Worth remembering that as good as it is that Google is reducing it's abusive taxation on third party developers, the primary reason they're doing this is to try to quiet the majority of developers asking for stronger government regulations against this taxation without actually reducing their profit much, since the large companies which bring in the majority of revenue still have to pay full price.<p>Basically, they're hoping that this will stop some app developers from demanding the right to use third party payment processors, which would likely be used many of the larger >$1 million revenue publishers.<p>The Android Police article about this cites an example from iOS, that "On Apple's App Store, the 98% of developers who qualified for a lower revenue share rate were responsible for less than 5% of Apple's total collected revenue"
What's also not being said here is that ~99% of apps on Google Play don't make money this way either.<p>Due to a combination of Android user's reluctance to spend money on apps at all and the rampant piracy that Android's open model makes trivially easy, most developers only way to make money is through in-app advertising, which this change obviously makes no difference to.<p>Google Play is mostly a pyramid scheme. Developer's can only make money from showing ads and at the same time can only get downloads if they place ads on other people's apps. And Google just happens to own all the mobile ad companies.<p>This 15% cut ends up "costing" Google virtually nothing.<p>And as for Google "helping developers build sustainable businesses", the only times they've ever reached out to me were to offer me the opportunity to have someone help me spend thousands of dollars a month on mobile ads. Never, for example, to actually take down all the scam apps that use my app's name, icon and screenshots.
Further evidence that developer pressure and legal pressure on smartphone platforms work, that they aren't a waste of time.<p>Prolonged campaigns for better terms can make a tangible difference, and we should be encouraged by this result to advocate for even better terms. It turns out that when they have real pressure, it is possible for Google and Apple to come up with better terms.<p>Keep in mind that the reason Google is being sued for antitrust isn't because it was taking 30% -- it's because it forced manufactures not to install or bundle any 3rd party stores by threatening to remove access to the Play store if any competing storefronts were enabled by default on consumer devices. So this doesn't change the original complaint, but it's still a very big win for smaller developers.
It puzzles me that some people still think 30% is a reasonable cut for any kind of online store.<p>Imagine you're 3 guys / girls and working on an app / game / .. whatever and one person only does "distribution" of the final asset. You are working one / two years or more on it, and one person only checks / verifies the final asset and organizes hosting. How is this in any way justified?
And the days that person made any marketing / visibility are long gone.
I think more "fair" is something like 5%, more in the line of what a payment processor does. Which probably, at this point does more than.
Here's the next achievable goal to fight for: I want the fee structure Microsoft provides on the Microsoft Store.<p><a href="https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2018/05/07/a-new-microsoft-store-revenue-share-is-coming/" rel="nofollow">https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2018/05/07/a-new-...</a><p>Microsoft takes only a 5% cut if customers click on a link on my website with my referral code, taking them directly to the store details page.<p>Otherwise, they take a 15% cut.<p>> <i>consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft Store will deliver to developers 95% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application, when a customer uses a deep link to get to and purchase your application. When Microsoft delivers you a customer through any other method, such as in a collection on Microsoft Store or any other owned Microsoft properties, and purchases your application, you will receive 85% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application</i>
Better title: Google matches what Apple already did.<p>I said it about Apple and I’ll say it about Google: this is a PR move, nothing more.<p>Google really missed an opportunity here to put Apple in a tough spot by just cutting it to 15%.<p>Your biggest users of your payment infrastructure are also the most likely, most willing and most able to handle their own payments because they already do (eg Netflix, Epic).<p>If either company has reduced their cut to 15% for only their largest customers then this would make sense as a business decision. Doing the opposite is trying to stave off government intervention, nothing more.<p>The writing is on the wall for being the sole payments provider AND charging 30% for it. The only question is what they will be forced to do and (imho) you’re better off placating your biggest customers because they’re the ones who will likely sue you and lobby against you in the US/EU.
This would have accounted for around 5% of the Play Store's revenue if applied for 2020: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/google-apple-giving-up-less-than-5percent-of-revenue-from-apps-with-pay-changes-estimate.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/google-apple-giving-up-less-...</a>
I always felt the discussion being focused on the platform tax to be a distraction. Sure, now app developers make more. Great. Doesn't change how unresponsive or draconian Google (and Apple) is in when they decide you aren't allowed to be on their Play Store anymore. Or how arbitrarily they choose to enforce their rules.
> To aid their quest for growth we provide a broad range of support, (...)<p>Funny that it then goes on to list lots of stuff where no human support is actually involved. The support developers want is to get a person to talk to when Google's algorithms ban their app or account for no reason and wrecks their business.
