Today’s developers don’t need what the App Store offers

112 点作者 awwstn将近 5 年前

17 条评论

latexr将近 5 年前

> Today, a free app brings Apple zero revenueToday and always, a free app brings Apple $99/year for a developer account, which is mandatory to publish on the App Store.

评论 #23580857 未加载

评论 #23583193 未加载

评论 #23580974 未加载

评论 #23580817 未加载

评论 #23581026 未加载

评论 #23584727 未加载

评论 #23580839 未加载

评论 #23580895 未加载

评论 #23590741 未加载

评论 #23581100 未加载

评论 #23580852 未加载

评论 #23580807 未加载

kevindong将近 5 年前

> Amazon’s Kindle store charges 30%, but with conditions. Your book must cost $2.99 to $9.99, and 20% less than any print copiesell. It must be exclusive to the Kindle to get this rate in some markets. Any VAT comes out of your cut, as does a download fee of $0.15/mb. Sell a $9.99 book, and you might get $6.69. > > Don’t meet those requirements, and Amazon charges 65% of your selling price. Sell a $10 book, get only $3.50.That is an incredible fee to pay for a digital good. I looked into this expecting the author to be just outright lying. There is one factual inaccuracy (Amazon and the ebook author split proceeds after accounting for VAT/delivery charges), but it is substantially accurately.<a href="https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500" rel="nofollow">https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500</a><a href="https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200644210" rel="nofollow">https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200644210</a><a href="https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560" rel="nofollow">https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560</a>

评论 #23580993 未加载

评论 #23581324 未加载

评论 #23580952 未加载

michaelmrose将近 5 年前

A modest proposal: Legally require sales and lease of computers herein to include laptops, tablets, phones provide owner or lessee with root access to devices including right to modify device software and use services normally associated with sale/lease of device including updates and cloud services without prejudices insofar as how you use it.This is to say they cannot deny you updates or access to icloud but if you modify your software so as to prevent it from working that is solely on you.This would make it impossible for Apple to prevent third parties from offering their own app stores which could offer devs their own terms.It's exceptionally likely that prices would stabilize under 10%.

chadcmulligan将近 5 年前

SaaS costs money to though - there's not an analysis of that in this article, if you use AWS or Azure they cost as well. I can see Apple need to charge for their service (I'd want a lot to argue with developers all day :-)), they could probably charge less though, but the same argument can be made for all their products.Personally I think its great that I can write some code publish an App and Apple looks after a lot of stuff for me, would I like it if they charge less, sure - but its a level playing field, everyone on the App Store pays the same, so just add 30% to your price and move on. As a user, I like that I can reasonably trust the apps I download from the App Store - and thats who apples customers are, users, not developers. If you want to use apples service then you have to pay a premium, if you don't like it you can probably go to android (I'm sure this is Apples position).

评论 #23581027 未加载

webbdev将近 5 年前

1000% this. The App Store is stagnant because Apple refuses to improve their store to where developers choose to distribute their app on the App Store. 30% may have made sense in 2008, but it certainly doesn’t make any sense in 2020.

评论 #23581050 未加载

butz将近 5 年前

Good time to concentrate on pushing progressive web apps (PWAs) forward: ask for browser developers to agree on standards and implement few missing features that are available only on native, like file system support. Build more PWAs, even if some features are still not available - they might be tomorrow. Let users know about PWAs, what are the benefits (usually faster install and smaller size), how to install them.

评论 #23585305 未加载

RandallBrown将近 5 年前

The App Store offers discoverability, hosting, reviews/ratings, payment processing, return handling, and (limited) QA in the form of the review process.If I think about how much time I'd spend building and managing all that stuff on top of building my app, I wouldn't be surprised if 30% was actually a pretty good bargain.I would love if Apple lowered their percentage, but I don't feel particularly ripped off by it.

评论 #23583369 未加载

k__将近 5 年前

If you can get away with a web app, do it. It doesn't just save you the app store fees, it also gives you more control over your software.

评论 #23580949 未加载

0_gravitas将近 5 年前

It's curious to see so many saying that these developers owe Apple x amount, but only a couple acknowledging that a steady stream of people developing apps for their locked-in platform is one of the only things keeping them relevant for anything beyond the most basic use-cases. I'm not an Apple guy nor an Apple developer (and hope to never be one), so I don't have an immediate skin in this race, but this kind of behavior just seems unhealthy overall, and reads as biting (one of) the hand(s) that feed(s) you.For instance, people developing games mainly for windows is the only reason I'm not running a full Linux box right now (maybe some day, c'mon proton...). If MS made releasing on windows hostile enough to make a non-trivial number of people consider releasing titles linux-only, I would abandon it in a heart-beat.

warmfuzzykitten将近 5 年前

The article doesn't live up to the title (on Hacker News). Or, really, the actual title. SaaS means nothing to the developer of an iPhone/iPad app. Apple offers distribution, collection, and a limited form of discoverability. In addition - people don't talk about this much, but it's real - if you sell an app direct, no matter how much you protect it, if it's popular sooner or later some hacker will break your protection and offer downloads of your app for free. Apple protects you from your revenue suddenly going to zero because somebody "cracked" your app. That's why it's still possible to make millions from a $1 app. Not a bad deal.

dhsysusbsjsi将近 5 年前

This article makes a good case for why ALL of these big monopolistic corporations need to be more heavily regulated due to abusing their market power in all of the ways mentioned.

hashbig将近 5 年前

Is it me or the math in the article doesn't make sense. The author is accumulating the costs for selling a SINGLE instance of the product on Shopify, Ebay, Amazon, and Walmart. When in reality, you would be paying only for the one you sold your product through, even if you offer your product on multiple platforms.

Axsuul将近 5 年前

To make it fair for both parties, Apple's App Store needs to adopt a hybrid/affiliate model. The App Store still provides lots of value in terms of discoverability and marketing. Many users find apps to download while browsing the App Store. The App Store will also feature apps while continually optimizing its algorithms to ensure the right apps are shown to the user in order to increase conversion rates, thereby benefiting the developer. Ranking highly on the App Store is very lucrative just like on Google. So this notion of developers not needing the App Store doesn't jive with me, especially for smaller developers who don't have the brand awareness that Basecamp does.For that, Apple deserves to be paid for it but only if new users are referred from the App Store–an affiliate commission. That 30% is more than worth the extra marketing and customers you wouldn't otherwise have gotten. For anyone that isn't referred, the fee shouldn't apply.

评论 #23581310 未加载

tinus_hn将近 5 年前

Then don’t publish on the App Store

评论 #23586590 未加载

cma将近 5 年前

It's like a store not needing the protection the mob offers

gretch将近 5 年前

The App Store model is thriving. Absolutely bursting at the seems gushing cash... SaaS did not “kill the App Store model”

评论 #23580842 未加载

NovemberWhiskey将近 5 年前

The new definition of 'dead' is 'doing $50bn a year in sales'?