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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Two big changes here. One is allowing third-party app stores to exclusively offer their own apps (I guess removing the requirement that they accept other apps). And the second is allowing apps that meet certain requirements to be installed directly from the publisher’s website:

> Apple's specific criteria, such as being a member of the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more and having an app with more than one million first installs on iOS in the EU in the prior year, and commit to ongoing requirements, such as publishing transparent data collection policies

But as you can see you won’t be seeing indie apps distributed in this way. Though, to be fair, for most indies the App Store with the old rules is probably the best deal available to them.

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> Though, to be fair, for most indies the App Store with the old rules is probably the best deal available to them.

How do you figure? Given the choice, many indie Mac developers continue to distribute their software outside the Mac App Store.

On the Mac I would agree with you, on iOS I think the best option is probably old rules App Store due to the CTE alone.

“Best deal available to them” != “best deal one could hope for”.

The core technology fee doesn't exist on the Mac.

How is taking 15% or 30% of all revenue better than €0.50 per first annual install?

Because it means you need to be making more than $3.3-$1.5 per user per year to break even on this, which is difficult

> Because it means you need to be making more than $3.3-$1.5 per user per year to break even on this, which is difficult

Perhaps this is the case inside the App Store, but it's not the case outside the App Store, where indie apps tend to be higher priced and upfront paid.

Moreover, keep in mind that the first million first annual installs have no CTF, and most indie devs will never even reach that point.

But in order to qualify for distributing via your own website, you need to have had a million installs in the prior year. So everyone who could potentially use that distribution method will by definition be subject to the CTF. It seems like an indie dev's only non-Apple option that can avoid the CTF is to distribute through a third-party app marketplace and hope to stay under a million installs.

> where indie apps tend to be higher priced and upfront paid

If this is the case, this is an even worse deal, due to the annual install fee. If it was one time, it wouldn't be so bad.

"Moreover, keep in mind that the first million first annual installs have no CTF, and most indie devs will never even reach that point." Thus the CTF is mostly nonexistent for indie devs.

In any case, though, it's only 5 euros for 10 years of installs, and many indie apps have paid upgrades (which don't exist in the App Store) at least once every 5 years.

As an indie app developer myself, I don't want to have this reoccurring expense hanging over my head. As I incorporate, the 600$ in fixed yearly expenses is stressful enough.

"Good news" then: this is merely a hypothetical conversation, and Apple won't allow you to distribute from your website unless you already have over a million EU users.

Because a revenue % is based on a financial transaction that guarantees you money where an install (which includes updates) does not.

If your app is ad-supported, you pay 0%. It also makes the freemium model viable. If you have an application that has in-app purchases, then people may download, play the free portion, and never pay you. If you have to pay $0.50 for that, then it may not go well.

The 0.50 is probably much better if you're selling, say, a $10 app.

> The 0.50 is probably much better if you're selling, say, a $10 app.

That's precisely what indie devs outside the Mac App Store are doing. They don't have ad-supported apps. Most of them are upfront paid, perhaps with a time-limited demo. The business models that you're talking about are a product of the App Store race to the bottom.

> How is taking 15% or 30% of all revenue better than €0.50 per first annual install?

I think for free apps that’s a bit of a big deal?

Yes, of course, but again, this doesn't really apply to the indie developer situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39678917

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