
Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax and other developers won’t - jedimind
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206400/apple-tax-amazon-tv-prime-30-percent-developers
======
pentae
We had a paid chat app for social media celebrities/models to earn money
chatting with their fans years back. Apple argued that despite a human being
doing the work it 'took place in the app' so that makes it a 'digital
service'. That means we had to accept IAP and of course pay them 30%. Made it
impossible to to pay our influencers fairly.

One of the many silly rejections we had was due to the images on our
influencers profiles being too sexy despite being linked through the Instagram
API. After explaining they were the same as you can find in the Instagram app
we were told we had to actively censor them anyway. Shame on us for not being
as big as Instagram, right?

After a year of making less margin from our own business than Apple they
concluded paid chat was no longer appropriate for the app store and decided to
just put us out of business one morning. Meanwhile, tons of other apps with
the same functionality and far more sexualized are alive and doing well.

It can't be easy making every developer happy while curating the tidal wave of
apps coming in each day, but it was a really soul crushing experience for us.

~~~
LeoTinnitus
Your comments about you not being as big as Instagram are the reason I really
hate apple. I've noticed their push for only the top of the line apps or their
own stuff for years and it has completely soured me of them. They only cater
to people with money. Apple crushes innovation worse than government
regulation right now. All the apps I see on the app store are major
corporations. There is hardly anything by indie or single devs anymore.
Android it kinda exists but Google takes the "promote the moneymakers more"
approach. I just wish apple would stop being a SAAS model company and return
to making great hardware again. The simple fact alone that it took them 5
years to remove butterfly keyboards from the market along with 3 years to even
acknowledge they were broken and offer free repairs shows they don't care
about their users at all.

~~~
thelittleone
I was an Apple fanboy for 15 years. But they seem to be doing their level best
to alienate pro customers. Over the last five years I’ve endured a comedic run
of Apple Hardware failures (a catastrophic failure at least every 6 months).
The response from Apple suggests this is nothing exceptional or that they
simply just don’t care. I believe it’s the latter, I mean they’ve got billions
of other customers. This arrogance that inevitably festers when a company is
on top for so long.

But history has shown companies like this fall from grace once a critical mass
of once devoted customers go elsewhere. I hope I’m wrong and Apple wakes up
before this happens.

I thought there was no alternative to the Apple ecosystem that wouldn’t drive
me crazy (Windows) or cost me in productivity. But with my 2017 MacBook Pro
dead (again) and no access to Apple service due to Pandemic, I took out an old
Thinkpad T420 and installed Linux Mint. It installed perfectly, the keyboard
is epic compared to MBP and I’m productive.

Now I’m happy because I have an effective alternative to Apple. Once my MBP is
fixed I will sell it. And wave goodbye to Apple.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Under Cook they've become a miserly penny-pinching company with a bullying
arrogant edge and a consistent record of underdelivering on technology and
reliability.

I still prefer their products to anything made by MS (and Linux is not an
option for pro media reasons), but buying Apple has become less about delight
and more about holding my nose while feeling like I'm being gouged for a
product that is likely to have at least a few serious issues.

~~~
foepys
Color grading on nearly all blockbuster movies happens on Linux with
specialized industry software.

Developers like Adobe just need to put in the effort, because Linux itself is
ready for production.

~~~
thelittleone
"Linux itself is ready for production". I first used Linux back in the early
90s, no x-windows, just shells, which was kind of normal at the time. Then
moved to Windows and lived in that ecosystem from 3.x all the way to Windows
XP. I switched to Apple after Balmer led Microsoft through a string of
puzzling product decisions and seemingly anti-consumer / customer patterns.
Which seems a lot like Apple since Jobs (Under Cook).

Linux ready for Production. Sure feels like the perfect time.

