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Amazon App Store 'Rotten To the Core,' Says Dev
suraj.sun sends an excerpt from this post made by a developer who decided to try out Amazon's App Store, only to be disappointed with the experience:
"Amazon's biggest feature by far, has been their Free App Of The Day promotion. Publicly their terms say that they pay developers 20% of the asking price of an app, even when they give it away free. To both consumers and naive developers alike, this seems like a big chance to make something rare in the Android world: real money. But here's the dirty secret Amazon don't want you to know, they don't pay developers a single cent. ... Amazon is being predatory here, and asking developers (who are often desperate for exposure) to give away their app, in order to promote Amazon. In the end we agreed that we had entered the world of Android development as an experiment, and it would seem silly not to add more data to the experiment we were conducting. The day of our promotion came: ... Amazon gave away 101,491 copies of our app! At this point, we had a few seconds of excitement as well; had we mis-read the email and really earned $54,800 in one day? We would have done if our public agreement was in place, but we can now confirm that thanks to Amazon's secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day. That's right, over 100,000 apps given away, $0 made."
Someone misread something, but it wasn't them. Read the article again.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
The old version of Amazon's agreement stated that developers would receive 20% of the original price when an app was given away for free. Then they changed it, and they didn't make it clear to developers. For many of them it was a nasty surprise. Unfortunately I can't find the original, but the new version is here https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/mobile-apps/devportal/pdf/Appstore_Distribution_Agreement.pdf with the added sentence "No Royalty is payable for Apps with a List Price of $0.00." in Section 2(a).
No..seems pretty clear. Amazon offered 0%. They accepted and got 0%. 0% of $0 is....well, $0.
From TF- no, wait, from the second sentence of the summary:
"their terms say that they pay developers 20% of the asking price of an app, even when they give it away free."
RTFS I guess?
No, originally the agreement clearly said 20% of the original price. It was changed sneakily, though I'm sure it was legal. See http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2361318&cid=36965966
you just earned more than 100k word of mouth sales at ${full_price}.
Maybe, but that's offset by 100k apps worth of support paid for by $0 in income. From TFA, in their case, 300 emails/day, and no subsequent increase in sales.
Speaking of which, it seems like you didn't RTFA, which states that Amazon publicly declares 20% to developers, even for free apps, but then sends an email saying it's actually 0% and that you're not allowed to publicly discuss it. That was followed by a list of other major problems with the store.
Even the usual Slashdot logic which predicts that giving away something for free is "free advertising" that somehow generates sales didn't happen in this situation. Fail all around.
The List Price, as originally defined, was set by the developer. Not Amazon. Thus the original agreement effectively said "20% of the original price".
Amazon told them in advance that they would get 0% of revenue (which would be $0, anyway). Amazon repeated this when they asked for confirmation. They recieved $0.
The only problem is an apparent error in the reporting which stated $54,800 in revenue on $0 of sales. But that is the only contradiction here.
Is this a good deal for developers? I don't know. Is Amazon screwing developers out of promised revenue with "secret back-door deals"? I see no evidence here.
Too bad Apple wont let me sell my apps. Oh, and Amazon is not Google. But rant on you crazy person. If you scream loud enough I hear that Steve Jobs will come to your birthday party.
Written from my MacPro in Camino.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
No, that isn't how it's supposed to work. On Amazon App Store, the developer is supposed to get either 70% of the sale price, or 20% of the asking price, i.e full price, whichever is higher. Amazon will often sell apps at a discount. That means if the list price for your app is $4.99, than amazon owes you at least $1, even if they decide to sell the app for $0.99. If they sell it at $4.99, you get $3.50. You are giving Amazon the right to set the selling price to whatever they want, in exchange for a small guaranteed cut at any price. This can be advantageous, because Amazon could adjust prices until it finds the most profitable point. Selling at 50% off list price is a good idea if you can sell three times as many copies that way.
The summary implies that the developers didn't know that they would get no money. The article makes it clear that they not only were told they would get nothing, but they confirmed in subsequent emails with Amazon that they would get nothing. Knowing this, they still decided to go ahead with the deal.
