[HN Gopher] Apple urged to root out rating scams as developer hi...
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Apple urged to root out rating scams as developer highlights
enforcement failure
Author : egocentric
Score : 167 points
Date : 2021-02-03 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| dubcanada wrote:
| This has really nothing to do with Apple, and largely how our 5
| star rating turned out.
|
| For example I sell stuff on Etsy, I have about 50~ 5 star reviews
| if I get one 1 star review my average is now 4.92 which is still
| 5 stars. So it's really not that big of a deal, if I had say a
| 4.8 with 40,000 ratings a series of a 100 in a row 1 star reviews
| will do nothing to my score of 4.8.
|
| If I for say had five 5 star reviews and got one 1 star review,
| my average is 4.3 which will show a 4.5 (or a 4 star depending on
| how they round) at the star rating.
|
| If you are new you have zero room to get a bad review, even if
| you fix it. There are version reviews, etc that can fix that but,
| largely you're done.
|
| I really have no idea of how to redo this, but I don't think
| people should be giving a 5 star review with a comment. There
| should be considerations, reviews after a certain time should
| expire, you should be able to mark reviews as fixed, etc.
|
| I believe the current system is completely broken and needs to be
| adjusted a bit more then hiring some additional staff to read
| reviews.
| bluesign wrote:
| Easiest option is not to show rating till you get lets say 20
| ratings.
|
| But mostly on the app side, reviews are favored to 5 stars. (As
| you can trigger review request)
|
| Main problem is fake reviews.
| Solocomplex wrote:
| Maybe user reviews are cleared every update, but ranked in the
| app store weighted by review averages from previous versions.
| monadic3 wrote:
| Yelp set the standard for incompetent, useless rating systems.
| Somehow it's even worse when they can verify purchases, use
| time, etc.
| zanecodes wrote:
| Maybe what app stores should do is give apps a 3-star
| "implicit" review by default, when the user downloads and
| installs the app. This could possibly also be deleted when the
| user uninstalls the app. This way, users who don't feel
| strongly enough about the app either way to give an "explicit"
| review are still represented in the app's overall rating, and
| the impact of early good/bad reviews is diminished.
|
| On the other hand, this would probably cause app ratings to
| tend much more strongly towards the median, which could make
| them less effective signals of quality.
| abhorrence wrote:
| This is an interesting idea! You could even add weighting
| into these implicit reviews so that they are less impactful
| than an explicit three star review, but would still have the
| effect of pulling towards the median. It'd help to prevent
| the "five stars is acceptable, not stellar" problem that
| these rating systems all devolve into.
| majewsky wrote:
| If you do this, you should probably avoid the 5-star
| iconography altogether, since at this point, it's too
| ingrained in our collective mind that anything below 4.5
| stars is crap. A good representation for the rating system
| you describe (where every active install counts as a weak
| neutral review) would be a like/dislike bar, where the
| neutral position looks like
| ----------|----------
|
| and a really good app has a green bar like
| ----------=======|---
|
| whereas a bad app has a red bar like
| ------|====----------
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > This has really nothing to do with Apple, and largely how our
| 5 star rating turned out.
|
| Apple's goal is to provide a great experience.
|
| Searching for a thing and having to wade through a bunch of
| crapware or install some scammy garbage is not a good
| experience, let alone a great one.
|
| So even though it's not necessarily Apple's "Fault", it is in
| their best interest to fix it.
|
| It's also good developer relations, something they need to
| focus on a bit more. This is one of the places where Apple can
| really be focused to demonstrate the value developers are
| getting for that developer commission.
| bagpuss wrote:
| > wade through a bunch of crapware
|
| Apple allowing companies to advertise scammy "alternatives"
| against App Store searches does not help acheive this goal.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Nope. In particular, they should be very careful with
| watching for follow on apps that duplicate all or part of
| the name of a successful app.
|
| They wouldn't let me submit an app: "Faceboook", they
| similarly shouldn't allow scammers do the same for anyone.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| I don't know if I would call this system broken, it's just
| incentivizing things differently. It works really well for
| identifying unicorns, but if you're catering to a niche or if
| you're just unexciting, it's much harder to make it.
