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Top 1% of iOS Game Developers Make a Third of All Revenue
donniebaseball23 writes "The top one percent of iOS game developers earn over a third of the gaming revenue made on the App Store, according to a new survey of iOS developers. The survey, set up by Canadian indie developer Owen Goss, found that the bottom 80 percent of iOS developers are splitting a mere three percent of all App Store game revenue."
Requests to take the survey were distributed via the following social networks and web sites: ... ...
Reddit
I don't think they make grains of salt large enough to compensate for that bias.
Quote on the front page:
Top 1% of iOS Game Developers Make a Third of All Revenue
I guess what's most important is the disclaimer on the researchers Web site:
I make no claims as to the statistical validity of this data.
Based on this one statement, the researcher could have just hired some unemployed Enron accountants to do the study.
And based on the average pay of a typical game developer (for iOS at least), I'd think twice about investing my time and money in the programming field. Sanitary engineers make more money than programmers, so maybe people should think about engineering instead of wasting their time trying to make money for big corporations. There's no shame in shoveling shit if you can at least get a guaranteed minimum wage from it.
A third of all the kids play the top 1% of iOS games.
I play PC games. Give me a call when you make a decent one. That is what phones are for.
App tax! Make the top third pay their fair share.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
80% of IOS (and android) games/apps are rubbish and nobody wants to waste money on them.
In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.
Not true. Apple makes roughly a third of the revenue. The top 1% make closer to a quarter of the revenue.
In videogames, developers have long depended on the hits for both profit and paying for the other titles. Each title is a calculated gamble, and if you lose, well, you just move on to the next one.
It's sad for the small developer who puts heart, soul, and savings into a single title, but they should be told that going in, they only have a 1 in 5 chance of just breaking even, let alone squeezing out a profit for all their trouble.
If the top one percent paid 34.33...%, the bottom 80% could probably take home 100%.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Disney seem to make good games. Toy Story 2 and 3 were favourites of mine especially. The earlier platform stuff like Lion King, Aladdin and Herculese were also good. They're one of the few companies that actually seems to get it right when doing a movie to game conversion..
which is totally what she said
Speaking as an android user who only ever sees iphones in the hands of friends, does it have any apps other than Angry Birds? :-P
(I really am curious -- I'd put money on that being the top selling app, and I can't think of anything else that seems anywhere near as popular)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
In videogames, developers have long depended on the hits for both profit and paying for the other titles. Each title is a calculated gamble, and if you lose, well, you just move on to the next one.
It's sad for the small developer who puts heart, soul, and savings into a single title, but they should be told that going in, they only have a 1 in 5 chance of just breaking even, let alone squeezing out a profit for all their trouble.
But this is not exactly a random gamble, you know. While you surely need some luck, someone putting his heart and soul and knowledge into an iOS app/game has a much better chance to get some decent earnings out of it than the average clueless programmer. There are lots and lots of apps and games that nobody buys because they very plainly aren't worth a penny. And the apps that sell really well usually deserve it.
As far as software titles go, iOS easily is the most level playing field in existence yet.
>>If 1% making 25% isn't "large amount" then, erm, I guess you were brought up to Reaganomics.
Obviously we need to tax these "iOS fat cats" and send some of their profits to the poorer developers, eh comrade!
Developers of fart apps, rejoice! We will eliminate the iOS income inequality once and for all!
Seems like it would be reasonable to charge more successful apps more for distribution.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
*Admires Grover Norquist and Steve Jobs portraits on mantle*
I don't think the odds are 1 in 5 for individual developers considering how much crap is out there. The odds are dependent on how good they make the game. It's still possible for a good game to be overlooked, but considering how awful most mobile games are, I don't think it's very likely that it would be as long as a little time and effort is spent polishing it.
which is totally what she said
Except the App store is the only playing field of iOS and it isn't as level as you seem to think. Apps that get promoted by Apple within the store get a massive increase in sales, often propelling them into the top 10 / top 50. Top 10 / top 50 apps are naturally bought a lot more than others so they tend to stay in the top charts. Apps that don't get promotion by Apple languish in the depths of the App Store.
This wouldn't be such an issue if the App Store was organised better with better categories, or filters instead of having to endlessly hit "show me more" to get another screen of icons with no real info about what the game is. At the moment the order of apps is based on a combination of sales and star rating which wouldn't be so bad if the star ratings weren't so misleading (obligatory xkcd).
How would it be reasonable? You would effectively be punishing the success of those who made your app store a success. "Hey, screw you guys. You brought us more revenue than the rest of those schmucks, so we're gonna stick it to you real good."
It would actually be more reasonable to charge less (as a percentage) - a lot of the overhead of providing an app store is fixed cost and doesn't scale with the number of downloads you provide.
