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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

(www.apple.com)
830 points todsacerdoti | 16 comments | 18 Nov 20 11:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.814s | source | bottom
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pja ◴[18 Nov 20 12:43 UTC] No.25136113[source]▶
I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part.

They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the right thing” or “accelerating innovation” and everything to do with limiting the number of outraged letters to senators from devs, the number of newspaper interviews with prominent indie developers & so on.

Indie devs have an outsize PR impact relative to their revenue contribution, so buy them off with a smaller revenue tax that delivers outsize returns if it prevents the 30% house rake on the majority of Apple’s App Store income coming under scrutiny.

Apple / Google’s 30% take is the anti-competitive elephant in the room here, not a few crumbs thrown to small developers.

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NovemberWhiskey ◴[18 Nov 20 13:02 UTC] No.25136254[source]▶
>to it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part.

Oh please.

Has it ever occurred in the history of the world that the selfish motives of two different parties aligned? i.e. Apple gets good press for helping smaller developers and the smaller developers get increased revenues. It happens all the times, and it's called "good business".

You can keep waiting for Apple's App Store executives to cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes and repent of their terrible policies. Let me know how that works out.

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ocdtrekkie ◴[18 Nov 20 13:42 UTC] No.25136581[source]▶
If Apple didn't fear either Epic's lawsuit or Congressional action, or both, they'd never reduce their app store cut, for anyone, ever.

This announcement means Apple knows that neither public opinion nor the law is on their side and they're about to lose really, really big. And they're hoping if they can flip this around a bit and get control of the narrative, they can convince regulators they will self-regulate... while continuing to get a third of the revenue from all the most lucrative developers.

Google's new Gmail privacy settings fall in the same boat: They'd rather lose data from a small portion of their users if it might deter the government from taking away all of it.

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wokwokwok ◴[18 Nov 20 14:15 UTC] No.25136945[source]▶
> they can convince regulators they will self-regulate... while continuing to get a third of the revenue from all the most lucrative developers.

So what?

Seriously, who cares if Epic earns 14 bzillionty dollars this month, or 20 bzillionty dollars?

At that scale, the 30% is such a terrible thorn in your side?

Come on. Cry me a damn river.

The 'narrative' here is Epic pretending they care about anyone except themselves and that this ridiculous song and dance is about it being 'good for everyone'.

Let's try something positive instead:

What should they have done then to make you happy?

Seriously; if this is such a cynical, terrible move, what should they have done?

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1. ocdtrekkie ◴[18 Nov 20 14:20 UTC] No.25137010[source]▶
> Seriously, who cares if Epic earns 14 bzillionty dollars this month, or 20 bzillionty dollars?

The narrative here is amazing, because you're not sympathizing with Epic because they're so big and have so much money... but they're still the little guy compared to Apple. The scale of Apple's monopoly profit makes Epic look like a corner pharmacy in Montana.

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2. wokwokwok ◴[18 Nov 20 14:32 UTC] No.25137150[source]▶
"Little guy"?

Epic is fore casting earning something like 5 billion dollars this financial year.

You'll have to try a bit harder to get a bit of sympathy for them than 'they're smaller than apple'.

...

5 billion dollars.

...

And you want me to care that another company is shaking you down for a couple of million?

Boo hoo. Poor epic. I wonder how they pay the bills.

Oh, I know! They use some that 5 billion dollars they made to do it.

--

I think maybe there are some, you know, real people, who will get some tangible benefits from these rate cuts.

If Epic loses out.. or... you know, if they get them too? Really, it makes no difference to them at all. So.. I really. Do. Not. Care.

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3. psahgal ◴[18 Nov 20 15:36 UTC] No.25137901[source]▶
You are correct that Epic Games made 5 billion dollars in revenue in 2019, according to Venturebeat [1]. However, Apple Insider reports that Apple made 59.7 billion dollars in revenue in their third fiscal quarter (March, April, and May) of 2020 [2].

Epic's definitely not a little guy, but compared to Apple, it looks more like a respectable medium-sized company.

I find Apple's revenue numbers and market value truly staggering. Few companies seem to be able to compare.

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...

[2] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/26/what-to-expect-fr...

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4. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 15:42 UTC] No.25137995[source]▶
Epic is part of TenCent which is close to having a monopoly on games these days.

