They certainly could have made a lot more money back in the day!
I know it's controversial to say it's fanboyism, but if this isn't one proof of it, I don't know what is.
Maybe you could argue they’re ALL wrong / illegal. But that’s a different argument.
They should be able to charge whatever they want, because if cost is too high, you can simply move.
And why does a console, which is a single purpose appliance, used for Gaming. Be compared to a multiple purpose tools required for every day modern life?
A Train company has monopoly on trains? People would argue you have different type of transportation and you dont need train? All these argument are useless and completely misses the point.
Arguing whether it has a monopoly may not be a valid either. Standard Oil never had a monopoly, and neither did Microsoft in 90s going by those argument because Microsoft didn't have market shares in other computer like Server. And you still have linux and Mac on Desktop. You have a choice?
Ultimately it is about Anti-Trust. Too much power held by a single company that is also abusing that power.
And on the subject Apple can charge what it want. Yes. Perfectly valid argument in US America. But no, this wont fly in the rest of the world. Visa and Master can charge whatever it want for its network, until EU decide they have to lower their ridiculous fees and not to price average consumers a cut because they could get rebate from elsewhere. The same happened in AUS. Not a business model most countries are happy with.
And of course Apple supporters on 9to5mac and Macrumors are calling to pull out of small countries like Netherland as retaliation. In which I would use the same argument, if it is Apple's devices and Apple could charge whatever they want, it is also EU's market and they can do whatever they want. So yes, pull out if you dont like it.
That position is a straw man which is unproductive toward the discussion.
Whether you think the EU way or the USA way is right is irrelevant. Countries / unions of countries have sovereignty and will do what they like. Apple can exit the market if it likes, as many companies have already done in places like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. I’m not comparing the EU to those places, but I am pointing out the precedence that companies don’t need to do business if the regulatory climate makes it impossible.
I have no desire to deal with endless dark patterns to get me to not cancel a subscription.
Not everyone pays for the extended warranty when they buy electronics/tools but some do because they find value in it.
So when you have strong regulation like a consumer guarantee act, it just means everything you buy is priced higher to account for it.
Consumer goods are more expensive in most of Europe, sure, but that's because of VAT - after adjusting for VAT, the price is usually the same.
This makes sense if you consider that customer protection usually covers (1) returns and (2) defective goods. Returns are not exactly a cost to the retailer - they can still sell the merchandise, and replacing defective goods obviously only applies if you stock them. If you weren't selling bad goods, you wouldn't have that problem.
But many things of no value are costly.
Not at all, insurance company protects you from unpredictable events it has no control over - robberies, hurricanes, etc.
The manufacturer has complete control over how long the products will last.
You know what we call selling protection from something you control? A racket.
"Nice Jewlery Store you have there, would be a shame if something happened to it"
Rather than a list where I could just cancel all.
e.g. I have to sell for $4.99. I can’t sell for 15% less because they don’t let me set arbitrary prices.
No, you can keep less.
$4.99 after 30% results in $3.49 to the developer.
$3.99 after 15% results in $3.39 to the developer.
Why are developers with less than $1MM in annual turnover being vilified when Apple is turning over $123,900MM quarterly revenues, and is the one squeezing them?
Not that any of them did that, of course.
That argument is a catch-22. If Apple doesn't pass on the insane profit margin they earn off their App Store to their developers, then it just shows that Apple never had the best interests of the developers in mind anyways.
Yeah, we're going to need a citation here. The only goodwill that comes to mind is their lousy 60gb IDE and the half-finished Swiftlang. They certainly didn't pay for any of the cool BSD features they took from open source devs, but why should they? They're the multi-billion dollar corporation and they're the ones who decided to use permissive licensing, amirite?
Meanwhile Microsoft hasn't paid as much out to developers, because Microsoft did not succeed at effectively middle-man that transaction flow the same way Apple has. Apple doesn't do a particularly good job of it on the Mac either, mind.
Meanwhile, Visa, Mastercard, and banks have likely all paid out more to developers in all of time than Apple has, but that doesn't make as good a narrative as comparing Apple as a platform owner, rather than as a financial intermediary.
This assume the symmetry of power, buying or purchase. Which is not the case here.
To get the same amount after the reduction to 15%, they need to charge $2.47.
Apple offers price points at $1.99 (Tier 1) and $2.99 (Tier 2). It does not allow developers to set arbitrary prices.
How do you suggest a developer manages this? Should the developer cut the price down to $1.99, taking home $1.69, and take a 20% pay cut on their total revenue? Or will you continue to begrudge them for not cutting the price, and increasing their total revenue by 21%?
> Aonly Apple is strong enough to force the developers to do things that are in the best interests of the users ... as one of those users, I choose to have Apple negotiate on my behalf against the developers.
Do you recognise that Apple ($123 billion in quarterly revenues) app store policy is the exact reason why you don't see any of that 15% discount trickling down to you, and not greedy (< $1MM annual revenue) developers who are trying to gouge you out of your money?
