Apple: "millions to billions" lost without App Store commissions
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
For game developers, isn't this basically a platform fee?
Of course it does. And if iOS brings that much value, then charge a license fee for the purchase of iOS.
But trying to recoup the cost of iOS by taking a cut if store transactions is anti-competitive.
If the store were split off into its own company, would it make any sense to Apple for that company to take all the revenue for the value the store provides? Of course not. Let the store compete on its merits and charge for the value the store provides: API scanning, trusted market place, how publishers are treated... And compete against other stores providing those same values and picking their % cut.
Surely the work there is just as worthwhile as on iOS.
They have been compensated, when people bought the hardware. Anything beyond that is blatant rent seeking and anti competitive.
Replace the word Apple with Microsoft and see how ridiculous their stance is. Even Microsoft didn’t attempt to take a cut of every software and digital good sale.
The closer comparison is with Microsoft's walled-garden game system and store:
"Microsoft's Xbox Store charges a 30% commission on digital game sales and in-app purchases, aligning with industry standards."
And I am eager to apply the sam standard to video game consoles; you can charge 30% to people to use your store, but you can't force them to use it, same as on PCs.
But yes, it is hard to imagine a way for the App Store to exist in its current form if the ruling stands. If you can use an outside payment provider taking a 3-5% cut, nobody is going to use Apple directly and pay 15/30%.
What are some of the options? No 1st-party App Store? Dramatically increased annual dev fee? Devs pay a per-GB fee for customer downloads of “free” apps?
It’s hard to believe that the annual developer fee plus the revenue from the small minority of devs for which paying the Apple commission makes sense will cover the cost of running the App Store.
I don’t think you will get that choice. The App Store either goes away (for non-Apple software) or the cost structure changes such that it doesn’t matter who your payment provider is.
I could be wrong!
But even if it does, the profitability of Apple's business is Apple's problem. If their iOS store is only profitable through anti consumer (I can't install my own software on my own device) and anti competitive measures (you must give apple a 30% cut off all sales and they have veto power over your app at any point) then perhaps it shouldn't exist in it's current form.
Doesn't this argument regarding Apple's game ecosystem and platform fees apply to Nintendo's as well? And every other business model that relies on platform fees?
Is there any coherent argument that it is OK for eShop/Xbox/PSN to charge 30% platform fees but that it isn't OK for Apple's game store to do the same?
Microsoft tried to argue that the difference is that Xbox is sold below component/manufacturing cost (for some period of time) and needs platform fees to compensate, but 1) Switch was always profitable by that metric and 2) that metric ignores R&D cost amortization.
Printer manufacturers also sell below costs and then screw consumers on the ink. That approach is equally anti-consumer. Especially when they start adding DRM to the ink cartridges.
Of course there are alternate game stores on Android and yet Google Play still charges the same sort of platform fees.
And in a bold departure from 30% platform fees ... Amazon AppStore allowed developers to keep up to 70% of the purchase price.