|
| I think we can just do away with app reviews and the star
| system. Let the internet and all of its communities decide what
| they think of apps. I trust HN's recommendations for apps more
| than I do the App store ratings, or some random tech blog, or
| even reddit. Most people have sources they trust way more than
| the rating systems, so might as well just do away with it.
| david422 wrote:
| The other issue is that people who leave reviews generally
| either _love love_ the app, and that's why they review at 5
| stars. Or, they are mildly irritated by some feature they
| didn't like, followed by a 1 star review. The mildly irritated
| people far outweigh the love love people.
|
| In fact, in Apple's early days, every time someone uninstalled
| an app they used to prompt for a rating, which of course was
| highly skewed for 1 star ratings. Why else are people
| uninstalling.
|
| I've also found that there is almost never a middle ground -
| it's a 5 star or a 1 star. This basically makes the ratings
| almost worthless. How is the same app so terrible it gets the
| lowest of the low for some people and yet the highest praise
| from others.
|
| I have some apps I make for fun. They do have some users, they
| usually get terrible ratings, but I've found - and I'm glad my
| income isn't tied to these apps - that I usually just ignore
| the ratings and just keep trying to make the apps better.
| realusername wrote:
| The next issue is that only annoyed people ever review your app
| so you get a lot of totally useless one star reviews by
| worthless users. Hence why every app needs to spam you to get a
| review, that's unfortunately the only way to make it work...
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| It does really damage both consumer and developer trust to not
| staff this problem more. At the core of Apple's marketing is
| trust... trust us to build a better device, trust us with your
| information, trust us to stand up to the data-hoovering tech
| giants...
|
| If Apple can't stop gaming of reviews, malicious apps, developers
| getting hurt then they fail on this. I really don't want to see
| the App Store go the way of Amazon listings in terms of reviews,
| but it really is starting to get hard to defend.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| I don't think it does damage to Apple, or at least not to a
| level that would sway the cost-benefit calculation. As others
| have pointed out, these scam apps make Apple a lot of money,
| while they get essentially none of the negatives from it. I
| believe that most people will not at all attribute a negative
| app experience with Apple, and the likelihood that many will
| discover that other reviewers will describe that they fell for
| a scam, will make people also feel insecure for having fallen
| for a confidence trick (the fake ratings), aka con job.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It seems short sighted to let that trust go for so little
| considering how much profit Apple earns because of the trust.
| Even throwing a billion dollars at labor to prevent fraud and
| maintain their lead in trust seems obviously worth it at their
| scale.
| ksec wrote:
| The whole argument for Apple to charge 30% was that they are
| doing "curation" and "Guards" against malware in their App Store.
| And not for "Access".
|
| As a developer you have a relationship with Apple, but not with
| your user. Since Apple is sitting in between both parties as
| middleman. Apple refund any purchase without first asking the
| Developers and this mechanism has been abused quote a lot in
| Gaming.
|
| And because of that Apple has a duty to sort these IP, copyright,
| scam out. Right now Apple is refusing to do anything and suggest
| it is not their problem. ( Until the press start running stories
| on it )
|
| Apple, You can't have it both ways.
| m463 wrote:
| I wonder if developers could unionize?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| A lot of "developers" in the App Store are companies, so not
| exactly a union.
|
| App Store developers could certainly form a trade association
| and do all sorts of things to advance their own interests. It
| works great for realtors, doctors, lawyers, oil companies,
| etc.
|
| But IME software developers tend to see themselves as free-
| wheeling innovators and resist typical professional
| organizing.
| zepto wrote:
| Apple benefits developers by creating an environment in while
| consumers feel safe spending money.
|
| Refund abuse is something all stores deal with and write off.
|
| Scams on the other hand are a problem that Apple must deal
| with.
|
| Nowhere has Apple suggested that it isn't their problem. If
| they don't solve it, they will suffer.
|
| Apple isn't having anything 'both ways'.
| minikites wrote:
| >If they don't solve it, they will suffer.
|
| Will they? They shipped defective keyboards for years and
| they seem to be doing just fine. The idea that "companies who
| do bad things will be punished in the marketplace thanks to
| the free market" is juvenile and relies on a false belief in
| a just world.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Clearly the market effect working, because Apple did ditch
| the defective keyboards in 2019. This years laptops are set
| to revert a number of other unpopular changes Apple made
| over the years.
