I find it hard to blame anyone for leaving any store when there has been almost nothing of value added in years and things are even regressing. That 30% should have gone a lot further; after 10 years, I can’t even use two different search-and-sort criteria at once to find new apps (and I refuse to sit there and scroll through offensively-bad lists of useless results, much less buy them).
I am however not surprised by the slow rate of new features in stores because there still aren’t “tiers” for developers to willingly become early adopters of new store capabilities. When there are millions of apps, why does it make sense to delay any new feature until the infrastructure has grown to provide that feature to all million apps?
Clearly there should be a way to roll out enhanced storefronts to a few apps at a time. For example, charge early adopters/beneficiaries for complex new features and don’t roll them out to all apps right away (if ever).
And then, developers shouldn’t have to sacrifice 30% for features they don’t use, either. I’d rather have a tiny percentage as the base to provide only essential features, with infrastructure upgrade options! I should be able to give up some low X% for “basic payment processing and auto-installation on devices”, with an option of X+N% to provide “that, plus hosting of app preview videos and several dozen screenshot images”, a higher option of X+2N% for “all that, plus an increased chance of being featured”, etc.
I find it hard to blame anyone for leaving any store when there has been almost nothing of value added in years and things are even regressing. That 30% should have gone a lot further
It's not really a market if the seller thinks there's no alternatives, and the buyer has no choice but to put up with anything. Works the other way around, too.
I think more to the point, the 30% cut for Apple isn't justified because the content isn't delivered via the App Store. 30% of in app purchases that are downloaded from the App Store is one thing, but 30% of Netflix fees is crazy when all Apple is doing is hosting the app itself. Apple isn't hosting Netflix's content, why should they get a cut of that?
My thoughts as well. How could Apple's search so bad? If it indeed brings billions a year, why wouldn't they spend that money to improve the functionality of this revenue powerhouse?
Apple tax should be stopped, people are paying penalty to use their sub par software, this is as ridiculous as it gets.
There are several other big names bypassing Apple Tax such Slack, their bots have their own billing mechanisms mostly via Stripe.
But I don't think it is going to last long, I got a message from Kik telling, their bot developers should be registered as an Apple Developer[1]!
Meanwhile, Facebook mentions in their bot developer guidelines that no digital goods should be sold in their Messenger platform; likely to 'not' avoid Apple Tax.
The Apple store seems good for small apps because the “tax” pays for discovery/marketing, distribution, billing & payment, lends credibility to the application, etc. This is especially true for single purchases.
Recurring revenue is a much different proposition— even for small or first time apps. A player like netflix which handles it’s own marketing, payment and all other ancilliary services doesn’t need to anything the apple store is offering other than distribution. I would understand if apple took $1 or some one time download fee but to regularly claim 30% of Netflix revenue seems like a stretch. While I think apple could make the case that they signed up through iOS, i think it is equally fair for Netflix to disable this option.
The Apple Tax is especially hard on Spotify since Apple launched Apple Music (previously, Spotify passed the 30% on to customers, but $13 vs $10 for similar services doesn't work). Both services are $10 per month. It's well-publicized that Spotify pays out 70% to labels, leaving nothing to run the service.
Full disclosure: I used to work for Spotify. My personal take on the fee was that 2%-3% is the floor (credit card processing), but Apple could charge up to 5% and reasonably justify the value-add without risking price gouging or anti-competitive claims.
I wonder how much money it costs Apple to handle subscription payments/cancellations for Netflix and other streaming services. I prefer to handle subscription through Apple because cancelling such services is never difficult. I don’t know how it is on other countries but cancelling services in the U.S. can be a hellish experience.
Personally, I’d be willing to pay the “Apple Tax” on top of a subscription services’ cost for the peace of mind that comes from knowing that cancelling is easy. What a pain it will be when all the other subscription services stop paying the “Apple Tax”. I hope Apple comes up with a solution. Clearly their current cut is too much.
Personally I feel like the most ridiculous part about the App Store is Apples so called "developer program". Charging 99€ a Year for a nearly nonexistent service is absurd, especially since they are already taking the 30% cut.
I am a flutter developer myself, so technically I could publish all my apps on iOS and Android with minimal changes. But since Apples developer program would eat up a significant portion of my potential yearly earnings I simply publish only on the Play Store that only charges a modest 25€ one time registration fee.
I like the $99/yr bar of entry. That, combined with the more rigid review process, keeps the App Store's average app quality higher than the Play Store's.
