| It’s a symbiotic relationship but not a symmetrical one.
In the beginning Apple needed the devs more than vice versa, but now it’s definitely the other way around. Note the “more” part, it’s still a symbiotic relationship. Apple couldn’t have made the iPhone successful without third party devs, but it’s doubtful Spotify could’ve been as successful as they are without access to the iPhone. As an app developer for iOS myself I can say that Apple’s frameworks have been invaluable to me, especially the improvements and additions in the last few years have significantly made my work easier. Not only that, because overtime I’ve become friends with some of the engineers that work on them, I also know how much time and money goes into them, at least on an individual engineer level. So it seems fair to me that Apple gets paid for their IP. But I’m not interested in paying huge fees upfront like what was common when developing for game consoles, nor am I interested in paying potentially huge fees like the CTF. To me, the best option is a revenue based commission. When I do well, Apple does well, but when I don’t I won’t owe Apple anything. This also motivates them to keep investing in frameworks, because with good frameworks I can make better and more successful apps, which then benefit them. It also allows me to take risks and try out new things or even give away my work for free. Personally I was already happy with 30% and that’s what I signed up for at the time. The 15% I pay now is of course even better, but it’s not like I passed on those savings to my customers.
If I ever get so successful that I hit $1m in revenue then I’ll be more than happy to pay the 30%, because I will have been successful in part because of the tools provided by them.
Or put differently, that success will be in part a consequence of what happened before I hit $1m, when I was still paying the 15%. I’ve got friends that have launched their apps on Android as well, but those earnings are a rounding error compared to their iOS earnings and their apps are heavily being pirated on Android. I can’t quantify what it is that Apple does different that it entices customers to spend money on apps (other than the lack of piracy perhaps), but it’d be silly to pretend like it doesn’t benefit developers to a degree that it warrants Apple getting something in return for that, in addition to the tool-based justification. |