Developers Complain as App Store Feature Promotes Rip-Off Apps | Hacker News Reader

Developers Complain as App Store Feature Promotes Rip-Off Apps

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93 pointstaxyovio26 comments

There is a paradox with app stores in that they play the gatekeeper and can arbitrarily not allow certain apps, remove them, or enforce certain rules on what types of apps are allowed, but then also permit all sorts of shenanigans such as this.

The developers of these types of apps are just pushing the envelope of what's allowed until they're called out and formal complaints are made to the app store gatekeepers.

The malicious & overly expensive apps should get taken down swiftly, but are allowed to linger for months on end, generating large profits.

Whilst app stores are policed, there exists a lot of room for exploitative apps. I imagine these app store gatekeepers are trying to keep a balance, but app stores seem heavily swayed in favor of scams, and malicious or overly expensive apps.

It's not a paradox, just a monopoly or de-facto that.

Platforms should be required to allow users to set an alternative default app store, much like browser etc..

Like any unregulated capitalism they will do everything to maximise profit. They get profit regardless of whether the original or the copy is being purchased. They get profit if a user gets scammed through in-app purchases.

Only because they are monopolies for the corresponding platforms. If customers could choose between smaller stores using different moderation strategies, the forces of competition would have found an optimal solution very fast.

I really don’t think Apple is consciously allowing these apps because they get profit either way. They’re very well aware that the long term success and profits of the App Store and the Apple ecosystem are based on users’ trust and frictionless experiences. In fact, Apple guidelines stressed pretty early on in the app store’s life (2010) that “we don’t need any more fart apps” in the App Store. I really don’t believe that they would risk their brand and image being affected by a very short-term focus on 30% commission on some scammy apps.

Also, more generally, even if this was conscious behaviour by Apple, I don’t think this really linked to “unregulated capitalism”. In any economic/political system you will find that some people serve their own interests while harming others or the public interest. Whether those “own interests” are amassing money, assets, power, access to goods/services or anything else deemed “valuable” in that system does not chance the dynamics of that basic conflict of interests which will cause trouble in any system. I’m afraid that’s human nature and there’s no system that can fully align those interests or avoid the negative effects of conflicts of interest.

They routinely feature games utilising dark psychological patterns for money extraction (e.g. Clash of Clans).

Play Store also are plagued with this issue for years. There are reports and news about this for years and years. It is not surprisingly that App Store also plagued with this issue.

I recalled a news last year that a dev is SOL because someone in China registered the trademark of dev's work and use that trademark to force Google to suspend/ban the original dev without any recourse.

Fraudulent Trademark and patent trolls uses this method every chance they get and there is usually nothing that the original devs can do.

Paid app store promotions border on racketeering. I just searched for "zoom" on my iPhone. Top result is the "YouStar" voice chat app. Google does this, too. It's essentially saying "you wouldn't want someone looking for your app to find your competitor, would you?" It's essentially a protection racket.

I posted the second tweet in the article which dives into one of the apps (note that nearly all the apps featured by Apple were subscription scams of a similar nature, one was non-functional, and the last one sold "coin packs" — probably the most benign of the bunch)

My main complaint is that the App Store allows developers to sell subscriptions which feature free trials that automatically convert into paid subscriptions

This system of automatically rolling-over a trial into a subscription provides zero benefit to the user. This only benefits developers who want to see extra revenue from people who forget to cancel their subscriptions prior to the trial ending

I have no idea why Apple does not prompt the user to purchase the subscription when they attempt to launch the app after the trial period. It would help a ton of people, it would prevent scam apps like this, it would drive trust in subscriptions as a business model for apps, it would help legitimate developers, and it would be good business for the App Store in the long term

There is no business sense to enabling the current trial mechanism, nor is there any benefit to users

> There is no business sense to enabling the current trial mechanism

Apple doesn't take their 30% cut on subscriptions?

Why throw away the user trust they have earned in the App Store for the short-term profit of subscription scams?

There's no business sense there

The trust they have in their brand is worth far more. And they are allowing it to erode by featuring scam apps and by providing a subscription mechanism which is easy to abuse

I suspect the user will not blame Apple, they'll blame the app. So Apple gets its 30% with no repercussions.

