[rbrtl]

I think perhaps your business model isn't as solid as you might think. Producing an app is not a free pass to live on the revenue, and the market capture is an important part.

I'm not an app developer, I'm in the music industry (day job in IT infra), but it seems to me there are some people projecting their bad business sense onto Apple. As per my other comment in this thread, and the reply someone made for me, the commission drops on subscription based apps, could you not use a subscription, rather than your pay-per-use system (which sounds like a creative workaround, kudos) and then you'll get the benefit of the tax rolloff.

Trying to make your own way in this world is damn hard work, and if a business model falls apart because one needs to "pay taxes," Apple will not be the biggest problem for very long. I'm sure most here would agree that it stinks that Apple are demanding a 30% tax whilst paying ~0% to the U.S. Government, but that is the way of things for now.

[bsaul]

I don’t understand your comment. I have other sources of revenue, mainly doing development for customers. I didn’t bet everything on that app and raised money on the expectation this would be a gold mine. I’m just stating a fact : without those 30%, in my present situation, i could live only based on this app revenues. With the 30% cut, i can’t.

[rbrtl]

I understand, I was inferring some blame on Apple's part from your commentary -- as though they were denying you a living from your app. Anyway, thanks for the discussion. Probably shouldn't necro this thread any more than I have :)

[scarface74]

I’m sure most people could live off of less revenue if they didn’t have any expenses.

But, a niche product where people aren’t willing to spend money is a business model problem.

[bsaul]

That's one way to look at it. All businesses come down to balancing income with expenses indeed. All i'm saying is that 30% cut on the income by apple makes it harder , and sometimes impossible , for some business model to survive.

[zepto]

This raises the question ‘harder than what’?

The services provided by the App Store would have to be present for the business exist at all.

So without the 30% Apple charges those businesses would certainly not survive unless they paid someone else for the services.

[scarface74]

Understood.

But do you know how many businesses would die to be able to sell products that had a 70% gross profit margin?

[bsaul]

I'm not sure about your calculation. A business with only 29% gross profit margin wouldn't be able to survive on the app store because they'd have to give 30% to apple.

[scarface74]

Where did you get 29% from? I’m assuming that you are the only developer working on this (you didn’t say otherwise), for every $1 that someone spends, you get .70 cents.