Well it is also the situation of production value. If you look at the app store, then you have 100 clones of one existing successful program, with myriads of developers trying to cash in on the same concept.
Those really getting money are either ones
a) with very high production value
b) with a very good concept and good implementation which has not been cloned to death
Its as easy and as hard as that. I just wonder who is constantly buying all the canabald clones all the zombie shooter clones and hidden object games which come out a dime a dozend every week?
Obviously someone must do it otherwise they would not come out anymore.
I know, right... The first thing I thought when I saw this headline was the class warriors were going jump all over this...
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
So... in your view successful iOS apps should be taxed and their proceeds spread around to less successful apps... so black people can eat?
I'm not sure what you're trying to say... so I'm guessing. But due understand you're talking nonsense. This thread is about how most iOS apps don't sell and only a handful are successful. That's all it's about. If you want to get get political about it... that's fine... but you'll basically be declaring yourself to be a nutcase.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
you forgot c) with a good marketing team or a well known brand
Also, the existence of said clones doesn't mean anybody is buying them. but rather, that some developers THINK somebody will buy them.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Actually, the plus symbol has nothing to do with in-app purchases. It denotes universal apps -- apps which will run on the iPhone or iPod Touch as well as the iPad.
It's a threadjack complaining about the framing of the summary, not someone quibbling with you.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It would actually be more reasonable to charge less (as a percentage) - a lot of the overhead of providing an app store is fixed cost and doesn't scale with the number of downloads you provide.
That's how most places do it, the more you make the less the percentage they take is. Like Paypal, once you have over $10,000 a month in sales they lower the percentage they take from each sale. Kind of an incentive to get to that level.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
He's AC, they rarely say anything worth mentioning. Best to ignore all AC posts, makes life simpler and more enjoyable.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
More to the point, app developers pay 30% on their GROSS RECEIPTS. If the US switched to a gross receipts tax rather than an income (personal) or profit (corporate) tax, many of the loopholes and dodges would disappear entirely and a flat rate would likely be in the single-digit percentages.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Just yesterday I downloaded a Disney game about a showering alligator which is actually pretty educational about hydraulics, obviously a large investment in time and money by Disney and worthy of earning a ton of money.
I LOVE that showering alligator game!!.... er, I mean, my children love that game!... aw crap this is /. we know no one here will ever breed.... yeah, it's me, simple 99 cent game, levels take less than 30 seconds with little thought required. Sometimes I like dumb simple games, and with 3,000+ 5-star reviews I figured what the hell why not? Think the game's called where's my water.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Unlike in real life, (most) iOS developers actually start in equal standing, so the distribution is fair.
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This is not at all unusual. The best 1% of people at something are enormously better at that something than the average. This applies to virtually everything. The top 1% of NFL players make a large portion of overall money, and the only reason it's not higher is because of salary caps. The top 1% of money-makers in the US earn something like 15% of all the money.
Yes, and generally the situation is really bad, you really have to look hard to find real gems, like for instance Avadon.
Those games make their money, but the possible target audience have a hard time to find them. Instead you constantly either see
a) Another hidden object game
b) another physics puzzle variation of the same game
c) another even worse canabalt clone
d) another 2d zombie shooter
e) another bad tower of defense game
That does not mean iOS has not a really good games, but they are drowned in ripoff shovelware.
The same probably goes for apps as well, but I have my eye simply more on games.
A brilliant system, all the lower 99%ers will be looking at the top guys, spending money on app developer subscriptions and saying "with enough hard work, I can be just like them!" - which is actually true with software sales, unlike real life, so I guess there's nothing wrong about it apart from the illusion of a more even wealth spread.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The methodology he used (asking people to volunteer to take the survey) means that, as he quite rightly says, the results aren't statistically valid. So they certainly don't prove anything. In particular, broadcasting a survey and asking people to take it doesn't ensure that the people that take the survey are representative of the developer population - they could (for example) be more likely to be non-commercial developers, because the commercial developers might not be allowed by their employers to share informatiom like this. And so on.
That being said, it's not all all surprising that a tiny percentage of 'hits' would be responsible for the mzjority of the revenue, as that's true in many businesses. For example, in music the top 2% of music makes enough money to pay for the other 98% that loses money. Book publishers similarly lose money on most books, paid for by the 'hits'. Pharmaceutical companies lose money on almost all of their research, but the 'hits' pay for everything. VC's lose money on the large majority of their startups, and the 'wins' pay for everything. Most videogames lose money, paid for by the big hits. I think that it's a natural dynamic in any creative field where you're creating something new, rather than a commoditized business - you are taking a risk, and most of the time it doesn't pay off, but when it does it's huge, making the risk worthwhile. And in all of those markets it's something like 1-2% of hits that generate all of the real money.
