mclain89

davidw said:

ITGUYINSD said:

said:

seanismorris said:

I think Apple’s fees are high, but it’s difficult to sympathize with Epic.

Right now Apple's fee structure favours the small developer, because all developers pay almost NOTHING (only that $99 annual developer fee) until they start selling products, through that 15% to 30% fee. Would you prefer that there be an upfront fee of $1000 per developer for the Xcode tools and developer accounts and services, even before a single product is sold? That would be great for big companies like Epic but bad for the million developers who would have to pay $1000 each just to join the table.

Basically Epic doesn't want to be subsidizing the small developer (who include their competitors) any more. Understandable. But every one of the 200 million socialists in the US should be outraged at Epic.

I think if you're offering a free app, then the $99 fee is appropriate.  If you're developing an app that you will charge for, then $1000 is not that much if that meant that you can control the purchase of the app yourself (ie., through your own payment systems which typically costs 3% and not 30% of the App Store).  Developing a pay-for app is a business and there are costs to start a business or a new project in an existing business.  A Mac computer is way more than $1000, which is needed to develop apps.  Add to that the cost of an iPhone if you're developing iOS apps.  

The cost of starting a business isn't $99 so it's appropriate for a free app.  I think $1000 is a great starting point to get the dev tools and marketing and distribution.  The payment system should be the devs choice -- stick with App Store (30%) or go it alone (3% by most CC systems).  Either way, Apple got their $1000 to allow you to market your app on their store, at least until there are other options to market and distribute your app outside the App Store.  The current investigations against Apple for being a monopoly will tell us soon if that is an option.

Typically, it does not cost a developer just 3% of sales, if they were to use their own payment system, instead of using  Apple's iTunes. The 3% is just what they have to pay the CC companies and processing fees. What about the cost of hosting a payment system outside the Apple App Store? Just like all those that thinks it only cost Apple 3% to process an app sales through iTunes, they forget that the payment system itself cost Apple something to maintain.

Developers that don't want to pay Apple 30% of sales would have to set up and maintain their own secure server, to accept and process CC or PayPal payments. Or maybe there are companies that offer this kind of service. I can't imagine that it's not going to cost anything for a developer to set up their own payment system. What? Are they going to only accept checks in the mail? 

Then there's the logistics of how to you activate the app that a customer paid for, from outside of the Apple App Store. The app has to be available in the Apple App Store. There's no other way for your customers to get an iOS app into their iDevice. Will all the downloads use the same password? If so, then what prevents a customer from sharing the password with others? Which means that each download must have it's own serial number and unique password, which must be emailed to the customer after payment. How much time is that going to add to developing an app and the time it takes to process a payment and email the unique password? 

What about refunds? Or what happens if the payment don't go through? What if customers don't want to use a CC or don't have one or don't want to give their CC info to a developer for a $1.99 purchase? Will the developer offer gift cards, like with Apple iTunes? Time is not free, if you're a developer trying to make money selling software. 

Will the customer have to pay for each download of the same app, for all their iDevices? If not, then it will require providing several passwords to the  paying customers that will be using the same purchased app on more than one iDevices. What if a customer iDevice crashes and is reset to factory?  What if a paying customer buy a new iDevice? How much time will the developer have to spend to provide customers that already paid for an app months or years ago, to have it working again after a factory reset or want to have it on another iDevice they already own or purchased later or transferred to a new iDevice that replaces their old one, if each download requires a unique password to activate? Apple's 30% takes care of all of this with iTunes. 

It might only cost big developers like Epic, Spotify or MS just 3% to process payments for apps sales because they already have a secure payment system in place that most of their customers trust. But it's going to cost the average small and medium size developers way more than just 3% of sales. I'm willing to bet that for those developers that don't already have a payment system in place and must use Apple's iTunes, 30% of sales is a bargain. Even if one don't include the benefit of having access to Apple customers on their iOS platform. 

It's a joke that so many people think that Apple's 30% cut only goes toward covering the 3% that is paid to the CC companies. And even more of a joke to think that if a developer were allowed to set up their own payment system, they will make 27% more on each sale, after covering the 3% CC transaction fee. If anything, most developers will lose sales because many potential customers are not going to trust unknown developers websites, with their CC info, for a one time purchase that will probably be less than $5.