| I think part of our disagreement on the burden is the idea that developers would be able to choose which stores to support. Of course in principle they would be able to choose, but in practice, by doing so they give up a percentage of revenue. If price competition brings commissions down to say, 15% on average, developers must support a combination of stores with a minimum combined market share of 85%, just to break even on where we currently stand. Even if the majority of purchases are made from a few large stores, developers will likely be worse off unless they also support some of the smaller ones, and even then, the fragmentation means that the full cost saving of the reduced commission will likely never be realized. And in this world where there are 3 major stores and some smaller ones. Every serious developer will be required to support all of 3 of the major stores to get close to the current revenue. The improved margin just isn’t that much once you start losing access to addressable market. On top of this, as I have said elsewhere, to actually get into all these stores, your app must comply with the superset of regulations. I think it’s fair to assume that that Apple, even if they are forced to reduce commissions, will not be likely to ease regulations significantly. The notion of a safe, well policed store, is a core value and one of the reasons people choose the brand. Even if they only retain 20% of app sales, developers will still need to comply with their regulations if they don’t want to be worse off than before, and in addition will have to comply with whatever the other stores require. I don’t think there is any gross exaggeration here. There just isn’t as much gain to be had. It would be a different matter if Apple could be pressured into reducing margins without fragmenting the store landscape. My hope is that they do so pro-actively. |
I doubt that. I think if there were two or three major app stores, almost all consumers would use all of them.
And even if they didn't, I would still feel far more confident committing to a platform where one particular corporation cannot take away 100% of my customers over night for some frivolous reason and ruin my entire business.
Another upside is that I wouldn't depend as much on the ranking algorithm of one specific app store. My livelihood would simply be far more secure if it wasn't so completely dependent on the whim of one or two global corporations.
I don't have to comply with a superset of regulations. If I'm making something that is only allowed on specialist app stores (such as porn for instance) then my users will find me there. That's better than reaching 0% of users.