The Amazon emails have a good point:
The Free App of the Day promotion is the most valuable and visible spot in the store. It hosted the launch of the likes of Angry Birds Rio, Plants v. Zombies and more. Amazon will not receive any sales rev share from the Free App of the Day; and in fact, with as the Free of the Day for one day, you will receive a subsequent Appstore main page placement for the following 14 days. All these highly valuable placements are at no cost to you. We want to promote your app and in exchange of the placements, at the 0% rev share for one day only.
Being "Free app of the day" is a huge advert for your app - and adverts have a cost. Being app of the day is optional - not mandatory - the developers in question could have said no. And the cost is not 101,491 copies of your app - that's RIAA accounting. The majority of downloaders will try your app once and then never use it again. Some may continue to use it, and when they do, if you're smart you'll figure out a way to monetise their usage (e.g. charge for version 2, offer premium feature updates etc.).
thanks to Amazon's secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day.
Amazon also made $0 that day (from your app). You agreed to the deal. It gave your app enormous exposure. You didn't lose 101,491 sales, because the vast majority of those people would never have bought your app anyway.
Amazon, google, apple, microsoft and all the other big players control the market for apps. This is a very bad position for individual developers because it means that to get a foothold in the market, they need to be a part of one of them.
Is the moral of the story to read the contract, No. The moral is to stop feeding these companies and stop them from being able to command the market.
I really hope tech people realise this soon else we can safely say that we asked for this state of affairs to come about.
Please please please, stop giving your hard work away to these monsters just so they can grow bigger. Seriously, what else do they do apart from get bigger? It is us as individuals that do all the innovating, not them, they just pick up our innovations and run away with them. They are leaches!
How about we start distributing our hard work ourselves?
There wasn't any confusion. From TFA:
Amazon is being predatory here, and asking developers (who are often desperate for exposure) to give away their app, in order to promote Amazon. A heated debate broke out in our office about whether we should or not.
It was clear that they understood that they were being asked to "give away their app".
So you don't think it's fishy how Amazon publicly advertises 20% even for free apps? And in the screenshot, Amazon told them they received $54,805.14 in earnings that day? As stated in the article's comments section, the terms are confusing and fuzzy.
This has absolutely nothing to do with Android. These are Amazon's App Store's terms and conditions. I find it amusing that you talk about "Android fanboys" when your Apple fanboyism is very evident.
Grow up, and get your facts right.
Read the article and note the increased support and hardware costs.
By that logic, there shouldn't be a market for anything in print, artwork, music, movies, or anything else that can be digitally replicated. You're using the cover story of someone who downloads music for free, then rationalizes that somehow word of mouth will convince your friends to pay for what you just downloaded for free.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Which is exactly the stuff the article is NOT about.
The article is about the fact that Amazon advertises that they're paying 20% for each app in "Free App Of The Day" promotion, but in fact they're paying 0% because they've made a deal behind the curtains. Yes, they've accepted the deal, no argument about that.
The really sad thing is they probably could sell this app for a long time, they'd continuously get small amounts of money from it and maybe the app would grow over time (good supported app is worth the money). But now they have nothing, because everyone interested already has the app, so they probably won't get even the small amount of money from it.
So you don't think it's fishy how Amazon publicly advertises 20% even for free apps? And in the screenshot, Amazon told them they received $54,805.14 in earnings that day? As stated in the article's comments section, the terms are confusing and fuzzy.
Not to mention that it takes more effort to make them confusing and fuzzy than it would to make them simple and clear. While it proves nothing, it strongly suggests that this is intentional.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
They present one deal publicly, then renegotiate every Free App of the Day deal depending on whether or not they feel that the it is to Amazon's advantage. The Angry Birds get paid, the small local guy does not. This is predatory, though not illegal, and shows that they fundamentally misunderstand the ecosystem they need to foster in order for them to do well. If they were the only game in town, this might work for them, but they are not.
