[HN Gopher] Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first...
___________________________________________________________________
Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year
Author : h43k3r
Score : 455 points
Date : 2021-03-17 04:59 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (android-developers.googleblog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (android-developers.googleblog.com)
| grumple wrote:
| I think this does make an impact. At 30% I wasn't even slightly
| considering trying to make money from a mobile app. At 15% it at
| least becomes an idea, though that's still a pretty high
| percentage just to be listed and distributed in a store.
| danybittel wrote:
| It puzzles me that some people still think 30% is a reasonable
| cut for any kind of online store.
|
| Imagine you're 3 guys / girls and working on an app / game / ..
| whatever and one person only does "distribution" of the final
| asset. You are working one / two years or more on it, and one
| person only checks / verifies the final asset and organizes
| hosting. How is this in any way justified? And the days that
| person made any marketing / visibility are long gone. I think
| more "fair" is something like 5%, more in the line of what a
| payment processor does. Which probably, at this point does more
| than.
| loosetypes wrote:
| Masters of Doom described a similar sentiment circa '93 only
| now "tech" are the perpetrators.
| occamrazor wrote:
| For physical products in physical stores the cut can be higher
| than 50%. Online referrals can be up to 20%, without the actual
| distribution.
| danybittel wrote:
| That's a great point, so do the physical stores get 50% of an
| iphone or ipad sale?
| occamrazor wrote:
| For iPhones and iPads probably much less. For clothing, the
| margin can be 60%, for toys even more, for books 30-40%.
|
| [These figures were approximately true some years ago in
| Italy]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| A reasonable amount is literally any amount the market will
| tolerate. Seems 30% nolonger cuts it in any of these stores.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Exactly this, it's harder to make money on the store these
| days, people can't tolerate high fees anymore
| stale2002 wrote:
| No, it would not be reasonable if certain participants in
| that market have a large amount of market power.
|
| That is how things like anti-trust law work.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You need a certain amount of competition before a market can
| give you a "reasonable" price. The market for phone app
| stores doesn't meet this bar.
| vmladenov wrote:
| MobiHand on BlackBerry, a third-party sales and distribution
| platform, used to take 40% and fees on top. I stopped working
| with them long before this incident, but appears that wasn't
| enough[1]. When the Apple App Store launched with 70/30 it
| felt like a very generous offering, and the first-party App
| World launched with the same split later.
|
| [1] https://forums.crackberry.com/developers-
| lounge-f9/mobihand-...
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Worth remembering that as good as it is that Google is reducing
| it's abusive taxation on third party developers, the primary
| reason they're doing this is to try to quiet the majority of
| developers asking for stronger government regulations against
| this taxation without actually reducing their profit much, since
| the large companies which bring in the majority of revenue still
| have to pay full price.
|
| Basically, they're hoping that this will stop some app developers
| from demanding the right to use third party payment processors,
| which would likely be used many of the larger >$1 million revenue
| publishers.
|
| The Android Police article about this cites an example from iOS,
| that "On Apple's App Store, the 98% of developers who qualified
| for a lower revenue share rate were responsible for less than 5%
| of Apple's total collected revenue"
| aembleton wrote:
| > they're hoping that this will stop some app developers from
| demanding the right to use third party payment processors
|
| I thought you could do that for apps through the Play store.
| For example I pay for the Windy app through Paypal.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I believe Games is the one exception - Games must use the
| Play Store for all in-app purchases.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| This is actually somewhere Google has generally been more
| accepting than Apple. While Apple has been very harsh on both
| the app purchase _and_ any in-app content or services being
| through them, Google has been more lenient, historically, on
| the latter.
|
| Google has actually changed their minds on that, and will
| start being Apple-level strict in September of this year:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/google-announces-
| cra...
| enos_feedler wrote:
| The primary reason they are doing it is because Apple did it.
| Same goes for every other rev share change that Apple has
| implemented.
| DeusExMachina wrote:
| That still poses the question: why did Apple do it? I believe
| the reasons are the ones explained by the parent comment.
|
| Also, I don't think Google mindlessly copies anything Apple
| does. Sure, part of it is pure competition. But I'm sure they
| also evaluated the reasons behind Apple's decision.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I believe that Google's goal is to show regulators that
| Apple has market power. The easiest way to demonstrate that
| is to follow what they do and make it look like they are in
| control. The reason I believe this is that it is
| uncharacteristic of Google to blatantly copy something like
| this over the years, yet it is clear they are fast
| following all of Apple's decisions around the app store. I
| would expect Google to try and differentiate and come out
| with a new, competitive way to make the developer ecosystem
| happy.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > I believe that Google's goal is to show regulators that
| Apple has market power.
|
| Unlikely, since Google and Apple monopolize in the same
| way. Google and Apple are close allies in this fight, and
| if the Epic lawsuit or an antitrust investigation goes
| bad for one, it'll go bad for the other.
|
| > The reason I believe this is that it is
| uncharacteristic of Google to blatantly copy something
| like this over the years,
|
| This is comical. Google me-toos everything. Google Home's
| entire product line being a blatant Amazon Echo rip off.
| Google Cloud needing to launch a copy of every AWS
| service, etc.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Actually they don't. Apple makes a consumer product and
| exercises control between developers and users. On the
| other hand, Google has power over the rest of the
| smartphone ecosystem via Android (practically speaking)
| and the installation of Google Play store. It's important
| that Apple move first as the "leader" and Google,
| representing the rest of the ecosystem "follow"
| londons_explore wrote:
| Note that this is 4 months later. That's about as quick as
| things like this can be done in a big organisation like
| Google where the decision has to go via policy, legal,
| engineering, translation, etc.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Which is odd... Users of the Play store and App store are a
| disjoint set. Very few users will switch from Android to iOS
| or back because in-app purchases are cheaper. Developers are
| generally forced to support both stores.
|
| There wouldn't seem to be any strong reason for both stores
| to pick identical fee structures - they aren't really in
| competition.
| inglor wrote:
| Startups sometimes (initially) develop applications for
| only one platform. Reducing the cost for (new) developers
| makes platforms more appealing to target (presumably).
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I agree it is very odd. For other reasons too, including
| how Google tries to differentiate their smartphone
| ecosystem from Apple to try and compete. Innovating on a
| business model for developers would be a good
| differentiator.
|
| This is why my theory for this blatant copying is for
| regulatory reasons. The app stores are under scrutiny right
| now and it is best for Android, which has very large market
| penetration with the Play Store, to make it look like Apple
| is in control of the market. Just my theory.
| tyfon wrote:
| Speaking of swapping, I switched from android to iphone
| last spring since my old android phone croaked on teams and
| I couldn't get a new xperia fast enough.
|
| The switch was actually relatively painless when it comes
| to the apps themselves, the biggest problem I have is the
| phone itself. Iphone has inconsistent UI/shortcuts and lots
| of hidden gesture based inputs that you just got to know to
| be able to use. I'm really tempted to switch back but the
| google tracking keeps me away for now.
|
| So there are some who are in the market for both :)
|
| The developer cut/price of apps is really low on my list of
| reasons to switch from one to another though so you got a
| good point there. I'm actually trust an app that costs 100
| NOK (EUR10) more than a 10 NOK one since they will have
| less incentives to do shady things.
| salicideblock wrote:
| The discourse is that Play store and App store are
| monopolies (arguably duopolies) facing the developers, not
| the users.
|
| I expect that developers for the Play store and App store
| are two sets with a big overlap
| enos_feedler wrote:
| This is the story that Google wants you to believe by
| fast following Apple with pricing changes. They want to
| demonstrate that Apple has pricing power to regulators
| (just my theory). The reality is that Apple and Google
| are in competition, and if Google actually innovated on
| business model the way they do with every other aspect of
| their business, it would actually drive the app store
| fees down for Apple. Microsoft has tried to do this [1]
| but they don't have enough market power to move the
| needle.
|
| [1] https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-store-now-
| gives-app...
| lordnacho wrote:
| Users might not change phones but android users might have
| different behaviour to ios users in terms of how likely
| they are to spend. Which perhaps skews the developers
| towards starting on one platform or the other.
|
| But generally yes I agree that it can't be all that big a
| difference.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Low end Android phones/tablets are so cheap that some
| serve as dedicated displays/devices. I have one that I
| use as a OBD2 scanner, another sits as a DRO display on a
| desktop mill. My actual phone is iOS.
|
| If those facts mean I'm counted as an iOS user once and
| Android user twice, the iOS me spends a lot more in the
| Apple App Store than the two Android mes put together.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Very true, I have an old android tablet that's gotten too
| slow for normal use, but functions fine as a clock.
| Another shows my task list for household chores.
| natex wrote:
| Is your feeling on what Google's hopes speculation, or do you
| have some inside information?
| elmomle wrote:
| I imagine that it's speculation but it's reasonable
| speculation, since maximizing profits is pretty much the sole
| goal of a publicly traded corporation at the end of the day.
| elwell wrote:
| > maximizing profits is pretty much the sole goal of a
| publicly traded corporation
|
| Would that extend to for-profit private companies?
| Employees? Sub 1m revenue app developers?
| natex wrote:
| I don't think that supports the speculation since as the GP
| stated, Google is actually doing the opposite of maximizing
| profits in this case.
| elwell wrote:
| > Google is actually doing the opposite of maximizing
| profits in this case
|
| You've chosen a difficult position to argue.
| nindalf wrote:
| It is exactly what you'd do if you maximise profits. The
| general argument against the Apple/Google tax is "think
| of the small businesses!" They use this argument because
| no politician wants to be against the small business
| owner.
|
| Google and Apple understand this well. Since small
| businesses account for a small % of their revenue, they
| simply offer a better deal to those small businesses. Now
| Spotify/Epic Games/Candycrush people will have to argue
| "but think of the large businesses!" That doesn't have
| the same ring to it somehow.
|
| The majority of App/Play Store revenue is protected from
| government intervention, and profits are maximised. Make
| sense?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The over $1 million crowd is 98% of their revenue. So in
| this case they're reducing revenue by about 1%... because
| they know if they don't, government regulations will take
| the other 98%.
|
| It's still about maximizing profit, even when they appear
| to be reducing it.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Apple and Google have held a duopoly in the mobile app
| distribution market for over a decade now. It's time for the
| market and consumers to enjoy the benefits that real
| competition in this space can bring and to rid them of the
| years of anti-competitive stagnation they've had to suffer
| through for benefit of Google and Apple's shareholders.
