{"id":20469,"date":"2018-02-09T14:56:24","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T19:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=20469"},"modified":"2018-08-16T14:12:49","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T18:12:49","slug":"that-30-app-store-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/09\/that-30-app-store-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"That 30% App Store Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brent Simmons<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Apple’s 30% tax on the App Store is increasingly absurd. Richest company in history, and it’s still taking 30% from your friendly neighborhood indie developers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Jamie Halmick<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s an absurdly large cut for the level of support they give devs given the amount of profit they make on it. Obviously as a biz they can demand it and we will pay it. That doesn’t mean we should shut up and like it. They should either do better or take less or both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Brent Simmons<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

There’s no sacred verse that says businesses acting lawfully can’t be criticized. Nothing says we can’t advocate for change. In fact, I’d say that that’s part of capitalism, too.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

My thinking is that a lower cut provides more incentive for developers to invest in high-quality, long-lived apps — and that that’s good for the platform and good for users, and good for Apple, and so everybody wins.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

As hardware progress inevitably slows, software quality and app ecosystems will be increasingly important platform differentiators. The App Store has so many major problems, and I don’t think the 30% is at the top of the list, but on the other hand it’s a really easy knob to turn, with seemingly low downside and possible great upside.<\/p>\n\n

Previously: Dirty Percent<\/a>, BBEdit Leaving the Mac App Store<\/a>, Pre-WWDC App Store Changes<\/a>, Apple to Halve App Store Fees for Subscription Video Apps<\/a>, Apple Wants 30% of Tips From Chinese Chat Apps<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2018-03-02): Marco Arment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

2. Apple doesn’t get a cut of revenue from third-party ads or privacy-invasion payola networks.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, in a way, Apple is incentivizing indirect and less privacy friendly methods of app payment such as ads.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2018-08-16): scott<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

App Store fees got you down? Meanwhile at Epic, they lowered their take on the Unreal Marketplace from 30% to 12% and retroactively paid back years of fees.<\/p>\n

Epic said this is due to the success of Fortnite. If only Apple and Google had successful products to rely on for income.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brent Simmons: Apple’s 30% tax on the App Store is increasingly absurd. Richest company in history, and it’s still taking 30% from your friendly neighborhood indie developers. Jamie Halmick: It’s an absurdly large cut for the level of support they give devs given the amount of profit they make on it. Obviously as a biz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-08-16T18:12:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"c6e17028-9934-409b-a66c-702ffe545bda","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-08-16T18:12:54Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AxuFwKJk0QJumbHAv_lRb2g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[91,38,101,31,1472,30,39,1529],"class_list":["post-20469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-appstore","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-ios","tag-ios-11","tag-mac","tag-macappstore","tag-macos-10-13"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20469"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22474,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469\/revisions\/22474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}