In addition, I think Apple pushing subscriptions as a solution for long term app funding (instead of upgrade pricing or other options) has resulted in apps as simple as text editors or todo apps needlessly becoming subscription services. Apple didn't invent SaaS, but they sure did popularize it for consumer-facing apps.
Overall, Apple has not been a good steward of the App Store.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/11/app-store-scam-apps-how-to-sp...
But the question on my mind is: what precedent are we setting by legally mandating what a corporation can do on a platform they solely built? And are we pulling up the ladder after the incumbents have climbed it?
It's one thing to mandate how much pollution a factory may leak into a shared water supply. But the Apple app store is not a utility or natural resource. Apple built it from nothing and they're its sole owner. If it's a crappy experience, the solution to me still seems to be to migrate to a competitor (I'm toying with the idea of trading my Galaxy for a Librem 5).
There seems to be a mentality that megacorps have to have their hand held to not be public menaces, but by doing this my fear is we fortify Goliath rather than giving David a shot to kill him. The main reason I see this hasn't happened yet is that we've let the giants get away with corporate murder (e.g. Facebook's acquisition of both Instagram and WhatsApp), not because innovation is dead.
And national regulation is a pretty patchwork solution anyway to corporations that can (and sometimes do) go toe-to-toe with national governments.
Microsoft in the late 1990's and early 2000's was in a similar situation. They abused their position in the PC operating system market in an anticompetitive manner to prevent competition in the browser market[1]. Microsoft built their OS and Internet Explorer, so who has the right to tell them what they can and cannot do with them? It turns out that the federal government and regulators around the world have that right.
This is like asking why regulators have right to prevent Standard Oil from engaging in anticompetitive behavior, given that Standard Oil built their own pipelines and railroads, after all.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Should e.g. a restaurant have to provide an open market for silverware providers?
You could argue that the restaurant shouldn’t be a gatekeeper. Other parties could let me enjoy a cheaper meal, competing to offer the most discounted silverware. My $10 burger could be $9 if I could rent a paper plate from a third party and eat on the floor. After all, the restaurant shouldn’t abuse it’s monopoly, right?
Even there are many Apple App developer on the world doesn't mean they cannot choose to left.
If I build my career on a supplier company I don’t control, that’s my problem.
EU politicians seem to disagree. Mostly (I bet) to protect their own.
And I could force you to buy silverware made in X.
There isn't any inherently correct answer just a variety of possible answers with various outlooks for many parties.
I don't think anyone regards a restaurant as a market for silverware and plates where different vendors compete but Apple explicitly clearly runs a market for apps which is a notably different situation from selling burgers.
There is everyone reason to suppose that burgers ought to be regulated differently from software and regulators, lawmakers, and courts aren't robots required to interpret law like code. Reasonable results require both the literal text of the law and common sense.
A lawsuit attempting to force Burgerville to allow third party plate rental would run into the common sense conclusion that the Burgerville isn't presenting plates inc an opportunity to do business with customers they are simply offering them an opportunity to sell n plates to Burgerville for usage in their business.
Apple runs a store, not a market. This is the key distinction to my mind. In a store I expect curation and payola. On a market I expect independent hagglers.
I imagine if Plateify, a hot startup from the EU, wanted to get into the American Burger King “plate market”, they could get all sort of different attention from lawmakers.
Anyway, where’s the line to a “sub market”? If it’s the soda brand that goes with your burger? Should consumers always be able to get Pepsi cheaper than Coke? The whole reasoning is complex and arbitrary. I’d much rather just let companies decide what they want to bundle and unbundle.
Apple is the only seller of apps on my Apple phone.
Burger King is the only seller/provider of plates and cutlery at my local Burger King.
Even if you forget the sunk cost you just have two providers to choose from.
But this meal is locked in. If I don’t like the pickles on my whopper, they don’t provide McDonald’s pickles, do they? The don’t allow me to get a McFlurry with my Chicken Sandwich?
Bundling is allowed in every other instance and is key to many great products. Apple can do it too.
I'm not smart enough to make an argument about food pricing but some restaurants let you bring your own bottle of wine as long as you pay a 'corkage fee'
This does not concern setting precedents. The antitrust laws are already there, this is just a case of them being applied.
More broadly speaking, I'm not really sensitive to the argument "they built the platform, so they should get to choose to do with it whatever they want". Network effects are so large that there is effectively zero competition. What little competition there is can be easily squashed by Apple throwing a minuscule portion of its capital at it.
We need strong regulation to counter this, and to give small businesses a chance.
Can we please stop pretending corporations have feeling and liberties the way natural persons do? It reads like collective insanity "stones have feeling too".
Then are these network effects worth paying 30% for or not? If yes, you've just conceded the price is fair. If no, then Purism's Librem exists (and will not be bought by Apple).
> We need strong regulation to counter this, and to give small businesses a chance.
The same way it gave small railroad companies a chance? Or small oil, or small pharmaceutical, or small telecom? National legislation historically has been a method of pulling up the ladder behind robber barons, not of giving the little guy a chance.
EU forcing Apple to lower app store fees to 5% or something similar wouldn't remove the network effect though, there is no incentive for EU to allow Apple to extract that fee. Tell me this, what would EU lose by capping App store fees in general? App stores would still operate there, App store companies would still be very profitable, they would just be less of a leech on the economy.
> The same way it gave small railroad companies a chance? Or small oil, or small pharmaceutical, or small telecom?
Regulating those companies greatly reduced their ability to extract money from the market and therefore contributed to the plethora of small companies in other domains we see today. We don't see small companies in oil or pharma since those domains requires scale, which is why we instead of forcing competition force regulations on them to make them do the right thing.
I mean, imagine if we let the oil companies take 30% of GDP as revenue, it would totally ruin the economy and prevent us from progressing as a society. You could argue that those oil companies deserved to get that much money since without them how would we get to work? But, fact is that giving large companies that much money doesn't benefit anyone but their shareholders.
We are setting no new precedent. In the US, internet provider are regulated as utilities and are stripped of any power on the content they serve, and the platform thrived as a result. What would Internet look like today if AOL had applied Apple's policies?
If we go by that precedent, destroying the closed gardens around platforms is the best thing that could happen.
If we choose to ignore it, then shouldn't we welcome that network carriers demand their 30% share of Apple's profits?
About the same as it looks today. AOL was a walled garden, and unregulated internet was so compelling that AOL was forced to offer it, or die, like so many other services did; of course, AOL still pretty much died, but it lasted the longest of the pre-internet national information services. Incidentally, that was back when it was easy to switch between competitive ISPs or set up your own and there was not much in the way of regulation. Now, we live under the threat of the cable and telephone companies pushing their products. Not a whole lot of clear regulation now, and not even the basis for local loop unbundling like congress provided in 1996, but the FCC watered down until it meant hardly anything.
They key word is 'platform'.
It's designed for 'broad public consumption', this is different than other, purely internal aspects of their service.
So Ford or GM cannot stop you from buying other vendors stuff and tweaking your car. The very thought would be absurd. A car is designed to be at very least maintained, they can void warranties etc. but not have absolute control.
BMW is stricter about those things, which is fine, but it's still outside of their control.
Finally, I think the reach of the platforms actually does matter - once something becomes a public good, we treat it differently.