There's also a dynamic in the market that once something 'breaks out' it accellerates. For example, when an album 'breaks out' by hitting a certain success level that gets it attention, it starts getting more promotion, it shows up in best seller lists, etc., giving it wider exposure and thus more sales. And in the iTunes store, when something starts doing well it gets better placement, reviewers write about it, etc., all of which drive up sales.
So between the two, you end up with a huge pool of new games/songs/... trying to make it, and the occasional breakout that moves up to the top tier and becomes a hit. It makes it all exciting!
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Compared to the console and PC gaming world I would imagine the disparity there to be even greater than this. EA, Take Two Interactive, Nintendo, Capcom, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, Sega, Sony, etc are likely the top 0.01% when it comes to developers and probably take in almost all the (it's too damned early for me to actually do the research, sorry). The important difference here is that in iOS, as of now, the top 1% is only taking in 30% and that those developers are made up of a far greater number of indie studios.
That's exactly what the officials at the rat race are trying to get all the contestants to think. What the contestants fail to notice is that if you win the rat race, all you get is to be chief rat for a little while.
For example, if everybody works harder and tries to come up with great apps, then more apps will sell, so Apple's 30% becomes a bigger chunk of change, all without Apple having to lift a finger.
I am officially gone from
Additionally, why work harder to achieve the top 20% when, if you get there, it will be stripped from you by the government/rabble
Because while the anti-taxers are throwing their petulant little temper tantrums, someone else is doing the $10 worth of work for $7 gain. Meanwhile, yet someone else is doing the $2000000 worth of work for $1200000 gain and getting rich.
Actually, I suspect that the vast majority of the whiners complaining that they refuse to work any harder because they won't get rich fast enough are actually working as hard as they can to get rich as fast as they can, and that they're just lying about acting like little whiny malfeasant toddlers.
OTOH: a new or indie developer would have a harder time making money thus stifling innovation.
To Quote Yoda, "That, is why you fail."
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"Angy Birds Game Developers make a Thirs of All Revenue".
iTx Technologies: Open source development in Montreal
How does that differ from regular software development. I suspect that the numbers are worse in general.
Top 1% of almost anything makes 1/3 of the income in that field.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Couldn't agree more. It is very difficult to just browse through looking for something you might like. There are only very catchall categories, more sub-categories should be introduced - for example Games - Strategy - Turn Based - Squad Tactics. For a company who is held up as a design and ease of use hero iTunes is really difficult to find anything other than what they are shovelling at you as featured or if you know about it already. I was browsing books in iTunes on my laptop today and all the book titles we truncated because they were too long to fit above the little icons. How about displaying them as a list?!
Except the App store is the only playing field of iOS and it isn't as level as you seem to think.
He didn't say he thought it was level. He said it was the most level playing field yet. Even considering all the issues you see, he is right.
What other platform has low transaction costs, software that a large number of people want, and rankings that make it possible to filter out the crap?
The web has low transaction costs, but no way to find good software. Most web apps are not as capable as their non-web alternatives.
Buying boxed in the store will get you quality software, but the transaction costs (market the software, ship in a box) are outrageous.
Open source repos have free as in price software, but most people do not have the patience to install debian and deal with its lack of polish.
The top 1% have 40% of the wealth in the US, hey.. the top 1% of the developers of iOS are getting a Bum deal, they are 7 percent behind the times!!
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
Obviously we need to tax these "iOS fat cats" and send some of their profits to the poorer developers, eh comrade!
You clearly completely miss the purpose of tax. The tax must obviously go to the "poorer" non-developers.
Not surprising. I bet that the bottom 80% of AppStore developers are the same people who are releasing the garbage that is currently drowning out the (relatively) few number of well executed apps available. At least 80% of the AppStore content consists of copycat apps and pure trash. Think Angry Avians, DoodleHop, and iFlatulate.
Garbage In / Garbage Out. It's as simple as that.
Not really? They're thriving at the rate they're charging now. Having that the "lower bound" of their costs wont push people away unless they get hung up on the figurative value of what they "could" make.
You could at least not be so obvious when making up numbers.
In the US, for 2008 (the last year data is available for), the top 1% of earners (those making more than $380K AGI) paid 38% of all income taxes, paying at a rate of 23%. Those in the bottom 50% of earnings (<$33K AGI), paid 2.7% of the total, at a rate of 2.6%. Those in the "UMC," making $67-114K, (between the 10 and 25th percentiles), paid 16% of the total, at a rate of 9%.
Source - http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Sturgeon's Law at work. 90% of everything is crap. The 10% that isn't crap is where most of the money goes and the few big budget well designed titles are pulling in most of that while the $0.99 apps, even if they sell well probably won't make it into that upper crust. But requiring a lot less developer time a simple yet interesting $0.99 app is probably more profitable.