|
| While Google's change is nice, it doesn't address the core
| issue at all.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| You know that Android is open source and you can just sideload
| apps, install a 3rd party app store or replace entire OS with
| your own ROM right? What, your app/game is not valuable enough
| to the user to bother with unless it's a single click install
| without having to enter credit card? Well...
|
| Basically - Situation is not at all the same as with iOS -
| There is too much emphasis on friction-less low value installs
| and less on highly valuable things that users are willing to
| invest time and money on. Those apps would not survive without
| vendor-included single click app stores anyway.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > or replace entire OS with your own ROM right
|
| For over 90% (rough guess) of devices this isn't true.
|
| ARM isn't an open platform like Intel/PC.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _You know that Android is open source and you can just
| sideload apps, install a 3rd party app store or replace
| entire OS with your own ROM right?_
|
| User installable 3rd party app stores are cannot compete with
| the Play Store on feature parity because 3rd party app stores
| cannot implement automatic upgrades, background installation
| of apps, or batch installs of apps like the Play Store can.
|
| Manufacturers fight against users' abilities to root or
| replace their OS on the phones they sell. There are thousands
| of models of phones that will only ever run their OEM
| installed ROMs, and there are millions, if not billions, of
| Android devices that cannot be rooted or won't run custom
| ROMs, and more are produced every year.
| guytv wrote:
| > You know that Android is open source...
|
| Technically Android is OpenSource.
|
| De-facto - its not.
|
| For many many years now Google is adding all non-os
| functionality into "support" libraries, "Google Services" -
| the name changes periodically - but the essence is the same:
| Making sure that any Android that is not "Google certified"
| won't be able to run Android apps - which all use these
| libraries - and won't have apps such as YouTube, Gmail,
| Photos come pre-installed..
| londons_explore wrote:
| But there is an opensource implementation of those support
| services (microg) which work for most apps.
| fsflover wrote:
| Except the drivers are always closed, so you cannot run
| any OS that you like or have long-term support.
| guytv wrote:
| oh, nice.
|
| I didn't know about it.
|
| It is a huge undertaking, google has services from
| "simple" things like location, to complex things like
| face recognition.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I believe many of the microg services are mocked out in a
| way that makes apps 'work', but complex things like step
| counting in Google fit or face recognition will always
| return some bogus results.
|
| Still, it makes 99% of apps work.
| m463 wrote:
| It is worthwhile to read the google anti-trust complaint:
|
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-
| release/file/1328941/downl...
|
| It's clearly written, a short read and gets interesting each
| subsequent page.
|
| The android stuff begins on page 19.
| onion2k wrote:
| _Those apps would not survive without vendor-included single
| click app stores anyway._
|
| I find this a little amusing because it's the _exact_ reason
| why Microsoft lost their IE anti-trust case. Users were given
| IE by default, and because using something else required
| effort IE took a huge chunk of the market remarkably quickly.
| That was deemed to be violating their effective monopoly
| position on OSs to influence their position in a different
| market (browsers). Microsoft were made to add a screen in the
| Windows on-boarding process that gave users options about
| which browser they wanted.
|
| Sometimes using user 'laziness' to maintain or gain market
| share doesn't work out so well for you.
| krisgenre wrote:
| What was really the outcome of Microsoft losing the anti-
| trust case? Windows still comes with a preinstalled browser
| and I don't remember ever seeing a version of Windows
| without one.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| Microsoft didn't lose the anti-trust case.
|
| Go check Wikipedia.
| quelsolaar wrote:
| They did loose, then they appealed and settled.
| oblio wrote:
| Yeah, people should start treating, morally, settling
| just as losing a case. This doesn't apply for
| individuals, but companies settling for millions and
| millions are morally admitting defeat. Corporations can
| afford the drawn out court battles, so if they're not
| continuing them, it means that they're admitting they
| lost.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Settlements are a win because they don't set precedent,
| and are often much cheaper than going to trial, and much,
| much cheaper than losing. There are plenty of companies
| that skirt the law or civil agreements hoping that, in
| the worst case, they can just settle if they're brought
| to court.
| necovek wrote:
| I think European court system is not based on precedents,
| so while someone can point at any particular ruling in
| another case, it shouldn't affect ruling in their own
| case.
|
| IANAL though :)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Applies in the UK, though, we got our case law system
| from them.
| leetcrew wrote:
| no, people should consider settlements on a case-by-case
| basis depending on the actual terms. entities settle
| totally unfounded suits all the time just because it's
| cheaper than taking them to court. just because a giant
| corporation could afford to doesn't mean settling isn't a
| rational choice.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Google exists, for one. Microsoft decided against early
| attempts to acquire Google or block their toolbar in IE
| because of the fear of further antitrust legislation.
| mrkramer wrote:
| You think Google would sell to Microsoft? Larry and
| Sergey are one the smartest founders ever. They had clear
| vision and mission for Google.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Microsoft was in a position to put Google entirely out of
| business at the time, and buy it for pennies on the
| dollar. Internet Explorer was THE dominant browser at the
| time with over 90 percent market share, and Microsoft was
| considering blocking the install of Google Toolbar (the
| vaguely malware-esque add-on Google paid Adobe to inject
| into Flash Player and Reader installers) and preventing
| Google from modifying the default search.
|
| Google would not still exist without the antitrust
| lawsuit against Microsoft that scared them into playing
| it safe.
|
| Also, Larry and Sergey's vision was an academic search
| engine that wasn't tainted by the mixed motivations of
| advertising[1]. Since they built the world's largest ad
| company, it's fair to say they sold out their vision and
| mission and the first opportunity for a lot of money.
|
| [1] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
| appendix A
| necovek wrote:
| Well, they had a clear vision about "organizing the
| world's information", but ads did not enter the picture
| until year 2000.
|
| In 1998 they were decidedly anti-ad, but after failing to
| monetize differently, I guess they caved in.
|
| However, that anti-ad approach and an attempt to avoid
| the results being gamed with PageRank made hordes of "us"
| (geeks who were being called in to help others with their
| "computer problems") to get everybody to switch to Google
| Search.
|
| But I doubt they planned all of that, especially not to
| turn their company into an advertising company.
| blihp wrote:
| Look at how Apple, and to a degree Google, are
| controlling/constraining mobile apps today and imagine
| that Microsoft had done that (x10... they were much worse
| in their time) 20 years earlier on the desktop. They were
| pretty successful in choking off the growth of Netscape
| (the browser) and Java pre-DOJ action and would have
| likely used similar strategies against web companies
| (which were completely dependent on and at the mercy of
| the desktop OS back then) before they became large enough
| to be a competitive threat.
| input_sh wrote:
| They've reached a settlement equal to a slap on the
| wrist. They've agreed to share their API with third
| parties and a couple of people to verify that for a
| couple of years (it expired in 2007).
|
| So basically nothing.
| quelsolaar wrote:
| In legal terms they got off easy, but it did change
| Microsoft and computing forever. Microsoft became
| terrified of been seen as monopolistic and that lead to
| them effectively saving Apple, not buying Google or
| Yahoo, embracing Linux and so on. It was very much worth
| it.
| lenkite wrote:
| "So basically nothing"
|
| Umm..no.
|
| IE could now be un-installed on Windows.
|
| After various settlement fines in the US with several
| parties, the EU took it further and also leveraged its
| largest anti-trust penalty of that era. (~1 billion)
|
| Microsoft were forced to share ALL their earlier private
| computing API's as open specs. MS word, excel formats,
| SMB, etc. This was amazing and resulting in several OSS
| libraries.
| krisgenre wrote:
| >>IE could now be un-installed on Windows.
|
| Why is this important?
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| And I was never able to make it actually work. Like the
| whole system became much more unstable if you did
| uninstall IE.
|
| That being said, I didn't know much about computers back
| then, so I probably messed up somewhere.
| lenkite wrote:
| Avoiding security vulnerabilities.
| opencl wrote:
| For a while copies of Windows sold in Europe let the user
| choose which browser would be installed by default during
| the setup process.
|
| Microsoft's obligation to do this ended in 2014 and now
| we're back to them begging everyone to use Edge.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Microsoft's mere inclusion of a web browser (which is now a
| basic OS tool that is reasonably expected to come out of
| the box, but then was new) wasn't why they lost their case.
| They lost their case because they were demanding OEMs
| refuse to include any alternative browsers on pain of
| revoking their pricing agreements.
| xmprt wrote:
| I strongly believe that if the Microsoft anti-trust case
| happened today, Microsoft would easily win. The tech
| monopolies that we have today have a much bigger impact on
| society.
| joering2 wrote:
| Absolutely! First time I loaded Google Search and saw ad
| under search box, where nobody else can advertise, no
| matter how much they offer to pay, saying "not using
| Chrome? Click to install now", I thought to myself "damn
| they gonna get huge ant-minopoly lawsuit that will cost
| then billions". And what happened?? Nothing! Other than
| Chrome is number one browser now for decades to come.
| cute_boi wrote:
| this opensource thing is not so straight as you have
| explained.
|
| In Android these days I find lot of finance app using some
| proprietarytechnology like google safety net. And most app
| are using google play services which again is closed source.
|
| Android is not true opensource software ...
| bdcravens wrote:
| Snaps in Ubuntu also has proprietary components.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| Yes, the store. And advanced functionality is only
| available to paying users.
| curt15 wrote:
| "Advanced functionality" such as the ability to take full
| control of when apps get updated.
| e3bc54b2 wrote:
| And many on HN have reservations against snap for that
| and more.
| dleslie wrote:
| Many, _many_ Android phones cannot work with any known custom
| ROM.
|
| Where's a custom rom for my Blackberry Priv, for instance?
| im3w1l wrote:
| A third party app store can not automaticly apply updates to
| apps. The user has to explictly approve every update. This
| puts the play store in a privileged position of lower ongoing
| friction.
| modeless wrote:
| There was a recent Android blog post that said "we will be
| making changes in Android 12 (next year's Android release)
| to make it even easier for people to use other app stores
| on their devices". https://android-
| developers.googleblog.com/2020/09/listening-...
| pjmlp wrote:
| 90% of future Android 12 users will only get it when
| their phone dies and they buy a new one.
| oblio wrote:
| It's actually getting better. New versions of Android are
| getting adopted faster: https://www.gsmarena.com/report_a
| ndroid_11_has_the_fastest_a...
|
| It's not yet at iOS levels, but Google is actually
| getting there, I'm impressed. It's much easier to pull
| this off when you're a huge company making the hardware
| and the software and you can just boss OEMs and telecom
| companies around, it's much harder when you have a
| Microsoft Windows-like arrangement.
