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Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store 'Tax' (bloomberg.com)
A backlash against the app stores of Apple and Google is gaining steam, with a growing number of companies saying the tech giants are collecting too high a tax for connecting consumers to developers' wares. From a report: Netflix and video game makers Epic Games and Valve are among companies that have recently tried to bypass the app stores or complained about the cost of the tolls Apple and Google charge. Grumbling about app store economics isn't new. But the number of complaints, combined with new ways of reaching users, regulatory scrutiny and competitive pressure are threatening to undermine what have become digital goldmines for Apple and Google. "It feels like something bubbling up here," said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie. "The dollars are just getting so big. They just don't want to be paying Apple and Google billions." Apple and Google launched their app stores in 2008, and they soon grew into powerful marketplaces that matched the creations of millions of independent developers with billions of smartphone users. In exchange, the companies take up to 30 percent of the money consumers pay developers.
3rd party app stores since they're clearly abusing the monopoly they have on app distribution for iOS.
Apple doesn't have a monopoly, so there is no place the DOJ gets to intervene. iOS is just a closed platform like the WiiU, Xbox, Playstation 4, or Nintendo Switch. Just like those other platforms Nobody is allowed to build applications for those platforms without a contract with Apple --- If you don't think Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony require developers contract with them to develop on their platforms and share a big cut of revenue from sales and any subscriptions for the right to distribute anything on those platforms, then i'm sure you'd be sorely mistaken. You can become an Apple developer for a fee and have the ability to use a device you personally own for development purposes, but you have to agree to and follow Apple's rules to play in their ball court, and that includes your app has to follow strict guidelines and can only ever be sold through the App store --- any cost necessary to purchase your app will be collected using the approved APIs, and Apple takes whatever cut they were able to get you to agree to.
....if they actually enforced their developer policies. Every day my competitors upload pages of 5* reviews for their apps, typically one to two words each (real positive reviews tend to be 1-3+ sentences). And the majority of my competition are copies of the same apps, differentiated only by various insane and obnoxious advertising strategies. Myself and my legitimate competitors have no recourse.
Go read the Sherman Antitrust Act again. See if you can find the word "monopoly" in it. Go ahead. I'll wait. (One of the two parts does contain "monopolize or attempt to monopolize", to be fair, but that is also not the part that would apply in this case, as it is predominantly concerned with mergers and conspiracy.)
Anticompetitive practices are more strictly regulated in monopoly situations, but nothing in any of the relevant laws precludes legal action against a company that is not a monopoly.
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I think part of the problem is that, back in the day, it didn't seem all that unreasonable to pay Apple a 30% tax on the software you distributed. After all, they would host your app, provide a landing page, handle credit card transactions, handle the electronic distribution, and there were so few apps on the App store discovery was a snap. Because there were so few apps on the App store, it seemed reasonable to spend part of that 30% on a form of "advertising": after all, even something as stupid as a "fart" app that charged 99 cents could make its developer a millionaire.
Apple's gone through a number of redesigns of their App Store, and all have made discovery worse, not better. There are no "related applications", no systematic way for people to browse applications. Worse, on Mobile we lost the ability to browse applications for our phones on a desktop system; instead, we're left shopping for apps on what? A 5 inch screen that only shows you three apps at a time, max?
And it seems Apple's response to all of this is "get bent." Advertising, in other words, is the developer's responsibility. All Apple does--unless you're one of the lucky hand-picked few--is process credit card transactions and handle distribution. And we must now build our own landing pages, engage in SEO, and do the other advertising stuff ourselves--on the 70% left over from Apple.
Well, hell's bells; this doesn't seem like a toll worth 30% of each transaction. This feels like it's worth 10%--because Apple is not standing in as a publisher (who often takes a greater percentage of your income but also provides advertising for your product); they're basically a warehouse full of stuff. They are just doing fulfillment.
And heck, Amazon only charges about 15% of the product's price on average to handle fulfillment--and Amazon has to stock a warehouse full of crap and hire people to stuff boxes to fulfill your product. Apple simply hosts a bunch of bits on a server somewhere.