[simion314]

If I have an ebook store and want to give iOS users a nice experience when buying books Apple will make the books more expensive with 30% and on top of that if I want to give my users information that they have the option to buy cheaper from my website I can't , Apple is preventing their users to get informed/educated on how to get cheaper stuff because this information costs Apple money.

Btw you can have apps that do not use any of Apple SDKs (for example engines will use the OS core and neither of the fancy GUI toolkits and languages)

[alex_t]

> If I have an ebook store and want to give iOS users a nice experience when buying books Apple will make the books more expensive with 30% and on top of that if I want to give my users information that they have the option to buy cheaper from my website I can't , Apple is preventing their users to get informed/educated on how to get cheaper stuff because this information costs Apple money.

Well i go back to my argument of isnt that like saying: "i like to use your ebook platform to sell my stuff, but i dont want to pay for it"

the fact that you switched from software to ebook does not change the fact that you want to choose to be able to sell without giving a commission to apple for the store they did set up

[simion314]

Sure, if is not the excuse that the wall garden if for the user safety or for the user privacy and in fact it makes things more expensive for the user and it prevents user getting informed then we change to the excuse that is Apple hardware and Apple can fuck their customers as long as is legal and PR is good enough,

You are defending Apple not allowing developers to present their customers a simple text information, at least for now your banking apps are not taxed by Apple.

[panpanna]

How about the $99/yr app store fee they already pay?

[danudey]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Epic's $99 doesn't cover the cost of Apple actually hosting and distributing Fortnite and its updates to users.

[panpanna]

Well, Apple TOS forbids them using their own servers for updates (which btw Facebook ignores and gets away with)..

But what would be a fair price? Given how cheap bandwidth and storage is would $50,000 suffice? Surely that's closer to apples real costs than 30% of hundreds of million dollars they want now?

[scarface74]

Can I put a book in your hypothetical ebook store without giving you a cut?

[simion314]

If I made such a store I would use the web hosting model, you have a super cheap plan and if you want more feature you pay extra, I would care about your sales similar on how web hosting do not care about what you sell from your website.

Why is web hosting so cheap and you have so many options? Because of competition, allow competition with at least 5 stores and you will see different prices and features.

[alex_t]

Let's say running an ebook service, that cost cost you some money, a portion of your profit will go into building this shop, that will also be used by another party, because you have millions of users and a good trusted brand. in order to sell on that market you sell a some subcription based like a web hosting.

Party B, after using your premuim service, decide he will use your service just as a frontstore, sending your customer to his own website to complete purchase.

in your opinion that is a fair situation?

[simion314]

Yes, my web hosting is not jealous if I pay them 100$/year and I do sales of 1 million. If say my site generates too much traffic then I will have to upgrade the CPU,HDD etc. They make money when I am successful and use their resources. I can always change the web hosting and still reach my existing customers where with Apple I can't reach my existing customers if Apple kicks me out(see Epic)

[alex_t]

I dont think that is a fair comparison, you took away all the issues with branding, your customer dont really care if you are hosting a website yourself or aws or anything else, probably most of them wont even know what that means.

If you want to start to sell ebooks (or anything really) you get an advantage by placing it in a well known store, you can prove me wrong but i think that is a fair statement.

So it is really hard for me to accept as fair a situation where you could build a store, build the brand reputation, host other people product and not get a compensation.

[simion314]

Netflix or Epic do not benefit of Apple Store brand, my bank does not put their app in Google or Apple sore because they hope to get on "top apps" , they put their app there because they have no choice, the users are there and they want an app.

If you think the Apple Sore brand or "top apps" is important then have extra options (like web hosting). So I might not want my app to be promoted, I just want my users to be able to install the app I link from my website similar how they can install it on their PC. If my updates are eat6inb bandwidth then I pay for that, if I want to be promoted I can pay for that, if I want support I can pay for that, if I want an IDE I can pay for that etc.

I think you are putting popular apps like Netflix,Epic,Dropbox, my bank thagt have no choice to be on all platforms with some small video game or TODO app that benefits by getting exposed to people on a "Top apps" or "Similar apps" screen.

[scarface74]

You’re not talking about web building. You’re talking about an online store.

If I get kicked off of Epic’s platform. Where do I go?

[simion314]

>If I get kicked off of Epic’s platform. Where do I go?

Steam, GOG, Windows Store, itch.io put your app on mega/GDrive,Dropbox and share the link on Facebook and Twitter should I continue ?