This same process is at work everywhere. A small percentage of movies take home most of the box office and DVD revenue. A couple of pop stars (with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. A few athletes take home zillions, a few more make a few million and thousands and thousands never make the big leagues at all. It is the way of things. We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.
Democrat delenda est
Oh no they don't. I somehow suspect Activision has a few more development resources than some guy in his Mom's basement plinking away on an old Macbook. The great thing was that for a brief moment, just as the App Store think took flight, the guy in the basement had an advantage of faster time to market without the layers of corporate BS. But that window is now closing. Now you need marketing budgets and stuff to break through the noise of a million other apps and the advantage again swings back to the big development houses.
And even individual devels vary greatly. Equality is a myth. Equality before the law is all we should even be teaching as a goal.
Democrat delenda est
The math works like this...
Apple: Government
Top 1%: "Job creators"
Bottom 80%: The poor saps
Apple takes 33% from 100% of all developers.
USA: Government
Top 1%: "Job creators"
Bottom 80%: The "poor" ([rolls eyes] have you visited Bolivia? Somalia? Haiti?)
USA takes 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% from citizens -- generally, depending on income level.
The highest tax brackets have been in decline since 2000:
1993–2000: 39.6%
2001: 39.1%
2002: 38.6%
2003–2007: 35%
Coincidently, so have incomes for the bottom 80% of US citizens (especially if one considers cost increases e.g. health care, interest rates on personal credit).
Um, no. In America the top 1% pay 38% of all Income Tax and a really huge percentage of all revenue the government takes in from the other taxes that mostly hit the wealthy such as the Alternative Minimum Tax Capital Gains, Estate, etc . The top 50% supply 97% of all personal tax revenue to the Federal Governent. The bottom half pay 3%. Most in the bottom half come out ahead, even factoring in FICA due to the Earned Income Tax Credit and other income redistribution schemes.
So since you didn't know any of this I give you a pass for thinking the rich aren't paying 'their fair share.' But I must ask you, and any other Progs reading, to once and for all go on the record and tell me what you think 'their fair share' should be. Stop the talking points and demagoguery and put a real number on it. What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them. Or even more bluntly, what percentage of a person's labor is their own and to what extent are they your slave?
If you don't like my slavery formulation you are welcome to propose another.. if you can. Yes the State has a legit power to tax but only for the legitimate objects of government, defense, public works and infrastructure, courts, etc.
Democrat delenda est
It's funny, 13% of blackberry developers pull in over 100k through app world. In general, Blackberry developers earn more than their iOS and Android counterparts
Remember, RIM had 42% of the US smartphone market as late as April 2010, and they out-sold Apple until early 2011 -- they have a massive install base (as large or possibly still larger than Apple). You'd be foolish, as a developer, to ignore the platform right now. There is, apparently, a good bit of money to be made.
It's funny how perceptions always seem to outweigh hard data.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Although the App Store can certainly be better, its still way more fair than any game distribution platform out there.
Try to sit down over the weekend, make a game, and get it published in the PS3, Wii, or XBox Live online stores. Heck, try to do that with Steam or Impulse. The consoles are goint to ignore you and 99% chances are the PC stores will politely reject you. Steam and Impulse promote almost everything they get but they do so because they also heavily filter what they accept to only things they would feel proud promoting.
There is always the Android app store, but most that audience does not want to spend money and you must already carry some popularity and momentum to attract the attention of those that are willing to do so, so iOS App Store comes on top by being a platform that actually places you in front of a paying target market.
I look forward to the Kindle Fire. Although the Amazon App Store for Android sucks for developers at the moment (due to them reserving the right to change prices without your consent) It still seems like a platform that may be as "open" (relative to other game platforms) as the iOS App Store and also have an audience that likes to spend money.
Yes, I would love to see some improvements in the categorization, and definitively a removal of the Top 25 button that is dead center of the screen. Yes, Apple promotes some games over others, but if you look at the list (categories, sort by release date), and then head to the "Featured New arrivals" section you may notice eveything that seems to have any effort put into it gets highlighted in the weekly featured new section.
Even if Apple does not perceive your game to be a quality product, once in the iOS App Store, you can try your luck and spend some moeny advertizing your game. Distribute flyiers if you want, web site banners are not the only way to promote software. Xerox or print a bunch of promotional material and put that in every clipboard you find at your local university campus, for example.
Problem with most iOS (and Android actually) devs is they make something over the weekend, toss it in the appstore or marketplace and sit back waiting for money to roll in. It is the developer's responsability to let the people know the game is there, or yo think Walmart bothers telling people Colgate is good for their teeth? Store's jobs are to stock up, not to market. Any marketing you get out of plain visibility is just a bonus and should not be your only marketing strategy.
In other words, games don't make much money compared to virtual Skinner boxes that let you pay a modest sum to get your shot of dopamine if you get tired of pressing the lever.