I'm curious to estimate how much google's app store revenue would be decreased by this change in fee structure. Can anyone share accurate statistics on the distribution of app revenue per google play developer?<p>I'm not familiar with the app dev business. There's a 2016 post from Mike Sonders about ios and android game revenue [1] that suggests that app revenue is extremely skewed, to the extent that 0.3% of apps in the category of top 500 action games accrue over 90% of the revenue. I.e. the top 1 or top 2 games out of the _top 500 games_ in the category get 90% of the revenue.<p>If the same relationship holds for other categories, that suggests that the bottom 99.7% of the app distribution accounts for at most 10% of play store revenue, so cutting fees by 50% for the bottom 99% of developers would reduce google's rake by at most 5%.<p>[1] <a href="https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-revenue-data-and-why-you-should-ignore-it-2bea283d37fc" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-reve...</a>
Really a meaningless gesture if you ask me, reluctantly following Apple’s lead. A meager attempt to get regulators off their back.<p>I believe Google & Apple should not be allowed to take a percentage <i>at all</i>. It should be a tiered system of fees, like a subscription or something. Sure, their systems help distribute and promote discovery of our apps, so let us pay for <i>that</i>. It should be a yearly fee appropriate for this service.<p>The idea they they deserve to hover up a percentage of everyone’s business in perpetuity is completely bonkers. They don’t deserve it. But they do deserve to be paid for running the app store infrastructure and services.
Honestly those making tens of millions deserve this even more from an economical perspective. There is cost of running the store but once you gross, say $100M, paying $30M to Google is kinda harsh.
Starting on July 1, 2021 we are reducing the service fee Google Play receives when a developer sells digital goods or services to 15% for the first $1M (USD) of revenue every developer earns each year. With this change, 99% of developers globally that sell digital goods and services with Play will see a 50% reduction in fees. These are funds that can help developers scale up at a critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, adding to their marketing staff, increasing server capacity, and more.
I wish developers would start using the browser more and rely less on the official stores which tax them unfairly.<p>I don't want to install your application, just give me a good web mobile experience.
I sometimes wonder if Apple didn't come up with this model of charging devs 30% even Google wouldn't have too. These companies often end up with similar policies. But that one greedy kid showed everyone how easy it is to leech off on hard work of devs (who are also to be blame as we happily agreed to this BS) and now it's a common practice.<p>If safari browser had a Safari store with 30% cut pretty sure chrome extension store would also be charging 30% instead of their 5% now.
> we’ve heard from our partners making $2M, $5M and even $10M a year that their services are still on a path to self-sustaining orbit.<p>What does this even mean? "on a path to self-sustaining" makes it seem like they're not currently self-sustainable. Given the crazy profit margins in software, I find it hard to believe that most apps making millions per year are not sustainable.
I feel like they're feeling the pressure for a potential incumbent to come in and disrupt the market they've cornered. Who's in the best position to take a run on this? Or do you think it'd more likely to come from a new player?
This is awesome news! I was just lamenting that my Play Store "earnings" are so much lower than my "revenue". This will help me as an indie developer make my app offerings a meaningfully larger part of my livelihood.
While this is good, 15% is still a crazy unreasonable amount that makes me completely unwilling to create an app for these shitty companies.<p>I urge everyone to simply just develop web apps and it will be competitive enough.
I think it is also likely that >1M$ developers can start negotiating custom agreements. Hard to say how much exactly is their negotiating power in that case, but it is probably non-zero.
I think this does make an impact. At 30% I wasn't even slightly considering trying to make money from a mobile app. At 15% it at least becomes an idea, though that's still a pretty high percentage just to be listed and distributed in a store.
TLDR: Out of your firsts million dollars in yearly revenue that you make on Google Play, Google stoped billing you 300'000$ and now only bills you 150'000$. And they frame it in a way that suggests empowerment and goodwill.<p>Seriously, when did fees of 15-30% for a service that you essentially cannot avoid as a software publisher become acceptable?
This is also just catching up with Apple by the way - <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-store-small-business-program/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...</a>.<p>Very similar. While I have had reservations on people marching for third party stores in iOS, maybe it is not a bad idea. But what if Epic, FB and Google just create a new app store with their privacy invasive ways? This bugs me. Sure it is hard but a coalition can make it possible right?<p>Either way, we need to ask for better terms for sure.
Shouldn't this be inverted? Small devs with unknown apps have more to gain from play store's distribution, and won't mind paying 30% of a smaller revenue in exchange for all the help.<p>Bigger apps like Netflix are already doing their own advertising and marketing and have close to zero to gain from play store. And they will be making a large amount of revenue. According to this they will have to pay 30% of a larger amount.<p>It feels backwards.
Wow, it sure is a coincidence that its being cut to basically the same rate (though a different structuring) as Apple. First google independently came up with the 30% rate just like Apple did, and then they independently came up with 15% for the first $1M like Apple did.
This is not good for the quality of apps, it is impossible for apple or google to review all the spying apps and ensure they can spy with the highest standards of quality, without withholding at lest 30% of the revenue of developers from bangladesh. We will be doomed by spammers and scammers now, what a shame (/s)