I have only anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me that the Amazon Store is used to grab free apps and nothing else. It's not compelling for users or developers.
I see people posting about "free exposure" and that sort of thing. But this is only getting exposure for Amazon, who presumably wants to build a user- and application-base for their own upcoming Google-free Android devices.
See, advertising is about drawing attention and profiting when people purchase your product. Regular advertisements do this. Even sales do this. But giving your stuff away doesn't make you money. Any exposure you got was immediately lost to those exposed who either wanted your product or didn't even want it for nothing. Anyone who didn't see it wasn't exposed, and therefore doesn't matter, or worse, will pass on your app even on sale to just wait for the next "free" one. Why pay anything?
However having free stuff does net Amazon a lot of exposure and incentive for new customers. This will sell their devices and platform through exposure.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
A company Amazon's size shouldn't have issues in clearly communicating the terms of the deal. Every email was poorly worded, and then they turned around and showed a profit of 54K when none was actually there. This smacks of the same sort of deals that record companies make. They prey on the new artists who need exposure and don't realize their own worth.
Making excuses from Amazon doesn't change the fact that it's a dirty tactic.
You mean you need a lawyer for everything? washing a car, eating a donut, doing basic math etc.?
Becaue the article is not about law or signing a contract. It's about the fact that Amazon describes the promotion as "20% for the developers" but in reality they make deals with the developers so that they pay them 0%. Yes, both sides obviously have enough brain cells to be responsible for their actions, so it's their fault they've signed the deal. But the article is not a whining about this - it's a warning to the other developers and to the public that those 20% is just a virtual reality.
My brother got the FlexT9 keyboard app on an Amazon promotion for free. He liked it so much that I gladly payed the full price (well maybe $4) for it, and I'm glad I did. I really like it.
Um, no moderations are subject to meta-moderation any more. Meta-moderation is actually just a random sample of posts you get to moderate unaccountably. Try it some time - you get ten posts and you get to either +1 or -1 them. It's just yet another thing Slashdot fucked up.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Yes, and the article says that they saw this, asked Amazon about it, Amazon confirmed that it was 0, and they decided to do it anyway because they wanted more data points for their Android developing experiment. They didn't misread anything. They knew they were getting screwed, wanted to know how badly, and then wrote about it.
Stories like this have been circulating lately about sites like Groupon/Living Social, etc, where the company (Amazon in this case) promises the world as far as exposure and sales, but then when you sign up for the promotion, you discover that you lose money hand over fist, and the business doesn't really pick up on the back side of the promo. A lot of small businesses have gotten in trouble by signing up for stuff like this.
Seems to me these guys were testing Amazon to see if the same could happen there, and then reported that it can.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
The summary implies that the developers didn't know that they would get no money. The article makes it clear that they not only were told they would get nothing, but they confirmed in subsequent emails with Amazon that they would get nothing. Knowing this, they still decided to go ahead with the deal.
The Amazon emails have a good point:
The Free App of the Day promotion is the most valuable and visible spot in the store. It hosted the launch of the likes of Angry Birds Rio, Plants v. Zombies and more. Amazon will not receive any sales rev share from the Free App of the Day; and in fact, with as the Free of the Day for one day, you will receive a subsequent Appstore main page placement for the following 14 days. All these highly valuable placements are at no cost to you. We want to promote your app and in exchange of the placements, at the 0% rev share for one day only.
Being "Free app of the day" is a huge advert for your app - and adverts have a cost. Being app of the day is optional - not mandatory - the developers in question could have said no. And the cost is not 101,491 copies of your app - that's RIAA accounting. The majority of downloaders will try your app once and then never use it again. Some may continue to use it, and when they do, if you're smart you'll figure out a way to monetise their usage (e.g. charge for version 2, offer premium feature updates etc.).
thanks to Amazon's secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day.
Amazon also made $0 that day (from your app). You agreed to the deal. It gave your app enormous exposure. You didn't lose 101,491 sales, because the vast majority of those people would never have bought your app anyway.