Rovio accounts for 98% of it.
/obvious
I think it is a commonly held misconception that most iOS devs are bedroom hobbiests who throw something together in a couple of days and punt it on to the App store in the hope of making a few quid. Practically all iOS games that anyone has heard of are made by professional development companies with a significant budget.
For instance people seem to think Angry Birds was this out of the blue success. Actually it was produced with a budget of 100,000 euros a full development team and was the 52nd game they had produced.
They also signed up with a "publisher" (Chillingo) who did most the marketting legwork in exchange of about 50% of the profits (post Apple's cut.)
Ah and here is the problem, we are looking at gross revenue. It is a bad thing that Activision brings in on a game than one guy working out of his home office in his spare time. Sure, sometimes that one guy makes something awesome, but then he ends up being one of the most successful games and that is great for him.
Acitivision on the other hand, might make more money selling those $5-10 games but they spent a lot more developing them and their margins might even be lower than some of the one man operations that do actually make good games.
For this to mean anything you really need to look at the net profit.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Given that the top selling game for iOS is "another physics puzzle variation of the same game," this is well ingrained into the mobile culture.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
You have to understand that the attraction of the idea of "income redistribution" is that I should be able to get stuff because I want it.
If there are evil rich people that are oppressing the downtrodden majority, then we should simply rise up and take everything from them. It is simple - if you are rich your fair share is 100%. If you aren't rich, then your fair share is 0%. Of course, the definition of "rich" changes as needs change.
There is a little problem with this idea. Once you have enough assets you are no longer tied to a day-to-day existence at the behest of a boss. Not only can you quit your day job, but you can move to a comfortable shack in Rio for the rest of your life. We're not talking about people with a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars here, but people with not much more than a couple of million. What exactly is the cost of living in Rio today? Costa Rica? A nice quite corner of Mexico on the coast?
Make things uncomfortable enough for the "rich" and the rich will be looking elsewhere.
So it is going to take a fine balancing act to maintain the idea of the evil rich not adequately supporting the underachievers and making sure things do not go too far. Absolutely some on the left would be fine with a pogram as has happened many times in history - three prime examples are the French Revolution, the Chinese revolution and the Khmer Rouge. In all of these cases the "rich" were killed in mass numbers simply because the less fortunate thought this was their ticket to advancement.
We are certainly approaching that sort of mindset in the US today. There are those in the government that know enough to not let it get that far, but there is a huge groundswell of public opinion that would really, really like to make having lots of money be a capital offence.
Um, no. In America the top 1% pay 38% of all Income Tax...
While his numbers are still very incorrect, this is a completely different ratio comparison.
You both start with top 1% of earners.
He's comparing the percentage taken from the money the 1% makes.
You're comparing the total sum of money taken from the 1% that goes to the global sum of income tax (which includes money from all other brackets).
The later comparison inflates the percentage number for the rich in this case. Assuming the previous commenter (msauve) is correct, that %38 of all income taxes is actually a rate of %28 of their income (or some bucket of money).
IMO, the truth is that it's nearly impossible to put a figure on any of it because of the large difference in wealth making, storing, hiding, investing, etc that is available to the wealthy. On the poor side, it's a fairly easy percentage to read (income in, income tax on it all, left over money out for basic needs and occasional entertainment/etc extras, with zero or less left over (debt)).
Sales tax seems like the only thing that might be able to be applied in a fixed nature and serve all classes near equally, but it will have the same problems once people start deciding what constitutes a "sale". On the low end, food and clothing may be exempt (which makes sense to me), but that opens it up to other exemptions - is buying stock a "sale"? are non-profits taxed? if a "company" buys something, is there a different tax? Plenty of loopholes will be made, and we'll be right back to where we are before we even started.
Income tax would be fair too, if "income" was defined very broadly and you got rid of all loopholes, including the current definition of "company" as its own entity.
I'm not really one of the progressives you're asking the question of, but I think a likely answer is there's no real magic number because it's a complicated equation. In an ideal world income would match expenses (yeah, right, I know) and if expenses go up then they either cut other expenses or bump income, i.e. taxes. If I were in charge and desperately needed to raise taxes for more money, I'd be inclined to pick a scheme where the 15% bracket gets bumped up to 15.5%, the 25% bracket gets bumped up to 26%, and the 38% bracket gets bumped up to 40%, or something like that. Then again I'd probably run the numbers on the extra .5% on the 15's and realize it's completely inconsequential, and then the only point of keeping it would be because it's perceived as more fair if there's a little more suffering all around.
In good times with excess income I'd be inclined to drop the numbers in the same proportion, of course. But there's a pretty big hole to dig out of before we can even think about that.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
In that same chart it shows that the top 10% pay roughly 70% of the taxes. Seems like a lot... until you consider they control 80% of the wealth. The bottom 90% of people control 20% of wealth, and pay 30% of taxes.
