[smoldesu]

Apple has 200 billion dollars in liquid cash sitting in their coffers right now. If you're a developer making less than 1 million dollars annually, there is not a chance that in your lifetime you'd be able to acquire even a fraction of that wealth. There is honestly no comparison between indie developers and the largest corporation in the world; it's like saying that the Mom & Pop diner down the street should be subject to the same tax rate as McDonalds because "they both serve food". It's outright lunacy.

[bradknowles]

Apple is just one company. There are many developers. And Apple has many products. Apple only charges 30% to those developers making a million bucks a year or more. Which means that well over 95% of all developers only pay 15%. Which is a much better deal than any other major platform gives any developer. If those developers choose not to share that reduction in cost to their customers, then that just shows that the developers in question never had the best interests of the users in mind anyway.

[smoldesu]

> If those developers choose not to share that reduction in cost to their customers, then that just shows that the developers in question never had the best interests of the users in mind anyway.

That argument is a catch-22. If Apple doesn't pass on the insane profit margin they earn off their App Store to their developers, then it just shows that Apple never had the best interests of the developers in mind anyways.

[bradknowles]

Apple has paid more back to their developers than any other company in the business. Billions and billions. Many of those developers wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for Apple. I think Apple has a right to charge a rate for the App Store that is usual and customary, as you see from Sony, Microsoft, Google, and many others. If you want to argue that all app stores should charge a lower rate, then I won’t argue with you. But the application of that rule has to be fair and equitable across the entire industry and not just aimed at Apple. And by the same token, developers should also be forced to charge an amount that is fair and equitable across the entire industry, and thus they should likewise be forced to forgo the concept of “charge what the market will bear”.

[smoldesu]

> Apple has paid more back to their developers than any other company in the business. Billions and billions.

Yeah, we're going to need a citation here. The only goodwill that comes to mind is their lousy 60gb IDE and the half-finished Swiftlang. They certainly didn't pay for any of the cool BSD features they took from open source devs, but why should they? They're the multi-billion dollar corporation and they're the ones who decided to use permissive licensing, amirite?

[oarsinsync]

I think they're citing Apple's role as a payment gateway as "paid back more to developers than anyone else", since technically on your $2.99 sale, Apple takes that money, and then pays you your $2.10 share.

Meanwhile Microsoft hasn't paid as much out to developers, because Microsoft did not succeed at effectively middle-man that transaction flow the same way Apple has. Apple doesn't do a particularly good job of it on the Mac either, mind.

Meanwhile, Visa, Mastercard, and banks have likely all paid out more to developers in all of time than Apple has, but that doesn't make as good a narrative as comparing Apple as a platform owner, rather than as a financial intermediary.