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Comment by simplychris | Hacker News Reader

I agree with most of your points. The one question I'd like to return, however, in response to your 70% question is this: does apple deserve 30% of all developer income? That seems steep. I think the 70 % argument is a bit of a red herring. If you think that virtually cost free products should cost less, that's a different argument. But once the price is set, why should get apple nearly a third of it? If anything, lower cuts could result in lower overall prices.

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> Does Apple deserve 30% of all developer income?

That's the (literally) billion dollar question, right? Just with a bunch of other questions embedded in it: even if a 30% cut was okay in 2007, is it still in 2020? Aren't there a whole lot of different kinds of in-app purchases? What about subscriptions? Even if you still buy Apple's argument that the App Store isn't just a payment processor and should get more of a cut because of that, aren't there clear cases of in-app purchases where they literally are just a payment processor? I'm skeptical of the strength of Epic's particular case, but I definitely don't want to come across like I think Apple has been showering themselves in glory here. :)

When have ever you seen a price that is based on what someone deserves? In charity only.

In business it never was a case, and why should it be?

Well, clearly it’s profitable enough because companies bend over backwards to launch on iOS.

And Apple doesn’t “deserve” anything anymore than any company deserve anything. Apple built the iOS and iPhone platform, so they can charge based on that.

> ...lower cuts could result in lower prices

I’m not confident that if Apple stopped taking a cut that companies would lower prices.

Sure, but that's because there's no alternative. If you want users to see your app you have to use the system. That doesn't make it right though.

As for your second point, fair, but at least then we could blame them for being money hungry.

Sure there is. You can play the game on PC, Xbox, Switch, Android, etc.

If you want users to see the app you also have to use the iOS system on iPhone. You have to rely on Apple to build GPUs to process your game effectively. Why is the App Store treated so specially?

Imagine if Microsoft would charge for every application that you buy and install? People would shout and scream about monopoly.

If you want to charge people to use your platform there are other methods, e.g. developer licenses.

Your initial comment doesn't change my point, just moves the goal post. If I want to deliver no IPhones, I'm stuck with the system. And you can make the same argument for the Play Store.

I don't think PC/XBox quite fit in the same ball-park. The engagement model is very different on those compared to mobile devices. Which is why video games still cost 60$ but most people won't pay more than a couple of dollars for an app.

I don't think that's the real disagreement we're having though. I think the misalignment is on whether 30% fees are acceptable or not.

Fees were high before the App Store. Verizon VCast (or what ever they were calling it) was taking 70 to 80%. In all this time the percentage has not changed, While you dismiss the console market Apple pours just as much money into maintaining it's iOS ecosystem as any of the console makers.

I don't disagree with that. But again, you have to start somewhere.

30% sounds steep, I agree. But it's also industry standard. See: Google Play Store, Microsoft Store, Steam, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon App Store, etc.

Oh I know, I think it's wrong across the board but you have to start somewhere.

Doesn't that sound like a market failure? What kind of market supports such a consistent gross margin?

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