The underhanded bit is that they represent to the public that they compensate the devs for their work even when Amazon chooses to give it away for free, and then underhandedly tell the dev that he's not getting paid, and he's not allowed to tell anyone.
And apparently, since Amazon can set the prices on the apps, they have pretty good leverage to get away with it:
In other words, "Ey. Yous gonna agree ta put da app on da store for free or Louie here's gonna bust it down ta 5cents a copy."
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
Not really. I pretty much hate all thing Apple these days, but as an developer that has an app for sale on both Android and iOS told me (on LinuxTag even), one of the big stumbling blocks he has encountered with Android:
- When you sell an app in the Apple store Apple handles sales tax and all other applicable paperwork in the country of sale, you can sell your app worldwide by placing it in one app store, and you only have to deal with one accounting contact.
- In all Android stores he knew YOU have to handle the taxes and paperwork for each country. (That's probably one of the reasons the Amazon App store only works "US Only" as mentioned in the article, so you might even have to put your app into a different store for each country you want to sell it in.)
So it's pretty easy to sell internationally with the Apple Store, but when you want to sell something on Android you have to sell at least a few dozen or even hundreds of apps per country to even break even the cost of filing the taxes in that country.
What *I* would truly like to see, though, is a true open and free OSS mobile platform. Android doesn't seem to keeping the early expectations in that direction.
OK, you got a glass of unsweetened lemon juice. Here is how you put some sugar and water in to make it taste better:
Time to come out with a pay-only upgrade. You have 100,000 users. If you charge just $1, you have a chunk coming your way, depending on how many upgrade.
Done in one.
Oh, and this is why apps should always have a way for the developer to message the user with a link. This way if you get sick of the market that distributes your app, you can tell you users to "Get super awesome app 2 here (links to app store that isn't the one you are mad at)."
Finally, you can use the same in app message feature to tell your users about your other apps.
Or you can go sulk about your 100,000 user new customer base. It's up to you.
-- $G
The developers were told that they'd get no income from the giveaway.
The developers asked Amazon for confirmation that they'd get no money.
Amazon responded that yes, they would get no money.
The developers decided to give their app away regardless.
The developers were upset that they then got no money.
The developers decided to bitch and moan about it.
Cry me a river.
And where is the evidence that they didn't see increased sales from this? Where is the evidence that Amazon refuses to let developers publicly discuss the terms -- especially considering that this dev is publicly discussing the terms?
Right in the summary it says Amazon asks developers to give it away. If you accept that, well what's so surprising that they don't give you anything? That's what you agreed to, no?
And what is predatory about asking developers to participate in a promotion?
What would be saying if it was Apple that did this?
Even further down the author actually admits "As we said in our post, we deserved what we got, because we did indeed agree to it". Simply put, if they had asked the right question, and not beat around the bush, they would have gotten it explained.
They make this comment, which I found kind of snot nosed brat kind of comment, back to Amazon at the initial onset:
We’d be happy to reconsider if you decided to pay us the 20% that we agreed to in our original developer agreement, but this new one seems to favour only you, at the expense of us?
Amazon's response is:
... and in fact, with as the Free of the Day for one day, you will receive a subsequent Appstore main page placement for the following 14 days. All these highly valuable placements are at no cost to you. We want to promote your app and in exchange of the placements, at the 0% rev share for one day only.
Amazon never said they would get 20%. Matter of fact, Amazon emphasis that there is no expense to the developers to get potentially highly profitable placement. Their actual technical complaints, slightly valid, accounts for about 7 bullet points, and 20 sentences. Their first technical point is rather naive. Assuming that Amazon would immediately post something is... well stupid. Just cause Google does it, does not mean Amazon is Google.
The developer's use of the words "expense" implied a different meaning to people in marketing and sales. The developer's point was that they would not make money and have costs of supporting the free sales. The marketing / sales / accounting people, think of expense as the cost of doing business. Grasshopper chose his words poorly.
The reality is they do not have enough business savvy. They hopefully will gain this over time.
Its always amusing to me cause in college, CS and Business Admin students mock each other. And yet when it comes to the real world, they both need knowledge from the others area of expertise.
