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Comment by patmcc | Hacker News Reader

That 30% isn't for nothing - it's for payment processing, reach, marketing, infrastructure, testing/approval (you may or may not like this, but users probably do like it), app delivery, etc. Like it or not, those things all are more valuable to smaller developers than bigger ones. Microsoft can do a lot of that stuff themselves, if they really want to - Joe the ordinary developer can't.

Apple is already being nice to small developers by giving them the same rates as big developers - in any other business, doing 100x the sales of the little guy would get you a better rate, not the same one.

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And "payment processing" doesn't even tell the whole story; Apple is effectively collecting and passing on sales tax for you, and dealing with all the other bullshit that comes with being a merchant.

That's huge, especially for solo developers who just want to make stuff and not actually run a business. 30% may be a little steep, but I'd say it's worth it.

In some cases, Apple is even taking on the burden imposed by tax laws. In the recent changes to EU VAT, both Apple and Google took on the added cost burden.

FastSpring, eSellerate and other digital commerce sites can do all this for 10% or less...

To be more specific, Apple and Google are assuming VAT liability for paid apps.

If an app is a paid app in the stores, there’s relatively little decision making to be done; a developer can adjust prices based on the VAT in each country in order to maintain current revenues. The transaction between a developer and an app platform is considered a business-to-business transaction and is subject to the existing VAT rules.

If an app offers in-app purchases, a developer must consider whether allowing a platform to handle the micro-transactions (thus sacrificing the 30% revenue share) outweighs the time and costs necessary to collect and store sales information (including location) and VAT payments. This can be quite a large undertaking for an indie developer or small development studio.

See: http://www.appdevelopersalliance.org/news/eu-value-added-tax...

Webinar: https://pollen.vc/#/vat-seminar/

But do they bring customers?

payment processing, reach, marketing, infrastructure, testing/approval (you may or may not like this, but users probably do like it), app delivery, etc.

The problem is that the value of these things goes way down the more crowded the app store gets. Seriously, what good is approval in light of the endless legions of crapware and clones? How useful is marketing when discoverability is almost nil?

And how about free apps? It seems to me that paid apps subsidize free ones but that's a whole other ball of wax.

I'm not sure if paid apps "subsidize" free apps. I think it's more that most free apps have adds or in-app purchases.

> it's for payment processing, reach, marketing, infrastructure, testing/approval,... app delivery, etc.

But if your app is free, then there is no charge for those services. How does it make sense that theit provision only costs Apple money if your app costs >= 1 cent?

Because Apple is willing to eat the cost for the benefit of having a free app?

Every free app in their store is one more reason for you to buy an iPhone.

Paid apps, while also adding to the ecosystem, do not offer the same value to Apple.

It's also just plainly logical. You can't charge people to give something away. You can charge money if you're helping them make it.

Apple charge $100 per year to be a registered developer, not "no charge"

I agree that its not for nothing and does help cover legitimate expenses Apple incurs. That said- its not a one-way street. The app ecosystem is one of several key drivers for iPhone/iPad sales- that alone probably justifies the cost to Apple.

Also- the point of this pitch is that the extra revenue means much more to smaller developers than it does to Apple, and that Apple in fact wouldn't lose that much revenue from such a scheme.

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