Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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.

It also reduces their anti-competitive effect on new entrants. Now they have a beachhead. Sounds like a win-win.

There should be an additional tier between e.g. $1mm and $25mm. Though that still wouldn't satisfy an absolutist constituency. So maybe this is the most efficient compromise.

> This has nothing to do with “doing the right thing”

Who cares? I'll take effective solutions from self-interested actors over well-intentioned bumbling.

> everything to do with limiting the number of outraged letters to senators from devs

Sounds like a responsive political system.

If your concern is the App Store's 30% take from large developers, good news: they have the resources to find recourse in courts. Small developers don't. Given this has zero effect on Epic, it has zero effect on their case. (Just, perhaps, its lobbying effect in Congress.)