8 votes

Topic deleted by author

4 comments

  1. [3]
    WinterCharm
    Link
    App Stores are absolutely premium space, but I find it funny that Apple catches flak when Amazon is clearly the most egregious of this type of thing, taking 65% of revenue from published books....

    App Stores are absolutely premium space, but I find it funny that Apple catches flak when Amazon is clearly the most egregious of this type of thing, taking 65% of revenue from published books. It’s insane.

    App Store and Steam take 30%. Apple takes 15% after year 1 for a subscription. Epic Games takes 15%... I think more app stores are trending toward 15% or so.

    Also, interestingly the DOJ ruled against Apple and in favor of Amazon, basically handing them a monopoly on ebooks.

    The DoJ tends to care more about keeping prices low, than actually breaking up monopolies... which is why Amazon now basically controls online publishing.

    13 votes
    1. joplin
      Link Parent
      Having sold my own software in the era of big box software stores like CompUSA or Circuit City, giving 30% to one of these companies and getting the access of all their customers would have been a...

      Having sold my own software in the era of big box software stores like CompUSA or Circuit City, giving 30% to one of these companies and getting the access of all their customers would have been a godsend. I never did big enough volume or had the connections to pay the 50% that physical store distributors required back in the day. I used online payment processors in the early 2000s and they cost me between 15% and 30% and didn't offer any sort of store or anything. It was all handled after the user had found my software on their own, downloaded it and tried it out for a few weeks. All they handled was payment. Reaching users was very difficult. It was easier on the Mac because there were a few websites that most Mac users went to to discover new software. But on Windows it was a crap shoot. Most web sites that pointed users to your software were either scammy sites, or just small and unknown. The idea that there would be a single store that all users went to and all software was in would have been an incredible boon to my business, even with the discovery problems that users and developers currently complain about.

      5 votes
    2. skybrian
      Link Parent
      Amazon's rates seem complicated. I'm wondering when it's 65%? For traditional retail stores I vaguely remember markup being around 50%?

      Amazon's rates seem complicated. I'm wondering when it's 65%?

      For traditional retail stores I vaguely remember markup being around 50%?

  2. JXM
    (edited )
    Link
    App Stores made it possible for these non-enterprise SaaS companies to operate at a scale that made them profitable though. The benefit of having one, centralized source for every app that can be...

    App Stores made it possible for these non-enterprise SaaS companies to operate at a scale that made them profitable though.

    The benefit of having one, centralized source for every app that can be installed on a phone is a huge marketing boon for these services.

    Most of these services would have had a hard time finding the number of subscribers they have now back in the days of Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, or even pre-2000s era computer platforms like Windows and Classic Mac OS.

    3 votes