> The issue(s) I need the most help with revolve around generating revenues that don't involve advertising, subscriptions, dark patterns or racing to the bottom on pricing. The AppStore model makes it very difficult to use some of the techniques that worked in the old days of shrink wrap and direct online distribution; trial periods, version upgrades and other concepts that don't fit into the AppStore buy it once and get upgraded for life.
The part that bugs me is that Apple could fix these issues but is choosing not to. Rather than adding upgrade pricing (something developers have been asking for since 2009), they added and have been pushing for subscriptions :(
> The problem is: you can't do upgrade pricing in the app store.
That is not a real problem.
Many apps handle this by checking for a prior version and giving a discount (see Omni or Affinity approach), by having an upgrade window (e.g. 1Password approach before switching to subs outside app store), or by just charging full freight again (which nobody who values software actually minds, and enterprises that budget full retail software per person/year anyway definitely don't even think about).
If you charge $X a month over time and think that's fair, you can charge $X * 24 every two years, and let people who dislike the upgrade treadmill just sit on the old version till iOS APIs shift out from under them.
In the meantime, you had the two years cash up front which funds future development.
> They get their licenses, I'm not getting my money because they just don't pay. Sucks to be me.
What are you talking about? The Apple Business Manager UI is a web based app store, one searches for the app, clicks to pay full retail, and you get your full money, immediately, the same as you get your IAP or sub. Meanwhile, the app is bought in bulk, assigned to the employee base, and you just sold 15,000 copies at retail by having a full price version when you otherwise couldn't sell any.
You don't talk to the enterprise and more importantly, I don't have to talk to you, or any other indie dev with weird bespoke purchasing processes not already approved by the enterprise procurement and expense systems.
> I really wish more companies would go back to the old-style model where users can buy the current version of a software tool but would need to pay a discounted price to upgrade to a newer version of that tool
We can thank Apple for this! They refused to adopt upgrade pricing on the App Store (which developers have been asking for since the App Store launched!) and instead introduced Subscriptions.
I like Apple, overall, but they absolutely decimated their software market by forcing apps to either be free with ads or paid subscriptions.
> What does count as "a lot of back-end work" that's valuable to you?
By way of examples, something like a weather application or access to content. Weather data is, at least until the end of humanity's existence on Earth, ever-changing and in need of update.
> Why are subscriptions bad and what would your solution to this be?
Because I do not want to wind up in a situation where an app developer suddenly turns on subscriptions and hides features of an app behind it, on the back of an opaque update. Plus, for most apps I am quite happy to pay for a particular version and be done. (I have no problem with paying for applications.) I want the finality of the transaction, that I've given my $5 or $10 or $20 or what-have-you a single time and our business is done. Application makers have done this since time immemorial, sometimes releasing complimentary bug fixes, other times not.
I just don't like the idea that in order to retain access to a program that does all of its work on my device, I have to keep paying rent for it. Like the app at issue here, where it was doing what the user wanted and then poof, a change that cannot be reversed.
I also understand that the current model on the app stores is not conducive to one-and-done application purchase transactions. Apple doesn't make it easy to do upgrade-by-version pricing, for example. In-app purchases are available, but they're not (by default, or nearly as widely) sharable on the family-level like outright purchases are.
> The amount of bullshit you have to go through so that an alternative payment method isn't reachable from mobile is insane, and they want % of a lot of things
You say insane, but you don't say why. Revenue-sharing is the best for content producers; I would definitely not want to go back to the retail model. What exactly are you trying to do?
> a lot of business ideas are unviable because of the policy.
A lot of business ideas are unviable without slavery! So what? I don't want that, and I hope you don't either! So what is it you actually want?
> Not to mention that your competitors don't have to pay the same, big players get special deals and exemptions,
I don't compete with "big players". If Apple didn't make an iPhone and I didn't make an app to put on it, I wouldn't get that money, and pretending otherwise won't make it so. The people I am competing with are in the same situation I'm in, and if they're getting success and I'm not, I think I should worry about what I can do.
> Apple needs a solution for the general problem of people not wanting to pay much for iOS apps.