A different problem, I'm sad about all the subscription for apps that shouldn't have one. I get Netflix having a subscription, I'm paying for new movies and bandwidth. But, I wanted a DB meter app. Every one the app store promoted was ~$6 a month or $20 a year. Nothing will change on the app, there's zero reason those apps should be a subscription. AFAIK, the ratings system is gamed as I find it hard to believe 1000s of people would rate a DB meter app, nor give it 5 stars for such a ridiculous subscription. This is also Apple's problem AFAICT, allowing fake reviews (same problem Amazon has)

In my experience with these subscription scams, non-technical users who get scammed by them do not "blame Apple" but they tend to become incredibly hesitant to purchasing apps, and no longer purchase subscriptions

If Apple (and developers) want subscription apps to become a more popular business model, they should eliminate the automatic free trial -> subscription rollover. As it stands, it's just hurting the App Store's profitability in the long term

I agree on your second point. Subscription apps are mostly unnecessary. However, I like paying for app updates and am absolutely willing to pay for something similar to a subscription: the Sketch app model

In this model, you pay for the app and get it, as well as one year of updates. After the year is up you get to keep what you bought, but if you want another year of updates you simply pay for another year. That's a subscription-like model that I totally support

Sketch is simply using the legacy “license plus upgrades/maintenance” model. Nothing innovative about that; in fact it’s what built Microsoft, Adobe, and Oracle into the giants they still are. Businesses have been buying software this way for 50 years.

It's not the same model, as you're not paying for version 1.0, 2.0, etc.

With Sketch, for the year since your purchase, you receive all updates. Whether they are major or minor.

I get that it sounds similar to legacy licensing models, but it is not the same. I think it's a good blend of patronage/subscription and keeping-what-you-paid-for

With the old 1.0/2.0 paid upgrade model, you could go years before the next major version. You also got different tiers of upgrade pricing: upgrading to 3.0 from 1.0? Or from 2.0? Or are you buying 3.0 outright?

With something like Sketch, any time you pay $100, you get the latest and greatest for one year. If you want to take a break you're not financially punished for skipping updates

So I would say the Sketch model is quite a bit different

The popular, 40+ year-old license scheme for business software is not based on version numbers (which can be manipulated by the vendor), it is based on time. So long as you pay maintenance you get rights to use whatever released version you choose, and you have perpetual rights to the last version released while you paid maintenance.

So exactly the same as Sketch.

That's not my experience at all. I used to purchase 3D modelling and animation software (Lightwave 3D). Version upgrade pricing was entirely based on version numbers — as was all the big name software at the time (3D Studio, 3DS Max, Softimage, etc)

I purchased Lightwave 4.0, and paid for the upgrade to 5.0 (I think it was about $1000 for the upgrade). I believe I skipped version 6.0, so the price to go from 5.0 to 7.0 cost me more than the price from 6.0 to 7.0 (for users who had purchased 6.0). There were multiple tiers of upgrade pricing, and new users had to pay significantly more than users who were upgrading

Under the Sketch model, taking a break from upgrading does not financially penalise you relative to other users — sure you don't get updates during that time period — but when you go to pick up the software again you pay exactly the same price as anyone else renewing at that time and receive all the latest features

Even someone who has never used the app before will pay $100 and get exactly the same feature set as me, a user who has paid regularly for years

Do you really have enough trust in the Apple App Store curation to just pay for random apps?

Last time I tried doing that, the app was bugged and Apple refused to refund.

My personal impression is that it's already overflowing with "soft scams", which has the same end result for users (wasting their money and/or time), whether the apps technically abide by the store rules or not.

That's not what I said?

Apple is hurting the App Store more by allowing an automatic free trial to subscription roll over. And in this case, it's a clear cut zero benefit for users

I'm not suggesting the App Store is perfect, but this seems like an obvious fix for a whole class of issues without harming the user one bit. It even helps Apple by making the App Store more profitable in the long term

Here's a similar story from someone trying to find the Roomba app in the iOS App Store. The top search result is a sponsored ad for a scammy subscription app pretending to be the Roomba app. That Roomba's legitimate app is called simply "iRobot Home" and doesn't include the actual word "Roomba" or mention vacuums doesn't help!

https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1422992070722023427

I thought the $99 annual fee and cut of all transactions were necessary to 'maintain' the App Store. Seems like these scam apps are showing up as Featured, rather than just appearing as search ads.

Google Play Store has been littered with WHiteHatJr students who "somehow" built their own android apps & paid developer fees, yet publish dead google doc links as privacy policy & link back to the same top level domain of whitehatJr coding classes....such a travesty in the name of getting kids between 6-15 into coding by putting FOMO into their parents.

You should search their Common Lisp apps. There are about 10 apps that are all the same online tutorial website turned into a pager app, and a bunch more that aren't far off from that.

Thankfully there actually is a Lisp REPL. But you have to scroll like mad to find it.

It makes good business sense. As a platform you want to maximise the number of purchases an individual user makes. They might have found out that the average user will buy one or two of the inferior versions before finally buying the original...

This is yet another case of it being hard to take seriously Apple's curated store. Especially with the way the trial period works in Apple's system. It's a horrible system that operates on dark patterns.

Search engines, Google or otherwise, tend to give you the right results when you search for an application. App stores are garbage.

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