|
| I guarantee Apple is only doing these things because the
| market reception of their 2016+ MacBooks has been less than
| stellar.
| minikites wrote:
| If the market is so efficient, why did it take three
| years?
| zepto wrote:
| Apple is slow to change direction. The market can't
| change that.
| minikites wrote:
| So what can the market change?
| zepto wrote:
| The market forced Apple to change the keyboard design.
|
| They were forced to change direction. Just not on your
| timescale.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Was it, or were the warranty repairs starting to eat into
| those precious profits? In true Apple fashion those
| repairs weren't as simple as turning a couple screws.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Apple is quite the exception rather than the rule here
| though and is hardly a panacea of good examples of market
| effects. For one they are the most highly valued company
| in the world... they can afford to react (or not) to the
| market in many ways other organizations simply cannot
| afford to consider
| zepto wrote:
| > Will they? They shipped defective keyboards for years and
| they seem to be doing just fine.
|
| They took a serious hit to their reputation, and they fixed
| the problem.
|
| If they were still introducing new models with the broken
| keyboards, you would have a point.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The market would have punished Apple if a competitive
| alternative product existed.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Until macOS is licensed to be installed on non Apple
| hardware that product will never truly exist.
| zepto wrote:
| Surely you aren't saying no operating system can ever be
| better than MacOS?
| minikites wrote:
| So why doesn't one exist? The whole idea of free market
| capitalism seems to fall apart when one examines any of
| the necessary assumptions in any real detail.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, it's very possible that the barriers to entry are
| effectively impossible to conquer at some point due to
| complexity of products and network effects, and therefore
| due to a lack of sufficient sellers and buyers, a free
| market doesn't exist.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| > Refund abuse is something all stores deal with and write
| off.
|
| Yes but don't traditional retailers purchase the stock up
| front? Then they're writing down losses on their own books, I
| doubt they're charging back losses from shoplifting to
| Nabisco and Duracell.
|
| I'd give you this point if Apple bought the rights to
| distribute apps from developers, and then ate the losses for
| refunds, but it's the exact opposite. Developers pay for the
| right to distribute, then lose the refund money when their
| product is used and then "returned." They aren't getting
| compensated for the incurred server costs from the fraudulent
| usage period either.
| nickff wrote:
| Returns are often negotiated on a per-supplier basis,
| though there are usually industry norms. Amazon for
| instance takes a few percent discount from suppliers to
| compensate it for returns and exchanges. Beset Buy usually
| returns unused merchandise, and sells open box items (often
| taking a loss).
| [deleted]
| tartoran wrote:
| Apple should add a new policy which would amount to refunding all
| the money to buyers for obvious scams like the iwatch typing apps
| with fake reviews. They could keep say 30% so that their aren't
| incentivized to not do so. If earnings for fake apps get
| "confiscated" or reimbursed we'd see most fake apps disappear
| overnight.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| The problem with ratings is that you are relying on altruism.
|
| People doing the real ratings are not getting any direct benefit
| from the work to rate.
|
| However, people doing fake ratings are getting direct monetary
| benefits.
|
| Which of these two groups do you think will create more ratings?
|
| For a consumer, I think the only thing that ultimately works is
| something like consumer reports which people pay money for and
| which do not accept any money or gifts or free samples from the
| makers of the stuff getting reviewed.
| smoldesu wrote:
| And they take 30% from my earnings every time my app is sold?
| What are they doing with that money, bathing in it?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Didn't Apple themselves scam the rating system by throwing out 1
| star votes for the trading app Robinhood, after it started
| selling its users GME stock without the users initiating the
| sale.
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| That was Google.
| pvg wrote:
| Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25986515
| jarym wrote:
| Sheesh. You'd think Apple getting 30% would at least use their
| 'cut' to weed out the bad apples (sorry could not resist there)
| that would lead to long term damage to their own ecosystem.
| nobodyshere wrote:
| Isn't that 15% for first incoming $1M though?
