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Apple's New App Store Policy Is Petty As Hell - Aftermath
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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Apple
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Valve takes 30% too via steam. This is industry standard pricing
The problem with Apple is that it holds a monopoly on its platforms. On Windows, if you don’t like Steam or its pricing, you can go to Epic, GOG, or other storefronts. You can buy physical. On non-macOS Apple devices, you’re stuck with the App Store because Apple doesn’t allow competing storefronts.
Apple is third in the world by revenue in gaming (behind Tencent and Sony, and ahead of Microsoft), without being a developer or publisher. This is all thanks to the combination of its 30% cut and lack of competition.
Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo take 30% cuts for their platforms too.
Tbf all of those are holdouts from old video game licenses. (That I also don't agree with)
Apple set the standard for the app store cut and gets that cut on a lot more than video games as well as having a much more needed use case (phones are closer to a need than a console) that you can't get around.
I consider iPhones and iPads to be personal computers and of all personal computers they are the only ones that don't allow you to get applications from 3rd parties.
Whataboutism doesn't justify anything. There are quite a few nuances. For example that Android and iOS have way higher adoption numbers than game consoles, and that these OSes play a crucial role in people's everyday lives. In addition, do these platforms have a duopoly, so perfect competition doesn't exist on that level, and like elboomy states, does Apple have a monopoly on its own platform. Apple forcing a piece of the cake is thus merely a power play which is enabled by the imperfect market of smartphone OSes and their app stores.
It’s not whataboutism - it’s a valid comparison of platforms in their space. Stop acting like your hate about Apple is valid and grow up.
It is, phones are computers and should be open like they are, you can only game on videogames, at most watch netflix too.
People are stating as if it is the same issue, while I made a point in everything past the first sentence why it might not be a valid comparison. Also, people are not making comparisons, they just drop words along the lines of "x company also does that".
Ps. I don't hate Apple (I have been using their stuff most of my digital life), I just don't cult around a behemoth of a company pretending they have my best interests.
Just friendly reminder, whataboutism typically involves deflecting criticism by pointing out a similar issue in an unrelated context, often with the intention of avoiding the original critique.
Their response directly addresses the issue of fee percentages in the same industry, making it more of a comparative argument than a diversion.
May I offer a subtly snarky approach for you to use in the future?
“Our main goal today is to delve into the reasons and consequences of Apple’s fee structure. Let’s try to keep our discussion centered on that topic.”
Ooooo snap! 🫰
Prior to the App Store, boxed retail software generally had a 50% cut.
Also, you can call it a duopoly, but Apple didn’t leverage market share into this 30% cut; it started when they were closer to 1% of the phone market, and the policy has only ever gotten cheaper (second year of subscriptions and small business program) and more permissive. They offered a closed platform and competed their way to the top based on the product. Developers are given the chance to sell to a huge market of high-end hardware with aggressive consumer uptake of software updates, making it a very attractive platform. Apple wants a commission. It’s not exactly outrageous of them.
Ah, so it’s the “Everyone is doing it, so that makes it ok,” position.
Apple provided the hardware, the operating system, the SDK, and most importantly millions of users. A 30% cut seems fair considering the developers don't have to worry about these incredibly major concerns. If it wasn't fair then people wouldn't be developing apps for the platform.
The part that apple needs to liberalize is their policy against sideloading and 3rd party app stores. As soon as the rest of the world catches up to the DMA and side loading is just a reality on iOS all these problems with alternate pricing models can sort themselves out.
You'll find the majority of people side loading apps are those who want to use FOSS only such as fdroid users, those who want to download apps against Apple's current App Store policies, such as people who want cloud gaming clients and emulators, and software pirates. You'll find that it is still more profitable to publish to the AppStore
@TORFdot0 @Reverendender i’m getting a bit sick and tired of this nagging about 30% cut that Apple takes. Every experienced entrepreneur knows that 30% for all the invoicing misery, part of the customer care, doing the legal affairs around software in 181 countries, and of course putting it in a display/shop that has a billion views per year, is a reasonable deal.
I never said it was okay 😊