Yes! And thanks to missing app store features Apple has provided developers no way to set expectations for things like upgrade pricing. Not to mention in-app purchases which were another way to maintain the illusion of "free" apps among users.
The fact that subscription pricing is now seen as the solution is really sad because subscribing to an App is fundamentally different than buying one. In particular, transactions that used to be atomic - like buying an app or gifting an App to a friend - are now transient and come with all kinds of strings and commitments attached.
Today I could go home, fire up my 5 year old iPod touch, and still access all of its apps - and the data therein. In a subscription-based app economy I wouldn't be able to do the same after the first month!
> I think Apple should either charge considerably less than they do for distribution via their App Stores
The biggest problem for many people is not the %, but the rules and limitations of the platform that comes from Apple being the intermediary between devs and users.
For example, game streaming services should exist on the app store. It is preposterous that apple rejects these apps. They are actively harming thier own platform, making it less featureful by doing this.
Being this intermediary is both a pro and a con for both devs and users, but they disallow anyone else to innovate on the platform. If Apple is so confident that their IAP is what users prefer, then they should give users (and developers) the choice and let the market speak!
> I feel it is difficult to get people in the world to pay for digital things. £10 for an iOS APP???
It very much seems like developers have stopped trying. The app store for the iPhone/iPad is broken and I blame in-app purchases and subscriptions. I feel that Apple should be VERY restrictive about what is allowed to be an in-app purchase or subscription.
Try browsing the apps available, especially for children, it's all free, with in app purchases or in-app subscriptions. I was trying to find a coloring app on the iPad, there's like one that's reasonably priced. It's free for 5 - 10 coloring pages then you pay $5 - $6 to unlock everything. Completely reasonable in my mind. The rest: $30 per year as a subscription... well, now I'm not buying anything, that's not something that should be a subscription.
I really want the app stores to start very clearly advertising that the in-app purchase is an unreasonably priced subscription and preferably require that the price to unlock an every feature. Most of all I want in-app purchase and subscriptions to go away.
My life already have plenty of subscriptions, I refuse to sign up for more. I have four streaming subscriptions, two news sites, online storage, password managers, internet, phones, service contracts for my car... Just F-ing stop and let me pay up front for things that REALLY doesn't need to be subscriptions because I can't deal with anymore.
> It sounds like you're not an app developer, so why do you care if Apple takes 30% cut of the developers app?
Because those costs inevitably either get passed down to the consumer, or mean that there are less resources to make the game, which results in a worse experience for me, the customer.
I don't want Apple to force everyone to give them a cut, because that is real money that would either stay in my pocket otherwise, or would provide more resources to game companies.
More money that stays in developers pockets means that they are incentivized to make more games or spend more resources on them. Or it can result in more developers entering the space, because there is more money overall to get.
Apple isn't providing any value to me here, that I could not get elsewhere, if there were competing app stores. I don't want them to force everyone to give them that money.
(And no, I dont' accept the argument that Apple's app store would always be significantly better than everyone else's, so much so that they deserve a full 30%, automatically. If they end up being better, thats fine, but I still want competition, and for other app stores to be able to compete fairly)
>It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever.
Duh? This is written in English but I genuinely have trouble making sense of your words. We had this for decades without subscriptions, they're called UPGRADES! You buy 1.x, or 2.x or whatever, and then when 3.x comes out new customers pay full price but existing ones get it at a much reduced price. But they can do so on their schedule, or if they don't then they don't lose anything they already have, they merely don't gain the new features. Which in turn is one of the few truly hard direct bits of incentivizing feedback, developers don't get money "by default", but must earn it each time.
I struggle to understand how suddenly it's like the entire idea of upgrades seems to have vanished. Why would a one time payment mean updates forever for free? But why would it mean subscriptions either?
Edit: Maybe if there is anyone truly to blame as the root of this evil it's Apple for being massively hostile to updates in the App Store for reasons that I will never understand either. That really sucks and probably forced subscriptions on the general population more than any other single actor. For that reason alone I really hope to see alternative stores forced on them by law.