Imagine if the electric company in 1921 only ever let you buy appliances 'made by them' suited for 'their electricity', it's just not good.
A similar situation is MS using their platform monopoly to dominate other areas, such as MS Office, which I think should have been regulated as well. Using a platform monopoly, companies can definitely dominating adjacent economies - even while providing an inferior product or experience, which is bad for everyone.
To your point, it's probably worthwhile for us to start defining in legal terms what we mean by 'platform' so the rules can be applied fairly.
Also, there is the network effect and there is vendor lock-in. In the past other companies could not use Bell's telephone network, so the government stepped in. The same could happen with OSes.
Moreover, users pay a high premium for their device to access the platform. Why should companies also pay in addition to the annual subscription fee to their developer program?
Even for my day-to-day uses there’s only one or two third-party apps that really “add value” for me (Slack, Taskmator and Signal)
Apps are the difference between “A phone with extra tricks” and “A computer in your pocket.”
I'd go one step further and suggest that neither Apple nor Google are good stewards of the mobile app distribution market, either.
Since the article you posted, I’ve uncovered a lot more about the prevalence of fraudulent apps on the App Store: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...
On the PC I have a mail app that turned into a subscription service and there are downsides. I have a lifetime license and get all the updates because I bought it before it went subscription based.
Now it feels like there’s a relentless push for more features every month to justify the subscription. Every month there’s some stupid update that does something I don’t need or want.
And the subscription costs 3x what I pay for my mailbox at Zoho. Sorry, but your stupid email client isn’t worth more than what my email provider charges me.
I won’t say the name because I think they’re a smaller company and they made good on all the lifetime licenses they sold afaik.
Niche products will always charge more than the mass-market alternative. There isn't another sustainable business model for small companies.
I'm torn on this. Of course I prefer to pay once for software but that's not really realistic in today's world where iOS (or Android) development is rarely "Write once, post online, walk away". It's an ongoing process and there aren't very many apps out there that are "done" (even the big players). I understand that my Drafts subscription goes to pay the developer on an ongoing basis to support the product and add new features.
Why is that? The user interface hasn't significantly changed since the iPhone was launched. Why do apps need to be rewritten so many times?
Why should users pay once for software and then... need to pay for the same software again in 2 years even though there's really nothing that has improved?
Pay for a text editor? Why the hell wasn't a text editor well written on the first iPhone?
Drafts, Apollo, Things, Overcast, and more are apps I pay subscriptions on so that they continue to add new features and keep compatibility with new iOS releases.
Have you not dealt with the annoyance of an app that hasn’t been updated for a newer OS? Or one that isn’t even providing “table stakes” to other apps in it’s category?
Perhaps it is.
> The UI has changed overtime, sometime substantially,
How so? I see an app in the store. I install it. An icon shows up on my screen. I tap it to open it. A window is shown where I can type text in. If I receive a phone call or text message, something is displayed on the screen to alert me to that fact. I can tap on that to be brought to the event source. Or I can ignore it. When I close the app, there's usually some way for changes to be saved (sometimes automatically).
This workflow, as the user sees it, hasn't changed.
> there is now an entirely new language (Swift) you can write your apps in as well as a new design language based on that new language (SwiftUI).
Did that deprecate compatibility with apps written in the older language?
> APIs change version to version of iOS and customers expect things that are now possible on newer iOS versions even if your app was written on an older version
Like what? The context was a text editor app and todo apps. What has changed here?
> Also, a lot of app developers work directly with their app’s communities to focus on what their users want.
That's pretty cool. What about basic features without needing a subscription?
> Have you not dealt with the annoyance of an app that hasn’t been updated for a newer OS? Or one that isn’t even providing “table stakes” to other apps in it’s category?
Yup. It's almost always an app that's written in some trendy language, using some cloud feature, or some paid-for app. I use lots of free software on my laptop without that problem.
Notably, text editors from 30 years ago still work fantastically. Email clients from 30 years ago still mostly work great (unless using certain popular anti-consumer cloud email providers). Games from 20 years ago are a hit or a miss. A lot of times they work just fine with an emulator.
And I've already paid for all of those. Once.
Why should the iPhone be any different?
What text editors and mail clients are you using regularly that (a) you paid for and (b) have not been regularly updated for 30 years and (c) still work on modern systems with modern file types and file systems?
To be direct, I highly suspect that any 30 year old applications you're referencing receive regular updates, are tragically underfunded, and the developers would ultimately benefit from upgrade or subscription pricing.
Of course, everyone loves a free lunch, but someone had to pay for the sandwiches.
None. The text editors and mail clients I use are free. They have been regularly updated for 30 years. And they still work on modern systems with modern file types and file systems.
Where appropriate, I do purchase and donate. Mozilla, Wikipedia, and some direct payments to certain developers, for example.
Thunderbird is good software. Vim, grep, and xterm are among the best text utilities in the world. Or, if you want, emacs.
> To be direct, I highly suspect that any 30 year old applications you're referencing receive regular updates, are tragically underfunded, and the developers would ultimately benefit from upgrade or subscription pricing.
I appreciate your directness.
Apps that don't to follow the latest anti-consumer trend don't need to be updated with new features every few months. They don't need bug fixes twice a day. Their development costs are massively less. And their development is often done because the developer needed the tool anyway. I'd call them altruistic. But I think a lot of apps would do better with more pro-consumer behaviors.
> How so? I see an app in the store. I install it. An icon shows up on my screen. I tap it to open it.
From iOS 6->7 there was a huge UI change where they went from a skeuomorphic design to a much flatter design. Every year since then they tweaked the design of iOS. Sometimes it might be as easy as building your app against the newer SDK to get the updated look but even that isn't always "easy". That requires the newer Xcode version, oh wait, your signing cert is expired so you need to generate a new one of those, oh wait, this API has been deprecated and you need to switch to the new one that you put off doing, and the list goes on. Then there are the new features that you are expected to support, not by Apple but by your users. Widgets are a great example of this for iOS 14. But again, every version of iOS (or Android for that matter) requires minor tweaks. Sometimes you can get away with ignoring those for 1-2 versions but you are just setting yourself up for some painful tech debt down the road.
> > there is now an entirely new language (Swift) you can write your apps in as well as a new design language based on that new language (SwiftUI).
> Did that deprecate compatibility with apps written in the older language?
I wouldn't put a firm date on Obj-C/Java being depreciated but Swift/Kotlin are clearly what Apple and Google respectively are betting the farm on. For iOS specifically, Swift continues to get the attention and it won't be long before we have some new framework that is Swift-only. Already the documentation is pretty heavily bent towards Swift and some frameworks don't make it easy to find the Obj-C docs/examples (and sometimes it just doesn't exist or you have to look at older versions of the SDK). Swift is clearly the future for iOS development and while you can still use Obj-C I'd be very wary of using it on anything new.
> > APIs change version to version of iOS and customers expect things that are now possible on newer iOS versions even if your app was written on an older version
> Like what? The context was a text editor app and todo apps. What has changed here?