And Apple has thus done the world a favor. The last thing we need is more cross platform not quite native apps...
But as far as $99, between my $300 a year Linux Academy subscription, $144 a year JetBrains Resharper subscription and the money I spend on Udemy, $99 a year is nothing.
I wonder if Apple is letting this slide because it's enough money that Netflix would feel sufficiently motivated to spend lots of money to take Apple to court over it. Apple could lose a lot more than a billion a year if the law sides against them, which is a likely outcome. They would have to let everyone pick their payment provider. Everyone from Stripe to Paypal would rush in with better and better payment terms.
Better to keep anyone capable of winning a legal challenge against them happy.
At some point iOS feels like a third class platform, because I can't directly buy subscriptions or download my (already paid for externally!) Audible audio books. I think Apple is too arrogant to change this on their own so my only hope is the EU will regulate quasi-monopolies like the app store at some point. At the moment Apple users would benefit from a lot of regulations ranging from freedom of choice in the App Store to right to repair. That's not a good spot to be put in as a customer.
Netflix only needs apple for distribution because apple has locked down the system so much that you are forced to go through them. Apple has added very little value and we had better systems before where you could just visit a URL and view content without needing Microsoft for distribution.
I think we’re saying the same thing. Apple can do whatever it wants with it’s ecosystem but it doesn’t matter to Netflix. Netflix customers and Apple customers can be the same people but they are indifferent to how these companies interact with eachother. “Apple” customers expect Netflix on their devices and “Netflix” customers expect to be able to consume their content on whatever phone they happen to have.
As long as we're bitching about the 'apple tax'.... I'll toss out an unrelated-yet-perplexing issue I've had with mac/ios/etc since... 2008?:
Slow app store speed.
It doesn't matter what device I'm on - multiple macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipods, ipads, etc, all running through multiple cable and dsl providers in multiple states over the last decade.
Download speed is abysmal. 30meg app update - why does this take 2-3 minutes on a connection that can get 120Mbps from multiple other sources? I've just never been able to understand how they can stream live video around the world instantly, but grabbing an 8meg update is *ever a > 1 minute process.
12+ devices over a decade, from multiple carriers in multiple states, and always slow speeds. But no doubt other people here will have "all my updates are less than 8 seconds, all the time, for years" anecdotes. :/
They should be fast though? They are on Akamai, LimeStone and their own CDN. It was all very late in 2016 /2017, but things has been much better since then. So to have a slow download speed from Apple, unless it is from iCloud Storage ( which is getting better too) shouldn't have been the case as the likely hood fo slow connection from all three CDN are very small..
Apart from Netflix Servers ( Fast.com, I really wish Netflix would make a CDN for others to use ), I think Apple now has one of the best CDN network.
Yes, that’s perplexing and unusual-sounding. I’ve had updates take awhile occasionally, but I’ve never seen your issue. Could it be tied to your Apple ID in some way?
Despite your dismissive last line I have to share my data. Here are my results for my currently updateable apps on residential Comcast in the Midwest from the moment “Update” is hit until “Open” appears:
"Apple Tax" is a well defined colloquial term to refer to the markup Apple makes on its products because of their company branding and product reputation. I wouldn't credit the author with inventing this term—rather they are borrowing it for something that is actually more like a tax. When there's a transaction in the Apple domain, Apple levies a tax/fee/toll/duty. This isn't going away, and it's going to be heavy hitters like Netflix which pressure them to change. Let's hope the change takes a form other than an exemption specifically for Netflix.
I'd consider it a tax. You can't support billing in your app for digital services unless you're willing to pay that a percentage of your revenue. So the workaround is to push people to the safari app to enter in their credit card info.
It's just an informal term, used in the US (and likely elsewhere) to refers to a fee that is a regularly recurring % of a sale amount. The idea is that in this sense, the fee is similar to a sales tax.
Tax instead of a fee because it's unavoidable to do business on the platform. Akin to a sales tax to sell items in an area. Terms are fungible but it's a reasonable term.
> I have no horse in this race, but the author seems to have
Assuming the author has bias repeating a commonly used term indicates more about bias on the assumer than the one using common terms.
The main reason I find app stores useful is that they are a third party data aggregator. You can see ratings, downloads, reviews and other statistics very easily. That does help me as someone deciding what apps I should download.
