Comment by ndr42
11 hours ago
At that time 30% was not something you would consider high in contrast to the situation before the advent of app stores.
11 hours ago
At that time 30% was not something you would consider high in contrast to the situation before the advent of app stores.
This is outrageously wrong. Back in 2011, the pricing model for "an app in your pocket" was 99 cents. The universal pricing model of apps was a one-time fee and the pricing range was that of an mp3 roughly. 30% of that is a lot. App sales worked only in volume.
If you sold software over the internet, you had PayPal, which had a flat fee of $0.35 + 1.7% or so and if your shareware was $30, the transaction fee essentially was ~$1. Stripe had roughly the same fee when they launched. You had more traditional credit card merchants and when I inquired one in Germany back in 2010, it was more or less in the same ballpark (~10%).
In Europe, you could also just get money wired, which cost you something like 0-10 cents.
30% for payment processing were always extremely high.
Edit: The only thing where you had no other options was when you tried to sell stuff on the internet for $1, because the flat fee part of credit card processors would eat up all of that. Apple indeed helped here a little bit, because it was always 30% and no fixed part.
> you had PayPal, which had a flat fee of $0.35 + 1.7% or so
PayPal also offered a "micropayments" rate (that I used in Cydia), wherein they charged $0.05+5% (which is much better for payments under $12).
I was thinking about something comparable, where there is a digital storefront, payment processing, security, delivering, installing on all my devices and so on...
Steam comes to mind. They take 30% (and I think 5% for credit card or whatever).
So I do not think that "outrageously wrong" is characterizing my remarks adequately.
Steam is fundamentally different in very important ways.
Your phone is general purpose, steam is focused on a narrow band of market
The iOS store adds nothing but cost to the purchasing process, with hilariously terrible discoverability and sorting, steam makes navigating and discoverability breezy and easy
Your phone is arguably not an optional part of your life, whereas nobody ever missed an important call because they weren't on steam
Steam does not take any money from apps or companies for transactions it was not involved in. Here, and in other cases, the costs of doing business with apple extend to people who have no relationship with apple at all
It's not a "processing fee". It's an distribution/access/market fee for the captive audience that Apple has spent tens of billions developing and supporting.
If you think you can make any money selling software on the internet and paying nothing other than $0.35 + 1.7%, think again.
Yeah I heard this before, but no, it is mostly a processing fee. The reality is:
- Developers helped to make Apple the platform it is today.
- Apple had their 30% fee when the App Store was MUCH smaller. It's not like that fee came only after they had the audience.
- Apple will do zero marketing for you unless you are already successful.
- Apple doesn't earn money with the most popular free apps, but still hosts them. They could charge by traffic, by downloads, whatever, but they won't.
- Apple will charge you if you make money in the app. They will force you to use their payment processor if you want to make money.
So, it is 100% a processing fee and everything else either came later or isn't congruent with what they actually charge money for.
2 replies →
I think you could if apple didn’t force the App Store. Most people discover apps through other web sites, not through the App Store.
Is bluffing how you want to show up?
Processing fees were way less than 30% before the App Store. And considering how overrun the App Store now is with junk apps there is basically no service Apple provides other than taking money.