------
t0ughcritic
Generally aside from games , them taking a 30% cut is generally the profit
margin for most software companies. So unless of you can survive year 1 with
funding of some kind, or are making side hustle apps, you have to wait till
next year to get that 15% increase in subscription revenue. So you pay 30% +
cost of user acquisition + all other costs and hope that you can profit.
Definitely not developer friendly. Then there’s the issue of rejecting apps,
pulling it when they want, building out the functionality themselves or buying
a competitor and pushing their own version. Forgot to include Apples return
policy for digital products is very hurtful for developers too, there’s been
hundreds of articles on it, you literally can get anything digital for free if
you contact Apple support and say you want a refund... LinkedIn subscriptions,
game products, anything.

~~~
enos_feedler
If Apple didn't spend billions per year over the last 15 years on research &
development, marketing, retail, etc to put those devices in hands of your
target market, with readily available payment methods and the trust to buy
things online, how would most companies even begin to build a business? If you
ship bits and bytes, then I think this is fairly owed.

Whenever I hear these gripes it makes me wonder why developers feel so
entitled. Is it because we all came from a previous world where the PC was a
more open platform for distribution? Apple is just a business. Do business
with them or don't.

~~~
kevingadd
People were building and distributing software for decades without giving
apple 30%. It's just a phone. Smartphones existed before the App Store, too.
It provides useful services but it's not the virgin mary and it's not some
profoundly new invention: They just did a bunch of things previous apps had
done, did them well, and slotted them all together.

Things that existed before the app store:

* Store performing payment processing (steam, for example)

* Same storefront for purchase and install

* Automated updates

* User reviews

* Content submission and distribution (steam again, along with basically every other app store)

* Code signing

Things that appeared other places around when the app store got them, if not
earlier:

* IAP

* Subscriptions

It's totally reasonable for Apple to put all this stuff together and decide
it's a good enough package to charge you for it. It's also totally reasonable
to think 30% is too much, and to think it's absurd that everyone is required
to put up with their arbitrary rule enforcement.

If you're paying Apple for a service it's not "entitlement" to expect it to
actually be good.

~~~
sosborn
> People were building and distributing software for decades without giving
> apple 30%.

Did you develop on those older platforms? Dev kits and licenses were often
crazy expensive.

~~~
enos_feedler
Exactly, the closest approximation to the App Store I can think of in the
previous decades were game platforms like Nintendo and Sega. I would be
curious to know from someone with experience how much % of revenue would have
been allocated to licensing + all costs just to get someone to slam your
cartridge into their system and press start.

EDIT: for an addressable market that was much smaller in scale.

~~~
kevingadd
The cost of licensing, manufacturing, cert etc in those days was quite high,
yes. To be fair they were offering many services for that cost that you
couldn't get elsewhere at the time. These days publishing on consoles is much
cheaper and in some cases they've waived or eliminated many of the fees you
used to have to pay for. In the XBox 360 days the certification process to
push a build to consoles could itself cost you upwards of a thousand dollars
depending on the circumstances, though it's my understanding that the fees
would be waived in some cases (for bug fixes, etc). This was largely a
necessity to prevent a broken build being shipped to 100k customers (because
in those days it wasn't reasonable to expect everyone to download a 1gb
patch), not as important now.

Steam is the best 1:1 approximation to the App Store and it predates it
somewhat. The comparison isn't exact since they don't lock down your PC but
they offer most of the same features.

~~~
enos_feedler
I understand your comparison from how the underlying product is realized but I
am looking at it from the value delivered to a software shop.

Whether it's Nintendo, Steam or iOS, the value delivered is the same: I give
you docs, guides, etc to construct a program against an abstract target. When
you are done and press the "ship it" button, an opportunity now exists, in the
real world, for people to buy your thing and for you to keep some money.

Regardless of how the platform achieves this, the value is the same. You get
to focus on building your product and collecting money. What I can't wrap my
head around is why developer's are judging the affordability or fairness of
this when the fractional cost may not have changed since the 80s/90s.

------
jasoneckert
There is this widespread assumption that Apple is looking out for the
interests of developers on its platform.

However, like all large corporations, Apple is and always has looked out for
its own interests only. If you keep this in mind, it's easy to understand why
Apple does what they do.

~~~
addicted
If anyone believes a for profit company is looking out for anything but their
own interests they are sorely mistaken almost all the time.

The thing with Apple though was there were good reasons to believe that their
interests were strongly aligned with their users’ and by extension with indie
developers.

At a time when the Mac was definitely not the obvious choice, Apple had a very
strong interest in promoting high quality indie apps because that was a
differentiator for their platform (they were also not as financially strong,
so this pushed some of the costs of building differentiators out to Indies).

At a time when Apple made money solely off selling hardware directly to
consumers, there was reason to believe their interests once again aligned with
those consumers as opposed to MS who largely sold to OEMs and Google, who
didn’t even sell their OS but made money off the user data.

But as Apple’s hardware growth is beginning to stall, it appears they’ve
decided they must continue to grow financially, and the only way they can do
so is by wringing more money out of their existing base. As a result it’s
become more about doing stuff that was earlier being done by 3rd parties
themselves. And that means indies are screwed becUse Apple can crush them in a
way it couldn’t an Amazon or a Netflix, not that it’s not trying.

