{"id":29257,"date":"2020-06-19T20:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-20T00:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=29257"},"modified":"2020-06-19T20:00:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T00:00:29","slug":"have-you-contributed-any-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/19\/have-you-contributed-any-revenue\/","title":{"rendered":"Have You Contributed Any Revenue?"},"content":{"rendered":"

App Review Board<\/a> (also: Hacker<\/a> News<\/a>, 9to5Mac<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Thank you for being an iOS app developer. We understand that Basecamp has developed a number of apps and many subsequent versions for the App Store for many years, and that the App Store has distributed millions of these apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years. We are happy to continue to support you in your app business and offer you the solutions to provide your services for free — so long as you follow and respect the same App Store Review Guidelines and terms that all developers must follow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Once again, they sent the verdict to the press before<\/a> sending it to the developer.<\/p>\n\n

Wil Shipley<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This sounds a little too close to a threat for my liking.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Daniel Jalkut<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

cracks knuckles<\/em> ... your ... contribution ... has been a little light lately. It would be a real shame if ... something were to happen to your apps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

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

\n

That bit about “not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years” is supposed to make the Basecamp folks say “Oh, yeah, you’re right, we forgot, so please go ahead and screw us because we deserve it”?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Loren Brichter<\/a>:<\/p>\n

How about you compete with letting folks have a direct relationship with their customers (on hardware they bought<\/em>) and offer a compelling reason to go through your dollar store.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Apple’s email is an extraordinarily condescending series of statements that seems to emphasize that third-party developers are allowed to develop for Apple’s products through the grace and generosity of the company. But how many people would buy an iPhone if there were no ecosystem of third-party apps, or if free apps were not allowed? The App Store’s policies have incentivized business models that do not require customers to pay money for downloading apps. How many Macs has Apple sold because that’s the only platform supported by the company’s developer tools?<\/p>\n

This is the kind of thing a company writes because it can — because anyone who wishes to have an audience for their product or service on about<\/a> half<\/a> of Americans’ smartphones has no choice but to tolerate whatever inconsistent hell they are put through.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Daniel Jalkut<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If I worked in Apple Developer Relations, engineering, product marketing, or App Store editorial, I’d be FURIOUS at whoever in the company is fomenting a developer-hostile public image the week before WWDC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Marco Arment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Whoever at Apple wrote this — a few days before WWDC! — should never be allowed to communicate with developers again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Troy Swanson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Imagine curating an ecosystem of high quality applications that are a value add to your billion dollar hardware market and saying some shit like this<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

That passive-aggressive bullshit ‘you’re not worth anything to us’ paragraph in writing, from Apple. Oof<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Marc Edwards<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

A few days out from WWDC, and this is Apple’s message to developers. It reads as “you have no value to us unless you’re earning us tons of cash”.<\/p>\n

“We are happy to continue to support you in your app business” is a hell of a quote. That’s going to echo through the heads of developers as they weigh up the pros and cons of supporting Apple’s next platform.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Will Cosgrove<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Apple loves to point out ‘free loaders’ on the App Store that don’t charge for apps. But if these apps didn’t exist on iOS, users would leave the platform and they’d get zero dollars from them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Michael Love<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

iPhone succeeded because<\/em> of our apps. The notion that Apple did this amazing thing that we’re all lucky to be part of is total BS; developers had every bit as much to do with the success of the iPhone as Apple and yet they have the audacity to keep extorting us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Russell Ivanovic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This whole “has generated no revenue for the App Store” line holds no water. If Apple removed all third party apps from their iOS store today, what would iPhone sales look like for the next 2 years?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Joseph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

App Store ecosystem is why I bought a $1000+ phone. If Apple ruins it I might as well buy Android<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Chuq Von Rospach<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Recruiting developers to consider the [Palm] platform was simple: we promised to be “not Apple” as much as we possibly could.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Investing in a more balanced set of policies for the App Store could have avoided this fight, but Apple seems to believe it’s invulnerable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

If you think of Apple’s cut as the cost of running the App Store, then how in the world is it fair that paid indie apps are subsidizing the cost of running the App Store for free apps by megacorps such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n