This is the real problem, the crApp Store race to the bottom. Apple's cut was never really the problem. The cut is obscene, but only because the prices are already obscenely low. I'd be happy to give Apple 50% if I could sell my software for higher prices.
> And you sell 100,000.
Good luck with that.
> You also have to set up a server to serve the downloads and pay hosting, storage, and bandwidth.
Cheap.
> As well as shipping updates to all of your customers. As well as ensuring updates are compatible for any iOS version your customers might be using. There's going to be some level of customer support required.
You have to do these things anyway.
> Finally, how are people going to discover your app? You aren't on any app stores, so you have to advertise. You'll need to market. And -- convince people that you aren't going to infect their device with malware.
You have to do all of this stuff regardless of whether you're in the App Store. As an App Store developer myself, I can tell you that Apple absolutely does not do these things for you.
Notice how many Mac developers, given the choice, choose to distribute themselves rather than via the Mac App Store. They don't see the App Store as a win like you do.
> they do a lot to curtail scummy developer practices.
Which is excellent. Apple taking a cut for apps I have no problem with. They have support, I trust them with privacy/security and so on. That costs money.
The interesting discussion is how much apple can claim to own a part of profits made in the apps, by selling content (in-app purchases).
On one hand: if a game is free for a trial, and you can unlock the full game I think that should count as an app purchase (the alternative would be to not have in-app upgrades and just have 2 apps, which was a worse situation).
But on the other hand: if I buy a recipe app for $10 and then recipes for $1 a piece which I could also buy on the corresponding website, then I don't think apple should have a cut at all.
> Would you be okay if Apple charged more for developer fees? A per app fee? A per app update fee?
Yes, I would be fine with any of those scenarios.
A $1,000 fee to add your app to the app store would be more preferable to me than a nebulous rule about taking 30% of my gross revenue and having Apple dictate to me what my overall business model needs to look like.
> Can I pay a one time fee to get a product stocked at any retailer?
To compare what is going on here with a traditional retail environment is really an apples and oranges comparison. If Apple wants to take my app, price it and sell it at markup, be my guest.
What they are doing is more like if Best Buy forced Nest to give it 30% of every Nest cloud subscription on Nest devices bought in Best Buy retail outlets. Or if Best Buy forced Apple to give it 30% of iCloud subscription fees for MacBooks sold from within Best Buy retail outlets, only after Apple implemented "Best Buy Payments" into it's MacOS software to ensure those fees were collected.
> It seems the only real reason that Apple isn't doing this is because it wants people to build for their App Store so they have control and possible revenue stream.
You say it incredulously as if that’s not a valid reason. Of course that’s the reason. Money is the reason why most companies do things.
>We believe that subscriptions - although currently going through an adjustment and acceptance period - are the future for apps that provide ongoing value.
> For apps that don't provide ongoing value, then yes, it may be difficult to survive & one-off payments are probably the only feasible revenue model in those cases.
How about the third option, which has proven to be very successful in the past - one-time payment and payments for larger upgrades. This leaves control in the hands of the user, keeps the old software actually running longer and incentivises developers to actually keep bringing value to the customers. While still giving them steady stream of income.
Of course, you'll first have to kindly beg Tim Cook to allow you to use this business model on Apple hardware.
> anyone who claims to care about user experience, and yet only gives a solution that results in Apple getting more money, is giving a bad solution.
You seem to be getting easily confused or seem to have difficulty grasping the main point. You’re confusing the notion that “anything that puts more money in Apple’s coffers and not developers’ means it’s automatically a stupid idea”.
First, requiring developers to pay or placing any financial gates to developers disincentivizes non-committal, spammy, or even unidentifiable devs. This is a user-friendly policy.
Second, is the need to set up sustainable financial incentives. (This is not _directly_ related to user experience, which is where you’re getting confused and calling the idea dumb or stupid). There’s no way _any_ group of people who work on building the SDKs, Compilers, Tools, Marketing & Distribution, or anything remotely related would ever sustain their operations on 0% revenue. _Requiring_ devs to pay _proportional_ to their revenue is the sustainable process. Epic does that, Unity does that, AWS does that etc. Whether that’s implemented as a fixed price of $5000 per user or whether that’s an annual subscription of $100 (like Jetbrains’) is completely up to the creators of those systems (in the App Store’s case, Apple). I’m the end, it is _indirectly_ user-friendly: more trusted, well intentioned devs implies more trusted apps and a virtuous cycle of more users/customers.