~~~
pdonis
_> The thing with Apple though was there were good reasons to believe that
their interests were strongly aligned with their users’ and by extension with
indie developers._

There _were_ good reasons at one time, yes, for the reasons you give.

But there _aren 't_ good reasons _now_ , because circumstances have changed.

Something similar happened in the 1990s with Microsoft and Windows. In the
early days of Windows, MS encouraged third-party developers to code to it,
because it helped to speed up the expansion of the user base. All kinds of
good third-party Windows apps sprung up and thrived for a while.

But once the market was pretty much saturated with Windows, a lot of those
third-party developers discovered that they were now basically doing market
research for MS: whenever they hit on a killer app or feature, MS would simply
duplicate it, ship it as part of Windows, and destroy the third party dev's
market.

------
appstorelottery
Two years after the developer program began, I wrote a coin-tossing app that
did really well. I quit my job and wrote an AR like app that allowed you to
simulate shooting through your camera FPS style.

It was very simple, displaying camera output, a cross hair - and when you
pressed the button a blood splash appeared along with a gunshot sound.
Tasteless, yes, but this was in the era of "More Cowbell" and other low-
effort-leads-to-instant-retirement-apps.

Apple rejected the app. It upset me, but I figured - ok fair enough. I knew
the risks. However I didn't feel the same when _the next week_ one of the top
10 apps was _EXACTLY THE SAME_ except they called it Paintball.

I had more than one conspiracy theory surrounding this ;-)

~~~
shinryuu
Framing matters.

~~~
appstorelottery
Yes indeed. In retrospect I shouldn't have folded so quickly, a quick rename
and resubmit was probably in order.

------
umvi
I released a small game to iOS once, but never again. It was a massive
headache that wasn't worth the users. First of all, you can only build on a
Mac, even if you are using a cross platform framework like Unity. So that's
like $300 for a used mac mini. Second of all you have to pony up $100 per
year. Third of all, Apple will reject your app at their whim and leisure. Like
all the games currently being rejected having to do with toilet paper.

~~~
intopieces
I’m glad Apple rejects lots apps and I’m glad it costs money to get into the
App Store. Every time I look the Google Play store I decide it’s not worth
engaging with, as a user. Too much garbage and malware.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
Do you feel the same about the Internet? Just not worth it, cause there's a
heap of junk you can access if you go out of your way to access it?

~~~
intopieces
Pretty much. I don’t really “surf the Internet” like I did when I was younger.
The web was ruined by ads long ago, and there’s very little content worth
engaging in, especially without the curation that sites like HN provide.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
The difference is you're _choosing_ your curators (e.g. Hacker News)
independent of other choices you've made i.e. your hardware provider.

Would you just go along with it happily if Apple (or any other company for
that matter) blocked access to Hacker News because it didn't meet _their_
standards? Or vice versa, if Hacker News refused to serve you simply because
you're using an Apple device?

~~~
intopieces
Apples standards are my standards. If that stops being the case, I’ll stop
being a customer.

Sure. I’m smart enough to dig through the bargain bin of Google Play apps to
find the ones that work with my device, don’t have ads, and have the
appropriate level of functionality and polish. I just don’t want to. I’d
rather pay a premium for a company to do it for me.

Same goes for the Internet.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
> _Apples standards are my standards._

Indeed. If you want to use their hardware, then you've no choice in the
matter.

To be clear, I have absolutely zero issue with you choosing to be their
customer. They make fantastic hardware, there are an enormous amount of pros
to being an Apple customer. It's perfectly reasonable to look at these pros
and cons and choose to be an Apple customer.

However, taking one of those cons and trying to sell it as a pro requires a
fair bit of doublethink.

You could be using an Apple device and _choosing_ Apple as your app curator.
Lack of choice is not a feature.