That said, Netflix is a company I've grown to trust. I have no reason to look at Netflix's app statistics in the app store. I have no incentive to make personal transactions with Netflix through a third party app store. I simply go to their website, enter my card information, and enjoy their service without thinking about it ever again.
Good on Netflix for getting around the apple tax. I’ll admit, I have a MacBook for work, and all my reading and general browsing is on my iPad and iPhone. That being said, I’m saddened by Apple’s money grabs (absurd pricing). They don’t seem to care about customer trust. The post 2015 MacBooks are horrible IMO, and the AppStore is full of literally garbage. Every app is a bunch of ads and pay to basically unlock anything useful. I don’t know what the bar is to be on the AppStore anymore, and I never install anything other than Netflix, Spotify, WSJ, a couple Amazon apps, and some banking and investment apps... basically everything big name.
Apple has long allowed content producers to give away an app at no cost on the App Store and then sell subscriptions to access their content through their own website.
>publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple.
The sticking point in my eyes has been that the free app cannot provide a link to the website where you buy a subscription to the content.
>Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.
“3.1.1 In-App Purchase: If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality…”
My app was previously rejected because I had to built in In-App purchasing.
Was it a mistake for Apply to set the precedent that they will not take action against large tech firms that do this?
Regardless of what is a 'fair' fee, what happens when the handful of apps that generate the vast majority of revenue move their transactions away from the marketplace?
I'd like to debunk two arguments I hear frequently in defense of Apple's 30% cut:
1. They created the iPhone hardware and OS platform on which all apps stand on top of. Surely one who builds the most expensive infrastructure on which so many rely on deserve to tax the economic activity they've enabled.
The problem with this argument is that the enablement actually flows in both directions. Remember the last battle between Mac and Windows in the 90s? Mac was the losing horse because "Windows had all the important software". Office was the killer app back then and the Mac version was gimped. All the cool games were on Windows, and hell, during the days of peak Internet Explorer, Mac users could hardly browse the web properly. The tables have turned today, but the past tells a story of how much the software ecosystem contributes to the platform, not software as freeloaders on the platform.
2. The AppStore is much more secure. Apple's curation protects users from malware much more effectively than Google Play and overall app quality is higher
The issue I have with this argument is one of "who pays for this?" I'd argue the consumer should and has already paid for this via premium prices and the handsome hardware margins of iPhones. This is a benefit that goes directly to the users after all, so they should be (and already are) paying for it, not app developers.
World wide product distribution for only 30% is cheap.
I see a lot of Sellers whining, but the Customers love this arrangement. Take a look at iOS satisfaction rate among its users VS the other phone vendors.
But Apple doesn't distribute Netflix's content. Netflix does all of that themselves. All Apple does is host a free app. The content is still hosted on Netflix servers.
That makes sense for small companies who need help reaching customers.
For Netflix, they are making the bet that they won’t lose much, if at all, by pushing subscribers to sign up directly with them. If that’s true, then by definition Apple isn’t providing any value.
> Take a look at iOS satisfaction rate among its users VS the other phone vendors.
Huh? But don’t the other phone vendors also offer worldwide product distribution (I.e. the Google Play Store)? How is the difference between iOS satisfaction vs other vendor satisfaction indicative that this is a cheap solution for world wide product distribution?
At what point is Apple forced to treat the App Store as a subscription platform, ala Shopify, with flat monthly fees to the developer and a tiny % cut on top the credit card processing fees?
Antitrust laws should be modernized to force oligopolies to charge reasonable fee once you became huge platform.
This happened in many European countries where CC fees are less than 1%, where in USA it is 2-3%.
Same as electricity is natural monopoly with somewhat regulated prices, modern platform distort the economy power. It destroys competition and create winner take all market.
Apple fees should be determine be independent body, but I feel they should not be larger than 10% for one-time purchase and 5% for recurring charges.
I believe it’s against the rules to link out from within the app. The best you can do is explain in words that users can’t make the purchase in the app, and recommend that they visit the company’s web site to complete the purchase.
[+] [-] makecheck|7 years ago|reply
I am however not surprised by the slow rate of new features in stores because there still aren’t “tiers” for developers to willingly become early adopters of new store capabilities. When there are millions of apps, why does it make sense to delay any new feature until the infrastructure has grown to provide that feature to all million apps?
Clearly there should be a way to roll out enhanced storefronts to a few apps at a time. For example, charge early adopters/beneficiaries for complex new features and don’t roll them out to all apps right away (if ever).
