[simion314]

Would it be more fair that

- developers paid a hosting subscription for their app

- pay for bandwidth used by the app downloads

- pay for each update review

- optional pay for promotion

- Apple would not block legal content, just put it under a new category of stuff Apple disaproves but is legal.

This would fix a part for the issues with stores, Apple can't say that they are hosting your app for free anymore or that they provide you bandwidth.

The disadvantage I see is that small apps will have to pay a the yearly subscriptions but if the price is fair I see it similar as you pay for a domain and webhosting.

Apple will have to find a new way to make money though, like maybe have better services instead of crippling competition, have better dev tools and hardware.

Imagine there are only 2 companies that offer web hosting , and they will take 30% of your money (not profit but total) and on top of that they can reject your content if they don't like it.

[oauea]

No, that would be absolutely absurd. The only thing that would be fair is for Apple and Google to allow third party stores without restricting them.

I'll just put an .apk or .ipa file on my website and be done with these ridiculous stores. That's what's fair.

[IncRnd]

That's absurd. The app store is not a service to developers but to consumers that Apple uses in order to have a working ecosystem.

[NovemberWhiskey]

I don't really understand the argument. The App Store can be a service to both developers and consumers.

That's typically what a store is. Product manufacturers accept that they will sell more of their product in stores, enough to make up for the margin added by the retailer, vs direct sales. Consumers accept to pay more the convenience.

[IncRnd]

It's only indirectly true that the App Store is a service to developers.

It's a very straightforward argument.

Apple has the App Store in order to keep consumers. That it helps developers is a side benefit. Apple would drop the store if didn't retain consumers on the platforms.

[simion314]

As a consumer you have no choice to use a better AppStore, or to grab your apps/movies/music and move to a better provider. So IMO Apple is doomed to be regulated, maybe it is not to late to be more fair with the developers.

[IncRnd]

I absolutely agree.

[bartread]

You understand that this would kill free apps, and strongly disincentivize many startups and other small shops from developing for the app store? This, in turn, would devalue the entire iOS ecosystem and likely hurt Apple's revenue.

[simion314]

Are there "free" apps? I mean you already pay for a dev account 100$ , so say i am an open source project, I already have to pay for dev account, for a Mac device so there is no free stuff. Apple could be kind and offer free hosting for open source projects and if someone affords to pay for a doman and webhosting to have their installer hosted there they could also pay the same amount for hosting on Apple servers.