
The top 1% of app store publishers drive 80% of new downloads - elorant
https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/21/the-top-1-of-app-store-publishers-drive-80-of-new-downloads/
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prometheus76
Pareto distribution strikes again! This is a non-story.

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DenisM
The same dynamics as with pop music. App business is show business to a large
degree (specifically the part where people largely buy from the top list or
from friend's recommendation).

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Richard_East
Here are the stats for Steam, for upcoming games:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-6JbKsDY1HeCwFC6ZE6fMeHw/edit#gid=2089134878)

Top 1% varies greatly, responsible for about 30-80% of customer interest,
depending on the week.

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saagarjha
Honestly, the numbers quotes in the article were better than I expected.
There’s a reasonable number of people who seem to be making large amounts of
money, and even in the bottom 99% the average isn’t essentially zero. I’m
curious what the median App Store publisher makes, though.

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amelius
> I’m curious what the median App Store publisher makes, though.

I'm guessing less than the average of the 99% tail.

But you also have to wonder how serious the median publisher really is.

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scarface74
On a related note, I find it strange how often HN posters are complaining
about “Apple’s 30% cut”. Most of the revenue from apps come from big
publishers who write games with in app consumables targeting “whales”. It’s
not like indy developers who wouldn’t get discovered anyway would all of the
sudden have sustainable businesses of Apple reduced their cut to 10%.

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t0ughcritic
The margins don’t work out for UA with Apples cut. Think of it as tax you pay
on income. It’s harder to compete if you are smaller if you pay the same tax
as entrenched players. So yes extra margin would help, and a flat tax doesn’t
help. Also given that Apples store is a monopoly, it makes it even more
unfair.

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scarface74
Well, off the top of my head I know two independent developers who are making
a go of it and have since basically the App Store started. Marco Arment
(Instapaper and now Overcast) and David Smith (at least a dozen apps).

Software has zero marginal cost. You either have to a product that
incentivizes people to pay more or enough paying customers to be sustainable.
Independent developers can do the same scammy techniques that the big boys use
- go after whales or advertising.

Or the less scammy free with ads with an in app payment to get rid of ads and
optional in app purchases that aren’t pay to win (like Crossy Roads).

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notadoc
A bit surprised it's not higher than that. Who browses the App Store?

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bogwog
I believe the scientific term is "a metric fuckton of people". Just look up
any stories from people who had their apps featured on the store.

I think the reason for the distribution is just due to the terrible discovery
on the Appstore/Google Play. It's completely hopeless to rely on users
stumbling across your app on the store, and the only real way to get users is
by advertising/paid user acquisition. The problem with that of course is that
you need significant funding to run a successful ad campaign, and "the little
guy" is not likely to have that funding nor the knowledge/experience.

And of course just like websites have learned how to game the Google search
algorithm, they can do the same for the app stores, which the top publishers
certainly have done.

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Red_Leaves_Flyy
I frequently go hunting for fun new games or old gems I've missed. The play
store is consistently awful. I've been seeing the same awful games and apps
advertised too me for years. I want to see new games and apps, not just new
games and apps from massive sweat shops pumping out garbage, which is what I
get now. Virtually every app or game that I install is discovered outside off
the play store. It's blatantly clear to me that Google caters to the big
companies at the expense of innovators. So much for don't be evil or whatever
that slogan they never honored was.

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m3kw9
Microcosm of the wealth gap

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nickgrosvenor
This is the way it always will be.

Power law

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symplee
Unless an outside force acts upon it.

In the future, all distributions will be uniform. And _everyone_ will finally
be happy*

*(whether they like it or not.)

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buboard
The only platform that is still monetizable for the little man is the web. I
hate to say it but developers brought this to themselves. The amount of
pumping and hyping that mobile development got over the years is through the
roof. You don't need an app for that. (But then again, developers make money
making the apps, not by selling them)

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mrtksn
How do you monetize the web these days? I don't remember the last time I
visited a website that is not an established publication or a storefront for a
giant corporation. Google doesn't return interesting lesser-known websites
too, it would prefer to bring me an unrelated page from a well-established
site instead of something that is new and coming. Not sure why websites would
be any more monetizable than apps, with apps you can actually sell something.

On the Apps, you can compete on quality. On the web, the only metric is
pageviews.

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diminoten
If you browse Reddit or HN for any nontrivial amount of time you'll hit
someone's personal blog/project/app/whatever.

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mrtksn
Most of the time It's just a blog that will receive some traffic until the
novelty wears out. Probably much better monetizable on Youtube, the ad revenue
from few hours fame is not paying any bills.

Sometimes it's a service that helps you do something but the website part is
irrelevant, just a landing page for the service. Not really a web business.

I think the crypto people had some success in these things. The money for the
small guy, I think, is in growing social media accounts and do advertorials.

edit: is SEO spamming still a thing?

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willart4food
The looooooooooong tail.

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chriselles
Zipf’s Law on meth?