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| That only came about recently because Epic games started a
| fight with apple. They've been charging 30% for well over a
| decade.
| zepto wrote:
| You are giving too much credit to Epic for this. Epic is
| just riding on the general sentiment that has been building
| in the developer community for a while now that 30% is too
| much.
| xbar wrote:
| This is a fundamental problem. Apple could not overinvest in
| attempting to solve this problem. Clobbering legitimate reviews
| would be greatly more beneficial to society than the current
| situation of uncontrolled ripoff-ware.
| EEMac wrote:
| When "GPS Speedometer" gets $200K/month in subscriptions, Apple
| gets their cut of that whether the app is legitimate or not.
| jmull wrote:
| I expect Apple will take this very seriously.
|
| The problem strikes at the core of the value of the their app
| store. Good, real apps should have good ratings and preferred
| placement. Bad/fake/scammy apps should not.
|
| But this is a tough problem to get right.
|
| If your criteria for "bad" are too broad you will catch
| legitimate apps, harming legit developers and their users.
|
| Yet, if your criteria leave even a little room scammers can find
| and exploit it.
|
| The scammer's job is to find any and all loopholes to exploit.
| They will find a small crack and drive a tank through it. The
| legit app developer's job is to make good apps. They can
| inadvertently stumble over even simple restrictions, at times.
|
| Take this tricky dynamic and tackle it at scale, and it becomes
| an order of magnitude more difficult.
|
| I kinda wonder if they shouldn't charge, say $100 to list an app
| on the App Store and $50-$100 per update too. It's going to cut
| down on scam apps and pay for enforcement. Sadly it would cut
| down on legit apps too. But it might be worth it overall.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _I kinda wonder if they shouldn 't charge, say $100 to list
| an app on the App Store and $50-$100 per update too._
|
| Many of these apps that game the App Store generate enough
| revenue that a $100 fee won't be a barrier to entry, but will
| certainly be a barrier to entry for students, hobbyists, and
| developers whose apps are pre-revenue.
|
| Most apps don't make more than a few hundred to a few thousand
| dollars over their entire lifetimes, and such a fee will
| disincentivize ever pushing feature, stability or security
| updates to them.
|
| > _It 's going to cut down on scam apps and pay for
| enforcement._
|
| The App Store generates billions of dollars of revenue and pays
| for its own enforcement many times over, it's just that Apple
| can increase their App Store profits even more through poor
| enforcement and turning a blind eye to manipulation and scam
| apps.
|
| What would really benefit users is real competition in the
| mobile app distribution market. It is obvious that Apple and
| Google are poor stewards of this space and that competition can
| improve experiences for consumers and developers.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Apple and Google have more resources than just about anyone,
| and struggle to get this right, even though it is obviously
| in their interest to do so. I just do not get the idea that
| adding a bunch of other random app stores is going to somehow
| make for better user experience or security.
|
| An obvious move for scammers would be to flood the alternate
| app store with fake versions of popular apps in the hope that
| a bunch of people would accidentally install them. Many users
| are not sophisticated and a scam only needs a few victims to
| make money.
|
| The alternate app store would struggle to moderate against
| that, and since Apple has no way to reach in and fix it, they
| would have to cut off an alternate app store at some point
| when it gets too bad. And then everyone would lose their
| minds over that.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Apple and Google have more resources than just about
| anyone, and struggle to get this right, even though it is
| obviously in their interest to do so._
|
| This sounds a lot like you believe that if Apple or Google
| fail or refuse to do something, then it can't be done. It's
| in their interests to pay as little as they possibly need
| to in order to keep the App Store and Play Store money
| hoses operating.
|
| If there was competition in the mobile app distribution
| market, then I'd agree that it's in their interests to
| curate their app stores, because competition would wipe
| them out otherwise.
|
| Unfortunately, Apple and Google have leveraged their
| duopoly in the mobile operating system market to prevent
| competitors from competing with them in, and improving, the
| mobile app distribution market.
|
| > _An obvious move for scammers would be to flood the
| alternate app store with fake versions of popular apps in
| the hope that a bunch of people would accidentally install
| them._
|
| There are dozens of app stores for other computing devices
| and operating systems where this isn't a problem.
| Competition means that no user is forced to use a poorly
| curated mobile app store like they are currently forced to
| use Apple's poorly curated App Store.
| stainforth wrote:
| If I'm Apple and taking 30% cut, and I'm also a monopoly across
| a subset of consumers, then it's not a big deal really, which
| is why it isn't fixed.
| jamesrr39 wrote:
| > $100 to list an app on the App Store and $50-$100 per update
|
| It's worth noting that for genuine developers this will
| incentivize less regular app releases, and push the barrier to
| entry to be in the app store higher, neither of which is really
| desirable for a 'trendy' app store.
