Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Posted Oct 4, 2025 5:18 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)In reply to: Monopolies must be dismantled. by pizza
Parent article: F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree
Yeah. Apple is a well-known philanthropist. They give out free phones to people, and only eke out a meager existence from the App Store fees.
Apple does quadruple dipping:
1. They sell devices at a huge markup while free-riding on the shoulders of third-party developers ("there's an app for that" was a major selling point).
2. To develop for iOS, you need to use a Mac. If you want a reasonable development machine, that's alone about $300-$500 a year of expenses in hardware depreciation.
3. You also need to pay $100 a year.
4. On top of that, Apple wants a 30% cut of software sales.
So no, there's parasitism in this relation, but it runs the other way.
For Google it's more nuanced, they absolutely make profit by charging the phone manufacturers for access to Play Store and by mining the data for ads.
Posted Oct 4, 2025 12:46 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (1 responses)
I repeat; It's fair to debate what constitutes "fair compensation", but $0 is not it.
> 1. They sell devices at a huge markup while free-riding on the shoulders of third-party developers ("there's an app for that" was a major selling point).
So... app writers derive zero benefit from Apple's platform?
> 2. To develop for iOS, you need to use a Mac. If you want a reasonable development machine, that's alone about $300-$500 a year of expenses in hardware depreciation.
So to develop software for non-iOS platforms one doesn't need "a reasonable development machine" that also depreciates over time?
> 3. You also need to pay $100 a year.
Of all the costs involved in writing an application, that barely even registers. You'll spend more than that on electricity for your development machine(s).
> 4. On top of that, Apple wants a 30% cut of software sales.
As opposed to the 50% (or greater) cut that was typical when the app store first launched? (I might add that a fee-simple 30% cut was widely lauded in the industry for putting vastly more money in developers' pockets)
...come on, these arguments are ludicrously weak. I honestly expected better from you.
Posted Oct 4, 2025 21:12 UTC (Sat)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
Why? That's what Microsoft charges Windows developers. You can spend all your life developing Windows applications without paying anything to Microsoft, not even the Windows license cost.
> So... app writers derive zero benefit from Apple's platform?
Arguably, yes. At this point, you _have_ to support Apple as an app developer. An Android-only app will be a failure in the market if we exclude specialized apps. iOS ends up being a drag on the computing world, resulting in perverted architectures and a lot of wasted time to conform to bizarre iOS restrictions and inadequacies.
> So to develop software for non-iOS platforms one doesn't need "a reasonable development machine" that also depreciates over time?
Not my point. My point is that Apple _already_ gets more than $0 from every iOS developer. Even if they produce completely free applications. You asked about "fair compensation" above, remember? In contrast, Google or Microsoft do not necessarily get anything from individual developers.
> As opposed to the 50% (or greater) cut that was typical when the app store first launched? (I might add that a fee-simple 30% cut was widely lauded in the industry for putting vastly more money in developers' pockets)
At that time, I was selling boxed software for Windows without paying any fees to MS. We did have an MSDN subscription, but it was a fixed (and pretty low) expense.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.