I'd say it's a combination of design and what's possible. Design and design trends change over time and if you ignore that then you will lose market share to another app that feels/is better to use. As for what is possible, the phones themselves have gained both hardware and software features that, if not leveraged, will also cause you to lose users. Screen size is a good one but take Dark Mode as a example. Some apps had themes and/or "Dark Mode" before it was introduced in iOS but not supporting it now can, once again, lead to you losing users who don't want to be blinded when they open their notes app (or Todo app). When it comes to "what's possible", Drafts, for example, has a whole concept of "Actions" that you can find in their Drafts Directory or make yourself. Things like "Save this note to Dropbox" or "Open Twitter with this note's content as the tweet" and the list goes on. I wrote a Draft Action for myself that grabs the current timestamp of what I'm watching on Plex and inserts it along with the name of the media into my note, I use this to make a note of scenes I like and might want to save for later or share with friends. Are actions strictly required for a notes app? No, I guess not but it was one of the top reasons I picked Drafts for my notes app (along with many other things).
> > Also, a lot of app developers work directly with their app’s communities to focus on what their users want.
> That's pretty cool. What about basic features without needing a subscription?
Some apps do that. Apollo lets you use the base app for free but for nice/power-user features you have to pay for a subscription. The developer of that app updates it regularly, fixes bugs, and is active on his app's subreddit. Apollo is a Reddit client so not only does he have to deal with normal app development issues but with changes Reddit might make to their platform/api. Similarly, Twitter apps have had a number of challenges to address in the last 5+ years when it comes to integrating with the Twitter API.
> > Have you not dealt with the annoyance of an app that hasn’t been updated for a newer OS? Or one that isn’t even providing “table stakes” to other apps in it’s category?
> Yup. It's almost always an app that's written in some trendy language, using some cloud feature, or some paid-for app. I use lots of free software on my laptop without that problem.
I mean... I have plenty of iOS games that have died because they were never updated. I paid for them once and now they don't run at all on my phone, they are buggy, or don't support my screen size. Mobile development is difficult and needs to be ongoing which leads us to subscriptions seeing how there isn't a better method out there that I'm aware of. I like the idea of fallback subscriptions (like what JetBrains does with their IDEs) but that's just not possible in the App Store or Play Store as they work today. Not to mention that idea falls apart when "services" are involved like with Carrot Weather/Weather Nerd or even something like Overcast that uses backend servers to sync your podcast feed.
> Notably, text editors from 30 years ago still work fantastically. Email clients from 30 years ago still mostly work great (unless using certain popular anti-consumer cloud email providers). Games from 20 years ago are a hit or a miss. A lot of times they work just fine with an emulator.
> And I've already paid for all of those. Once.
> Why should the iPhone be any different?
I guess it comes down to what you want out of a text editor. Maybe calling it a text editor isn't even really fair based on what I expect out of mine but take a look at something like BBEdit. It's been around for practically the entire lifetime of the Mac yet it continues to put out updates. Some of what's in those updates are just compatibility/bug fixes but speed and new features are also a big part of it too. Think of git, BBEdit has git support but 30 years ago that wasn't even a thing. Nowadays it is table stakes for most code editors. BBEdit charges for the new major versions of it's app and to me, if you are releasing on a regular schedule, that's pretty much the same as a subscription. Subscriptions allow a company to plan better and for users to get software at a much cheaper initial price while being able to leave at any point if they aren't happy with the software. I think this is overall a good thing.
If you are happy with 30 year old apps then more power to you but that's not been my experience on the desktop nor mobile. I bought Prompt (an SSH client from Panic) when it first came out and then a few years later bought Prompt 2 (Prompt 1 was written pre-iOS 7 and looked very dated by the time I updated). Now Prompt 2 looks dated and has 1 foot in the grave and the other on a banana peal and I'm looking at apps like Termius as a replacement. I don't love going from 1-time to subscription but both Prompt apps made it very clear that if you pay 1 time then don't expect any updates, you get what you get and that's that. Termius may cost me more in the long run but if it is continuously updated and adds features then I'll be happy. For example, it's supports Mosh now but there might be some new protocol in the future that people switch to.
Bottom line, tech marches on and apps that don't adapt will be left for ones that do. Subscriptions help solve part of that problem by incentivizing developers to keep their apps updated or people will leave for ones that do.
> I'd be very wary of using it on anything new.
That makes sense and I can understand it. On the other hand, the a text editor and todo app aren't exactly new apps ideas.
> "Save this note to Dropbox" or "Open Twitter with this note's content as the tweet" and the list goes on.
Perhaps this is a failing on my part again but... how is that an app problem? If the user has a Dropbox account or Twitter account then don't those provide the services through the OS? So every app works with Dropbox (or Nextcloud or Google Drive or their local filesystem) and every app can share a link to Twitter (or to Nextcloud or Slack or Discord or Twitch or ...). Why does the app need special integrations with the provider?
I would argue that's a failure of Dropbox or Twitter. They shouldn't provide APIs or toolkits that apps need to use. They should integrate with the OS and become a provider of services to the OS. Then every app gets the ability to save things to Dropbox or post something to Twitter.
> Apollo lets you use the base app for free but for nice/power-user features you have to pay for a subscription.
Cool. Apollo isn't a text editor or a todo app though.
> I have plenty of iOS games that have died because they were never updated. I paid for them once and now they don't run at all on my phone
I assume they don't run on your current phone. Do they still run on your old phone?
> Mobile development is difficult and needs to be ongoing which leads us to subscriptions seeing how there isn't a better method out there that I'm aware of.
Mobile development doesn't need to be difficult. It's made difficult by Apple's continuously-moving goalposts.
> BBEdit charges for the new major versions of it's app and to me, if you are releasing on a regular schedule, that's pretty much the same as a subscription.
In many ways, I agree. But there's one important distinction. I can pull up my old Mac OS 9 machine and run my old BBEdit on it. I'd be willing to bet that if I bought BBEdit ten years ago for Mac OS X on Intel then it would still run on today's Mac OS X even if it doesn't have all of the fancy new features of a new version.
> Subscriptions help solve part of that problem by incentivizing developers to keep their apps updated or people will leave for ones that do.
I don't have a problem whatsoever paying for new features that I want and use.
What I have a problem with is this:
> apps as simple as text editors or todo apps needlessly becoming subscription services
Basic text editors and todo apps were solved decades ago. Why do users need to pay for simple text editors as a subscription service? That's a failure of Apple's ecosystem.
You clearly want to migrate the discussion to continued developer support and new features. So let's do that then.
Let me walk you through my experience. I want to use a terminal on my iPhone. I know that I get terminals for free in Mac OS, Linux, and even Windows has a command prompt. They're literally free. So I see the lack of one in iOS as anti-consumer. Or, most definitely, anti-power-user. But whatever. In Apple's infinite wisdom, users shouldn't have a terminal emulator. So off to the app store I go to search for one.
The first result for "terminal" is Termius. It says it needs `in-app purchases`. In-app purchases for a terminal emulator? That sounds like a scam.
The next one, xTerminal, also needs in-app purchses.
The third one, LibTerm, doesn't say that it needs in-app purchases. But it's 448.7MB in size. Why the hell does a terminal emulator need that much storage to install? Nope, sounds like malware.
The fourth one, SSH Client, also wants in-app purchases.
I've scrolled two pages and all four of the top results smell fishy. So I don't install a terminal on my phone. I keep using Linux because it does what I want for free.
Tech marching on doesn't need to bring scammy baggage with it. Apple's walled garden ecosystem has brought that. And they're not policing their walled garden against anti-consumer behavior.