>WOW! Amazon is cheap bastards... Apple offers 70% (Seven - Zero) of sales. And you set your price... Apple NEVER does.
I think you're getting confused here. Apple keeps 30% of the revenue, and so does Amazon when an app is sold.
The difference is that Amazon will sometimes run a discount to push sales, but they say they give atleast 20% even if they're taking a loss on that(the article says it didn't apply to them). A big difference from what you said which seemed to indicated that Amazon is taking money from customers but giving only 20% to devs which is flat out wrong.
This space for rent.
You should read the article. They did in fact understand it and followup up to verify the information. They only went through with it for the hell of it since taking part in the android platform was an experiment.
So they tell the public the developers get 20% but tell the developers they will get nothing.
Not a company I want to do business with. Already using their competitors due to their outsourcing to third world states when requested to track sales tax.
Amazon sold it for $0.00? What's 20% of $0.00?
You could correctly argue that the developer received 1000% of the sale price.
Amazon never really said that they'd give developers 20% of their asking price on the free app day.
Here's a recap of how Amazon's app store works:
The developer sets an asking price, X.
Amazon comes up with their own price, Y.
Customers pay Y.
Amazon pays the developer 0.2X or 0.7Y, whichever is greater.
Now, you could look at this and say, "Aha! On the free app day, they're just lowering Y to $0. I should get 20% of X!" But this would clearly be a hugely losing proposition for Amazon, and they never say that this is how the free app days work. Instead, they get your agreement to lower X to $0 on that day. Neither you nor they make any money on "sales" that day. But you both get publicity.
At no point were they dishonest about how the free app day works. No rational person should expect Amazon to be giving away tens of millions of dollars a year. The devs knew full well what they were getting into. They were looking for an excuse to bash Amazon.
True, but they weren't sure how it would all turn out.
Well, you never know how these things are going to turn out. Yes, Amazon is going to tell you what a great idea it is. Heck, I'll send you an e-mail telling you that I have hundreds of twitter followers and if you give me a free copy of your app and I like it, I'll promote it. It might work out. It might not.
There might be times when this is a good idea. If you're planning on shipping version 2--a paid upgrade--in six months, then it might be worthwhile to take the hit and make some money in upgrade fees. If you're trying to promote the company ("Look what cool stuff we do!") or other products ("If you like this game, you'll love Whizzo!") in the hope of creating buzz, then it might be worthwhile. Obviously, if you make your money on in-app purchases or advertising, this is a good idea.
It depends on your business plan. If your plan is the solid, conventional, "I sell you software, I make money"-type of thing, then giving away the thing you're trying to sell isn't a good idea. But the one example that Amazon gave were "Angry Birds Rio", which is a free game to promote a movie and, I believe, uses in-app purchases for different levels.
About the only issue I have is that Amazon implies that the developer is getting something to customers whereas they are getting squat.
You don't understand the terms.
Apple offers 70% of the list price, with the list price being the developer's asking price.
Amazon offers 70% of the list price, or 20% of the developer's asking price, whichever is greater.
If I make a $1 app and sell it in both Amazon's and Apple's app stores, I'll make 70 cents from each and Amazon/Apple make 30 cents. The difference is that Amazon reserves the right to sell my app for, say, 50 cents instead, in which case I only make 35 cents from that sale and they make 15. You can argue that Amazon shouldn't be the one to set the price -- if so, don't use their store. But they aren't doing it out of greed. They take the same cut regardless. They are doing this because they think that they're better at setting a price than you are. And they're probably right.
Do you know that the metamod doesn't really feed back into the mod? I figured they just simplified the Fair, Unfair bits by seeing if you modded the same way that the mod did.
Did you ever look at a comment before and after metamod to see if the score changed?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
fact that Amazon advertises that they're paying 20% for each app in "Free App Of The Day" promotion
Where is this "fact" demonstrated? Can you link to where they advertise that?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
You are completely ignoring the fact that they agreed to the amendment.
