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Comment by baxtr | Hacker News Reader

That's an easy one. Let's look at the other big ecosystem Android. There we have a couple of alternate stores like Amazon's. They take 30% as well? I am not sure why it should be different with Apple.

Maybe, just maybe, running a well-curated app store is just something that is expensive.

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Nah, it's because Apple and Google are a cartel with respect to app fees.

Like, 30% is a crazy amount to take, at the scale they operate at.

> Maybe, just maybe, running a well-curated app store is just something that is expensive.

Are you trying to claim that Apple and Google are each running a "well curated" app store?

I'll bite, show me an example of a "well curated" app store to your standards.

F-Droid is right there. They're niche, but that further underscores that even a group of open source volunteers can maintain a well-curated app store.

There's like less than 10,000 apps on that store. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Comparing apples to pomegranate seeds, surely. But perhaps that's the point. If third party app stores were allowed, they needn't all be shoddy wannabe Apple App Stores run by rival tech giants trying to publish as many apps willy-nilly to cut into Apple's market. Instead, perhaps there could be many boutique curated app stores, some non-profit even, that aim to cater to specific user experiences.

The benefit is that it could be a solution for the app discovery issues that currently come from having a single App Store with a single search interface. Users with specialized interests or needs can subscribe to smaller third party app stores as they see fit. There would be competition in app discovery. More customization in user experiences. Variety in editorial control.

It's a bit akin to reversing the current state of the web where giant closed sites such as Facebook or Google are single-entry points, and going back to the past where there were web communities and webrings. A Neocities for apps would be neat.

Definitely not the App Store with all the trash and scam apps allowed.

I think Steam and GOG are examples of well curated (specialized) app stores. I searched a bit and it seems there have only ever been a small handful of reports of Steam accidentally allowing malware to be distributed with a game ("Abstractism" is the only one I found, that had apparently had a crypto miner embedded).

To be fair, Steam also was collecting 30% fees (I believe they have reduced recently, mostly because of pressure from Epic), so from this point of view it's not better than Apple.

Apple's app store is the best app store that I've ever seen. Please point me to a better one?

Android has plenty of free stores and with v12, those stores can also update apps automatically. It's going in the great direction.

I use 3 different stores on my phone for example.

Of course, an average person doesn't need that many. I use fdroid for sensitive apps (I can verify an app build there compared to playstore) and some developers provide apps without google services framework on froid as an alternative to their playstore version.

Android has several free stores, inclusing ones that support open source software.

Has nothing to do with the costs. 30% is the de-facto default revenue sharing scheme, and developers are well accustomed to it.

> Has nothing to do with the costs

A price that has nothing to do with costs is a monopoly rent; in a competitive market marginal prices are driven down to marginal economic costs by competition.

On the contrary. In case of a monopoly price is guaranteed to cover the costs. In a competitive market the price can be well below the costs. Case in point: Epic games store. They are burning money to carve out a market share. That's an example of price decoupled from the cost.

F-droid is free.

Is f-droid magic?

The Kindle store doesn't take 30%.

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