I can completely understand why some people might be fine with a text editor or todo app that doesn't change much and I'll ceed the point to you that the speed of mobile platforms causes work that might not otherwise be needed. Some of that comes from it still being a changing landscape where technology is improving. Desktops/laptops have not seen as large of leaps in part because they started from a much higher point. For a long time mobile phones had to be pretty limited because if they weren't they'd burn through the battery in no time at all (see: lack of backgrounding in early iOS/Android). I think the desktop platform (Windows, macOS, Linux) started from a much more mature (and open) place and thus it was easier to write something that would stand the test of time. Even then, things like gedit still get updates, nothing is ever really "done".
> Basic text editors and todo apps were solved decades ago.
Yes they were, now people want non-basic versions of both which is was brings up to where we are today. Part of that "required churn" can be blamed on Apple/Google but some of it is due to things that just weren't possible before. I won't pretend that Siri is good but Siri Intents (I think that's what it's called) is a newer (last few years or so) addition and I think it's a decent example of "why would a todo app need a subscription". The platform changes and your users want you to take advantage of the new features so that they can say "Hey Siri, tell Things to remind me do X" (don't get me started on not being able to set defaults). Or, to bring back another example, I might want a widget on my home screen of the next few items on my todo list.
Are these features necessary for todo app? No, in the general sense of "necessary" but yes in the sense of "needed to compete in the mobile stores". Platform churn aside, these new features require ongoing development and subscriptions mean you can roll out a feature as soon as it's ready instead of waiting for the next major point release so you have a list of features worth paying for all a once. Could a developer gate each feature behind a 1-time IAP? Sure but as a developer all I can think of is "there be dragons", that sounds miserable to support.
I do want to address the terminal program point you made. I've used mobile terminal and later mTerm on my jailbroken iPhone. For moving around my local phone's FS it's decent enough but I hated using it for SSH. The UI was just too clunky for mobile which is why I paid for Prompt1/2. I understand the annoyance at paying for something that is free on desktop but I think that misses the amount of work it takes to get a good SSH client on mobile. Could Apple add a Terminal app in the next OS release? Sure they could but unless they put in a lot of work it would be a terrible experience. I'm not trying to pretend Apple is perfect or blameless but I understand the decision.
Lastly, I agree with you that there are some apps that exist that don't require a subscription but one has been shoehorned in. I don't pay for apps like that, I guess I bristled up when you mentioned text editors (to which I pivoted to my notes app, Drafts) and todo manager (to which my mind jumped to Things), both of which I pay via a subscription. Your broader point about subscriptions being forced into some apps that don't make sense is correct, I just think sometimes people throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to subscriptions.
PS: If you are looking for linux-like terminal on iOS I would suggest you look at iSH[0]. It's free, open source, and seems like it would be something you might like.
> Your broader point about subscriptions being forced into some apps that don't make sense is correct, I just think sometimes people throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to subscriptions.
I'm willing to pay for something that I spend a lot of time in it. Clearly the developer deserves to benefit from my benefit.
But I've been burned by phishing, scams, and malware. So I avoid anything that even looks like it. That undoubtedly throws out a lot of good software that I might enjoy. But it also means that the very same software has room to improve.
Thirty years ago, software had demos. Demos weren't laden with advertisements beyond "buy the full product to access this feature!". They didn't have clearly paid-for reviews. Most worked without locking my data after a time bomb expired. Many of those demos resulted in me paying for the software. Some of those demos resulted in me deciding that I didn't like or need the software. The demo fulfilled its purpose.
Way too many demos of games got me to buy the full release of those games. BBEdit, like you mentioned, had a Lite version.
Demos seem to be gone from the modern walled garden.
I much prefer an inexpensive subscription over ads or other approaches to revenue. Especially considering the consumer market has been sold on this idea that paying $10 for an app, even once, no matter how useful, is way too much money.
compared to Android, though? far far better, Google literally doesn't even try to police that sort of stuff, they just list it all anyway and take their cut, when this stuff comes to light Apple delists it but Google is perfectly satisfied to keep raking in their cut. That's the difference.
Where's your data to support this?
Both platforms host scams and malware, despite the fact that they claim operating an app store is a means of protecting consumers.
Microsoft does just fine allowing downloads from the web and presenting a permissions and security screen. They even have a database of signatures for apps that get flagged.
You don't see people screaming bloody murder that you can install software on your PC. We survived all this time just fine without the app store garbage.
Consumer protection is a gaslighting scheme to gain control and project into other verticals and industries. It's a type of monopolism we've never seen before.
Multiple mobile/security companies publish annual malware reports, for example here is Nokia's Threat Intelligence Report for 2020 (https://www.nokia.com/networks/portfolio/cyber-security/thre...):
Figure 3 provides a breakdown of infections by device type in 2020. Among smartphones, Android devices are the most commonly targeted by malware. Android devices were responsible for 26.64% of all infections, Windows/PCs for 38.92%, IoT devices for 32.72% and only 1.72% for iPhones.
I wouldn't say this is "just fine". Perhaps you (and most HN commenters) have the technical knowledge to avoid installing malware but the vast majority of people using these devices do not.
Apple is directly competing with Spotify with their Apple Music streaming service. Since Apple has complete control over the iPhone ecosystem, they can set the rules to harm other streaming service, or let their own service completely break the rules.
These anti-competitive rules aren't just about Company A relying on Company B to do business. It's about Company B also directly competing with Company A.
Also, the EU regulations cap the fees and set up identical rules for everyone (unlike Apple where its own services are left through without a second thought even though they don't necessarily operate to the code).
Isn't VISA somewhat similar to an ecosystem? It's not perfect (you can not switch over all apps when switching from/to Android), but you still need to change something on your side. Yes, exchanging a plastic card is easier than switching a phone, but it's not fundamentally a different paradigm.
> Also, the EU regulations cap the fees and set up identical rules for everyone
I agree that this is a good idea, but it's not a fundamental problem with Apple's payment structure.
monopoly - "A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity."
and
monopsony - "The microeconomic theory of monopsony assumes a single entity to have market power over all sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony
basically customers can only buy apps from apple AND developers can only sell apps to apple.
Allowing sideloading apps or alternative app stores will send the platform straight to hell, by opening up new exploit vectors in an already insanely complex system, and/or creating new and perverse incentive models for app developers and app store providers.
We’re going to turn smartphones and the app ecosystem into what has become of journalism in the digital age of information because we want nice things for cheap/free.
Cheap/fast/good. Apple has always aimed for the last two. You’re going to have to sacrifice one to get the “cheap” part.
You seem to have a lot of faith in Apple having performed some secret formula 10 years ago to determine the cheapest price. I guess we don't need free markets for price signals at all! If we all had Apple's formula, we could have a completely government run system that determined the right price for everything. What a wonderful system that would be!
Anyways, I've covered in many other comments how Apple would be better off by allowing alternatives since they'd no longer be forced to balance this fine line of appearing "fair" while "strict":
From: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26796547
> This is one of the tricky parts about AppStore discussions, it's not about being for or against the AppStore. In fact, I wish the AppStore was MUCH pickier about the apps it let in, and I also wish there was an alternative to the AppStore to catch cases that didn't meet that strict bar. Then the AppStore could actually be about curation as opposed to fear-induced isolationism. Then Apple wouldn't have to inadvertently have political side-effects when it disallowed apps like HKMap.live.