~~~
intopieces
>You could be using an Apple device and choosing Apple as your app curator.
Lack of choice is not a feature.

Some people want to make as few choices as possible. That’s me. I don’t want
to look at two or more app stores to find what I want. The lack of choice, for
me, is a feature.

I understand that I’m a special type of narrow minded on this point. And I’m
glad Android exists — I have a few Android devices myself, for hobbies and
such - they’re just not what I would use for my daily driver.

~~~
Silhouette
I think the point is that Apple could still run their own App Store, which
meets all of your requirements, without excluding all alternatives, which
others might find valuable even if you choose not to use them yourself.

~~~
intopieces
I do not agree that Apple can maintain the same high quality App Store while
not excluding alternatives. Alternative App Store will invite developers to
put in less effort to reach the same audience. I do not want this.

~~~
Silhouette
Surely that would just mean that application developers unwilling to comply
with Apple's standards and pay its price of admission would be excluded from
its App Store? Isn't that what you want, by your own arguments?

------
dang
Please don't editorialize titles. Submitters that do that eventually lose
submission rights on HN.

" _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don 't
editorialize._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Plenty of explanation here:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20titles%20editorializ&sort=byDate&type=comment)

(Submitted title was "Apple's treatment of developers is neither fair nor
consistent")

------
Tade0
Occasionally I blow the mind of yet another non-technical person who learns
from me that not only does Apple require iStore apps to be developed using
their hardware, but also there's an annual fee for the privilege of being able
to publish to the app store.

And on top of that a 30% fee from in app purchases during the first year.

~~~
uk_programmer
People complain about 30%. That is kinda standard in most affiliate style
relationships. The subscription is also negligible amount IMO.

------
makecheck
I think large-company actions should be measured by “would this behavior
practically bankrupt a small company?”, and Apple has quite a few things in
this category.

They do things that are only tolerated, frankly, because developers have no
choice. 90% of App Review seems _damned_ arbitrary, and since I can regularly
find examples of _clear_ scams their “review” isn’t even _effective_.

------
smilekzs
There was this idea of breaking "Big Tech" apart floating around a few months
ago. It was probably over-zealous as it was proposed, but I now honestly
believe that it's a good idea to REQUIRE (by regulations) the major (again
defined in such regulations) appstores be operated by a separate entity
dedicated to such a role, and subject to extra scrutiny to prevent this kind
of anti-competition behavior. Putting it simply, you can't run an appstore and
publish apps in it too.

------
saagarjha
If Apple wasn’t on the chopping block for antitrust before, they certainly are
now. As a developer, I knew that Apple would relax their policies for large
companies, but this…wow.

------
yourkin
Amazon (likely after many years of negotiations) got itself a better deal than
individual developers? This looks to me like complaining that corporations can
aquire goods and services in bulk cheaper than would be for a single person to
get in a generic supermarket. I'm all for equality, but this looks like a good
precedent that might open more options eventually. What is the backlash here
against?

~~~
vorpalhex
Apple isn't bulk buying oranges. They're forcing developers to pay a non-
optional tax if they want to target iOS which in turn hurts the consumer.

~~~
Grustaf
It’s not a tax, it’s like a rent. They built and run the ecosystem, you don’t
have to be part of it if you don’t like it, it’s completely voluntary, unlike
a tax.

~~~
jw14
Rent is normally flat. I've never heard of a landlord taking a percentage

~~~
sosborn
It happens all the time with commercial leases.

[https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-
rent....](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent.html)

~~~
amelius
Absurd, and:

> The percent that’s applied is usually an industry standard (7% on every
> dollar) and isn’t subject to much negotiation.

Which is still much less than the 30% of Apple.

~~~
Grustaf
It’s not about the size of the fee, it’s about what you charge for.

------
ksec
Now this makes me wonder, if Microsoft products on the App Store also gets
special treatment with lower cuts than others.

Aside from this issues, I wish Apple maintain the 30% cut on Games, ( Since
Games even has its whole own section in App Store anyway ) and lowered the
cuts to 20% for everything else. I think that would be a fairer approach to
every body.

30% Cuts for all other Apps is just insanely expensive.