|
| They're still at least 5 years from getting near iOS, but
| still... progress! :-)
| pjmlp wrote:
| IF one happens to own a flagship Android device from top
| brands, nothing changed for the devices that most people
| actually buy in large quantities for their pre-paid
| cards.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/4/20847758/google-
| android-up...
|
| Google's own security reports marketing usually only
| focus on the devices where they can sell a nice Treble
| picture.
| oblio wrote:
| It will trickle down. Even for those top brands it was a
| struggle.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Nokia will gladly sell me a new device for Android 11,
| even though other devices from them of similar age as 7+
| already got it, and they are one of the best update
| stories currently.
|
| Meanwhile most shopping malls in Germany still sell pre-
| paid phones with Android 7 and above.
| square_usual wrote:
| It will be ages before Android 12 is on a plurality of
| devices, not even a majority.
| valvar wrote:
| That's assuming the feature even materializes. I don't
| it's cynical to assume that Google might shelve a
| "feature" that undermines their own business at the first
| opportunity.
| saurik wrote:
| I bet they only announced that because Epic sued them on
| these grounds soon before that.
| Bellamy wrote:
| I bet they invest billions of resources to this feature.
| curt15 wrote:
| "Android has always allowed people to get apps from
| multiple app stores. In fact, most Android devices ship
| with at least two app stores preinstalled, and consumers
| are able to install additional app stores. "
|
| What is the most common preinstalled app store besides
| Google play?
| modeless wrote:
| I'm going to guess the Samsung one.
| londons_explore wrote:
| A lot of apps can do substantial changes to functionality
| with just serverside changes. App developers are already
| used to a good chunk of users having updates disabled.
| Those users update every 1 or 2 years whenever they get a
| new phone and reinstall your app.
| bjustin wrote:
| I agree, and even with a selfish motive, this is still a
| positive move on their part (and Apple's). Companies changing
| their behavior to avoid regulation is a better outcome than
| regulation in some cases, including this one IMO.
| einpoklum wrote:
| But can't Google avert this by paying off politicians? You
| know, with the legalized-bribe political contributions that are
| so popular?
|
| Anyway, Google's hold on mobile ecosystems is really a menace.
| So much so that it's difficult to even tell apart Google Play
| the store, Google Play the service(s), Google Play the
| library(/ies), and whatever else they call by that name.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Paying off politicians has worked well for Google since the
| Obama era, but it's not working anymore. Reason why was
| Trump's election. Politicians realized that Google's
| services, and how they're moderated, can do a lot more to
| affect an election than a donation ever could.
| einpoklum wrote:
| You have a point there... but even so - Google has been
| censoring non-mainstream political views, and artificially
| promoting mainstream news media (the big networks anyway).
| Isn't that enough to curry favor?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Not really. Perception is everything. Democrats believe
| Google allowed Trump to be elected by valuing profit on
| platforms like YouTube rather than intervening in
| extremism. Republicans believe Google and it's largely
| liberal-leaning employees are censoring conservative
| voices via algorithm updates and deplatforming.
|
| The truth is probably both are right in certain respects,
| and so Google finds itself now without many friends in
| the political sphere.
| Fizzer wrote:
| > we've heard from our partners making $2M, $5M and even $10M a
| year that their services are still on a path to self-sustaining
| orbit.
|
| What does this even mean? "on a path to self-sustaining" makes it
| seem like they're not currently self-sustainable. Given the crazy
| profit margins in software, I find it hard to believe that most
| apps making millions per year are not sustainable.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I wish developers would start using the browser more and rely
| less on the official stores which tax them unfairly.
|
| I don't want to install your application, just give me a good web
| mobile experience.
| rafaelturk wrote:
| That's what we're doing. We're leaving both App Stores.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Good on you!
|
| And if your app is FOSS, consider F-Droid among other
| options.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| The web platform is improving fast, but not on iOS. iOS is and
| has been "the new IE6" for a long time now, except that it's
| worse as you have no choice but to use it.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I wish we could in iOS. Apple's intentional crippling of PWAs
| should be illegal (push notifications supported on desktop
| Safari but not iOS?).
| avipars wrote:
| Starting on July 1, 2021 we are reducing the service fee Google
| Play receives when a developer sells digital goods or services to
| 15% for the first $1M (USD) of revenue every developer earns each
| year. With this change, 99% of developers globally that sell
| digital goods and services with Play will see a 50% reduction in
| fees. These are funds that can help developers scale up at a
| critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, adding
| to their marketing staff, increasing server capacity, and more.
| nt2h9uh238h wrote:
| Love it
| cletus wrote:
| Better title: Google matches what Apple already did.
|
| I said it about Apple and I'll say it about Google: this is a PR
| move, nothing more.
|
| Google really missed an opportunity here to put Apple in a tough
| spot by just cutting it to 15%.
|
| Your biggest users of your payment infrastructure are also the
| most likely, most willing and most able to handle their own
| payments because they already do (eg Netflix, Epic).
|
| If either company has reduced their cut to 15% for only their
| largest customers then this would make sense as a business
| decision. Doing the opposite is trying to stave off government
| intervention, nothing more.
|
| The writing is on the wall for being the sole payments provider
| AND charging 30% for it. The only question is what they will be
| forced to do and (imho) you're better off placating your biggest
| customers because they're the ones who will likely sue you and
| lobby against you in the US/EU.
| hu3 wrote:
| Google's proposition is better still.
|
| If I make $2 million on Apple i'll have to pay $600k in fees.
|
| On Google it's $450k.
| cletus wrote:
| Does Apple really do that? If you make $1m, they'll take
| $150k but if you make $1 more they'll take $300k? Really?
|
| I assumed it wouldn't be that dumb. Is it really the case?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you can convince apple to let you into the 15% program
| and then hit $2M, you'll pay $450k for that year and then
| get kicked out of the program. Subsequent years you will
| pay $600k if your revenue stays the same. If your revenue
| drops below $1M at some point, you'll have to pay 30% for
| _that_ year, but the _next_ year you 'll be able to re-
| enter the program.
| dannyw wrote:
| It is the case.
| hu3 wrote:
| It's that dumb and convoluted like Dylan16807 explained.
| bogwog wrote:
| > Google really missed an opportunity here to put Apple in a
| tough spot by just cutting it to 15%
|
| Why would Google want to start a bidding war here? They're both
| monopolies and they don't compete with each other. If Google
| lowers the fee to 5%, that's not going to convince developers
| (and their customers) to leave iOS for Android; it's just going
| to shift revenues out of Google's piggy bank and into
| developers' piggy banks in the best case.
|
| In the worst case, it will increase anti-trust scrutiny, either
| because Apple _doesn 't_ lower it so they're showing they don't
| need to compete, or they _do_ lower it despite it being an
| illogical business decision (and possibly inviting lawsuits
| from shareholders), suggesting that there 's some collusion
| going on to stave off anti-trust regulation.
| 40four wrote:
| Really a meaningless gesture if you ask me, reluctantly following
| Apple's lead. A meager attempt to get regulators off their back.
|
| I believe Google & Apple should not be allowed to take a
| percentage _at all_. It should be a tiered system of fees, like a
| subscription or something. Sure, their systems help distribute
| and promote discovery of our apps, so let us pay for _that_. It
| should be a yearly fee appropriate for this service.
|
| The idea they they deserve to hover up a percentage of everyone's
| business in perpetuity is completely bonkers. They don't deserve
| it. But they do deserve to be paid for running the app store
| infrastructure and services.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _I believe Google & Apple should not be allowed to take a
| percentage at all. It should be a tiered system of fees, like a
| subscription or something. Sure, their systems help distribute
| and promote discovery of our apps, so let us pay for that. It
| should be a yearly fee appropriate for this service._
|
| We should be able to pay for it, but we should also be able to
| choose not to use it, and bypass the Apple/Google duopoly on
| mobile app distribution for more competitive options, which we
| currently can't do. Apple bans all mobile app distribution
| competitors, and Google makes sure that competitors cannot
| compete with the Play Store on feature parity, either.
| sumedh wrote:
| > so let us pay for that.
|
| and what would be the fair price for that?
| 40four wrote:
| I have no idea. Whatever price Google or Apple determines
| they could run the service and make a profit.
|
| Apple already charges $100 a year, that seems like a
| reasonable starting point. If your business takes off, and
| you're using more resources of the store, or you want to
| promote you app, you pay more.
|
| It could be tiered price levels depending on your usage and
| needs. Maybe once you cross a certain threshold of downloads
| then you have to bump up to the next tier. Maybe there would
| be an enterprise level for huge companies.
|
| Imagine if all developers on Google play started off paying
| $100 a year, that alone would weed out a lot of the BS &
| discourage low effort bad actors.
| sumedh wrote:
| > Whatever price Google or Apple determines they could run
| the service and make a profit.
|
| Isn't that what they are doing now?
|
| You are essentially arguing that those giants should take a
| small profit instead of huge profit.
| Crazyontap wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if Apple didn't come up with this model of
| charging devs 30% even Google wouldn't have too. These companies
| often end up with similar policies. But that one greedy kid
| showed everyone how easy it is to leech off on hard work of devs
| (who are also to be blame as we happily agreed to this BS) and
| now it's a common practice.
|
| If safari browser had a Safari store with 30% cut pretty sure
| chrome extension store would also be charging 30% instead of
| their 5% now.
| koonsolo wrote:
| 30% is pretty common, just look at Steam. You can download and
| install games on you Windows machine straight from any website.
| Yet Steam was able to take a 30% cut and be very successful.
|
| The fact remains that developers are very happy to give 30%
| when their sales increase with a few factors.
| dbrgn wrote:
| That argument may be valid for Steam. But Google Play is a
| de-facto monopoly and the Apple App Store is a full (and
| enforced) monopoly. They can charge 30% because there is no
| viable alternative for the developers.
| curryst wrote:
| Steam also offers a more substantial service. They have
| fairly significant social services from chat to profiles to
| the ability to join a friend's game right from Steam. The
| downloads are also usually substantially larger (although the
| average price is also significantly higher). The same is true
| of most of the desktop game stores.
|
| I don't know what the real pricing should be, but I can't see
| how the pricing for something like Google's games would match
| up against Steam. They don't have feature parity, and some of
| the features they have are way less useful on mobile. E.g. I
| wouldn't use their chat even if it existed; my phone already
| has 4 or 5 messengers.