But separately, the only reason to root for ‘the little guy’ is if the little guy is somehow hard done by.

We dislike the fact that Apple makes some money by charging developers 30% for payment services, software delivery, and operating a storefront that users feel safe to buy from.

We say 30% is too much to change for that, because the margin is way too high. Fair enough.

Epic on the other hand makes its money from selling in game currency to children.

That practice needs to be banned altogether.

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5. anchpop ◴[18 Nov 20 16:02 UTC] No.25138323[source]▶
TenCent has a stake in Epic but Tim Sweeney still is the majority shareholder
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6. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 16:09 UTC] No.25138414{3}[source]▶
Epic has a 40% stake, and controls Epic’s access to the Chinese market. There may be other rights attached to their share.

Sweeney may technically still have the majority vote, but he can’t do anything they seriously oppose, or not do anything they are strongly in favor of without facing serious consequences.

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7. colinmhayes ◴[18 Nov 20 16:55 UTC] No.25139103[source]▶
Why shouldn't you be able to sell toys to children? Fortnite clearly provides a lot of utility to a lot of people.
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8. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 16:59 UTC] No.25139172{3}[source]▶
Apple is the largest company in the world and sells the most successful product in human history.

Of course nobody ‘compares’.

But compared to almost any other iOS developer Epic is a giant.

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9. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 17:18 UTC] No.25139437{3}[source]▶
In game currency is not toys.

It’s a way to monetize addictive videogames without providing any additional value.

Do you think we should sell cigarettes to children? If not, why not?

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10. colinmhayes ◴[18 Nov 20 17:21 UTC] No.25139484{4}[source]▶
Fortnite is absolutely a toy. It's no different than buying different outfits for your doll.
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11. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 17:36 UTC] No.25139672{5}[source]▶
If you buy outfits for your doll, you have the outfits. You can pass them on to your own children along with the doll.

If you buy in-game currency from epic, you have nothing except the memory of a dopamine hit.

12. ocdtrekkie ◴[18 Nov 20 20:21 UTC] No.25141937{4}[source]▶
This is entirely false. Because while Blizzard, the NBA, and every other "American" company was busy sucking up to China in the last year, Tim Sweeney blatantly stated players in his games should feel free to support Hong Kong.

Epic didn't bow to China like other American companies did. And Epic didn't even stay silent. Epic made a clear statement in opposition to China.

That should've put to bed any of this silly "it's controlled by China" nonsense. Tencent just likes having a good stake in a company that prints money.

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13. ocdtrekkie ◴[18 Nov 20 20:23 UTC] No.25141966{4}[source]▶
And Epic isn't asking for a benefit for themselves: They're using those billions to fight for not just themselves, but thousands of smaller developers. Over two hundred of them joined Epic's little "app dev union" of sorts recently.

Yes, Apple sells one of the most successful products in human history... and they also illegally use that power to control the market and extract revenue from thousands of other companies who have no choice but to do business with them.

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14. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 20:41 UTC] No.25142168{5}[source]▶
“ And Epic isn't asking for a benefit for themselves”

False: Epic wants to pay less commission themselves, and to be able to take a cut of other developers work.

One big difference between Apple and Epic is that Epic didn’t do any work to create the platform.

As to those smaller developers. Apple just cut the commission for them in half. A lower level than Epic was promising. Apple seems to care about the smaller developers.

Epic is not fighting for anyone but themselves.

Let’s note that more than half of Epic’s profits belong to just one man.

15. psahgal ◴[18 Nov 20 20:41 UTC] No.25142176{4}[source]▶
I think Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google would also be considered iOS developers, since they publish apps on the App Store. So in terms of market value, Epic is definitely not the biggest player in the Apple ecosystem.

Although, if we're going by how popular the apps are on the store...I could see how Epic would be considered a heavyweight on the App Store.

16. zepto ◴[18 Nov 20 21:16 UTC] No.25142551{5}[source]▶
If there is any part of what I said that is false. I invite you to point it out.

Support Hong Kong?

How is that in opposition to China? Hong Kong is part of China, and I’m pretty sure the Chinese government thinks of itself as supporting Hong Kong.

All Sweeney actually did was make some carefully worded statements about free speech and said that they wouldn’t filter messages on their platform.

He made no statement encouraging support of any particular political stance.