------
blunderkid
Apple charges 30% from newspapers and magazines - an industry that is
struggling to make any money. But not Facebook which makes way more money than
all the newspapers in the world taken together. Yes Apple built the platform
but by charging a 30% margin it is fleecing it’s customers who already paid
through their noses for the devices and/or skimming the entire profit of some
developers. It doesn’t even seem like a good business practice from a
corporation that makes most of its money through other seemingly legit means.
Bottom line, all the virtue signaling aside, Apple is very much a capitalist
concern with the morality of a cute crocodile. What’s a monopoly without a
little price gouging, eh??

------
jariel
Imagine if you owned the electricity lines that ran around the city, and
anyone who integrated an electrical appliance with 'your electricity' had to
give you a 30% cut of their business?

Make a toaster? Apple gets 30% of that.

This is not new stuff. What Apple is doing is essentially anticompetitive.

Similarly, Google uses it's dominance in search to take over other categories.

I don't see a single politician who seems to understand the issue well enough,
and 90% of them seem to have no clue. But I think that possibly Elizabeth
Warren would actually be useful if she didn't overreach. (FYI this is
absolutely not a political point, I'm not supporting left/right/Dem/Rep or any
view and not even supporting someone's candidacy - I'm saying she's one of the
few candidates that seems to be interested in this, and maybe has a grasp of
it).

We have to be really careful with regulation, but I think there are a handful
of anticompetitive, labour, and privacy regulations that would make America an
even better and more competitive landscape.

By the way - the unspoken elephant is China dumping on tech landscape as well.
There is a reason that trade agreements have an issue with government
subsidies of businesses. Dumping is more obvious with commodities, but it's
the same thing with other companies, i.e. Huawei, and it will creep into
others (Zoom?). It needs to be at least looked at.

------
znpy
Apple continues exploiting its own users. Nothing new under the sun.

An I supposed to be surprised?

When you start dealing with Apple you should be expecting to be exploited,
both as a user and as a developer.

------
femto113
I've not read anything yet that actually matches the headline of Amazon "not
paying the tax". All I've seen is that users can now purchase content without
going through Apple's in-app payment pipeline and instead use Amazons. The
agreement with Amazon could still demand that Amazon pay to Apple 30% of the
value of anything sold through the in-app channel.

------
sys_64738
Apple is a monopolist for the iOS App Store. The eco-system is controlled by
them using their rules and they compete with others in the same app space. The
whole thing is rigged to the extent that an anti-competitive investigation
should be done into the market place by the Justice dept.

------
brentis
Having had an app on App Store for 5 years, finally moving off. React,
Flutter, and PWA make it unnecessary. Personally, I rarely use apps as typing
a couple characters in URL bar is easier than scrolling through apps.

Lastly, users are much more prone to drop 1 star reviews for little reason
other than getting dev attention. Most of my stars are 5 star or 1 star, seems
off.

------
dmitriid
I can't imagine how pissed Netflix and Spotify are right now (and a whole host
of smaller companies).

~~~
saagarjha
If only they had agreed to letting their content be integrated into Apple’s
platform…

~~~
wool_gather
I would be pretty surprised if Apple let Spotify do this, even if the latter
were willing. They're direct competitors to Apple's hopeful cash cow Music
service.

------
kerkeslager
For those who are against regulating Amazon because "in a free market someone
could overthrow Amazon as the leader at any time so the fact they are on top
means they must be providing the best service for consumers", this is a great
example of why that's not true.

------
newbalance
The "App Store" is empty of everyone, but large companies because mobile apps
don't pay the bills.

Further, consumer expectations ruined the "App Store" when users began to
expect high-quality, continuously updated apps for a one-time spend of $1.

------
FPGAhacker
Doesn’t seem any different than peering agreements between network providers.

------
DeathArrow
It would be nice to have app stores that are not run by Apple or Google. It
feels like they have a monopoly to publish apps for their os-es.