| martini333 wrote:
| wow, such generosity!
| unsungNovelty wrote:
| This is also just catching up with Apple by the way -
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s....
|
| Very similar. While I have had reservations on people marching
| for third party stores in iOS, maybe it is not a bad idea. But
| what if Epic, FB and Google just create a new app store with
| their privacy invasive ways? This bugs me. Sure it is hard but a
| coalition can make it possible right?
|
| Either way, we need to ask for better terms for sure.
| hu3 wrote:
| Sure, if by catching up to Apple you mean also throwing a bone
| to reduce anti-thrust pressure [1] and help their case against
| Epic and Spotify [2].
|
| [1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/18/app-store-commission-cut-
| anti...
|
| [2] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/08/13/spotify-
| supports-...
| dfabulich wrote:
| Here's the next achievable goal to fight for: I want the fee
| structure Microsoft provides on the Microsoft Store.
|
| https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2018/05/07/a-new-...
|
| Microsoft takes only a 5% cut if customers click on a link on my
| website with my referral code, taking them directly to the store
| details page.
|
| Otherwise, they take a 15% cut.
|
| > _consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft
| Store will deliver to developers 95% of the revenue earned from
| the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your
| application, when a customer uses a deep link to get to and
| purchase your application. When Microsoft delivers you a customer
| through any other method, such as in a collection on Microsoft
| Store or any other owned Microsoft properties, and purchases your
| application, you will receive 85% of the revenue earned from the
| purchase of your application or any in-app products in your
| application_
| joebob42 wrote:
| One other case where imo the 5% should apply: if someone goes
| to the store and searches for your app by exact name.
|
| Ie if I go to the store and search "Netflix", the store hasn't
| helped me discover that product.
| tweetle_beetle wrote:
| That makes sense on paper, but in a world of instant search,
| search completion and search suggestion, doesn't it become a
| bit murky?
| curryst wrote:
| They have, in a way, by providing the index you use to find
| it. They're your portal to apps in a sense. Frankly it makes
| more sense to me to charge more when people find your app
| through the app store. It makes less sense to me that they
| take 15% if someone Googles your app to get the app store
| link. They didn't even use the app store search to find it.
| vishnumohandas wrote:
| > 5%
|
| That's less than the Stripe tax!
| athirnuaimi wrote:
| Stripe has real costs because it has to interact with the
| visa and MasterCard networks. The app stores basically have
| zero incremental costs. They just let you download a file
| from a directory of listings
| deergomoo wrote:
| They host the files and pay for the traffic, that's not
| insignificant at the scale of Google and Apple, even
| considering their enormous size.
|
| There was a story a couple of years back about how Apple's
| AWS bill was $30 million/month, I'd bet a large chunk of
| that is the App Store.
| himujjal wrote:
| only 30 million? considering how much apple makes in
| profits from their app store thats a lot less
| Sebb767 wrote:
| That's only servers - they still need developers,
| managers, reviewers etc.. Apple surely does not make a
| loss, but the server bill is probably a negligible part
| of the cost.
| oblio wrote:
| Poor Apple:
|
| > In 2020, customers spent an estimated 72.3 billion U.S.
| dollars on on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and
| premium apps in the Apple App Store.
|
| The App Store is a money printer for Apple, that's how
| low their operating expenses are. It's rent-seeking at
| its best, abusive landlords would be proud of them :-)
| bogwog wrote:
| > They host the files and pay for the traffic
|
| That's BS because they don't give you the option to host
| it yourself and avoid the fee, plus it costs them nearly
| nothing. $30 million/year dollars might seem like a lot
| until you realize Apple makes over $70 BILLION/year from
| app store revenues alone.
|
| Also, what traffic? Organic traffic on app stores has
| always been terrible. In most cases, you can't even find
| an app by searching for it directly unless it's well-
| known like Netflix or Amazon. Even developers who have
| been "featured" over the years have reported a huge spike
| in traffic followed by an immediate fall-off and return
| to the same traffic numbers before the feature.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| These credit card fees are likely under 3% in the US. So
| taking 5% adds about 2% for convenience.
| supermatt wrote:
| Interchange fees for credit cards are about 1.5% + 10c.
| For debit cards its even less.
| vishnumohandas wrote:
| In addition to the bandwidth costs for serving the
| binaries, don't app stores have to deal with the same
| networks too for processing their in app payments? How are
| those any different from Stripe?
| [deleted]
| coder543 wrote:
| Stripe is 2.9% + 30C/, isn't it? What am I missing? I guess
| you're implying that these transactions are normally so small
| that the 30C/ raises it to above 5%? I think it really
| depends on your price structure.
| vishnumohandas wrote:
| It depends on where you are. International payments to
| India could cost up to 6.3% including currency conversion
| charges.
|
| https://stripe.com/en-in/pricing
| bogwog wrote:
| That's a nice fee structure, but honestly I don't care if
| Google and Apple increase the fee to 90% as long as there are
| alternative stores that can realistically compete against GPlay
| and the App Store.
|
| That means no scary warnings and endless dialogs filled with
| FUD about malware and stealing personal data, or requiring non-
| technical users to understand and enable a checkbox hidden deep
| inside the settings app, or dedicating full-time teams of
| security researchers to finding and irresponsibly disclosing
| vulnerabilities in competing stores, among other things.
|
| Because when there's competition, a fee structure like what the
| Microsoft Store has will naturally appear.
| danShumway wrote:
| Further evidence that developer pressure and legal pressure on
| smartphone platforms work, that they aren't a waste of time.
|
| Prolonged campaigns for better terms can make a tangible
| difference, and we should be encouraged by this result to
| advocate for even better terms. It turns out that when they have
| real pressure, it is possible for Google and Apple to come up
| with better terms.
|
| Keep in mind that the reason Google is being sued for antitrust
| isn't because it was taking 30% -- it's because it forced
| manufactures not to install or bundle any 3rd party stores by
| threatening to remove access to the Play store if any competing
| storefronts were enabled by default on consumer devices. So this
| doesn't change the original complaint, but it's still a very big
| win for smaller developers.
| nmfisher wrote:
| > Further evidence that developer pressure and legal pressure
| on smartphone platforms work, that they aren't a waste of time.
|
| Sure, if you're Epic. For the rest of us minnows, we just have
| to play the hand we're dealt.
| danShumway wrote:
| This change directly impacts minnows, it's a revenue cut for
| companies making _less_ than a million dollars, not more.
|
| And if your point is that it took a company as large as Epic
| raising a fuss to get that change, well... why should I care?
| It's still a change that will help smaller developers.
|
| Honestly, I don't get HN's position on this. When Epic sued,
| people complained that Epic was too big and progress would
| only be made if an ideologically pure company pushed for it.
| When conversation started talking about regulation, I heard
| people complain that it wasn't going to go anywhere and that
| regulators didn't care. Then when other companies like Hey
| and Microsoft started joining in making statements against
| current app store terms, people complained there weren't
| going to be any changes, that this was just a farce that
| would result in at best a backroom deal with Epic and/or
| Microsoft that wouldn't affect smaller devs.
|
| Now there's a tangible policy change that will have a _huge_
| impact on smaller devs, and the complaint is that the wrong
| company had a role in it? What do you want?
| nmfisher wrote:
| I'm not saying we don't benefit from it, or complaining
| about Epic's involvement. I'm just observing that this
| result came about solely because the interests of a
| behemoth (in Epic) happened to briefly coincide with ours.
| It's not like it was the result of a successful grass-roots
| campaign.
|
| The App/Play Stores are borderline anti-competitive due to
| the huge imbalance of power. A 30%->15% reduction doesn't
| change that. So while it's nice, the fundamental problem
| hasn't been solved.
|
| What do I want? Pretty simple. I don't want to run my
| business at the whims of two unaccountable monopolies, and
| I want the option of extricating myself from their
| ecosystem. Specifically, this means:
|
| - My choice of store/payment processor on both iOS and
| Google devices
|
| - a clear, impartial and independent review process that
| determines whether or not an app's removal from the
| "official" stores was legitimate.
|
| Ideally I'd also like direct installation ("sideloading")
| to be as simple as desktop software, but that's probably a
| bit of a reach.
| Tronno wrote:
| HN is not a hivemind, those were all different people with
| opposing views.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Surely that can't be right, Steve Ballmer once did a long
| dance number to convince me I was important to Microsoft.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| Honestly those making tens of millions deserve this even more
| from an economical perspective. There is cost of running the
| store but once you gross, say $100M, paying $30M to Google is
| kinda harsh.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Wow, it sure is a coincidence that its being cut to basically the
| same rate (though a different structuring) as Apple. First google
| independently came up with the 30% rate just like Apple did, and
| then they independently came up with 15% for the first $1M like
| Apple did.
| croes wrote:
| It has nothing to do with the antitrust lawsuits.
| jahmed wrote:
| I get the sarcasm but really its a duopoly game like a
| Stackleberg. The best move is to match and not try to undercut.
| fakedang wrote:
| This kind of price matching is the perfect definition of a
| duopoly.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Right. But you would never even know that another company
| existed reading their PR piece about how they're doing it for
| the developers.
| danShumway wrote:
| It is amazing how quickly "industry standard" prices can change
| after just one company deviates from them.
|
| It's almost like the standard wasn't ever set in stone or based
| on careful cost-benefit analysis to begin with.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Sounds more like a price-fixing cartel, and they are only
| acting now because they're afraid of anti-trust litigation.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| This is not good for the quality of apps, it is impossible for
| apple or google to review all the spying apps and ensure they can
| spy with the highest standards of quality, without withholding at
| lest 30% of the revenue of developers from bangladesh. We will be
| doomed by spammers and scammers now, what a shame (/s)
| es7 wrote:
| This is awesome news! I was just lamenting that my Play Store
| "earnings" are so much lower than my "revenue". This will help me
| as an indie developer make my app offerings a meaningfully larger
| part of my livelihood.
| shimfish wrote:
| What's also not being said here is that ~99% of apps on Google
| Play don't make money this way either.
|
| Due to a combination of Android user's reluctance to spend money
| on apps at all and the rampant piracy that Android's open model
| makes trivially easy, most developers only way to make money is
| through in-app advertising, which this change obviously makes no
| difference to.
|
| Google Play is mostly a pyramid scheme. Developer's can only make
| money from showing ads and at the same time can only get
| downloads if they place ads on other people's apps. And Google
| just happens to own all the mobile ad companies.
|
| This 15% cut ends up "costing" Google virtually nothing.
