much about the markup (which should come down since modern digital business capabilities should have efficiencies that reach the consumer as a benefit), but the practice of closing out alternatives.

Why would you build an iOS app with the intention of selling it somewhere other than the iOS App Store? It’s not like Apple is blindsiding any developers with the revelation that the App Store is the only way to distribute software on non-jailbroken iPhones.

That's the problem.

If Apple purchased 10,000 units of an app from the developer upfront, they can then resell each unit at whatever markup or loss they think people would buy it. This is a commission model where Apple is getting a cut of each sale.

- Nintendo charges 40-60% for the Switch.

- Microsoft charges 30% for the Xbox Store.

- Shopify charges 20% for their app marketplace.

- Valve charges 30% for the Steam store.

Can you provide evidence that Apple is charging a lot compared to its peers ?

Nintendo and Microsoft/Xbox have low margin on each device sold [1] [2]. For Valve, Steam is the only real source of income. Apple on the other hand has a lot of source of incomes. They have a margin of 60 percent just for the iPhone! [3]

[1] https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/5/15195638/nintendo-switch-co...

[2] https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-not-making-any-money-on...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone/apples-iphon...

You have a job and an apartment you lease out. You made a great deal on the apartment. Now, your tenant suggests he should pay less, since you have another income and you already make a profit. Do you? I don't understand your point - if Nintendo or Sony could achieve larger margins, they would.

A lot compared to what? What other market is like Apple's?

As in Steam also charge 30%, but Steam don't exclusively control access to their customers. If you sell your game on the epic store it's 12%. Apple exclusively control the gates to their customers in a way not found in any other device of comparable stature (Microsoft and Sony are gatekeepers for their consoles, but they aren't a "utility" in the same way some would argue a phone is)

True...

But the difference here is that you've prepared an asset that can only be sold in one place.