I kind of like the PC model where you can get the app straight from developer.

~~~
noisem4ker
Plenty of app stores on the Android side.

Amazon's Appstore [https://www.amazon.com/mobile-
apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011](https://www.amazon.com/mobile-
apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011)

Huawei's App Gallery
[https://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobileservices/appgallery/](https://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobileservices/appgallery/)

Samsung's Galaxy Store [https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/galaxy-
store/](https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/galaxy-store/)

F-Droid [https://f-droid.org](https://f-droid.org)

If you prefer getting your apps straight from the developer's website, you can
have that too. E.g.:
[http://www.lonelycatgames.com](http://www.lonelycatgames.com)

------
ojr
The Apple Tax is the cost of distribution, Amazon has widespread distribution
so they are off the hook, not saying it’s fair but that is my reasoning behind
it

------
baron816
Developers:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs)

------
LatteLazy
People whine about amazon, but it's apple that are the real monopolists,
determined to control the whole market and then abuse that power.

------
DeathArrow
If your app doesn't break the law, nobody should tell you if you can publish
it or not.

------
amelius
I think developers should be more principled and stop supporting the platform.

------
amelius
This is why I run whenever I hear the word "platform".

------
Wowfunhappy
Can the submitted title please be changed to match the original title? It
should be "Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax, and why other
developers won’t"

~~~
dang
Yes, we'll do that now.

More at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781515)

------
walddgrnd99
Walled gardens are what we’ve been telling each they are all along. Film @ 11

------
brenden2
If you think it's unfair, don't use it.

As long as people keep using Apple's products and platforms, they will do what
they do.

~~~
saagarjha
> If you think it's unfair, don't use it.

This is tired “advice” and does nothing to help developers, who have little
control over what their users use.

~~~
brenden2
Everyone has complete control over what they do with their own lives. People
should focus more on that, and spend less time writing long winded articles
about what other people do. Worrying about what other people do is the path to
insanity. Just my 2 cents.

~~~
saagarjha
> Everyone has complete control over what they do with their own lives.

No, as I just mentioned.

~~~
cycloptic
You are not being forced to use those platforms. There are other ways to be a
developer. They may not be convenient for you but that's a different problem.
I know pivoting your skillset can be hard but it's an option that is always
available to you.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
It’s more than just inconvenience. If Apple can be protectionist about its
Apple store than the developers can be protectionist of their skills and
careers as developers on the Apple platform.

~~~
cycloptic
>the developers can be protectionist of their skills and careers as developers
on the Apple platform.

Legally, no, they cannot. Apple owns 100% of the platform and the developers
own 0%. I would not bank on this changing any time soon.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
What legal standing is preventing someone from posting “Apples treatment of
Developers is neither fair nor consistent”????

~~~
cycloptic
I agree that it's not fair or consistent but saying that alone means nothing.
For any impact, action must be taken on those words: you can use legal means
to try and change their behavior like Spotify did, you can negotiate like
Amazon did, you can apply pressure by trashing them in the press like Epic
did, you can attempt to circumvent the app store fees using various measures,
you can leave for a different platform. Or you can apply some combination of
any of these. Which one is the least expensive is entirely dependent on your
situation. The reason why I spoke of the last option initially is that for the
average individual developer your only real immediate action is to leave,
everything else is collective in nature.

------
scarface74
In other news, if you are a founder who looks like Mark Zuckerburg, you are
more likely to get VC funding.

------
VonGuard
Apple's been like this forever, it's only gotten much worse since the late
2000's and the launch of the iTunes App store. Even in the old days, when Mac
Classic existed, Apple would change its mind about stuff for developers all
the time. Anyone remember OpenDoc and how that was gonna change the world?
Apple's favorite thing to do is tell developers it's got the next big thing
(Newton), next big language (remember Swift?), or the next big tool (AR). They
hand this out to devs, devs eat it up, and like 1 or 2 years later, they
either spring said thing like a trap no one can escape from, or they just give
up on it and act like it never happened and move on, leaving developers with
useless new skills.

~~~
xenospn
Where did Swift go? it's still front and center.

~~~
VonGuard
It's still here, but people were so excited about it when it came out, and
some folks actually thought it'd be usable on other platforms. Here were are
years later and it's just a niche language for iPhones. Everyone who was
excited about it seems to have stopped being excited because it's 100% Apple
only. Like all their stuff. I mean, is there anything better than a completely
closed source programming language?

~~~
Grustaf
Are you serious? There is an entire industry around swift, countless blogs,
podcasts, books and websites. Interest is growing steadily and people are more
excited than ever. It’s open source and has a very engaged community around
it’s development, anyone can propose changes to it.

And of course it’s not 100% apple only, apple themselves have invested a lot
in swift on linux, and others are working on swift for windows and
webassembly. You couldn’t be more wrong actually.