|
| And as for Google "helping developers build sustainable
| businesses", the only times they've ever reached out to me were
| to offer me the opportunity to have someone help me spend
| thousands of dollars a month on mobile ads. Never, for example,
| to actually take down all the scam apps that use my app's name,
| icon and screenshots.
| bottled_poe wrote:
| Client applications should be assumed to be insecure. If you're
| app doesn't load content from a secure (paid) backend, you're
| not going to make much money on the Play Store.
| dalu wrote:
| That's exactly one of the reasons, but a representative one,
| why Google needs to be broken apart
| eru wrote:
| Wouldn't more competition be the logical thing to ask for
| instead?
| ROARosen wrote:
| The first step in fostering a healthy competitive market is
| breaking down the monopoly, which is prob what the prev
| comment was suggesting.
| oblio wrote:
| More competition how?
|
| MS-DOS cornered the desktop market around 1981. It remained
| the dominant desktop OS, despite being an utter piece of
| crap OS and technologically obsolete even at the moment it
| was introduced, until around 1990, when it was overtaken by
| products from the same company, Windows 3.1 and later
| Windows 95.
|
| Windows 95 then took over in... 1995 :-) Windows is still
| the dominant desktop platform in 2021, and it will probably
| be for at least 1 more decade.
|
| Linux took over server environments around 2005, I think,
| and its still dominating in 2021. It will probably dominate
| for many decades more.
|
| Smartphone OSes are in the same place. Smartphones have
| matured, they're primarily slabs of glass/metal/plastic.
| You either get Android or you switch both hardware AND
| software and get iOS.
|
| Android is almost free for manufacturers and customers, so
| it's even worse than Windows. How is it ever going to be
| displaced? Keep in mind that not even beauties such as
| Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made
| much of a negative dent in the Windows marketshare.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Break Google's ad business off the company.
|
| It'll cause some churn, and a lot of Google stuff will
| die, but it needs to happen.
|
| Strangling the revenue pipe, while owning most platforms
| to ensure most people are forced through said pipe, is
| harmful to the greater internet ecosystem.
|
| Google does amazing, great things. But they're funding
| them by dumping toxic waste out the backdoor.
| pjmlp wrote:
| > MS-DOS cornered the desktop market around 1981.
|
| Sorry, but in what concerns Europe, the desktop market
| was split across boring PCs with MS-DOS, Atari and
| Amigas, and in 1986 the option was still between ZX
| Spectrum and Commodore descendants, with most people
| migrating to 16 bit desktop systems around 1990.
|
| In 1988, our computer club at the school just had a
| couple of newly bought Amstrad PC1512, where I got to
| play Defender of the Crown, with students having turns at
| the keyboard.
| kop316 wrote:
| > the rampant piracy that Android's open model makes trivially
| easy
|
| Respectfully, I would like a citation on this. How is piracy
| for Android any easier than say, Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux?
| nsomaru wrote:
| Why leave out the only actual platform that android competes
| with, iOS?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I don't think Android really significantly competes with
| iOS or vice versa. Android and iOS are almost entirely
| independent markets. The competition for Android devices is
| other Android devices. The competition for iOS
| devices...isn't.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That's an interesting take. I think you're right. I don't
| think that was the case 8 or so years ago, but I agree it
| appears that way now.
|
| (Anecdotal: gave my dad two hand-me-down iPhones. Because
| of the cost he was never going to buy one (on a fixed
| retirement income after all). Him and his wife having
| used iPhones now seem to have crossed over. I suppose
| I'll have to keep sending him over my old phones from now
| on.)
| kop316 wrote:
| Becuase I want to know if the reason they say piracy is
| easy is because users can install their own apps (which to
| me is a red herring, as Windows and Linux, this has been
| true for decades and there are established ways to curtail
| piracy[1]), or if there is actually a reason that piracy is
| easy on Android.
|
| [1]
| https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-
| Gabe...
| shimfish wrote:
| From 2015. No reason to believe things would have got better
| since then.
|
| https://venturebeat.com/2015/01/05/monument-valley-
| developer...
| kop316 wrote:
| > How is piracy for Android any easier than say, Windows,
| Mac OS X, or Linux?
|
| I'm not arguing if it is easier, I am asking how is it
| easier? That article does not answer how.
| why_Mr_Anderson wrote:
| Aren't APK files simply java .jar packaged together? It's
| trivial to _fully_ decompile java binary (bytecode)
| directly to source code.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Google offers protection via obfuscation. I've seen the
| results of its decompilation and it's practically
| useless.
| pja wrote:
| I guess the point is that of the two main mobile platforms,
| it's much easier to pirate Android Apps than iPhone Apps.
|
| Desktops are a whole different kettle of fish, which is why
| profitable companies have (mostly) given up on selling
| software & are making money via SaaS approaches on desktop.
| necovek wrote:
| That's most likely _not_ [1] why software companies like
| AutoDesk, Adobe or Microsoft (with Office365) are moving
| towards a SaaS model: regular monthly payments add up to
| more than one-time licenses, and provide a more predictable
| revenue stream.
|
| Market was willing to accept that, so there was no reason
| for them not to do it.
|
| [1] Citations missing for my claims too! :)
| [deleted]
| LatteLazy wrote:
| 99% of YouTube channels, Facebook pages, personal websites,
| Flickr users etc don't make money. Sometimes people just like
| doing things and sharing. That doesn't make it a pyramid
| scheme: no one is cheating anyone and people are just building
| and sharing.
| yccheok wrote:
| I am indie developer who makes and sales apps on Android. I can
| tell you this is not true. Users are willing to pay for good
| apps.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Honestly not even that- I have blokada so no ads for me.
|
| But I do wonder if the problem doesn't lie in the fact that
| there are 5000000 apps and yours is just 5000001 that nobody is
| going to use. App market seems saturated.
| duxup wrote:
| >Google Play is mostly a pyramid scheme. Developer's can only
| make money from showing ads and at the same time can only get
| downloads if they place ads on other people's apps. And Google
| just happens to own all the mobile ad companies.
|
| Most businesses fail because they don't get customers... that
| doesn't make starting a business a pyramid scheme.
|
| App stores are super saturated with apps, there's the reason
| you can't make money. If you can't and choose to use ads ...
| that's your business decision...
|
| Sometimes I think the issue of fees and other issues including
| poor customer service from google gets tied up with the
| difficulty of even just making any money on the play store / a
| whole glut of apps that straight up most won't make money no
| matter what happens.
| criddell wrote:
| I've always wondered what it is about Android that makes users
| reluctant to pay for apps. I'm guilty of it too. I have both
| iOS and Android devices and I spend far more money buying apps
| on my iOS device.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Aren't there fewer free apps to choose in iOS? They charge
| $100 per year to be a developer. That's kept me from making
| my apps multiplatform.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| How many places are you going to restart this same well
| trod argument?
|
| I wouldn't say anything except this is twice you've brought
| this up out of the blue under one thread that I've seen and
| this isn't even talking about the Apple ecosystem.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The structure of the ecosystem precludes some free apps
| from being listed for iOS. That structure seems to
| incentivize app makers to monetize, which could explain
| why people spend more on iOS apps.
| nsomaru wrote:
| Is the $100 fee really the difference and is it comparable
| with the man hours you would spend porting?
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's absolutely the fee. I can't see paying $100 every
| year just to let other people use my apps that's $1k over
| a decade!). If it were a one-time fee like Google, then I
| would have done it.
| criddell wrote:
| There's no shortage of apps of any kind in Apple's store as
| far as I can see. I would say the same is true of the Play
| store. There are some exclusives on each platform though,
| but nothing without competitor.
|
| FWIW, I avoid free apps and apps with subscriptions as much
| as I can.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You can buy an Android phone for $25 in the US, and much of
| the rest of the world is completely priced out of buying apps
| or subscriptions. There are many people who use Android
| phones because they're affordable, but they can't afford to
| buy apps, though.
| runevault wrote:
| IMO it is because Apple got people used to buying on iTunes
| when it was only music. Apple's put the effort in to get
| people used to purchasing digital goods from them. Google's
| focus has always been ads first so they never created the
| same mindshare around expecting to purchase software from
| them, at least not at the consumer level.
| bookmarkable wrote:
| Trust. Any experienced marketer will tell you that is the
| most difficult part of securing a transaction. Whether
| Android users and fans agree or not, the purchase behavior on
| iOS vs Android mirrors any other comparison of luxury or
| near-luxury shopping behavior compared to lower rent shopping
| options.
|
| The rent is higher to get in to the AppStore, too, given you
| need a $100/year subscription and a Mac. Apple keenly
| understands aspirational marketing and it trickles down to
| apps.
|
| Of course Android has millions of users that simply can't
| afford to buy apps, but even among those that can, it is a
| psychological difference.
| criddell wrote:
| > Of course Android has millions of users that simply can't
| afford to buy apps
|
| I think the portion of Android users that can't afford to
| buy an app is very, very small. It's no where near big
| enough to explain the difference between the two platforms.
|
| > but even among those that can, it is a psychological
| difference
|
| I think so too. Even people who are able to spend a dollar
| or two on an app are unwilling.
| Saris wrote:
| I do that as well.
|
| If it's true or not, I don't know. But my impression from
| using both platforms daily is that iOS paid apps are higher
| quality, in both design/looks and performance.
| leetcrew wrote:
| pure speculation, but I doubt there's some intrinsic quality
| of android that _makes_ users reluctant to pay for apps. more
| likely, people that are very price sensitive are more likely
| to have an android phone to begin with. the cheapest new
| iphone is already $400. while it may not be a good long-term
| value, you can buy an android phone for $50.
| criddell wrote:
| I think there is some intrinsic quality of Android hardware
| and software. It might be that it's from Google and so it
| feels like ever swipe and tap is monetized in some way. Or
| maybe it's the latency of the display and the way so many
| apps have display issues that makes everything feel second
| tier.
|
| Apple's stuff feels better in the hand and I think that
| makes a user more willing to invest in it.
| leetcrew wrote:
| meh. the apple hardware and fit/finish is unquestionably
| better, but neither platform offers anything that I
| personally want to "invest" in past the purchase price of
| a serviceable phone. google doesn't respect my privacy,
| but apple doesn't respect my judgement.
| freeflight wrote:
| Ease of access to piracy could play a big role. I haven't
| looked into this for a long time, but last I checked an
| iPhone needs to be jailbroken to side-load anything not from
| the AppStore.