Amazon at some point was offering 20%
Amazon then wrote to them and said "what about 0%"
They said, no, what about 20%?
Amazon said, no, it's 0%
THEY AGREED.
End of story.
The developers were told that they'd get no income from the giveaway.
The developers asked Amazon for confirmation that they'd get no money.
Amazon responded that yes, they would get no money.
The developers decided to give their app away regardless.
The developers were upset that they then got no money.
The developers decided to bitch and moan about it.
They thought it was a raw deal afterwards, came to their conclusion and quit the Amazon Store. Then they issued a nice article warning others and explaining their reasons. What's not to like ?
And where is the evidence that they didn't see increased sales from this? Where is the evidence that Amazon refuses to let developers publicly discuss the terms -- especially considering that this dev is publicly discussing the terms?
RTFA : "Did the exposure count for much in the days afterwards? That’s also a big no, the day after saw a blip in sales, followed by things going back to exactly where we started, selling a few apps a day." Also they added a graph of sales to the article as proof (see update 2 in TFA)
Where is the evidence that Amazon refuses to let developers publicly discuss the terms -- especially considering that this dev is publicly discussing the terms?
You want proof people are being told not to discuss the terms from the people who are being told not to discuss them but doubt the person who did come forward ?
Let Amazon issue a clear denial.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Instead, they get your agreement to lower X to $0 on that day. Neither you nor they make any money on "sales" that day. But you both get publicity.
At no point were they dishonest about how the free app day works. No rational person should expect Amazon to be giving away tens of millions of dollars a year. The devs knew full well what they were getting into. They were looking for an excuse to bash Amazon.
No no no. Amazon were being dishonest right from the word go, because the developers' agreement states that if you are selected for Free App of the Day, you get that 0.2X. This is the only publicised figure for FAD. Well it would appear that this is a bait-and-switch, because they "renegotiate" it down to zero at the drop of a hat. As this is designed to draw developers into the market place, it sounds like grounds for a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit. (Of course, only people who refused the deal would be allowed to sue, as people who accepted have agreed to a revised contract.) Amazon would then be forced to disclose how often they honoured their agreement.
Note that TFA also says that a lot of Android users claim to use the free-app-of-the-day offer on the grounds that they believe they're helping out the developers. that's tantamount to false advertising.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
You can cross link by putting a link to the comment numbered link on the top right in this case #36966086.
Having said that, that post is totally beside the point. The way the deal is publicly presented makes it look like it's a good opportunity for developers. You get a chance to get some cash now and increase your installed base at the risk of some loss of full price sales. You also get good placement. That makes Amazon's app store more attractive for those developers.
The trick is that when you actually do get offered a free placement, then it turns out that the deal which is published is not the deal which is really available. By that time you have already committed to Amazon's app store so it is too late to back out. This looks to me like a bait and switch situation which would be illegal for a consumer product sale.
It's important to note, that if you had Read The Fine Article Properly you would have seen that they went into this as an experiment and are publishing not to complain but to warn others. You would also have seen that Amazon stated that the promotion gives
"highly valuable placements"
but it turned out that the influence on app sales beyond the promotion was very small, possibly even negative.
Further note that, even when asked
If I read this correctly youâ(TM)d like to give away our application for free, and pay us nothing?
Amazon responded
instead of just clearly stating that there would be no revenue. What does that mean? That Amazon will take 0% of the revenue? That the promotion will cost you 0% of the revenue or that you will get 0% of the revenue. Now, thanks to Shift Jelly's valuable posting, we know exactly.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
You know, I live in Central Europe and 20 years ago we had a communism here. But I've seen enough capitalism to understand that no one is going to give you anything for free and everyone is fighting for his interests in the first place. I'm not saying it's unfair - I find it much better than the communist hypocrisy.
But I find it constantly funny how people sign a contract and then expect the other side (Amazon, Groupon, their bank, ...) will prefere their interests before it's own. For example that Groupon will schedule the coupons to the least busy times (i.e. when there's not enough customers) or that the bank employee will give them unbiased advices about their money.