> Being on the AppStore could still be advantageous beyond just "either that or you don't get to be on the iPhone at all.” Apple payment processing, iCloud integrations, Family-sharing, etc. could all be tied to being ON the AppStore, so there'd still be a huge incentive to try to ship that way. And side-loading doesn't have to be easy or even on by default.
That is your opinion. There is no merit in this subjective standpoint from a legal perspective unless you're willing to share the metric by which you arrived at this judgement.
> the fast/cheap/good thing (while for starters not being some actual "law"), is meant to apply to engineering and not market dynamics
That's exactly the context in which I mention it. The iPhone, operating system and app store are _huge_ engineering projects.
> I guess we don't need free markets for price signals at all!
I don't know what point you're making with this. We're in a thread literally discussing removing a freedom from Apple.
>> I also wish there was an alternative to the AppStore to catch cases that didn't meet that strict bar
Setting aside the obvious difference, how is this different than outlawing murder, except for one day of the year or in one city? Attention will suddenly be directed towards the less stringent alternative. You're just opening up the gates for a race to the bottom, something we've already had enough of IMO (and FWIW, I agree with you here: "I wish the AppStore was MUCH pickier about the apps it let in").
Remember all the "malware cleaners" that install viruses on Windows machines? Yeah, we're gonna get that on iOS. "But we already have that/similar" Yeah, it's gonna get worse, not better.
Your entire second quote is invalidated as well by your suggestion for alternatives. Nobody that the app store is meant to protect is going to use the curated store because they will be tricked/coerced into using the alternatives where people with less scruples can exercise more control.
You brought up goodness with fast/good/cheap! And you certainly provided zero "metrics" in defense of its goodness, I at least provided my perspective as a customer with a concrete issue. I literally provided a specific metric, search quality, immediately following the sentence. You OTOH just take it as a given that the store is "good," unless your implication was that the AppStore is "fast and cheap but not good," but I doubt that's the point you were trying to make.
> I don't know what point you're making with this. We're in a thread literally discussing removing a freedom from Apple.
The point is you believe that Apple can ahead-of-time know the cheapest price for something. You posit that a competitor on the iPhone would be incapable of arriving at a lower price. And for the record, if you read my comments, I never say that Apple should be forced to allow this. I think they should do this because it would be better for them and for me the customer. I think they are silly to continue putting themselves in the ire of so many groups by being so obstinate about this product, but even separate from that, it would give them fantastic arguments in their relationships with developers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26796845
> Setting aside the obvious difference, how is this different than outlawing murder, except for one day of the year or in one city? Attention will suddenly be directed towards the less stringent alternative. You're just opening up the gates for a race to the bottom, something we've already had enough of IMO (and FWIW, I agree with you here: "I wish the AppStore was MUCH pickier about the apps it let in").
Yes, setting aside the obvious difference. I have provided a clear example. HKMap.live is an app that Apple took down to appease China. The AppStore creates a single point of failure for nations to target and cut off. Most people here think it was pretty shitty to remove that app while the citizens of Hong Kong were fighting for their voice. Maybe in your eyes that's the exact same thing as "The Purge" (I honestly can't believe this is where this conversation has devolved), but it isn't for me.
Here is a simpler example: Tor isn't on the Mac AppStore, but guess what, I can still get it on my Mac. And that's a good thing. I don't have the needs of a journalist abroad, but I'm glad they can safely surf the net even though I don't have those worries. I can understand why Apple doesn't want that front and center on the AppStore to put a target on their backs from countries like China. See, there's actually a lot of stuff that doesn't cleanly fall between good and "murder level bad". Hell, even just allowing FireFox with its own rendering engine is a clear example of a thing that most people don't think is akin to allowing porn onto the store, but that Apple nevertheless does not want on the store.
I frequently acknowledge that I probably would not use side-loading. I in fact would be someone that wants stricter rules on the store. I would actually like for Apple to boot every loot-box based game off the store for example. As far as I'm concerned, it's gambling that targets children. But I accept that that opinion is not shared by everyone, and thus I think we should have a system that allows for strict rules without also having them necessarily affect every single person, with the sole decision-maker being Tim Cook.
The other just ridiculously obvious difference is that I can opt-out of side-loading. No one is saying that every iPhone user should have to be forced to download every shady app on Earth from every second-tier AppStore. That's not the way it is on the Mac. It's so weird that you bring up Windows as the alternative to iOS rather than... the Mac, which seems like a much more obvious comparison point. I wonder if that's because the situation on the Mac isn't a catastrophic hellscape and thus doesn't serve sensationalist fear mongering.
As I said in that comment, side-loading would not have to be on by default, or even easily turned on. It could also warn you on every single app install that doesn't go through the AppStore (which would be awesome, but Apple obviously can't do this on their own AppStore because it goes against their narrative of the safety of the AppStore. Unfortunate, because if they did, it might actually help prevent a lot of these spam subscriptions. At least with out-of-the-AppStore downloads they could put super scary warnings every single time). In fact, it could even be disallowed with parental controls. There are a lot of obvious options in between "only the AppStore" and "MadMax dystopia where anything goes."
China has the great firewall. I'm not an expert on it, but I assume whether Apple allows alternative app stores is entirely beside the point of whether people in HK would be able to download and use a networked app.
>> how is this different than $ACTIVITY, except for one day of the year or in one city? Attention will suddenly be directed towards the less stringent alternative
> I have provided a clear example. HKMap.live
You have not provided an argument as to how more attention, both positive and negative, wouldn't suddenly be paid to the alternative. If Apple allowed alternative apps stores, China could start applying pressure to them. Or, as I previously mentioned, firewall them. Apple, a $Trillion company, caved, why wouldn't a lesser organization?
> It's so weird that you bring up Windows as the alternative to iOS rather than... the Mac
Because Windows was the previous platform that most tech-unsavvy people used, and it was a cesspool of malware. My relatives didn't go from Windows machines to Macs or Androids, they went from Windows machines to iPads. It's those people I have in mind when I make these arguments as to the value of an app store. If there are relevant market metrics that show that I am wrong here, I'm glad to see them. I'm just speaking from personal experience: people who use iOS and Macs don't come to me with the same kinds of problems as Windows users (which I also struggled with for years). Therefore I have a strong interest in not letting iOS become something like Windows.
I also still think that macOS is a more secure OS by design vs Windows, so that may be another reason I'm picking on Windows. And people are constantly complaining about that, too, how their computing platforms are being locked down and will soon be devoid of any freedoms. To me it always sounds like the argument is coming from a place where they see some nefarious villain twirling his moustache and devising schemes to keep the masses in the grip of control. I see an organization of many many humans making engineering tradeoffs to create what are, IMO, extremely impressive devices and systems.
Let me be very clear about one thing:
> Maybe in your eyes that's the exact same thing as "The Purge"
> there's actually a lot of stuff that doesn't cleanly fall between good and "murder level bad"
> the situation on the Mac isn't a catastrophic hellscape and thus doesn't serve sensationalist fear mongering
> There are a lot of obvious options in between "only the AppStore" and "MadMax dystopia where anything goes."
