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by brookst 594 days ago
As a software developer who made good money reaching hundreds of thousands of people through the app store where the old “put up a website and buy advertising” model might have netted me single-digit thousands of sales, I am always surprised at the white knights telling me I got no value from paying 30% of revenue.

If the app store is “mafia tactics”, I can’t even imagine how demonic things like wholesalers mist be.
2 comments
chongli 594 days ago
The issue with the App Store model is that it's just another platform to market yourself on. In your case, you benefitted from a first-mover (or early-mover) advantage and did well. Over time the App Store becomes more and more saturated with apps and so the value to developers goes down. This is no different from the web! It's merely offset by a few decades.

If you had put up your website back in the early 90's and were judicious about advertising back then, you might've been a Fortune 500 company (depending on your business niche, of course)!

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moooo99 594 days ago
> I am always surprised at the white knights telling me I got no value from paying 30% of revenue.

Wether or not the 30% is proportional to the value you get by being on the App Store depends on your situation. That is why choice is a great thing.

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no_wizard 594 days ago
Big corporations get less benefits than small ones.

This is missing from the conversation, is on average, smaller corporations can better keep via the App Store model vs the open software market, because it allows for focused marketing on a fair playing field

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