Apple chose to proportionally charge devs based on their revenue. They could’ve chosen a hundred different options, sure. But they chose the method that created a financial incentive to build all development tools for free (practically), and set up systems to distribute, discover, maintain, update apps at per-user level (ie: they need to run servers that users download apps from; 3p devs don’t; nor does a user need to go bittorrent.com or cnet.com or softonic.com or whatever else could’ve been the hosting provider)
My idea on Xcode pricing is meant to emulate those same underlying policies. My idea is not meant to be the “holy grail” of solutions here. I merely use that to illustrate the much deeper, much more passionate point of view: that 3p devs are monstrous, vile, nefarious actors. They _ought_ to taxed! They ought to pay up!
And yes, they ought to pay up particularly to the hardware platform provider! Don’t think it’s fair? Well, go complain to Nokia or Blackberry circa 2007 when you _had_ zero avenues to get your app in front of users without those companies controlling the developer fully.
Or even the web in the 2010s where there’s an ungodly amount of tools, APIs, frameworks upon frameworks that none of them work cohesively well. The fact that web developers had to write custom polyfills or resort to user-hostile behavior such as charging IE users more To disincentivize people from using insecure browsers.
In both those instances developers made a 100% of all their revenue and acted like pure a*holes. Apple put an end to that by demanding devs conform to their platform!
> I feel like these marketplaces could maybe justify 30% on the purchase of an app up front, where there are clear benefits to the exposure and platform offered by them. But ongoing revenue is really attributable to the app itself and feels to me much harder to justify.
It’s not 30% of ongoing revenue though. You only have to pay 30% in one situation: you are already earning millions of dollars in the App Store AND it’s the first year of the subscription.
If you earn less than a million dollars, you qualify for the small business program and the rate is 15%:
> the business of creating products which offer very little value to people
my view is it's not that most apps offer little value, but the consumers' perception of value is skewed. You can buy tools today for <$5 that would have cost $50, $100 or more a few years ago, and are miles better than their old counterparts. Also, in a way, Apple is forcing the trial + buy model to become free + in app purchase, so paid upfront becomes a huge negative.
> Today, Hey iOS when downloaded IS NOT FUNCTIONAL if you didn’t know to already sign up for the service on their website.
The only reason for this is that Apple explicitly disallows apps from linking to or even mentioning subscription options that do not go through Apple's payment ecosystem and pay Apple's tax. Blaming the ensuing bad user experience on app developers is a case of "why are you hitting yourself?"
> As for the 30% fee, why shouldn’t they get a cut?
That 30% is, ultimately, coming from our pockets. Apple wants it because it prefers our money in their pockets. We, as the consumers, should fight back and demand it be lowered because we prefer our money in our own pockets. I don't understand why I should advocate that Apple should make apps more expensive and should take more of my money.
>the money should flow from app stores to developers and not the other way around
That's exactly the case and I have receipts to prove it. I have financial records as proof of money flowing from Apple to my bank account.
What's the plan for rewarding the developers? If anything is broken with the mobile games it's the model where the money doesn't flow from the App Stores to the developers but developers need to interrupt the player and make them buy something so that the developers get rewarded.
Ads in games are dreadful.
I'm afraid that if the subscription services for games becomes the norm, and the payment is based on engagement it will make mediocracy the norm just like with Netflix. This will make game development a practice of matching the spec sheet of the subscription platform you want to be included. If it is like Spotify, what developers are supposed to do for substitute of the live performances if their rent is higher than $0.52?
I never had problem with iAP or pay to play games.
The part that bugs me is that Apple could fix these issues but is choosing not to. Rather than adding upgrade pricing (something developers have been asking for since 2009), they added and have been pushing for subscriptions :(
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