I was very clear that I wasn't comparing the situation with the app store to actual literal murder, but that comparison weaves throughout most of your reply. My point was entirely about the implementation and not at all about the regulated activity.
>> "Ignoring the obvious difference"
I'd be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe the difference wasn't obvious to you, if you hadn't sarcastically quoted that exact phrase in your responses.
The HKMap.live situation happened before the Chinese Firewall was in place in Hong Kong (2019), so that's really not an excuse. Regardless, the great firewall doesn't necessarily prevent person-to-person sharing of an app for instance. Ultimately, you should absolutely put the ball in their court to actively have to fight the spreading of the app as opposed to being a willing participant. BTW, Tor, that thing you ignored in the rest of your post, was designed exactly to fight against things like the Chinese Firewall.
> I also still think that macOS is a more secure OS by design vs Windows, so that may be another reason I'm picking on Windows.
This just makes no sense. If you are making a case against a change, you don't point to the worst implementation of it just because it's the worst, especially when the party that would actually be implementing the alternative has already successfully done so on another platform. It's like a state arguing against marijuana legalization by pointing to a completely different country instead of many of the other US states that have successfully legalized it without catastrophic results. iOS is also "more secure by design". So why do you assume iOS would become Windows and not macOS? There is no logic here, just the desire to use an outdated and more convenient comparison point. If you honestly believe that iOS without the AppStore would become Windows and not the Mac, then you have a very bizarrely low opinion of the engineers on iOS.
> I was very clear that I wasn't comparing the situation with the app store to actual literal murder, but that comparison weaves throughout most of your reply. My point was entirely about the implementation and not at all about the regulated activity.
Yup, and I have provided several great examples of why the situation is very different, including many examples of things that are not "bad" but Apple could not want on the store. Like Tor. And FireFox. All of which you ignored. I also showed examples of how it doesn't have to be a free-for-all that everyone must be subjected to, and that there are other ways to do it. Also ignored. I addressed the main substance of your argument, while still finding it hilarious that the best analogy you could come up with was an "abstract version of the purge".
Listen, I am honestly glad that the circumstances in your life are such that Apple's decisions may not have a meaningful impact on your ability to escape censorship or fight for your right to be heard, but I hope someday you'll understand that these real scenarios that have actually taken place matter as much as your hypothetical worst-case scenarios that involve Apple implementing a slightly different system in the most un-Apply way, as opposed to the way they've done so with tremendous success on their other platform.
And yes, when presented with a wall of text consisting of mostly emotional arguments talking past my points, I started skimming.
Finally, you really shouldn't stoop to ad-hominem like you did at the end of your post. You have no idea who I am or my life experience, and even if you did, it's still not a valid argument regardless of my circumstances. Try to be less sanctimonious.
If the consequences of the decisions a company makes aren't a good metric for whether they are good decisions or not, then what is? We're talking about the largest company on Earth that often has a larger effect on the world than many countries do, and you want to take "outcomes" off the table for argument?
> I'm not here to argue on the fine points of China policy or human rights.
Oh, I'm aware, as you seem more than willing to throw out anachronistic arguments (like using the Chinese Firewall as an excuse before it was in place), and then immediately try to change the subject when it's clear you're out of your depth.
> And yes, when presented with a wall of text consisting of mostly emotional arguments talking past my points, I started skimming.
I'm not sure how you can know it's emotional when you've admitted to not having read it. I'm also perplexed as to why you bother responding if you aren't willing to read what you're responding to. It's like writing a review for a movie you haven't seen, it's not going to be a good review.
*> Finally, you really shouldn't stoop to ad-hominem [...] Try to be less sanctimonious."
Some would argue that blanket describing an entire post that someone invested time in writing as "emotional" to the point of not needing to be read is a fairly bold and "sanctimonious" value-judgement. I at least take the time to read your responses before drawing any conclusions.
You were correct, and you seem to know much more about history than I do. All I can do is learn, but again, we aren't here to talk about the timeline of the HK protests. You may have a valid point bringing it up with Apple's pull on the world, but that's not the whole picture. That's all I was trying to say.
> I'm not sure how you can know it's emotional when you've admitted to not having read it
I read a lot of it but after the third time seeing you mention a detail I'd already told you wasn't relevant, yeah, I stopped trying so hard.
Hopefully you trust me when I say I've read everything else you've written, not sure how you think I could keep replying to your quotes otherwise.
> Some would argue that blanket describing an entire post that someone invested time in writing as "emotional" to the point of not needing to be read is a fairly bold and "sanctimonious" value-judgement
Not the same thing as what you were trying to do at all. You tried to pigeonhole me into some class of person in order to undercut my arguments. I merely pointed out that you were letting your emotions run away with your arguments... indeed, you did talk by my point, multiple times.
> You tried to pigeonhole me into some class of person in order to undercut my arguments.
I guess I didn't think it was much of a stretch to assume that someone who conveys the position of "sure, people fighting for their freedoms and journalists evading censorship are valid points -- BUT, that's not the whole picture, remember how bad Windows was?" is unlikely to have had to face these issues. For the record, that wouldn't make you bad, I haven't had to face these issues either. And you're right, for all I know it may very well be the case that you're typing this from a laptop in the desert fighting for water rights or something, but still open minded enough to be just as concerned about the practical business desires of Apple's AppStore. I simply think your post repeatedly skipping the points about Tor gave off a sense of irreverence with regard to them, arguably just as insulting as assuming you haven't had to deal with them. I'm sure you can understand any frustration that might generate, considering you've now admitted you may have not read them.
That being said, I don't think an outsider reading my post would think it is really all that "emotional". Passionate perhaps. Either way, I think you mentioned that that wasn't what we were arguing about. I guess I don't know where the demarcation lines of what we're arguing about are. I'm simply arguing about the effects of the AppStore, and what I believe would be the benefits of other alternatives, to Apple, customers, and yes, the world. As you yourself said, "the whole picture." I began this thread by stating that pricing was not the real problem, so I think I certainly hinted as much. My only hope is that our conversation has perhaps introduced you to concerns about the AppStore beyond the IMO tired discussion of whether 30% is or isn't too high, which is the unfortunate form that this argument usually takes, since it is usually presented as "Apple's interests" vs. "3rd party developers' interests," but that I think is ultimately just a small part of the conversation.
For in-app purchases the service is ONLY a payment service and nothing more.
Industry standard cuts for payment providers are lessen then 5%, often much less like e.g. 1.5%.
So IMHO this is basically extortion.
For app purchases it's still an absurd cut as nearly all "costs" apple has per app are fixed. The cost which are not are super small.
Furthermore most other "running" costs are more associated with the user then the app. (E.g. Os dev cost).
And if you now want to argue with "but they provide a messaging service" and similar don't forget that they effectively prevented any 3rd party message services (btw. google did so too). So we can't even say if it's a grate service, we have no realistic comparison as any was already killed at he roots before it could came to be.
Just imagine Microsoft effectively ("de-facto") preventing you from using any mail service but Outlock and also forces any "notifications messages" through Outlock and also prevents applications from using polling effectively so that you have to use interlock any messenger, chat app, and similar with Outlock or it won't work properly.
This would be ridiculous, but that is basically what Google and Apple did on smartphones.
