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Comment by invalidusernam3 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if I count as a nonprofit since I've spent way more in Apple developer fees than I have made from any of my apps?

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I have the suspicion that this is likely the case for well over 90% of registered Apple developers.

I also find it incredibly disingenuous every time Tim Cook comes out at WWDC and announces how many billions of dollars Apple has paid out to developers, when the vast majority of that money is going to big organizations skimming gambling style microtransactions through massive mobile games.

It just feels like they're not being honest and selling luxury pickaxes to gold miners a decade after the California gold rush.

>when the vast majority of that money is going to big organizations skimming gambling style microtransactions through massive mobile games.

Citation needed.

Look at Top Grossing: https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/ios/top/

You might be more charitable than me with the microtransaction models in games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, and Candy Crush, but you don't even need to drop 20 places to get Slotomania, then DoudbleDown Casino, Slots Casino, World Series of Poker, 8 Ball Pool.

That's 5 out of 150 (free, paid, and grossing) or 4 out of 50 top grossing. And that''s including a solitaire and a pool app in it.

Hardly "big organizations skimming gambling style microtransactions through massive mobile games" -- assuming even all those casino apps are from "big organizations" to begin with. "miniclip.com", for example, is not exactly EA.

Those are the ones where there it is so blatant, that there is no argument, and this the top grossing of the platform.

But if you include the monetization models of the most popular games such as Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and the other games at the top, they are doing the same thing with a top layer of misderection. Drill down and their top sellers $99 IAPs of 'gems' or what have you in games aimed at children.

That is where the bulk of the app money is coming from, and it's not new or a secret, it is just not emphasized by Apple. They've gotten rid of Top Grossing lists to obfuscate this on the platform, but here, look at Jack Black explaining the tactic of app store games years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4YSpF6d6w

It hasn't changed.

Grossing is the only list that is relevant to anything. The other lists don't measure how much money an app is making.

But if you could do that you would then start making a profit, so would no longer qualify as nonprofit ;)

If you're spending more in developer fees than you're making from the apps it might make sense to make them free/ad-free so you can qualify as non-profit. You would lose the possibility of turning a profit in the future, though.

Edit: Just realised it's not available to individuals/non-profit businesses, which is a shame. If it was it could increase the number of free/ad-free apps and maybe the quality of the app store as a whole. Plus, who says one person can't run a non-profit. Surely they have to start somewhere like any other organisation?

who says one person can't run a non-profit

I'm guessing: the IRS. A non-profit is a specific type of entity, not a business model.

That's irrelevant as to whether one person can run it.

Like an LLC -- one person can run one, it doesn't take 2.

Right, but an LLC is still a separate entity. nsgi's question, as far as I understood it, is why an individual can't be a non-profit without incorporating it.

A, that's true then. A non-profit is all about being registered as one (incorporating etc) and not about intentions (or for that matter, not being into it for profit).

> If you're spending more in developer fees than you're making from the apps it might make sense to make them free/ad-free so you can qualify as non-profit.

That's not how you form a non-profit [0]; not deriving revenue from products is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish non-profit status.

> Plus, who says one person can't run a non-profit

One person can run a non-profit, but it still probably needs to be incorporated as a separate legal entity, and may (in some states) need a three-member board.

> Surely they have to start somewhere like any other organisation

Yes, they have to start somewhere, but that “somewhere”, in some jurisdictions, involves more than one person overseeing operations.

[0] as a starting point, see: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/form-nonprofit-eight...

The exact definitions vary by country, I am not sure how it is precisely in the USA. In Australia, basically it means the company is not for the benefit of any given person and you cannot distribute profits by taking them and chopping them up - and you must distribute any leftover funds if the organisations winds up to a like-minded not-for-profit organisation., You can still however make money, pay employees (even if it's a large amount) for work done, etc.

Not-for-profits are also sometimes conflated with Charities. In Australia they are two different things, a not-for-profit can be a charity and vica-versa but they don't need to be both.

haha same here. I was spending $100 a year just to run an app on my phone that I didn’t want to release

In case you don’t know, I believe Apple lets you do this for free now.

Builds expire after 7 days though. If you forget to build it again you'll be stuck with a non-working app that crashes back to home screen as soon as you open it.

You could resign the app using Cydia Impactor. This avoids the rebuilding process, and keeps the app data on the device.

Interesting, I'm not familiar with it. Still have to do this every week though? And I assume it only works over a USB connection, not over wifi?

Yes, and yes.

Hm, I honestly don't plug my iOS devices into my computer much anymore, but I bet that process could be automated to run when the computer detects the device which would make it less painful. Thanks for the heads up!

Oddly enough, not always. I have a just-for-me app working on my phone that I last built on December 3rd.

Cool. Since when?

Honestly, this has been kind of a bummer for me when I've thought about trying mobile development.

Since Xcode 7. See “Free On-Device Development” here.

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/De...

wow, nice job milking your users Apple (getting someone to pay you for something that they made).

I don't know why advanced users use Apple products...

>wow, nice job milking your users Apple (getting someone to pay you for something that they made).

I'm pretty sure they didn't make the iOS API, nor the iOS App Store, nor it's documentation, etc, all of which they're getting access to.

>I don't know why advanced users use Apple products...

Because they're not knee-jerk reacting to a company, but value the product. And most of them are not against "capitalism" and "profit" themselves either.

Although technically if you distribute an app to yourself only, you are supposed to use the enterprise license, which costs another $200 a year. Which is why the webapp route is the way to go unless you really need access to hardware.

I have made a few apps in my time, and have easily made tens of... dollars.

It's a tough game.

I wonder how much the company really needs those fees.

The company gives the reason of membership fee as a way to deter low quality apps.

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