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Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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.

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