So yeah, basically Apple de-facto forces you to use a set of services you might not want to use while taking extortion level cuts for what is basically a payment service (which is also forced onto you) and reasoning that "they need to do so because all the nice services they provide for free".
That’s cheap compared to the code signing racket on PC.
Apple actually arbitrarily adjusts the price for non-US regions. For some reason they want twice as much from me here.
Worse, a lot of these “free” apps are made by huge companies like Facebook that really could afford to pay the huge sums it must cost to enable their apps.
People like to focus on the percentage fee while conveniently not mentioning a lot of other things that matter:
- Every developer that isn’t a huge company offering apps “for free” is subsidizing the cost of App Store upkeep for those big companies that do not lose any 30% fees.
- Apple basically won’t pay you for months unless you’ve passed a certain threshold. Thus, Apple “makes money” by being able to hold onto your money interest-free for awhile, multiplied by all the apps that are not making a lot of money.
- Every developer of any size must pay $100 PER YEAR so “free apps” always make Apple money anyway. This fee does not go away even if you haven’t been paid by Apple in awhile.
- Despite $100 per year, developers can be mistreated by Apple (e.g. review time delays, bogus rejections, bugs left unfixed in developer tools). Yet it is abundantly clear that Apple does not treat developers equally.
...
> It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's setup like a tax.
I'm curious if you've ever made the same argument for credit cards, debit cards and the like. All of them charge a percentage to the seller too (and many a times it's a fixed fee plus a percentage).
I do believe that 30% is quite high for Apple's poorer management of the App Store with respect to scams and other aspects (see the lawsuit against Apple by the developer of FlickType, Kosta Eleftheriou). And it's not just the 30% or 15% alone that the developer bears, but also the annual $99 developer program membership fee.
Second, the fees actually benefit the customer. They're there to protect the customer from fraud, and to provide perks. I have no idea how I benefit from Apple's fees. Seriously.
Comically, I think Apple should adapt Epic's model for unreal: free for the first $1MM of revenue, only then they start to take a cut.
And you're free to choose another phone vendor. Apple isn't holding a gun to your head.
> I know many sellers simply adjust their prices if you're paying credit -- see almost every gas station in the US. You can't do that with Apple.
You can't do that with PayPal, either.
> I have no idea how I benefit from Apple's fees. Seriously.
The host the AppStore for you; allow you to search, access and download all apps and provide an infrastructure for updates and payment. Plus, they're doing basic fraud checking [0] and check that apps adhere to a basic quality and usability standard.
It's a very different topic whether the 30% cut is too much, but its not like Apple does not provide anything in return.
[0] Other comments pointed out that they failed quite badly in a case, but there's a difference between bad service and no service.
You're "free" to choose one side of the same coin, because Apple and Google have a duopoly in the mobile app distribution market. They both abuse that market dominance to prevent competition in the mobile app distribution market from offering consumers better, more efficient and cheaper options.
Google prevents mobile app distribution competitors from competing with the Play Store on feature parity because user installable 3rd party mobile app stores cannot implement automatic upgrades, background installation of apps, or batch installs of apps like the Play Store can.
They're halfway there. Apple only takes 15% (instead of 30%) if your annual app store revenue is under $1M.
This system coincidentally punishes non-subscription products like non-IAP games, where your "launch" produces a big revenue spike and then you have a much smaller long tail of revenue. To avoid getting punished by this, you'd have to optimize for a lower-revenue launch and more stable long-term revenue... i.e. a subscription.
I always thought debit was a fixed fee. I just looked up one of the most common processors in Canada and it says the max fee is $0.035 going as low as $0.02 if you fall into a market segment that skews towards less than $20 per transaction.
I intentionally pay debit for everything and keep a low fee, low interest credit card with no perks.
The processor fees for credit card rails exist primarily nowadays to support two things: fraud and perks.
With a debit transaction, your fraud protection is usually much, much lower (often non-existent). It's usually equivalent to handing over cash. With a credit card, you can call them up and get the transaction reversed pretty trivially.
> ...
Please just say what you think and not "..."
Cool, so let competition roll out implementations of these services, and developers can decide on their own if its worth using Apple's services or their competitors.
Consumers will be able to reap the benefits of increased competition, as the free market delivers to them better, cheaper and more efficient solutions.
Because they're looking down the barrel of antitrust suits.
> Is it not morally important that they consent?
Is it morally important that they consent to following the law? No, it isn't. Antitrust laws are very clear, and if a company violates them, then they'll face penalties and prosecution.
I think my local warlords are trying to take something someone else made, because they want to feel big, and are happy leave destruction in their wake.
I hope it fails this time.
Why are push notifications an Apple service? Wouldn't we be better off moving that into the apps?
Today I can trust that any apps I download will use APNS or nothing.
Alternatively, a horror show of cheap and broken push implementations from developers who want to save a dime.
Consumers would suffer a thousand cuts and the value of the platform would plummet, eventually hurting developers more.
Alternatives means competition. Keeping the value of their platform up is no excuse for anti-competitive practices.
You fetishize competition. I want apple to be allowed to be anti competitive on their own platform. Just like I want to go to Disneyworld and not having to choose between competing companies’ versions of Space Mountain.
The rest of the world outside the walled garden is a competitive market. Once inside the walled garden, we have paid handsomely not to be competed for.
Shouldn't they also just be regulated to only accept a fixed amount instead? I'm genuinely curious why this example isn't brought up more often and is just assumed to be the norm.
The irony in this % discussion is that Apple tried to use the same rationale against Qualcomm in their radio modem feud - Qualcomm wanted to charge a % on device price for using their radio modems whereas Apple pushed for a fixed amount. I'm sure AWS would love to bill % of revenue but perhaps due to competition, they can't do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union
As to why it's not a fixed payment: I'm not sure if some of their costs/liabilities would scale with the size of the transactions?
That's why when EU capped the fee "so low" we also massively pushed for 3D secure deployment, so those lower fees would still easily cover it.
My (albeit limited) understanding is that Visa and Mastercard ensure that the debit/credit transactions are securely and quickly occur, but if there are post-transaction issues like fraud or chargeback, then the credit card-issuing bank handles/resolves those issues.
Conversely there's probably a subset of transactions that don't need this sort of "insurance", such as buying groceries. Currently the merchant still has to pay the 2%+ fee in the U.S. but would be nice to have the option for a customer to waive the "insurance" part and benefit from a 2% savings. It's akin to many merchants offering a lower "cash-only" rate.
Now in the EU, if online transactions are over a certain amount or flag up as suspicious, we must use 2FA. So I have to stick my card in my card reader and generate an OTP. Works quite well tbh. My other bank sends me a push notification where I approve the payment.
I've come to the viewpoint that this would be a good thing. I think we've moved too far in the direction of never paying for anything with cash.
Oh and it goes without saying that rewards programs disappeared entirely (I am not opposed to outlawing “rewards” programs)
It's really really annoying, and it feels like people put up with it because "that's how it's always been done".
That's why a per usage pricing would be fairer. And yes, the app having one thousand $10 purchases would pay way more than the app having a single $10000 purchase, but that's the point.
Indeed, I missed that layer when answering you. That's makes it even worse and unfair.
> They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards).
And working with Visa doesn't stop you from offering Mastercard or Paypal or others. Apple mandates you use them.