If they're not changing platforms, then the value they get from using Apple's products must be higher than the cost of dealing with higher app prices, mustn't it?
Furthermore, if there was enough of a demand for a more open platform, wouldn't it be able to attract investors to build it?
Apple overcharges for literally everything, why would people in the ecosystem even notice when it happens?
Apple is using its market advantage and lock-in as leverage against the user.
It's also not right to say that this is fine since users still use Apple. Remember when Apple said they would introduce CSAM scanning into iOS? Was their entire userbase going to ditch them and move to Android? Definitely not. But they still retracted the move after constant negative press coverage and outrage from consumers. Some of us still want to use these platforms but are upset at Apple precisely because they can change.
Why not? The app can totally tell them! When I eat at restaurants, I see a receipt with tax + tip + SF mandate itemized out. Nothing stops a developer from itemizing out those costs in communication with users though.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/facebook-says-ap...
Apple's excuse for this restriction is that Apple considers the disclosure "irrelevant information". Any user who wants to be fully informed about their purchase would disagree.
User hostility can exist exactly at the level that the market (the users) will bear it. If the prices for things were 10x, then users would clearly notice and leave. If the prices are 1.3x where x is almost always < $10, the users simply don't give enough of a shite to do anything about it, which is why it's not users that are upset here.
Consumers are not aware of this problem. Apple doesn't allow apps to inform users about the 30% tax.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/28/21405140/apple-rejects-fa...
"Apple blocked Facebook from informing users that Apple would collect 30 percent of in-app purchases made through a planned new feature, Facebook tells Reuters. Apple said the update violated an App Store rule that doesn’t let developers show “irrelevant” information to users."
Personally, I can't help but think of Standard Oil. Plenty of value was made there, drove oil and kerosene prices way down... and they still got broken up.
It’s pretty well known that Costco margins are 10%. Do we call that a tax too?
It will result in payment processors passing on Apple’s fees to merchants. Payment processors already do not allow you to charge a higher fee to customers using a credit card normally, so merchants must pass on the cost of these fees to ALL customers regardless of payment method. This makes it of concern to more than Apple’s customers.
Do you have examples of software that costs more on iOS than elsewhere?
It's a bit silly this needs to be defended by example though, where else do people think the 30% cut on stuff subscription is coming from? Certainly not a 30% margin cut or 30% for payment processing, it's ~27% Apple tax apparently.
Suppose you have your Android app. You are thinking about porting that to iOS. So, for you the calculation will go like this: will selling that on App Store be worth it after paying Apple's fee and cost of porting? If the answer is yes, then you proceed to expand your app's market share. You may as well price your app differently, if you think that will sell more.
This is what the above examples are actually doing, not a theory of what I think it makes sense for them to do.
In the Apple utopia where everyone would always use their payment method your simplified answer would be more correct and the Apple tax would be somewhere between >0% and <infinity% (though usually marginally less 30%) as well as a unique value per app. It would never be <0 though it would be possible (and almost expected) for the app price difference between platforms to be greater than the Apple tax alone. This method of course is god awfully impossible to actually compare as it's theoretical values of multiple what-if's, hence why I went the "more complicated" route of just explaining the Apple tax has to eventually hit the consumer on some level from a recoup perspective.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/30/europe-charges-apple-with-...
Look at Android and there are alternative stores like F-droid and rampant piracy. I don't even see any ads because of a combination of Blokada and Vanced.
It's not artificially more expensive, I'm happy to pay for the service and reliability offered by the App Store.
>users feel like you're just scamming them.
Users feel that way because so many subscription services ARE trying to scam them. As a commenter said below, subscribing through the App Store provides a simple, reliable way to manage your subscriptions and guarantee a cancel if you want without having to deal with whatever dark pattern bullshit apps normally throw up at you.
Choose to pay less and enjoy a world of endless unreliable, shitty apps and shady practices if you want, I'm happy to pay not to.
Like I totally believe you, I'm actually just interested.
This distinction isn't arbitrary at all. They're effectively different markets. iPhone owners make more money and spend more money than Android users.
There have been a number of surveys that have shown this, here's one:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iphone-users-spend-...
And an older one, but from a bigger source:
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-median-income-for-iphone...
Same with Apple's 30% fee - it's unavoidable on their platform so it acts as a private sales tax on their platform. Some developers might choose to essentially subsidize their apple users by charging them the same price on Apple and on tax-free platforms like the web. That may be out of fear for Apple or out of cultural inertia or whatever, but it doesn't make sense, they're the ones leaving money on the table, not the ones who charge people taking into account the cost of doing business with those people on their preferred platform. They could get more profit selling their app for cheaper when not subject to the 30% platform tax, if they think that their pricing with that tax is optimal.
Prices are set by supply and demand. If you take a 30% cut out of the supplier's revenue, you get fewer suppliers and the price each one can charge goes up because the customer can't switch to a competitor who was driven out of business by the high fees.
The point? I don't care about rip-off on optional products if I cannot avoid the rip-off on the most basic human needs. I vote with my wallet not to pay Apple anything, problem solved.