30%

[jamesjw]

I co-own a publishing company. For each book we sell, retailers pay 50% of the cover price. From the 50% that remains, we pay our distributor the industry average of nearly 30% for warehousing, sales, distribution, tax collection, reporting, ISBN, etc. We pay for creative talent, production, printing and shipping, and marketing. That usually leaves us about 3-5% margin per book. It is what it is and our cover prices reflect our costs, but it does make me wonder why governments have a problem with Apple charging developers 15-30% for their similar sales and distribution services or why Apple is criticized for resisting opening up their products and services to third parties as dictated by random government entities.

Second, if Apple (or any company for that matter) lowers its service fees from 30% to 10%, does anyone seriously believe that the retail price for the consumer will be lowered to reflect that lower cost? And if consumers want more than one software distributor for the same app, can’t they always buy an Android phone from any number of manufacturers? I don’t see any abusive behavior toward consumers actually happening here.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Apple doesn't have to pay for delivery, warehousing, or physically moving goods at all. They pay to store the binary and to distribute the binary over bandwidth they pay for. For a lowly app developer such as myself, it's in the realm of $1/year.

So if Apple's costs are $1/year, and I'm already paying them $99/year, that's $98 profit. Why should they get to double dip?

And it absolutely increases prices. I have an app in the Windows store. It's free, because I don't need to make any money off of it. In the app store, it's a $2.99 yearly subscription. I need to sell around $250 per year in order to break even after Apple takes $99, 30%, and Uncle Sam takes his percentage.

 

[theluggage]

So if Apple's costs are $1/year, and I'm already paying them $99/year, that's $98 profit.

On Apple's side:

Apple have a hugely popular online store, which is the first, and most convenient, place many users go to look for software. They perform a certain amount of QA, checking for malware & auditing - a million miles from foolproof but still some reassurance for customers vs. downloading software from (and giving payment details to) an unknown - part of your subscription is getting "known developer" status. You also get payment & invoicing services that are frictionless for your potential customers (since they mostly already have an account with Apple).

That makes their service a lot more valuable than just the marginal cost of their internet bill. If you wanted to do it yourself then website hosting alone would cost you about $100 year, accepting credit cards would cost you something (although that's a lot better than in the past) and at the end of the day you'd have to publicise your own website so people could find it.

...and, to be blunt, if your income can't cover a $100/year developer subscription (covering all of your products) then you don't have a viable business. Where it's not good is if you're trying to be altruistic by giving away genuinely free software (ass opposed to loss-leaders, adware, shareware etc. for which a 'cost of doing business' is still to be accepted)

On the other hand:

but it does make me wonder why governments have a problem with Apple charging developers 15-30% for their similar sales and distribution services or why Apple is criticized for resisting opening up their products and services to third parties as dictated by random government entities.

Because with iPad/iPhone/Watch/AppleTV there's no alternative path from creator to customer. You can't say "OK, no, I don't think Apple Store is good value" and set up your own download service for Apps. You can't find an app store offering free hosting for stuff you just want to give away. iPhone/iPad is about 30% of the mobile market - which is enough to start enabling anti-competetive practices (which is what market regulation is actually about, not literal monopolies).

Also, you're implying that it's only poor Apple that are being subjected to this sort of scrutiny - maybe for slightly different practices/reasons, but still to do with anti-competetive behaviour. E.g. as a publisher, you (or your distributor) probably have Hobson's Choice over whether or not to deal with Amazon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v._Amazon

...and when it comes to App Stores, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander:

Google ordered to open Play store to rivals after antitrust loss to Epic Games

Google must make Android apps available from competing sources and cannot forbid use of in-app payment methods

www.theguardian.com

 

[thejadedmonkey]

If you wanted to do it yourself then website hosting alone would cost you about $100 year, accepting credit cards would cost you something (although that's a lot better than in the past) and at the end of the day you'd have to publicise your own website so people could find it.

...and, to be blunt, if your income can't cover a $100/year developer subscription (covering all of your products) then you don't have a viable business. Where it's not good is if you're trying to be altruistic by giving away genuinely free software (ass opposed to loss-leaders, adware, shareware etc. for which a 'cost of doing business' is still to be accepted)

I don't have a business. I have a side hobby. I know how much it costs to host my own binary, and I'm looking at under $1/year in bandwidth expenses. Perhaps $2/year if I push out a lot of updates.

I don't use Apple's app store to advertise. My userbase is found by word of mouth and in-person/physical advertising.

If I could distribute my app outside of the app store, I would.

 

[theluggage]

I don't have a business. I have a side hobby.

I already agreed that the App Store doesn't really cater for hobbyists who want to give stuff away. A "free" tier for people like you would be a nice thing for Apple to do - but charging even the current, modest sum probably helps keep the volume of crud Apple has to deal with down to a dull roar (so, e.g. bots and AI slop mills can't just keep creating new accounts every time they get shut down).

But that's not really relevant to prices of most Mac software, the mark-up they charge on "paid" Apps or arguments about anti-competetive behaviour by Apple. Your "cost comparisons" don't add up commercially because you're ignoring a whole bunch of costs because it's a "hobby".

I know how much it costs to host my own binary, and I'm looking at under $1/year in bandwidth expenses. Perhaps $2/year if I push out a lot of updates.

Where can you get broadband or server hosting (that isn't packed with intrusive adverts for borderline-malware) for $1/year?

I run a few small websites on a voluntary basis. The cheapest virtual server is about $60/year (probably enough inclusive bandwidth for your purposes), a proper domain name costs ~$20/year - so, at least, we're talking $80/year plus a lot of your time to actually create and maintain a website (which you're writing off, but a business would have to account for). Then - as I said - you don't enjoy anything like the visibility you get from the Apple Store.

...plus you'd still need the developer subscription if you wanted to get your code signed by Apple, or else even Mac users would have to click through scary warnings.

On top of that - the cost of the developer subscription has to be put in perspective vs. the $$$$/year you're spending on buying and maintaining equipment, home broadband, software etc. You may not be able to attribute all of that to your "side hobby" but it is what makes your side hobby possible. A business would have to recoup those costs as well. As a hobbyist - well, the thing about a hobby is that you put money in and hopefully get enjoyment out.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I run a few small websites on a voluntary basis. The cheapest virtual server is about $60/year (probably enough inclusive bandwidth for your purposes), a proper domain name costs ~$20/year - so, at least, we're talking $80/year plus a lot of your time to actually create and maintain a website

The website already exists and updating it is a single button click. Because it is a sub-domain off of my personal website, the domain name is $0 per year for this project.

The site is hosted on AWS s3. It costs me $.51/month, including 50 cents for the DNS routing and around a penny per month to host my website. As of last month, Amazon has a new free tier, I could probably get my overall cost down to $0/month, but I'd have to spend a few hours figuring out how.

For other purposes, I have an SSL cert. Apple would never accept it, but I have one. Theoretically, if Apple didn't want to try to scare users into only using the app store, I wouldn't even need to pay for a dev cert.

But lets not just talk about the app store as a side hobby. What about those large corporations that use the app store? I worked for one of those companies. We employed 40,000 people, give or take. We had infrastructure on AWS, failover on Azure, and a $750,000 yearly spend in AWS.

Do you know what Apple was good for? Absolutely nothing. We had business cards with QR codes and massive posters to drive downloads. We could absorb the distribution costs with ease. We had an SSL cert. Apple was good for one thing though; preventing us from releasing. Even with the release process down to a science, we would sometimes get a reviewer who "couldn't" log in (and our logs would show they didn't even try).

I don't mind putting money into a side hobby, but I do mind paying Apple when they don't offer anything worthwhile.