|
| Really the only way I see is for Apple to get better at
| moderating the apps & reviews on their own app store. I mean,
| that is part of the deal. if you run a market, you need to make
| sure the people selling in it are trading fairly, otherwise
| people will stop coming to your market.
|
| With regard to paying for this... well, Apple made $55B profit
| (not revenue, profit!) in 2019[1] (couldn't find any figures
| for 2020). I'm sure they'll find some money somewhere.
|
| 1:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...
| Shivetya wrote:
| the big exploit seems to be scamming for money after the app is
| installed.
|
| originally I was going with the idea that an app cannot charge
| monthly, or by feature, more money than what it originally cost
| to purchase the app from the store. however this would exclude
| a lot of reasonable apps.
|
| so instead clicking on any application will immediately display
| all possible charges that could be incurred when installing and
| using the application. so if a developer has one of those $299
| activation clauses it is clearly listed on the app store. if an
| app will not reveal all post install charges it should be
| delisted.
|
| of course people could bypass apple payment systems and there
| are many who want to bypass apple entirely but that wild wild
| west scenario may send people back screaming
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > I kinda wonder if they shouldn't charge, say $100 to list an
| app on the App Store and $50-$100 per update too. It's going to
| cut down on scam apps and pay for enforcement. Sadly it would
| cut down on legit apps too. But it might be worth it overall.
|
| I don't think fees like this are a good idea. There is a lot of
| interesting/ free software out there which would be
| discouraged. Maybe just withholding payment on apps for the
| first 30 days until reviews start coming in and giving users
| better tools for reporting scam apps.
|
| I do however think reviewers should be given a more thorough
| check-list on apps which charge more than $20 or $10/ month. An
| app which suddenly gets a bunch of 1 star reviews should be a
| red flag and trigger a review as well.
| panda88888 wrote:
| I like the idea of scaling the review effort proportionally
| to the dollar transaction amount, especially for less
| known/established developers and publishers.
| aeontech wrote:
| Some of the scam apps described in the article are bringing in
| 200-300K a year...
| egocentric wrote:
| $300k per MONTH.
| minikites wrote:
| >I expect Apple will take this very seriously.
|
| It's been going on for years, when exactly will they start
| taking it seriously?
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > I expect Apple will take this very seriously.
|
| This is not a new problem by any means. Apple has been largely
| ignoring it for many years, only taking action when there's bad
| PR like now.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Could [ if this gets fixed] depend on on how long term the
| Apple managers KPIs are measured?
|
| Say they get bonuses based on the most recent 6 months or 1
| year, but if becoming more strict with the App Store apps
| would make Apple lose money the nearest year (since Apple
| makes money thanks to the scams), then maybe the problem is
| almost unfixable?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| >I kinda wonder if they shouldn't charge, say $100 to list an
| app on the App Store and $50-$100 per update too. It's going to
| cut down on scam apps and pay for enforcement.
|
| The road to horrible buggy software is certainly paved by
| charging devs to update their apps while not allowing them any
| way to charge users for app updates.
| tekstar wrote:
| > $100 to list an app on the App Store and $50-$100 per update
|
| Which of the problems exposed in the original twitter thread
| would be solved by adding these payments?
| warp wrote:
| I assume the idea is that each update can then be manually
| reviewed (by an actual human) -- because that's what you're
| paying for as a developer listing your app.
|
| Which should in theory get rid of a lot of scam submissions.
| robocat wrote:
| Apple can easily use some of their 30% cut of the scam app
| profits for validation: Apple certainly makes enough from
| "successful" scammy paid applications to cover costs as in
| the article example where Apple is also raking in $10's of
| thousands from these fraudulent apps. Obviously free apps
| need a different mechanism.
| tekstar wrote:
| Apple store already has a human review every update.
| notriddle wrote:
| Overworked and underpaid human reviewers.
| wvenable wrote:
| Apple is ranked third for _profit_ in the Fortune Global
| 500 list of the world 's largest companies.
| pornel wrote:
| No doubt, but one of the richest and most profitable
| companies in the world could fix that -- if they wanted
| to.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is a hard problem that literally nobody is handling well,
| but Apple has a demonstrated history of solving hard problems, so
| they should prioritize this one.
