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Comment by pneill | Hacker News Reader

Poor analogy. iOS does not have the market dominance that Windows/Microsoft has. In this case, iPhones represent about 15% of the global smartphone sales and I think that the OS (in the US) is a 60/40 iOS vs android split. There is a viable market. Developers, unwilling to pay the Apple fee, can switch to Android. If more apps are available on Android, that will shift the users away from iOS to Android.

When I see folks complain about this, I like ask "what do you think is a reasonable fee for Apple to charge?" Zero is not a realistic answer as Apple does incur costs to run the app store. Moreover, they're entitled to make a profit off the marketplace they created and support. So what's a reasonable percentage?

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It's bad for consumers to the extent that iOS and Android phones aren't interchangeable, and that's a very large extent.

> what do you think is a reasonable fee for Apple to charge?

That's an interesting situation, because if the game was free Apple would charge nothing. And the more they bang on the drum about consumer safety, the more I want them to charge a fee appropriate for payment processing.

If I was just arbitrarily setting the fees, I might go with something like 25% of the first 20 dollars per app per user, and then 5% afterwards.

A reasonable percentage is the one that Apple would charge if it had competition. Apple obviously cares about user experience, and does not want iOS apps to be split between multiple stores, so if they had to allow alternative install sources they would likely drop their fees by a lot, to make sure that developers have no incentive to promote alternative app stores. That lowered fee is the one developers should have been paying all along.

If you really put the squeeze to them, the "natural" price would probably be a bit below cost for them, because the availability of apps is a selling point for their high-margin phones and tablets. That is why they are willing to host free apps, after all. (Although even then they take the developer fee)

Ten % Is more than reasonable. But the point here is that not o my do they charge 30%, they forbide you from selling from outside their store.

Ok, 10% is your number. So after your app has been on the store for more than a year, Apple's fee falls to 15%. So you're arguing that the 5% difference is unreasonable.

Let's put that % difference into perspective. Say you have an annual fee of $10. The first year, your users pay Apple $3 (you make $7), but after that for every user that subscribes you only pay $1.50 (you make $8.50). You're saying that Apples should only charge $1. You're arguing that fifty cents is the difference between life and death of your business? Really?

> So after your app has been on the store for more than a year, Apple's fee falls to 15%.

That's not how it works.

I doubt Epic would be making much complaint for 15% (since the app has been out more than a year). They suggest 12% after all.

The 15% is for subscriptions and nothing else. And it's on a per-user basis.

Sure, but I was talking about subscriptions, but I hear your point.

What I'm trying to show is that once you accept zero is not reasonable (and most rational people accept this) and then explore the actual $$ difference between what Apple charges and what you think is reasonable, the differences are really small. Normally when I ask folks this, the difference comes in between 0.05 and a $2 depending on the purchase price. For a 0.99 app we're talking about $0.05-0.20 difference. Life is too short for folks to get worked up about that small of a price difference.

The difference is small if you're looking at 15%.

The difference is small if you're looking at very cheap apps.

The big problem here is for tens of dollars being charged 30%. It makes a very significant difference!

What percentage is reasonable?

For a $20 app the current model is that you pay Apple $6. If you waved a wand and made it 20% you pay Apple $4. So the difference in this case is only $2 (while you get $16). That's small potatoes.

> So the difference in this case is only $2 (while you get $16). That's small potatoes.

Is it? That's 14% extra revenue. And if you were comparing a 30 percent take to a 12 percent take, you'd be going from $14 to $17.60, which is slightly over 25% extra revenue! That could double or triple the profit margin of a healthy business!

> What percentage is reasonable?

I already answered that in a different comment. If I was going to wave a wand right now, with no further time to consider, it would be 25% for the first $20 and 5% after.

So look at something like Hey. Apple right now would charge $30 for a user's first year, then $15 for each year after. My version would be $8.75 for the first year and $5 for each year after. A pretty big difference.

I wouldn't be strongly opposed to a flat 12%, but I'm trying to be generous and give Apple some extra dollars upfront for the service they actually provide. But the service they provide barely increase as the price of an app increases, so they don't deserve 25 or 30 percent of larger amounts.

There is no guaranty Google wont play the same tune. Google and Apple have essentially formed an oligopoly by this point.

EDIT: this comment aged well: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicgames....

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