This is why people in the bottom 90% complain.
Well, the top 1% control 42% of the wealth, so the fact that they pay only 38% of the taxes shows a significant discrepancy right there.
But they also use a disproportionate share of public services. Take Apple, with police investigations for lost prototypes. Customs inspections to find counterfeit products, which preserves brand value. Police security at private functions for wealthy Americans, and police protection during hazardous events like peaceful protests by the plebes outside of their offices. The fact that streets/roads are mostly damaged by commercial vehicles, yet are mostly funded by things like fuel taxes where everyone pays their "fair share" except the people who cost the most. And then there's the issue that wealthy people write laws like the DMCA through their corporate vehicles, and then frequently engage in expensive and time consuming litigation in public courts. And the military, where those who can afford college are officers, and those who can't fight on the front lines. But hey, at least they get tuition assistance if they make it back alive, and 100% healthcare while they're in (cause it would be sorta fucked up if they had to pay for treatment of their own bullet wounds).
But sure. Let's pretend that even a 75% tax rate would make an appreciable difference in the quality of life of the wealthiest top 1% of Americans. People who are profiting on the backs of the bottom 50% (those who have to budget to afford groceries, gas, and rent) shouldn't be punished for their success! They shouldn't be enslaved to the poor and the middle class! Because it's nothing less than punishment and enslavement when the net annual income of the wealthy goes from what the average person earns in 10 lifetimes to what they earn in 7.5 lifetimes, or even something absurd like 1 lifetime.
What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them[?]
100%. No matter how rich (or poor), property rights are a social contract, not a natural right. Society owns everything; people just borrow it for a while.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I make $30,000 and pay something like 5-6000 in income tax, another 2,000 in property tax and then I get to throw in the costs of gas tax and sales tax. You can't lump the 20-30k people in with the 0-20k who don't pay shit without totally throwing off the averages.
I'll tell you what I believe, though I can't speak for all "Progs".
I believe that 'harder' work should always yield better income than less work; I believe that someone making $1.5 million/year should take home more than someone making $0.5 million/year. Nothing too radical there, I believe.
I believe that once you start getting into higher income brackets, it should be exponentially more difficult to take home even more money. Sure, you can make an extra $million/year, and a percentage of it *will* go into your pocket, but you won't be taking home all of it, or even most of it. According to you, this will make it so all the rich just give up and go homeless or move to Somalia or some other bullshit. I believe we should tax the fuck out of large estates when the person/couple who built the estate dies. I disagree that taxation equals slavery; THAT is a talking point and demagoguery.
The *reason* I want vast sums of wealth taxed out of existence is that wealth has a huge, distorting effect on a) the free market, b) the economy in general, and c) politics (which then enables further distortions on a and b). I believe that NOBODY should be able to live on compound interest for generations. I believe that there should be no entrenched entities (Rockefellers, Carnegies, Bushes, Kennedys) that are essentially guaranteed to be inter-generational major players unless somebody REALLY fucks up. If someone has to keep working to keep their wealth, I see that as a GOOD thing; not just the one-hit wonder musician that is able to live off of royalties for their entire lives, but also the trial lawyer who wins a class action lawsuit and takes home millions -- it's great that they accomplished something good, now keep doing it if you want to keep living high on the hog.
The thing you have to remember, and seem to fail to understand, is that everybody works. I know in the minds of many people, anyone that isn't making $100k/year is some sort of fucking parasite that would be better off just euthanized, but believe it or not I think that the janitor working 40 hours per week should make a wage that allows them to live a comfortable life. I believe that someone flipping burgers or working behind a cash register for 40 hours per week shouldn't be treated like some second class citizen that has to scrape by just to pay rent. I don't think that just because you didn't go to school to get a law degree or become an engineer that you should be doomed to live hand-to-mouth for your entire life. I don't think that if someone making subsistence wages decides to splurge and, say, pay for cable or a (heaven forbid!) cell phone, they should be demonized for not saving every fucking penny they have. (Which will just be depreciated to worthlessness anyway over a few years) Sure, the person who chose to go to school should be rewarded somehow -- maybe they can afford the Lexus instead of the Honda, or can buy a slightly nicer house or whatever they choose to spend their extra cash on; but NOBODY deserves to make hundreds or thousands of times what the average person does.