|
| I don't actually know what the ideal solution is, but they have
| the resources and the data to address it in a way nobody else
| does.
|
| I'm not saying it's easy, or cheap, but it has to happen.
|
| Make it happen, Apple. This problem is a submarine, and it will
| torpedo you if you don't.
| Jkvngt wrote:
| Does anybody even buy "apps" any more? Google and Apple have such
| terrible stores, I think the last "app" I actually bought was
| like five years ago. Plus they all seem to stop working with
| regularity. The phone and tablet scene is trash and it's mostly
| the fault of Google and Apple.
| egocentric wrote:
| Apple's App Store grossed more than $64 billion in 2020,
| according to an analysis by CNBC:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/apples-app-store-had-gross-s...
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I buy apps to support fellow devs, absolutely. It's hard work
| and it can be thankless, despite the notion that software
| developers make stupid money.
|
| I recently bought Calca for my phone (iOS) and it's truly
| awesome software to have in my pocket. Well worth the $7 CAD or
| whatever it was. I gladly support this kind of work.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Yes.
|
| > The phone and tablet scene is trash and it's mostly the fault
| of Google and Apple.
|
| Not even sure what you are talking about. Lots of great
| software out there. It can be a pain to find amidst some of the
| junk, but it's not _that_ hard.
| eropple wrote:
| For me it's not that it's hard to find stuff, it's that I
| don't...need...stuff. I use a phone as a communications
| device, as a shopping device, or as a panel to services I pay
| for through other pathways. I actually do not remember the
| last _app_ I purchased, like...for money.
|
| IAPs are somewhat of a different story, but even those are
| pretty niche for me. Do people really need that much...stuff?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I can't say I _buy_ a ton of apps either. I do use a lot of
| apps though. Most for services or products I otherwise own
| or use. My sprinklers, my bank, brokerage, and credits
| cards, Zoom, iRobot, etc. I do also buy a few apps. Not a
| ton, but a few here and there. A few calculator apps, a few
| random games. Things like Pixelmator and Linea Sketch I use
| quite a bit.
|
| I think I've bought more apps on my iPad than on my Mac. My
| phone not quite so many, but I've bought a few. Mostly not
| many because I don't use my phone as much as my iPad or my
| Mac.
| tlogan wrote:
| The problem here is that Apple makes a lot of money via scam apps
| (which have outrageous weekly subscriptions like $19/week or
| similar)
|
| So I do not think Apple will do anything here...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Scam apps are a rounding error in Apple's revenue. On the other
| hand, the problem getting media attention hurts their entire
| argument around App Store reviews & policies which hurts their
| arguments regarding potential anti-trust litigation.
| pornel wrote:
| It would be nice if large companies had such a sober holistic
| view, but I doubt it. There are people in charge of App Store
| specifically, and presumably increasing revenue is their KPI.
| Fighting scams is difficult and expensive, and they've
| probably calculated that spending more on the problem doesn't
| bring positive ROI in simple dollar terms. User trust and
| risk of litigation aren't on balance sheets.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Apple and Google have kept a stranglehold on the mobile app
| distribution market for over a decade now. Apple takes 15% to 30%
| of all revenue generated, and they _still_ end up running their
| app store like this.
|
| What we need is real competition in the mobile app distribution
| market. Surely companies can compete on efficiency with that
| 15-30% cut, or less, and the benefits of that competition will be
| passed on to users and developers who aren't just Apple.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| If Apple does not confront issues like this, eventually someone
| will come along and successfully pass regulation to force the
| competition in their walled garden. If they stepped up their
| human curation a bunch, made app quality "a thing" in the same
| way they've gone after privacy protection, it would make their
| 15-30% cut a lot easier for people to stomach.
|
| Right now it just looks like money printing press.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| 1. Online crowdsourced ratings can't be trusted anywhere. Not in
| the App Store, not on Amazon, etc. They're just too easy to game.
| The role of reviewing products was always best done by the
| professional news media.
|
| 2. The App Store was based entirely on the iTunes Music Store,
| and that's an extremely bad model for selling software. There are
| "bad" songs in the iTunes Music Store, but that's largely a
| matter of personal musical taste, and none of the songs are
| scams, because iTunes is not an open system where anyone can pay
| $99 for a "music developer" account and submit songs. The music
| for sale there was all written by legitimate professional
| musicians.