And then, developers shouldn’t have to sacrifice 30% for features they don’t use, either. I’d rather have a tiny percentage as the base to provide only essential features, with infrastructure upgrade options! I should be able to give up some low X% for “basic payment processing and auto-installation on devices”, with an option of X+N% to provide “that, plus hosting of app preview videos and several dozen screenshot images”, a higher option of X+2N% for “all that, plus an increased chance of being featured”, etc.
[+] [-] stcredzero|7 years ago|reply
It's not really a market if the seller thinks there's no alternatives, and the buyer has no choice but to put up with anything. Works the other way around, too.
[+] [-] ClassyJacket|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tanilama|7 years ago|reply
Apple tax should be stopped, people are paying penalty to use their sub par software, this is as ridiculous as it gets.
[+] [-] Abishek_Muthian|7 years ago|reply
But I don't think it is going to last long, I got a message from Kik telling, their bot developers should be registered as an Apple Developer[1]!
Meanwhile, Facebook mentions in their bot developer guidelines that no digital goods should be sold in their Messenger platform; likely to 'not' avoid Apple Tax.
[1]:https://imgur.com/a/vOVGK2h
[+] [-] username3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wand3r|7 years ago|reply
Recurring revenue is a much different proposition— even for small or first time apps. A player like netflix which handles it’s own marketing, payment and all other ancilliary services doesn’t need to anything the apple store is offering other than distribution. I would understand if apple took $1 or some one time download fee but to regularly claim 30% of Netflix revenue seems like a stretch. While I think apple could make the case that they signed up through iOS, i think it is equally fair for Netflix to disable this option.
[+] [-] dehrmann|7 years ago|reply
Full disclosure: I used to work for Spotify. My personal take on the fee was that 2%-3% is the floor (credit card processing), but Apple could charge up to 5% and reasonably justify the value-add without risking price gouging or anti-competitive claims.
[+] [-] scarface74|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1123581321|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PascLeRasc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skh|7 years ago|reply
Personally, I’d be willing to pay the “Apple Tax” on top of a subscription services’ cost for the peace of mind that comes from knowing that cancelling is easy. What a pain it will be when all the other subscription services stop paying the “Apple Tax”. I hope Apple comes up with a solution. Clearly their current cut is too much.
[+] [-] stemuk|7 years ago|reply
I am a flutter developer myself, so technically I could publish all my apps on iOS and Android with minimal changes. But since Apples developer program would eat up a significant portion of my potential yearly earnings I simply publish only on the Play Store that only charges a modest 25€ one time registration fee.
[+] [-] max76|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|7 years ago|reply
But as far as $99, between my $300 a year Linux Academy subscription, $144 a year JetBrains Resharper subscription and the money I spend on Udemy, $99 a year is nothing.
[+] [-] madrox|7 years ago|reply
I wonder if Apple is letting this slide because it's enough money that Netflix would feel sufficiently motivated to spend lots of money to take Apple to court over it. Apple could lose a lot more than a billion a year if the law sides against them, which is a likely outcome. They would have to let everyone pick their payment provider. Everyone from Stripe to Paypal would rush in with better and better payment terms.
Better to keep anyone capable of winning a legal challenge against them happy.
[+] [-] scarface74|7 years ago|reply
Subscriptions that force you to subscribe out of the store: DirecTVNow, ACloudGuru, Amazon Prime Video, Sling, Spotify.
I doubt very seriously that Apple is stopping your app because of a fear of competition but not stopping dozens of other players.
[+] [-] emsy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ndnxhs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wand3r|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|7 years ago|reply
You still can. Safari still works does it not ?
[+] [-] mgkimsal|7 years ago|reply
Slow app store speed.
It doesn't matter what device I'm on - multiple macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipods, ipads, etc, all running through multiple cable and dsl providers in multiple states over the last decade.
Download speed is abysmal. 30meg app update - why does this take 2-3 minutes on a connection that can get 120Mbps from multiple other sources? I've just never been able to understand how they can stream live video around the world instantly, but grabbing an 8meg update is *ever a > 1 minute process.
12+ devices over a decade, from multiple carriers in multiple states, and always slow speeds. But no doubt other people here will have "all my updates are less than 8 seconds, all the time, for years" anecdotes. :/
[+] [-] ksec|7 years ago|reply
Apart from Netflix Servers ( Fast.com, I really wish Netflix would make a CDN for others to use ), I think Apple now has one of the best CDN network.