|
| While with Android even with most default roms it's just a
| matter of changing one setting in the options and
| transferring the pirated apk file to the device to launch it.
|
| A much more straight-forward process with Android devices vs
| iOS devices and piracy strives on convenience.
| jeswin wrote:
| > Due to a combination of Android user's reluctance to spend
| money on apps at all and the rampant piracy that Android's open
| model makes trivially easy
|
| Ridiculous allegation, which doesn't take into account the
| wealth inequality around the world. Hundreds of millions of
| people in the developing world have a smartphone today due to
| Android; a $1000 phone, or even a $400 phone is way out of
| reach for them.
|
| So the "reluctance to spend money on apps" is that it's a
| choice between that and food on the table.
|
| Also, very few people are side-loading apps - the rest are too
| tech illiterate to make that happen.
|
| Add: I responded to your post because you're calling Google
| Play a "pyramid scheme". From fisherfolk trying to sell at
| optimal prices to daily labourers hunting for jobs, you've no
| idea how many people are enabled by the platform and its apps.
| watwut wrote:
| > So the "reluctance to spend money on apps" is that it's a
| choice between that and food on the table.
|
| Sometimes yes. But also, spending money on apps you dont need
| is not virtue. For that matter, spending money on stuff you
| dont need is not virtue in general.
| aviraldg wrote:
| Thank you for bringing this up. I find HN's obsession with
| getting rid of ads and replacing them with paid subscriptions
| disappointing for this reason. While everything is ad
| supported, it is easier for users in developing nations (like
| my country of origin) to afford services subsidised by users
| in wealthier nations (the ads the former group see are
| probably worth much less anyway, due to their limited
| purchasing power.) When services switch to a paid
| subscription model, this is much harder to justify since end
| users can see price differences across markets and will often
| try to use accounts in other reasons to get cheaper prices
| (Steam prices are the best example here.)
|
| The existence of ad supported apps and services and free
| software is what allowed me to teach myself programming and
| graphic design in school. In HN's dream world of hundreds of
| dollars of SaaS subscriptions, this would not have been
| possible, or certainly more difficult.
|
| Disclaimer: I work for Google
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Why should we be willing to subsidize developing countries
| with our attention? My obsession with creating subscription
| models instead of ad-supported is entirely based on my
| unwillingness to pay with attention any further.
| aviraldg wrote:
| See my other comment - subsidize it directly, if you can
| make it work with subscription models; I don't care. It's
| just that from what I've seen so far, this is harder to
| do with subscription models and so often not done at all.
|
| As for why you should do this: the opportunities created
| this way are good for everyone in the long term. See: all
| the companies started and being led by people from
| developing nations, in developed ones.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I think it's going to be a really tough sell to convince
| me or anyone else that we should pay more in cash or
| attention for products to subsidize developing nations.
| We've been doing it for decades on things like tech and
| pharmaceuticals and it seems like people are getting
| tired of sacrificing for the rest of the world.
| csa wrote:
| > The existence of ad supported apps and services and free
| software is what allowed me to teach myself programming and
| graphic design in school.
|
| I don't know what country you are from, but I'm guessing
| the "free" vastly outweighed the "ad supported".
| Furthermore, given the low ad revenue in developing
| countries, an organization seeking money probably could
| have gotten just as much by seeking a government grant or
| funding from a non-profit/NGO, and the whole process
| probably would have been easier in terms of securing
| revenue as well as app design (i.e., not having to design
| the app around ads).
|
| I appreciate what you are saying broadly, but google ads
| doesn't seem like the optimal way to facilitate this type
| of information creation and dissemination in developing
| countries.
|
| Furthermore, Google has shifted from having "don't be evil"
| as part of their code of conduct to straight up doing evil
| things. Trying to dress these actions up as being a boon
| for the developing world is approaching if not reaching the
| level of being a corporate shill. Again, there are better
| and probably easier ways to do this other than kowtowing to
| the Googlith.
| aviraldg wrote:
| > I don't know what country you are from, but I'm
| guessing the "free" vastly outweighed the "ad supported".
| Furthermore, given the low ad revenue in developing
| countries, an organization seeking money probably could
| have gotten just as much by seeking a government grant or
| funding from a non-profit/NGO, and the whole process
| probably would have been easier in terms of securing
| revenue as well as app design (i.e., not having to design
| the app around ads).
|
| I agree, a hypothetical universe with paid apps
| subsidised for students and for people from developing
| nations would be better, but I haven't seen this happen
| in practice (and it's difficult for the reasons I
| mentioned before - it's hard to ensure that it isn't
| abused.)
|
| > I appreciate what you are saying broadly, but google
| ads doesn't seem like the optimal way to facilitate this
| type of information creation and dissemination in
| developing countries.
|
| I said nothing about Google Ads in my comment - the best
| example of an ad subsidised service that helped in this
| context would be Stack Overflow, who, AFAIK run their own
| ad network.
|
| > Furthermore, Google has shifted from having "don't be
| evil" as part of their code of conduct to straight up
| doing evil things. Trying to dress these actions up as
| being a boon for the developing world is approaching if
| not reaching the level of being a corporate shill. Again,
| there are better and probably easier ways to do this
| other than kowtowing to the Googlith.
|
| I just wanted to share my personal experience here in the
| hope that folks here take the users I mentioned into
| account - whether that's through an ad supported business
| model, or subscription based business models that are
| affordable for them.
| toddmorey wrote:
| You are talking about a target market's ability to pay, which
| is a real and important consideration.
|
| I think shimfish is talking more about a market's
| _willingness_ to pay, which is a very different
| consideration. You can absolutely poison an otherwise viable
| marketplace by setting the buyer expectation to be free.
|
| I think "reluctance to spend money on apps" is a big problem
| on Google Play outside of the population that must chose
| between a $5 app and food on the table. I've just seen a lot
| of grumbling among even affluent people about dropping a few
| dollars on an app when they'll easily spend 3x as much on a
| single drink. That's a problem in the perception of value.
|
| I wonder if app prices could be more on a sliding scale by
| geography? Has that been tried?
| shimfish wrote:
| Google Play (unlike Apple) allow you to set prices by
| country.
|
| I don't think the precise pricing is so much the issue
| though. It's more free vs not free.
| shimfish wrote:
| I make kids apps.
|
| Firstly, I'm not sure the struggling to survive demographic
| are the ones giving devices to their children.
|
| Secondly, kids (and adults for that matter) have been
| conditioned by the market to expect software for free. You
| can read all my reviews on Google Play to see how offended
| they are that stuff isn't free, with some even moaning that
| there should be video ads that will unlock the app for 30
| minutes.
|
| Thirdly, I've seen YouTube videos made by kids specifically
| giving instructions how to download my apps for free. In
| fact, generally you just need to sideload just one
| "alternative app store" and you're good to go. This isn't
| rocket science. It's following a few simple steps that aren't
| hard to find.
|
| Finally, I'm making broad generalisations about the vast
| majority of app store activity. The existence of fisherfolk
| isn't relevant here. I know people are enabled by the App
| Store existing. I've been lucky enough to live comfortably
| for the past decade _entirely_ because App Stores exist. I 'm
| merely offering a few thoughts from the perspective of a long
| term app developer that some people may not have realised.
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| > struggling to survive demographic are the ones giving
| devices to their children.
|
| You will be surprised. It is common for India to own a
| smartphone but not a toilet. IT is also common for the
| entire family to use the same smartphone and as the working
| dad returns home the kid jumps on his phone to play his/her
| favourite game.
| Mc_Big_G wrote:
| Do you see a difference with the Apple App Store?
| shimfish wrote:
| For my latest app, which is free with in-app purchase
| area unlocks...
|
| Google Play: 10 times the amount of downloads than Apple
| Store
|
| Apple Store: 2.5 times the income of Google Play.
|
| Reviews on Google Play frequently mention how everything
| should be unlocked for free. Apple reviews seem to focus
| more on what extra content they would like to see.
|
| Piracy on my paid apps seemed to be way, way higher on
| Android.
| hashingroll wrote:
| Have you tried switching to the ads model on Android
| (like suggested by your app's Android feedback/reviews)?
| I am curious if that would increase your revenue from
| Android users and somewhat lower piracy?
| atleta wrote:
| I think the platform makes little difference. The app
| store/play store app game is a long tail one: most apps make
| exactly 0 money and see very little traction.
| kyrra wrote:
| (googler opinions are my own)
|
| At least according to this site[0], Google play moves $38B,
| while Apple moves $72B (annually). So people are spending money
| on Google play, just less. But I also believe more people have
| android phones vs iPhones, so that dilutes the per person
| revenue even more.
|
| [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/444476/google-play-
| annua...
| distances wrote:
| Apple has much stricter requirements on payments outside the
| apps though, is that considered in the numbers? If you can
| get direct payments from Google customers but have to go
| through Apple and give a slice in their platform, that would
| mean the higher store revenue number is actually partly
| squeezed from the developers instead of profiting them.
| bluesign wrote:
| Android phones are approx. 2.5x more than Apple phones
| worldwide
|
| Also Play store has 1.5x more apps.
|
| So almost 8x difference for developers. (per person)
| zucker42 wrote:
| What's difference in average cost of an Android phone
| versus an iPhone?
| bluesign wrote:
| Huge, but in the end metric is revenue per user. Luckily
| game engines targeting both automatically, otherwise
| Android would suffer much.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Different demographics use iPhone than Android. There are
| more Android devices in the world than iOS ones but people
| with greater purchasing power use iPhone that's why there is
| such a big difference in revenues of App Store and Google
| Play.
| WA wrote:
| This is not true. Yes, Android users tend to pay less for apps,
| but useful apps that provide daily utility actually make good
| money as well.
|
| If you have a brand-name app like Runtastic, Netflix, Headspace
| or whatever, the platform doesn't really matter. You buy the
| product, because you want it.
|
| It's probably different for utility apps like a different
| Camera, a photo editor, small productivity apps you need only
| once per month.
|
| I'm happy about this change and it will definitely affect my
| bottom line in the range of several thousand euro per month -
| and I'm an indie dev.
|
| Edit: I just looked it up and calculated the difference. I will
| make roughly 17,000EUR more per year through this change.
| shimfish wrote:
| I'll also make more because of it. I'm just saying that it
| won't make that much difference to the vast majority of
| developers.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Yeah but that comment is kind of ignoring the segment for
| whom it does matter...
|
| There are tons of free crappy apps on Android, but for the
| ones that generate moderate value and are paid for because
| they are functional apps and not games or ad-ridden
| networking apps then this is a huge change.
|
| The "vast majority" of developers might just not be making
| apps that benefit from this but its a bit misleading to say
| this isn't a good change or helpful. If anything it will
| incentivize people to perhaps look into developing more
| away from an ad model into a sustainable paid model (given
| the margins just got 100% better)
| johnx123-up wrote:
| Congrats. What app is this?
| snappieT wrote:
| Congrats on the 17,000EUR - happy to hear that this change
| puts that kind of money into "small" app developer's pockets.
| sidlls wrote:
| It is just true. Compared to the only other major mobile app
| ecosystem, Android users are relatively cheap. That doesn't
| mean nobody pays or that nobody who distributes an app earns
| money through purchases. It just means that on Android it's a
| smaller group than on, say, Apple.
| ehsankia wrote:
| It's pretty straight forward. Users buying phones that cost
| $250 on average [1] will also spend less money on apps that
| users buying phones that cost on average closer to $700.
|
| That being said, worldwide Apple only has 20% of the market
| now so while the average user is cheaper, there are quite a
| bit more users. That's probably why ad-based monetization
| also works a lot better on Android (more users).