It's capped in the EU - 0.3% for credit card, 0.2% for debit ones. That fee includes all the risks of chargebacks and fraud processing.
> Apple currently takes a 30% commission from the total price of paid apps and in-app purchases from the App Store. For some small app makers, the new policy could cut the amount that they pay Apple in half.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/apple-will-cut-app-store-fee...
And Apple should also be free to offer the % as an alternative if they wish, "don't want to bother with details ? Just stay entirely within Apple's system and pay 30% and that's it". But not strip the possibility of paying by use.
Because again, if I have 500 millions users, delivering a 5 MB update costs the same for a 5$ sub as it does for a 50$ sub, yet Apple's bills 10 times more to the second one.
To me it seems like payment processors are a more direct comparison and they usually do a combination of flat fee + percentage.
Which the developer should be able to opt out of by self-hosting.
Opt out of the battery controller and encryption libraries, to roll their own for cheap?
If you manage to double your price without changing how much resources you need to use, AWS bill doesn't change. Apple's bill doubles.
The driver doesn't know what's in the box. They don't need to know what's in the box. At most it should be based on the size or weight of the box but not what's in it.
What's next, tipping hotel bellhops based on the value of items in your luggage? Got a $5000 camera in there? Oh yeah that'll be a 1% or $50 tip. Oh, it's just $100 of clothes? I guess it'll be $1.
It's the 'market power / monopoly' issue that is the problem.
Apple needs to allow 3rd part app stores and direct downloads and that's it.
They can keep their 15%/30% if they think the market will allow that.
The 'security' issue is a canard because the Android world is not effectively less secure. Moreover, Apple could still make certain security/notarization requirements, strictly technical.
Too many people are weirdly supportive of their control - it's totally fine and frankly understandable if you want to 'just use the App Store' - but it's not good to limit others.
Vertical consolidation within industries is usually a bad thing, not always, but it's definitely bad when these power/monopolies are created.
On the other side of the equation, Apple has a 'Monopsony' in other areas as well (exclusive buyer by force) which can be looked at.
The M1 chip, design, great apps - compete there, but indirect downloads, 'self repair', probably battery/disk/memory upgrade replacement etc. should be open.
Apple doesn't charge developers 30% of revenue; they charge 30% of revenue made from purchasing from the app store, and in-app purchases.
I'm not saying it's okay, simply that there's precedent fairly ingrained in our economy.
If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view.
Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming and saying "30% is way too much" wouldn't be out of nowhere.
So you have to pay your Spotify subscription by cash or checks. How many people will still subscribe to Spotify? I haven‘t ever seen a check in my live besides in TV.
In some sense you are „forced“ to use them. And in some sense it is ok, as long as one party does not has to much power.
> 3.1.1 In-App Purchase: If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, etc. Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase.
Also, I don't know how common it is in the US but in the EU and here in France we have "prélèvement" (~bank direct debit ?)
Eg I (virtually, on my computer) sign an agreement for company X to take amount Y from my bank account every Z amount of time for a given service. It takes less than a minute to setup and sign directly on the provider website (no need to contact or connect to my bank). I can cancel it at any time through the provider or at my bank. Since a couple of years they are valid in the entire EU accross countries "prélèvement SEPA" (Single Euro Payments Area). They're entirely free, for the customer AND the one billing them (there are bank fees depending on your bank, but no interchange fee, eg I use them to charge many of my customer and it costs me a flat fee of 25e/month for the web access).
That's how I pay my amazon prime, my amazon purchases, my electricity bill, my mobile phone bill, ... So a certain swedish music company could bill me in france that way for virtually no fee.
It's true that you're not allowed to advertise that you can do this inside the app itself, but that's not the same as saying you're not allowed to do it at all.
Not a good example - Spotify takes PayPal, which can be topped up from a bank account transfer, trivially done with the bank app or site.
https://support.spotify.com/us/article/payment-methods/ (just learned there's also "pay by mobile" which adds it to your phone bill ...)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272307/market-share-fore...
ios isn't a monopoly, there is always the other option. The option that has six times the marketshare.
again, this is literally about shutting down any possibility of a company ever offering a "walled garden" model. It's not that apple is dominant in the market - they're not. You have many many alternatives to using their devices, they're about an eighth of the market. But even that eighth cannot be allowed to exist, that business model has to be shut down permanently.
If you consider selling apps to ios devices to be its own market, then yes you are forced to use Apple. If you don't consider that to be its own market but only a part of the actual "phones and tablets apps" market then no you are not forced to use Apple.
I believe because of the size of their userbase that apps for ios devices are a market on their own, therefore "you are forced to use Apple" applies. Here the EU seems to agree.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/lt/IP_15_...
BTW, Visa/MasterCard don't manage risk afaik -- the card issuing banks do that. Visa just connects the pos terminal etc to the right bank.
Tbh it would be fine if Apple charged per bandwidth usage. But taking 50 or 500 euros in wont change how much it cost them to deliver the app.
Additionally, a 2% fee is nearly inconsequential. If Mastercard and Visa demanded 30%, there would be literal riots.
And Apple and Google charge 15 times that because there's no way around them.
This assumes that as your needs increase, your profit increases and so does your AWS bill. Granular, PAYG billing is really just a tax on what you _should_ be converting to profit in some sense.
At least, it's an interesting way to look at capital allocation and ROI.
Imagine a scenario where you realize you can double your prices without changing anything else nor losing customer, therefore only changing your revenue by doubling it. Your AWS bill doesn't change. Your Apple store bill doubles. This is factually a tax on revenue.
It struck me at the time, that the granular billing allows AWS to function less like a product seller and more like a tax.
A weak comparison granted.
And the same Apple sued Qualcomm for charging them percentage of iPhone.
Although I do think the percentage is a good way to ensure fair distribution ( with a Cap on maximum ). The idea is that the higher grossing Apps ( or Phones ) would be subsidising the lower cost Apps ( or Phones ) for those innovation.
And again, I still think the money part is besides the point. Why do Apple gets to pull an App down simply because they dont like their world views.
hey, thanks for the great business model idea!
Example in another market: you can buy an Unreal Engine license, or you can get it for pretty much free but then owe a % of sales.
Nobody is saying Apple cannot offer an alternative "30% all included flat price", the complaint is about them offering ONLY that.
But non free apps with a smaller base you would be surprised I guess. Storage for hosting and GB for bandwidth is incredibly cheap.
To give a frame of reference AWS pricing is currently at $0.023 per GB for storage and $0.09 per GB for bandwith out.
That means 30% of a $0.50 sub is enough for covering the entire storage + distribution costs of one gigabyte for that user (and that's assuming you need to store an entire copy for each user, which you don't). Yes, there are other costs (website, review, ...), but then again how many subs are $0.50 ?
~A better idea would be to have a free tier and take a percentage above that. The first $1000 are a lot more valuable to the creator than everything beyond that.~
edit: OP said per download, misread it. That makes sense.
No it would not, it would be distributed by usage. If you wonder "would that possibly work ?", welcome to the internet, it works that way.
And it doesn't stop apple from offering special terms you can opt in for a flat 30% fee or entirely free if your app is entirely free (or ad supported) too.
Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ?
Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay through the provider they can negotiate and then pay you back the cost they owe you.
It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's setup like a tax.