Comment by andjd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andjd | Hacker News Reader

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Just wow.

> Of course this should force them into binding arbitration and otherwise challenging the discount should void that discount.

So you want apple and google to act as even more monopolistic bullies ...

I see that you're taking this position as what you would do if you were Apple or Google, not what is the best course of action for all stakeholders. But you then opine that this is justified because the status quo is better for consumers.

The thing is, we already know that it's not. Apple and Google allow third party payment processors for _some_ of their apps. Would it be your best interests as a consumer to pay 40-50% more then you currently do for Uber and GrubHub? There's a reasonable argument to be made that those businesses simply would not be economically viable if they had to pay a 30% apple/google tax on every transaction. How many other apps or services went under (or were never made in the first instance) because Apple decided that their business needed to pay them a 30% cut of everything.

Which brings us to another salient point. Apple claims that they need to charge their 30% cut to pay for the cost of running the app store and for the developer tools they provide. But if this is the case, why should Uber and Facebook get to use them for free?

I don't think he's saying that it'd be good if Apple and Google did that. He's saying they should have done that if they had had their strategic thinking caps on.

That's my take too on what poster is saying.

Yet, it's not out of the ordinary to presume apple and google have good strategists among the management ranks... so what gives? What do we not know?

Presumably, that they already do volume discounts/sweetheart deals with certain vendors. Apple allows Microsoft to publish packages through their App Store that install non-sandboxed apps, for example. I’m sure they’re giving them a discount as well. They’re a “strategic partner.” Epic is not.

Which apps does MS do this with? Office is a bundle, right?

The fact that these two things are different is the problem with corporate America. The morally correct thing is always the better thing for shareholders in the long-run, but corporations don't see it that way.

> The morally correct thing is always the better thing for shareholders in the long-run

Are you asserting that this is the case in reality, or that we should strive for a society and economic system in which this would be true?

Both. I think that when corporations do exploitative things, they are being short-sighted, and will eventually suffer in the long run.

And really what I would advocate for is stricter regulations so we don't have to rely on the good will of corporations in general. Their track record is terrible.

The thing is this "long run" is a hypothetical for investors and their finite lifetimes and finite windows of return.

Companies aren't accountable to some infinitely long running algorithm or timeless dynasty of shareholders, they are accountable to living breathing greedy humans who want to make a buck NOW, not when they are dead or for their heirs.

Right, hence we need to regulate the hell out of them.

> How many other apps or services went under (or were never made in the first instance) because Apple decided that their business needed to pay them a 30% cut of everything.

Probably very few apps fit this. This rule basically only applies to digital goods, which are "free" to manufacture. There is some fixed server/dev costs, but its practically "free" to serve n+1 users.

This applies especially true to games where you buy in-app "coins". They're free to the dev, and giving our more / de-valuating the currency is a not-issue.

Of course, it probably takes a toll on licence-based apps like netflix/spotify and mostly server-heavy apps like Hey (by basecamp)

Hmm, I don’t think the marginal analysis tells the whole story here. If you imagine a business that made revenue through sales through an App Store without a 30% tax, with a 20% profit margin, that’s a healthy business. With the 30% cut, they lose 10% and go under.

These missing smaller players are the deadweight loss from the cut. You either need the scale to cover your fixed costs from a reduced revenue stream, or a revenue stream which avoids the 30% (like ads).

You're looking at it wrong. The 30% store fee was a known cost of doing business before anyone spent money building the product. That cost would have been built into a determination of whether they'll need to set a retail price of $9 or $7.

But the point is that you might have a viable business at a price point of $7 that you won’t have at $10 (with the extra $3 all going to Apple).

This business also wouldn't be viable if Apple and Google had never opened their platforms to external developers in the first place. Or if they never existed and everyone still had really advanced Nokia phones with T9 and SMS.

Or perhaps their business wouldn't be viable if iOS and Android were Windows-esque free-for-alls with rampant spyware and malware, making a good portion of their potential user base wary of installing apps.

Or perhaps their business wouldn't be viable if people haven't become accustomed to spending money in App stores without worrying about credit card fraud, etc.

Or perhaps their business wouldn't be viable if iOS and Android had no mechanisms to protect against app piracy, and 30% of their potential customers pirated the app.

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