|
| Moreover, music customers generally don't need technical support,
| or refunds, except maybe in the case of a mistaken purchase. The
| ratings and reviews for songs are mainly about taste, not
| evaluating whether the song "works correctly". And songs are
| generally quite cheap, so you're not going to lose much money
| buying a "bad" song.
|
| This entire model is simply not appropriate for software. If an
| app doesn't work right, the customer needs technical support, and
| if it still doesn't work right, then the customer needs a refund.
| There should be exactly 0 apps in the App Store that are scams or
| don't work at all. Ratings and reviews are not a good way to
| "police" this. Every song in the iTunes Music Store "works", in
| the respect that it plays the expected music when you press play.
|
| The iTunes Music Store doesn't need to be curated much by Apple,
| because the music is already "curated" by the record labels. Same
| with the TV shows and movies for sale there, "curated" by the
| Hollywood studios. But there's no such thing for apps, and that's
| why the crap store is full of scams. The record labels and movie
| studios have large amounts of time and money invested in each of
| their products. This is not true of Apple's App Store, where each
| app gets maybe a 20 minute review, which is almost nothing in
| comparison.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > The role of reviewing products was always best done by the
| professional news media
|
| Of course, the producer who profits from sales, and the news
| media who profits from ads should be trusted to come together
| and produce perfectly trustworthy product reviews...
|
| The perverse relationship between advertisers and media outlets
| make me incredibly skeptical of content creators who produce
| reviews. I can only think of a few off the top of my head that
| I trust.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| >The role of reviewing products was always best done by the
| professional news media.
|
| Yep. The Consumer Reports model is still the best way to do
| reviews and still the only thing I trust.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This would be so easy to do,
|
| Apple could look at how many ratings someone gives, how long they
| have been customers, whether they have ever stepped foot in an
| actual Apple store, etc.
|
| It would be trivial to make a ratings trust schema using such
| information
| ogre_codes wrote:
| It wouldn't be "Easy". Everywhere you have reviews encouraging
| people to put money down on _things_ , someone is gaming that
| system. Amazon has issues as does Google.
|
| It isn't easy, but it is absolutely necessary. Particularly it
| should be straight forward for developers to submit complaints
| about copycat software that is namesquatting or abusive.
| amelius wrote:
| Can't they let an independent party do it? Saves them the
| hassle and the blame.
| majewsky wrote:
| Any reviewing organization with sufficient manpower would
| require significant funding, which has to come from Apple, in
| which case the reviewer is no longer an independent party.
| blunte wrote:
| This will always be a cat and mouse game, although you would
| think Apple could have done better here.
|
| Perhaps a more effective solution would be for Apple to
| aggressively legally pursue bad actors like the group that churns
| out these apps. Make them hurt financially as an example to the
| next people who might entertain similar ideas.
|
| If Apple doesn't start handling this better, eventually there
| will only be bad/fake apps on the store. Real developers will
| widely choose not to play the losing game.
| cwyers wrote:
| I'm sure that app review is a hard problem. But it seems like
| Apple has the worst of both worlds sometimes -- HN frequently
| puts cases where an existing, very successful app gets suddenly
| dinged for something, or a new app from a big vendor gets
| nailed on a point of policy. Meanwhile absolute shovelware like
| this seems to be able to clear the review process no problem.
| zepto wrote:
| Those big cases where an existing app gets dinged are often
| justified, but are also extremely rare.
|
| Keeping out shovelware while also allowing rudimentary but
| useful apps by new developers is a much harder problem.
|
| They aren't really connected in any particular way.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Perhaps a more effective solution would be for Apple to
| aggressively legally pursue bad actors like the group that
| churns out these apps. Make them hurt financially as an example
| to the next people who might entertain similar ideas.
|
| Maybe a year or so ago Amazon started to aggressively pursue
| legal action against a few people who were abusing their return
| process. People who were clearly and egregiously _stealing_
| millions of dollars from Amazon via fraudulent returns. I
| haven't seen any follow-up reporting but I would love to know
| the numbers behind the cost /benefit. It doesn't seem to have
| had any impact on customer experience and I have to imagine
| there were others similarly abusing the process who have since
| stopped. I suspect the approach has largely paid off.
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