I believe we have *plenty* of resources in this country: we're tearing down houses because nobody can afford to live in them -- not because nobody *wants* to live in them, but because nobody can *afford* to live in them. We have plenty of food -- when was the last time you heard about a famine in the US? We have plenty of cars -- the government just bought a bunch to destroy to get people to buy new ones. We have plenty of gas -- I've never been unable to get my car filled up, and I'll bet you haven't either. We have enough manpower to get things done, there is enough concrete and asphalt to make/repair all the roads we want, we have materials to build the structures we need. We have enough resources to go around. We have enough *tangible* things that nobody should ever go hungry or not be able to make rent. What we don't have is "money," which is a completely abstract concept that we essentially use to determine who gets access to
Jesus was a liberal
I'm looking at http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/distribute.html
I got 30% by subtracting 70% from 100%. II suggest those with the most income pay the least taxes due to the reduction in taxes due to Capital Gains rates and people who live in the United States but run their businesses in places where the United States does not collect taxes.
Your number of "the bottom 50% of earnings" is different from what I speak of because I am talking about the middle 80%, not the bottom 50%. But a jackass will be a jackass and I don't want to waste any more time on you. I'd rather gripe with the guy who called me "he".
Is there something about me that screams "male" or is that just something people assume because I post on Slashdot sometimes? It irks me sometimes, kind of like when people assume I'm white because of the way I speak on the phone.
However let's not ignore that among all the games that get buried there are many that are actually good. It takes more than just quality to succeed on the App Store, you also need marketing.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You can put pretty much anything you want on Xbox Live with their Indie Games area. Of course, whether anyone will play it is a whole other matter - but you can certainly write an app and put it in the marketplace just as easily as with iOS.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/heshethey/he-or-she-versus-they
Basically, "he" was male/neuter with "she" being exclusively female. If you didn't know someone's gender male pronouns were the default.
People tend to get touchy being called it and using the plural "they" to refer to a single unknown gender person isn't universally accepted, and "he or she" is unwieldy.
Not as easily. I heard a few stories (sorry dont have any to share right now since I stopped paying attention a LONG time ago) about trolling and abuse of the "democratic" moderation the indie program uses. Games may be blocked, or devs with big lists of facebook friends may get your game horrible ratings as you dont need to actually own the game to rate it. You are also restricted how to develop (even Apple and it's closed garden allow you to use native code or third party game engines, while you are forced to use XNA in the XBox.)
Microsoft also hides this xbox live section in a way that you must be basically looking for it. You are, clearly labeled as a third class citizen and dont allow to share space with the big games. Meanwhile Apple and Google don't play favorites in their stores. EA's games are just as visible as John Smith's games.
I'll give you that its better than, let's say the Wii, and in some ways it's a better bone toss than what Steam and Impulse do, but it's far from being "the most level playing field in existance yet."
Interesting. In my workplace, where we process tax information all day, the default is to assume a person is female until you have reason to believe it's a male. But that probably has something to do with the workplace being about 90% female.
The top 50% supply 97% of all personal tax revenue to the Federal Governent. The bottom half pay 3%
Out of curiosity, what's the wealth distribution between the two? If you have 97% of the money, you HAVE to pay 97% of the tax. Nobody else can afford to.
You want a real number? Tax capital gains as income.
Just a day ago I wrote this question and the ansewr in a thread, but I give an explanation as to why the progressives cannot answer this question.
Here it is again:
I see all this people in this thread (and if you look at my comments page, you'll see just how many people are replying, so it's hard), and they would never be able to answer a fairly simple question, which I do have an answer for.
Here is the question:
What's 'fair'? What is the number that you believe people must pay into the system via taxes? (I of-course am completely against all income, corporate, payroll and investment taxes). What's the number?
They will never be able to say what it is.
I know why they can't say it. It's because they don't know what the cost will be, but the one thing is for sure: cost will be going up. There is just NO WAY for cost to go down. The way that gov't deals with the cost and run-away pyramid scheme is by increasing the revenue through higher taxes and lower benefits (the way Reagan did it for SS).
So taxes are sure to go up, not just in absolute numbers but percentage wise. Benefits are sure to go down.
But in the inflationary system and government ran medical system this means that you can NEVER put a finger on the number that you want to collect from people, because you in fact will ALWAYS have to increase that number in a government system. Of-course inflation by gov't is some of it (costs going up), but most of it is gov't ran medical care and insurance, just because it's gov't.
Some people make very little money, maybe 12K USD / year. Well, in extreme cases that's how much ONE DAY of hospital stay may cost in USA!
So that's interesting. Imagine that health care costs go up to 100K/day for some cases. What if they go up to 500K/day?
What is the appropriate taxation then to provide medical care through gov't system and is it even possible?
Well, that would be the reason why nobody will answer the question of: what's fair.
--
Of-course those who actually own businesses and create jobs (cliche, but then again, poor people don't create jobs), those who do create jobs already do more than their fair share before they pay 1 cent in taxes. That's because they increase the wealth of the society by increasing economic production output and they provide jobs, and salaried people pay taxes and they don't have to ask for gov't assistance, etc.
