On Apple’s 30% cut: obsolete, frustrating and lazy

Basecamp is right, Apple is wrong, at least from tactical perspective.

Here is why:

Apple cannot track the devs the way it dreams it can

I’m looking at my 20-something subscriptions I used to have in AppStore, 5 of them expired this year, another 4 will expire til the end of the year. Nevertheless, I’m not going to stop the services. All those 9 devs (making budgeting apps, games, weather services, office apps, password managers, VPNs) whose AppStore subscriptions I’m dropping, they made me direct offers bypassing AppStore. Some are cheaper yearly subscriptions, others are new, cheaper, one-time charges for life. Long story short, the devs are successfully digging their way towards their customers, around Apple’s “paywall”.

Even worse, these offers are not “retention offers”, I have not asked for better prices, never threatened the devs to leave; I was offered better prices off-AppStore. Same as Apple was making its money off-shore…

Mind that the apps I am talking about are all listed in “best 10” in their AppStore categories, the phenomenon is big, well known and the workaround is up and running even for the “big” devs.

I’m not going to name those apps, as I’m afraid Apple may begrudge them. Because they can, contractually.

iOS customers are suffering compared to Android customers

People cannot make an exact comparison between iOS and Android in-app charges, because they tend to stick to one OS or another. But funny things happen when you fire up a Blue Stack VM, running Android, on your Windows machine: many games (at least 3 that I’m playing, all listed in top 10 in their AppStore categories) that offer the same content as in-app purchases on iOS and Android, have much lower prices on Android compared to iOS; the difference can be as big as 25%, for same bundle / benefit / duration / UX (same country, same VAT on both OSes).

First I wrote to the devs, asking about this difference in price for the same content; they all replied “iOS and Android teams are deciding their own price on each platform”. Poor answer, I was not happy, I wrote to Apple.

I wrote 20 emails to Apple, this year, about these differences in prices for same IAP on iOS versus Android. Apple sent me back the money for all the IAPs I complained about, no questions asked. Good result, poor experience, it shouldn’t work like this.

Apple payment platform is either useful or not

Some devs prefer to use Apple, some don’t; they all have their reasons, some might have invested a lot, it’s their own business. But when there are a lot of exceptions, starting with “free” apps (that make a lot of money with ads that Apple cannot get a cut of), “business” apps, “reader” apps, “consumer” apps (like Fastmail) where the devs are allowed to bypass Apple own payment platform, then Pandora’s box is opened.

I agree Apple needs to charge for their AppStore efforts, it’s normal, but the conflicts we’ve seen in the past 3 years between devs, service provides, and Apple, for the 30% charge are not generated by the simple fact that Apple wants to be paid for their efforts. The issue is Apple got lazy with AppStore product management and pricing, and they don’t want to hear that “30%, take it or leave it model is obsolete and even, yes, ”mafioso".

You cannot charge a huge 30% for a payment platform alone. The devs are paying $100 yearly to get the SDK. Then, if they want to make money with their app, and not with in-app ads, they have to pay 30% in the first year, 15% after. The margins are too thin for that, people would prefer to bypass, it’s natural. The only thing Apple can do is to make the offer useful and attractive, not mandatory.

A normal approach on pricing should be like 3–5% for publishing the app, 10% for promoting it, 20% for promo & payment, and so on. Apple needs a full blown pricing list, because the 30% tax oversimplifies the transaction and generates frustrations, misunderstandings and arbitrary decisions.

It’s not “transparency” that’s missing here, as Ars believed, but a proper pricing model.

Apple is indirectly but surely pushing devs and users into either the misery of an ad-based experience, or into breaching their contract. The direction is wrong, even if Apple may be legally right.

Being right is not good enough, Apple needs to be loved.