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/951537/worldwide-
| average...
| andechs wrote:
| I'd actually argue that Android users have more options,
| thus the market price for apps is reduced by the amount of
| supply.
|
| When you're looking for a "Todo" app, there's 1000's on
| Android, and many or most are free. Many people might be
| better served by a quality app, but when the alternatives
| are good enough, it's a hard sell.
| [deleted]
| smeyer wrote:
| >Android users have more options
|
| > When you're looking for a "Todo" app, there's 1000's on
| Android, and many or most are free.
|
| There are also a massive number of "Todo" apps on the
| Apple app store. Searching for numbers online seems to
| indicate that there are about 50% more apps total on the
| Google play store than the Apple app store, but for the
| more common use cases that still means massive numbers of
| choices on each store, both free and paid.
| canadianfella wrote:
| What piracy?
| holoduke wrote:
| Not true. I have multiple successful apps. Didn't spend a
| single dollar on marketing.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| You're blaming piracy? Color me incredibly skeptical.
|
| How about occam's razor instead: people who buy cheaper phones
| have less cash to spend on "premium" apps.
| shimfish wrote:
| Why is that a simpler theory than "why pay when it's
| incredibly simple to download for free"?
|
| https://venturebeat.com/2015/01/05/monument-valley-
| developer...
| davidkuennen wrote:
| Actually this change helps me a lot with my app. This reduction
| will pay for servers and data sources alone, which helps me
| 'build a sustainable business'.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Piracy isn't google's fault. It's a byproduct of having a
| system that is at least a little bit more open than others like
| iOS. This isn't munch different than the situation developers
| face with piracy on a PC.
|
| Otherwise, this is a big win for small developers. Most
| developers probably don't approach the $1M cap, and all of them
| will see their fees drastically reduced.
|
| Of course I'm cynical enough to view this mostly as a defensive
| measure against monopoly concerns, but that doesn't mean
| there's no benefit for many developers.
|
| What do you believe, with respect to the app store, would be a
| more developer-friendly change? I'd like to see then allow
| developers to use different payment providers and not fight
| against alternate app stores that much. However for things that
| go through the play store even with a different payment
| provider, I think Google deserves some small cut for hosting
| all these apps and providing the platform. Something like a
| one-time fee for all paid apps or apps with paid content. It
| seems reasonable to pay them for use of their infrastructure in
| some form. Apps that make use of less of it-- like not using
| it's payment system-- would pay less.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| iOS is full of the same free ad-supported games that seem to
| solely advertise other free ad-supported games. I wouldn't be
| surprised if Google own all the ad companies they're using too
| since Apple ditched iAds.
| giantg2 wrote:
| At least they aren't charging $100 per year to be a developer
| like Apple does. I would have liked to make my apps
| multiplatform, but it just doesn't make sense at that price.
|
| Edit: It's great to see that this platform likes downvoting
| people who release their software for free. Profit matters
| above all else. I guess next you all will tell me my job is
| worthless and I suck at life because I make under $100k.
| askafriend wrote:
| The $100 a year ensures that trash doesn't litter the App
| Store and also supports the ongoing development of tooling
| and management of the store (manual review, Xcode,
| documentation, distribution, APIs like Metal, etc).
|
| If you're not committed enough to releasing something with
| >$100 in value or not committed to releasing something high
| quality, the App Store doesn't need you or your app - period.
|
| As a user (and as a dev), I like this. The bar does not need
| to be lower.
|
| Also if you look at a platform like Unity, the Hobbyist
| license is $25 a month and the Pro license is $125 a month.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _The $100 a year ensures that trash doesn't litter the
| App Store_
|
| And yet I found a half of a dozen Chinese knockoff
| BonziBuddy clones on the Mac App Store.
| macintux wrote:
| > The $100 a year ensures that trash doesn't litter the App
| Store
|
| As an Apple fan, I really wish that were true.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I think that if you were to round up 100 people off the
| street and take their phones they all have more or less
| the same apps on them.
|
| 90% of what you find in the app stores of Google and
| Apple is fluff.
| briandear wrote:
| If $100/yr is too much, then it's very likely your app isn't
| profitable. A person doesn't say "I would sell my product at
| Target, but spending money on gas to deliver it to their
| distribution center is too expensive."
|
| Literally, it's $8.33 per month to be a part of the Apple
| Developer program. If your app isn't making that much in a
| month, then your app isn't very good or you're bad at
| business. No disrespect intended, but $8.33 as a cost of
| doing business is so trivial as to not even be worth mention.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Or maybe I released it as _free_ software.
| sidlls wrote:
| Application software such as this shouldn't be free. It
| hides the true cost to developers from consumers and, if
| they're ad supported hooks into one of the most
| insidious, malicious systems we've ever devised.
|
| I won't work on free software. I have too much respect
| for myself, my family, and my colleagues to do that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| They were simple apps made for learning and to improve my
| resume.
|
| I happen to like FOSS. It's voluntary after all. I have a
| bigger issue with how the industry interviews and
| assesses employees.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Application software such as this shouldn't be free_
|
| Who are you to tell someone how they should or shouldn't
| spend their free time?
| manigandham wrote:
| Most apps don't make any money, in fact that's what started
| this particular thread. Many apps are also free.
|
| And $8/month is not trivial for billions of people.
| Consider yourself fortunate that you're not one of them,
| but it's useful to have a more global perspective when
| discussing the accessibility of a major platform.
| withinboredom wrote:
| But it does mean that your app needs to make $8.33 a month,
| whether via ads, in-app purchases, cost of the app, or all
| of the above. On Android, an app doesn't have a floor. You
| could make a free app, with no ads, and not have to make
| any money.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I think this is an over-attribution of this cost. Even if
| you release the same app for nothing, and that cost went
| away, your overwhelming cost would still be your time,
| and the value of that time. $8.33/mo isn't even a
| rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
|
| What it does do is pay for all the app store
| infrastructure, IDE development, etc etc, so your choice
| to release something for nothing doesn't externalise
| those costs on others.
| tapirl wrote:
| > If your app isn't making that much in a month, then your
| app isn't very good or you're bad at business.
|
| Yes, many indie developers are bad at business, but they
| made good apps. Their month sells might one or two. They
| pay the $99 to Apples per year just to prevent their apps
| from being removed App Store.
| quesera wrote:
| I pay $100/yr to keep a few free apps (no in-app purchases,
| no ads, no commercialization attempts at all) in the App
| Store. I get emails all the time from people who want to
| buy the apps and ruin them.
|
| I've been doing this for about ten years.
|
| Now, my development time is worth a lot more than the
| accumulated $1000. But it's free time, and I volunteer it.
|
| I also recognize the value of $100/yr as a "bozo filter" to
| Apple. But every year when they auto-bill me, I read the
| email and think about how it also excludes lots of good
| people from participating in iOS development.
|
| It'd be great if there was a "NCA" class of app. No
| commercialization allowed. Always free, never ads, no in-
| app purchases ever. If all of your apps are NCA, your
| developer fee would be waived. This is probably too
| complicated for an Apple product though. :) And I think
| alternate App Stores or side-loading would be a net
| negative for the platform. So I pay.
| hertzrat wrote:
| I read a few years ago that only about 0.01% of Android
| apps make enough money to cover development costs. It
| isn't the end of the world if there were slightly less
| competition driving down peoples revenues
| sidlls wrote:
| If it doesn't make sense at $100/year, your apps just don't
| make enough to matter to your budget at all anyhow.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Of course it doesn't make money - it's _free_. It doesn 't
| have ads either.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I'd love to see that if your app was free with no ads,
| you didn't have to pay for a dev account.
| edoceo wrote:
| Same, help my FOSS projects out!
| MajorBee wrote:
| Presumably this would result in a flood of "free" apps
| that are nothing more than facades for scams (e.g. a fun
| personality/quiz app -- look ma, no ads! -- that makes
| you reveal your secret questions and answers).
|
| Maintaining the integrity of an app store is a very non-
| trivial task, and building an entry barrier in the form
| of developer fees is one way of doing it. Not saying this
| is the only solution or even a particularly good one, but
| every solution will have its share of unintended
| consequences and exploited armor chinks. Making dev
| accounts free for no-ads would be an interesting
| experiment, though. I'd support it for science!
| manigandham wrote:
| This discussion is about how the vast majority of apps
| don't make any money. What needs to make sense for that
| completely arbitrary fee?