Sure, there are people who are feeding at the gov't trough - certain Wall Str. bankers benefit from the collapse by getting hundreds of millions in bonuses - well that just another reason to stop the government from economic participation. It doesn't know what it's doing by bailing out banks. It doesn't know what kind of damage it's causing by messing with the economy this way and by propping up zombie banks at the expense of everybody.
You can't handle the truth.
What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them. Or even more bluntly, what percentage of a person's labor is their own and to what extent are they your slave?
If you really want a fair number, I guess it would be appropriate to divvy up a person's wealth between how much of it they earned themselves through hard work and how much of it was earned by leveraging societal constructs, no? Assuming nobody (including society at large) has ownership a patch of a land, or the resources on that land, and I go there and kill an elk with my bare hands, I can argue that nobody else should be able to take any of it from me.
But, that's not really the world we live in, is it? If your business ships products, you use the roads, rail, harbors, or air terminals that we all share. If you became wealthy by hiring good employees who were educated by a public school system, you really benefit from societies' hard work. If you were able to build appropriate plants/office space due to the fact that you live in a stable society, then you are getting rich on the backs of millions of people's hard work. So, I guess if you are wealth because you are a captain of industry, or a banker, or an entertainer, or a politician it wouldn't be out of line to tax you at near 100%, because everything you've earned is predicated on the business environment you are working within.
Put another way, if you removed 1975 Bill Gates from this earth and dropped him onto another habitable planet with no intelligence species but animals similar to those on earth, who will lose out most? I kind of think if he weren't around someone else would have built a comparably successful company (maybe better for all than MS, maybe worse). But Bill G on the other hand would be decimated.
FWIW, I don't really believe in 100% taxation. My gut tells me that somewhere around 50% is where you cross the line from potentially reasonable to exploitation. But, that's informed by my own societal pressures, so there's no really definitive way to say that's right. I guess what you'd like to see is proof about what levels of taxation make society at large wealthier. E.g. if 0% tax produces -1% GDP gains, 5% tax 1% gains, 15% tax 3% gains, 25% tax 4% gains, 35% tax 3% gains, 45% tax 2% gains, etc...then you could just look at that chart and say we should probably pick the 25% rate because that creates the most wealth. I haven't seen research for that though, but would love to if it exists.
Actually the 30% that Apple takes is analogous to the "tax" in your analogy. They take that from everyone and use it to build the infrastructure (Xcode, iOS, AppStore, etc) that allows anyone to succeed. Should we "cut taxes", and let Xcode and iOS stagnate? And then tell developers to stop freeloading and write their own tools and infrastructure? How do you think that would play out?
Nobody ever says anything bad about building up infrastructure. It's when people engage in wealth redistribution that it it strikes a lot of us libertarians as being unfair.
If 99% of apps don't make any money, does Apple or the other developers owe them something?
There should be a system that takes a progressively higher percentage of the revenue from the successful apps and distributes that revenue to the apps that aren't as successful. It's not like a app's quality or usability should affect how much revenue it is allowed to keep. Those poor little guys who make the apps with just grainy pictures of Japanese teens in scanty cosplay outfits are the victims, and the big, fat cat developers who can spend time and invest resources into making something people actually want are simply guilty of greed.
Yes, I'm trollling, but it's true.
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
Speaking as someone who very casually uses an ipod touch, which I obtained on a special deal, and bought mainly because I just wanted to know what the device was like:
It's not easy to browse for apps or discover new ones. Sure, you can search, but search for what? I'm more likely to discover new apps when they're described on forums and bulletin boards than I am from cruising the Apple Store. Yeah, you can easily find the most popular ones in a list, but then, that's the point, isn't it? Once you're on that list, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay there, and remaining one of the small percent who gain the lion's percent of the income.
Well, I'm not wild about the device, anyway. Can't even simply transfer pictures to it without it reducing the resolution.
To even start the discussion of what the rate should be, first we need to be able to actually compare them. In other words, we need to get rid of ALL loopholes. With so many loopholes the rates are almost meaningless.
Really... when is it *NOT* the case that a majority of a resource is utilized by a minority of its utilizers?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
wouldn't it be true since apple takes 30% from all, so the remainder is split as mentioned?
I think that's what is called the economics of the entertainment industry. Movies, books, actors, bands, songwriters. Choose an entertainment profession and the top earners are earning most of the money in the entire industry. It's the economics of the network effect of popularity.
If richest 1% of americans only made 1/3 of the income, we would be looking at our country in a very different light. We must congratulate Apple on given new opportunities to indie developers.
", all without Apple having to lift a finger."
Well, apart from hosting the app. And handling the purchase transactions. And serving the ads, if you use those. And the work involved in each of these increases as your sales increase, while *you the developer* earn money from each additional sale without lifting a finger.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA