Comment by tpmoney
5 days ago
> The person who paid for the sdk is the person who bought the iphone.
Are they? Then why did companies previously charge per seat annual licenses for their SDKs? Were the people who bought the computers and products back then not also paying for the SDK?
Clearly the answer is "who is paying" depends on the model you set up. You can take your income stream from the initial hardware sales, or you can take it from subscription fees, or you can take it in revenue sharing models. Apple chose the latter, and so every developer that finds some way to use the platform and not share their revenue is a "free rider" relative to the other developers who are now subsidizing them.
>If apple made $0 off the app store, would they still make iphones? I would assume yes since they are profitable devices. Hence this isn't free riding.
It's not "would they still make phones" they might. It's "would they still make phones that 3rd parties can develop applications for at the same price they currently charge and without per seat annual $1k+ up front license fees to prospective developers."
> You can take your income stream from the initial hardware sales, or you can take it from subscription fees, or you can take it in revenue sharing models. Apple chose the latter
I missed the part where they give iPhones away for free, and only make money from revenue sharing
> It's not "would they still make phones" they might. It's "would they still make phones that 3rd parties can develop applications for at the same price they currently charge and without per seat annual $1k+ up front license fees to prospective developers."
The answer still seems like a very obvious yes. Certainly in the modern context where most of the value of the phone comes from apps and app devs can go to android if ios becomes to onerous.
Which is probably exactly why apple chose this model instead of per seat.