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Thank you Epic Games.
| matsemann wrote:
| > To aid their quest for growth we provide a broad range of
| support, (...)
|
| Funny that it then goes on to list lots of stuff where no human
| support is actually involved. The support developers want is to
| get a person to talk to when Google's algorithms ban their app or
| account for no reason and wrecks their business.
| shimfish wrote:
| I've been trying for ages to get Google to take down spam/scam
| apps that use my apps name and screenshots but just add "tips"
| or "guide" to pretend they're legit.
|
| Nothing doing. Still about 50 imitation apps that come up in
| their search when looking for my app.
| ecmascript wrote:
| While this is good, 15% is still a crazy unreasonable amount that
| makes me completely unwilling to create an app for these shitty
| companies.
|
| I urge everyone to simply just develop web apps and it will be
| competitive enough.
| shoo wrote:
| I'm curious to estimate how much google's app store revenue would
| be decreased by this change in fee structure. Can anyone share
| accurate statistics on the distribution of app revenue per google
| play developer?
|
| I'm not familiar with the app dev business. There's a 2016 post
| from Mike Sonders about ios and android game revenue [1] that
| suggests that app revenue is extremely skewed, to the extent that
| 0.3% of apps in the category of top 500 action games accrue over
| 90% of the revenue. I.e. the top 1 or top 2 games out of the _top
| 500 games_ in the category get 90% of the revenue.
|
| If the same relationship holds for other categories, that
| suggests that the bottom 99.7% of the app distribution accounts
| for at most 10% of play store revenue, so cutting fees by 50% for
| the bottom 99% of developers would reduce google's rake by at
| most 5%.
|
| [1] https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-
| reve...
| chiaki123 wrote:
| Very good! Love Google
| rvnx wrote:
| This is a very good change
| Ploskin wrote:
| I always felt the discussion being focused on the platform tax to
| be a distraction. Sure, now app developers make more. Great.
| Doesn't change how unresponsive or draconian Google (and Apple)
| is in when they decide you aren't allowed to be on their Play
| Store anymore. Or how arbitrarily they choose to enforce their
| rules.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The elephant in the room is Google and Apple's duopoly in
| mobile app distribution, which is the cause of the two problems
| in your post.
| Ploskin wrote:
| Something which is inevitable. It's hard to turn back the
| clock on something like this and I don't see any obvious
| solution for it, which is why both companies need to be
| regulated heavily to ensure they treat app developers fairly.
| If they're going to monopolize their own platforms, then
| whoever wants to sell on that platform needs to have
| guarantees that they aren't arbitrarily banned and that they
| have sane avenues to dispute any conflicts with Google or
| Apple. This is what regulation is for, to ensure fair
| marketplaces.
| chiaki123 wrote:
| Check out Apple's margins for their services unit. Not sure of if
| Google publishes this data, but they may.
| giantg2 wrote:
| My apps are free, so...
| [deleted]
| jmsflknr wrote:
| Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26477802
| pvg wrote:
| It's not an HN dupe if there hasn't been any discussion
| tener wrote:
| I think it is also likely that >1M$ developers can start
| negotiating custom agreements. Hard to say how much exactly is
| their negotiating power in that case, but it is probably non-
| zero.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| This is compared to Apple's program where you have to make less
| than $1M to qualify the next/current year for 15%. Makes much
| more sense.
| addicted wrote:
| I'm glad Google didn't choose the unnecessarily convoluted and
| worse solution Apple did that only adds more bureaucracy.
| psaux wrote:
| " The App Store's standard commission rate of 30 percent
| remains in place for apps selling digital goods and services
| and making more than $1 million in proceeds, defined as a
| developer's post-commission earnings" [1]
|
| What is convoluted and worse? I am not a mobile Dev at this
| time, just going by what I see online.
|
| Edit: [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-
| announces-app-s...
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| If you make $999k in revenue, you will receive almost $850k
| in profit. If you make $1000k in revenue, you will instead
| receive $700k in profit. You're strangely incentivized to
| completely shut down your app as you approach the 1000k mark,
| unless you're confident you'll make it past the 1200k mark,
| where it's worth it again. Silly system.
| rabuse wrote:
| That does seem terrible. It should be bracketed how our
| taxes are, honestly.
| [deleted]
| psaux wrote:
| Thank you, great information. Those incentives then have to
| change. I wrote a few apps back in the day, and 30% seemed
| high, but I never hit over $100k in rev. I was hoping the
| little guy who scaled would have won here.
| amelius wrote:
| Wealth distribution is exponential, meaning almost nobody
| will fall in the small revenue gap you mentioned.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| Until you're that somebody, and then you make a post
| about it and it blows up on HN.
| shimfish wrote:
| Not strictly true.
|
| Your earnings after the first 1M in a calendar year will
| become subject to 30%. Your earnings before that aren't
| affected.
|
| However, you are then kicked out of the program for the
| whole following year and can only reapply for the year
| after that if the next year's earnings are under 1M.
| ksec wrote:
| It is not automatic, you need to enrol into the programme.
|
| It only work for first year, subsequent year revert back to
| 30% if your previous year exceed $1M. ( the 1,000,000.01
| problem )
|
| Google also has a much more flexible definition of Services,
| Teaching to a group of Students via Video Call is not
| considered as Digital Services as on Apple App Store, and
| hence requires 30% of commission when signing up. ( And since
| been exempt after bad PRs )
| nfin wrote:
| 1) Can you can explain what "And since been exempt after
| bad PRs"?
|
| Does Apple does not charge for Teaching to a group of
| students anymore?
|
| 2) and is "teaching to a group of students" just an example
| for teaching to groups, or does it really only apply to
| students and to groups, but not when teaching to one person
| interested in guitar for example?
|
| Thanks! PS: any good ressources that distill such App Store
| & digital services? (even better would be also comparing
| them)
| nindalf wrote:
| Apple will hopefully realise how silly their system is. The
| way Google is doing it makes much more sense.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| When 0% first $1m? How much of a hit are they taking from 15%?
| colechristensen wrote:
| Google isn't going to pay your card processing fees for you,
| and there is a nonzero cost to hosting and moderating the
| absolutely enormous number of apps that get nearly 0 revenue.
| SilverRed wrote:
| I think 30% is actually perfectly fine for what they offer.
| Unlike on iOS, google gives you the option to opt out and
| distribute your own app with your own payments.
|
| 30% seems like a reasonable fee but the problem is when you
| are forced to pay it. As a small dev I'm happy to pay 30% for
| what is a great value. A company like netflix probably
| doesn't see as much value when the cost of doing their own
| payment processing becomes cheaper.
| hanniabu wrote:
| They already have 0% for the first $0, don't be greedy. /s
| SilverRed wrote:
| Well there was a $15 sign up fee last I checked (although
| last I checked was close to 10 years ago).
| skizm wrote:
| This would have accounted for around 5% of the Play Store's
| revenue if applied for 2020:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/google-apple-giving-up-less-...
| ehsankia wrote:
| Giving 5% of your revenue (not profit) right back into the
| pockets of smaller developers seems pretty great overall. Did
| people expect them to cut their revenue in half?
| skizm wrote:
| I expected nothing, just providing context. I agree this is
| very positive and costs Apple and Google very little. Seems
| like a win win.
| hanniabu wrote:
| I feel like they're feeling the pressure for a potential
| incumbent to come in and disrupt the market they've cornered.
| Who's in the best position to take a run on this? Or do you think
| it'd more likely to come from a new player?
| colechristensen wrote:
| I feel like they are fearing antitrust actions in Europe and
| the US - and getting broken apart so pieces of themselves will
| be competing with other pieces.
| lovedswain wrote:
| They're only thing they're feeling is the pressure of multiple
| regulators analysing the fine print
| dbrgn wrote:
| TLDR: Out of your firsts million dollars in yearly revenue that
| you make on Google Play, Google stoped billing you 300'000$ and
| now only bills you 150'000$. And they frame it in a way that
| suggests empowerment and goodwill.
|
| Seriously, when did fees of 15-30% for a service that you
| essentially cannot avoid as a software publisher become
| acceptable?
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| While I agree with you, most countries charge that and more in
| unavoidable taxes.
|
| The difference being that you can choose not to partecipate in
| their private stores (eg. develop on the web) but it's much
| harder to escape taxes.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Shouldn't this be inverted? Small devs with unknown apps have
| more to gain from play store's distribution, and won't mind
| paying 30% of a smaller revenue in exchange for all the help.
|
| Bigger apps like Netflix are already doing their own advertising
| and marketing and have close to zero to gain from play store. And
| they will be making a large amount of revenue. According to this
| they will have to pay 30% of a larger amount.
|
| It feels backwards.
| howinteresting wrote:
| As an exertion of raw power, yes, it would be inverted. But we
| live in a world where maximal exertion of raw power is looked
| down upon.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Don't most products and services offer a volume discount? Or
| something equivalent? I don't understand why the equation is
| reversed in this case. Does google not offer volume discounts
| to their big GCP customers? Is that also "looked down upon"?
| howinteresting wrote:
| Often there's an inverted U shaped curve, where startups
| and very large customers get discounts but medium-size
| customers don't.
| adanto6840 wrote:
| Valve [Steam] does this "inverted" model, as of ~ December
| 2018... It wasn't overly well-received on the PR front --
| though I do suspect that it earned them a decent bit of AAA
| title/publisher credit, heh.
|
| Realistically, that's probably where much of the money is at;
| if anything, props to them for getting away with it.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| They had to do this because instead of regulatory pressure,
| they were feeling the opposite: Competitive options in the PC
| market. With Steam's high cut, any publisher large enough to
| make their own launcher should would be _incredibly stupid_
| not to do so, which is why Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda,
| Epic, etc. all have their own launchers now. And some of them
| have, or could, start selling third party titles as well.
|
| Valve is presumably hoping giving these large publishers a
| deal will cause them to reevaluate the effort in developing
| and maintaining their own storefronts.
|
| ...In otherwords, it's also an anticompetitive play, it's
| just the one that makes sense in Valve's particular monopoly
| space.
| dleslie wrote:
| Ah yes, the nuisance launchers that hardly anyone wants or
| uses.
| croes wrote:
| Small devs gain neraly nothing from the App stores because
| their apps get lost in the masses. If they do have a successful
| app, they are immediately copied and they can't afford to fight
| it. And now they are supposed to give away 30% of the little
| income? How many percent of app developers achieve a revenue of
| 1 million?
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I see your logic, kind of. But if I abstract the reasoning it
| might be recast something like this:
|
| Poorer citizens with unknown prospects have more to gain from
| the government's services, and won't mind paying 30% of their
| earnings for all that help.
|
| Wealthier citizens like Bezos and Musk are already taking care
| of their own garbage, lobbying, education, protection and who
| knows what else and have close to zero to gain from government
| services.
|
| I'll withhold judgement. It's certainly an unconventional
| argument to make in a world where progressive tax rates are the
| conventional norm. But we do live in interesting times.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| This is not a tax imposed by a government, though. This is a
| service provided by a business to another business. There
| have always been wholesale prices and volume discounts if you
| buy in larger quantities. I see many people are comparing
| this to a tax, why?
| travisgriggs wrote:
| It's not a service, because it's not something I can elect
| to purchase or not purchase. I have to pay this royalty to
| be allowed to participate here. That is a tax. If this were
| an add-on service that Apple/Google offered as an add on,
| then it would no longer be a tax. And the dynamics you
| refer to might kick in then.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-03-17 23:02 UTC)