[+] [-] 1123581321|7 years ago|reply
Despite your dismissive last line I have to share my data. Here are my results for my currently updateable apps on residential Comcast in the Midwest from the moment “Update” is hit until “Open” appears:
- Strong 117.6MB 15 seconds
- Waze 100.6MB 20 seconds
- Keyforge 44.6MB 5 seconds
[+] [-] soneca|7 years ago|reply
The article shows numbers based on a 30% fee when it explicitly says it is actually 15%.
"meaning Apple was making around $700,000 by doing nothing other than allowing Netflix to offer subscriptions in its app"
It seems a bit unfair also.
I have no horse in this race, but the author seems to have
[+] [-] philihp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ternaryoperator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lozenge|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kodablah|7 years ago|reply
Tax instead of a fee because it's unavoidable to do business on the platform. Akin to a sales tax to sell items in an area. Terms are fungible but it's a reasonable term.
> I have no horse in this race, but the author seems to have
Assuming the author has bias repeating a commonly used term indicates more about bias on the assumer than the one using common terms.
[+] [-] test022a|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anonytrary|7 years ago|reply
That said, Netflix is a company I've grown to trust. I have no reason to look at Netflix's app statistics in the app store. I have no incentive to make personal transactions with Netflix through a third party app store. I simply go to their website, enter my card information, and enjoy their service without thinking about it ever again.
[+] [-] throwaway98121|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GeekyBear|7 years ago|reply
>publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple.
https://mashable.com/2011/02/15/apple-subscription-model/
The sticking point in my eyes has been that the free app cannot provide a link to the website where you buy a subscription to the content.
>Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.
https://mashable.com/2011/02/15/apple-subscription-model/
[+] [-] juiced|7 years ago|reply
“3.1.1 In-App Purchase: If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality…”
My app was previously rejected because I had to built in In-App purchasing.
[+] [-] CamelCaseName|7 years ago|reply
Regardless of what is a 'fair' fee, what happens when the handful of apps that generate the vast majority of revenue move their transactions away from the marketplace?
What is Apple/Google's next move?
[+] [-] notSupplied|7 years ago|reply
1. They created the iPhone hardware and OS platform on which all apps stand on top of. Surely one who builds the most expensive infrastructure on which so many rely on deserve to tax the economic activity they've enabled.
The problem with this argument is that the enablement actually flows in both directions. Remember the last battle between Mac and Windows in the 90s? Mac was the losing horse because "Windows had all the important software". Office was the killer app back then and the Mac version was gimped. All the cool games were on Windows, and hell, during the days of peak Internet Explorer, Mac users could hardly browse the web properly. The tables have turned today, but the past tells a story of how much the software ecosystem contributes to the platform, not software as freeloaders on the platform.
2. The AppStore is much more secure. Apple's curation protects users from malware much more effectively than Google Play and overall app quality is higher
The issue I have with this argument is one of "who pays for this?" I'd argue the consumer should and has already paid for this via premium prices and the handsome hardware margins of iPhones. This is a benefit that goes directly to the users after all, so they should be (and already are) paying for it, not app developers.
[+] [-] ancorevard|7 years ago|reply
I see a lot of Sellers whining, but the Customers love this arrangement. Take a look at iOS satisfaction rate among its users VS the other phone vendors.
[+] [-] ClassyJacket|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] URSpider94|7 years ago|reply
For Netflix, they are making the bet that they won’t lose much, if at all, by pushing subscribers to sign up directly with them. If that’s true, then by definition Apple isn’t providing any value.
[+] [-] wallacoloo|7 years ago|reply
Huh? But don’t the other phone vendors also offer worldwide product distribution (I.e. the Google Play Store)? How is the difference between iOS satisfaction vs other vendor satisfaction indicative that this is a cheap solution for world wide product distribution?
[+] [-] quickthrower2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oh_sigh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Steko|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etchalon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakozaur|7 years ago|reply
This happened in many European countries where CC fees are less than 1%, where in USA it is 2-3%.
Same as electricity is natural monopoly with somewhat regulated prices, modern platform distort the economy power. It destroys competition and create winner take all market.
Apple fees should be determine be independent body, but I feel they should not be larger than 10% for one-time purchase and 5% for recurring charges.
[+] [-] cpeterso|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] URSpider94|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksec|7 years ago|reply