First, companies attempting to compete with Steam have found it costs 12% to 18% to just run a digital store, without all the app review, customer discovery & acquisition, hosting and delivery, and ecosystem integration Apple and Steam are doing, much less human support.
Second, just a credit card transaction can cost 2.5% - 5% depending on the customer behavior. On a percentage take versus value provided, that seems much worse than the store cost, and it’s a huge chunk of the store cost.
Third, Apple lowers the recurring publishing, hosting, transaction, and support fee in year 2+ to 15%, still including the credit card processing.
It’d be incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem (with human app review and support, refunds, etc.) at scale with less overhead.
But the cost of selling an app does not primarily depend on its cost. Size, frequency of updates etc. are a much bigger factor. Them taking a flat 30% is a clear sign Apple is a price-maker and the market doesn't work.
And taking 30% for in-app purchases — while forbidding developers from even advertising ways of purchasing that bypass Apple — is just plain anticompetitive.
> while forbidding developers from even advertising ways of purchasing that bypass Apple — is just plain anticompetitive.
Let’s say you are at a grocery store, offering free samples of a food, the store allows you to set up in the store however, you don’t want to let the store sell your product because of the distribution fees. While giving out the samples in their store, you tell customers to buy your product from your website directly.
Is this actually a thought process that makes sense to anyone? You want to be visible to customers in Apple’s store but you want to send those customers outside of that store to buy your product? It would seem that was freeloading. Nothing prevents you from selling outside the App Store. Look at Salesforce, they have plenty of apps on the store and they pay Apple exactly nothing when someone becomes a customer of Salesforce. Last time I checked, Basecamp isn’t doing in-app purchases either.
> Nothing prevents you from selling outside the App Store.
Apple does. They aren't 100% successful, sure. But we don't excuse the PRC's Great Firewall because people manage to bypass it either (not that the damage Apple and the PRC do were comparable). An unethical act does not become ethical because you're bad at it.
> You want to be visible to customers in Apple’s store
No, you want to be able to sell at all. Due to Apple's anticompetitive behavior that means selling on Apple's store. Your argument might be valid if Apple had a store but didn't force all Iphone and Ipad users to use it.
I have an iPhone. Where can I purchase iOS apps outside of the App Store?
>Is this actually a thought process that makes sense to anyone?
Totally. Apple encourages free apps just as much as paid apps. They even have a category on the App Store for free apps. They will promote free apps over paid apps if the free app is better. Many apps in their top10 lists are free. Does it sound to you like Apple is against free apps or is otherwise discouraging them? Also you have to pay Apple when you list your app on the App Store. I believe the developer license or whatever you need costs $100. So its not technically free, although I agree that the price is nominal.
To go back to your grocery store example, I'm selling someone a wifi router, and telling them to sign up for internet on my website. Apple wants to tax the internet too. Or I'm selling someone a Sirius XM Satellite radio for their car, and telling them to signup for service on my website.
I will concede that there is nothing either 'evil' or 'good' about what Apple is doing. But to me, taking 30% of a companies sales is super greedy at the very least. Apple does have a history of overcharging for their products. Nobody is opposed to paying premium for premium parts/labor/service, etc. But with Apple, they have an insane margin and so the extra money simply goes into a pile of cash or into some executives pocket. Its not going towards a better product.
That's a very good rebuttal, but it doesn't address the point that the premium apps are forced to shoulder more than their share of the load for operating the app store, right? Would there be some way for Apple to charge apps for tracking or running in-app adds?
Is it really that hard to deliver a 15Mb .ipa file to someone's iDevice, that Apple needs a 30% cut of every transaction to do so?
It's not incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem at all. It's just that there is no competition. If Apple wasn't a monopoly, I have no doubt someone like Amazon could deliver a service that undercut Apple by 90% and deliver the same exact "trusted" ecosystem.
I remember life before the iOS App Store. Mechanisms for delivering software on MacOS usually took a much larger cut than 30%. Heck, when Apple announced 30%, Amazon had to scramble and switch from keeping 70% to matching Apple's 30%. Amazon still keeps 70% if you price your ebook under $3, in fact, while Apple does not.
Your comment implies price-fixing, but history demonstrates competition, and Apple lowered the costs for everyone.
This 30% number is accurate but hardly all tax.
First, companies attempting to compete with Steam have found it costs 12% to 18% to just run a digital store, without all the app review, customer discovery & acquisition, hosting and delivery, and ecosystem integration Apple and Steam are doing, much less human support.
Second, just a credit card transaction can cost 2.5% - 5% depending on the customer behavior. On a percentage take versus value provided, that seems much worse than the store cost, and it’s a huge chunk of the store cost.
Third, Apple lowers the recurring publishing, hosting, transaction, and support fee in year 2+ to 15%, still including the credit card processing.
It’d be incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem (with human app review and support, refunds, etc.) at scale with less overhead.