Apple's App Store brings in users because it is the only choice, not because it offers some kind of exceptional distribution and marketing to developers
Today, Apple's stance seems … Charlesarthur / The Overspill : Start Up No.1335: Tiktokers v Trump, Apple and ARM and the App Store, the mystery of Tether's growth … Stuart Dredge / Music Ally : More commentators weigh in on Apple's App Store rules Tweets: Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : I think Apple should rewrite the rules from zero. But I also think dumping the store, let alone sandboxing, would be catastrophic. Who looks at the last few years and thinks it should be easier for any random developer to do whatever they want with your data? Who wants backdoors? John Gruber / @gruber : In the long run, the most powerful lock-in is when people like your stuff so much that they insist on it (and perhaps badmouth competitors), not when people feel they have no choice (and perhaps badmouth you). Don MacAskill / @donmacaskill : “Apple needs to decide if it wants to be “right,” or if it wants to be happy.” Amen. https://twitter.com/... Nathan Lawrence / @nathanblawrence : I have now seen a lot of people I would sort of consider “big deal” indies saying App Store positioning does not really matter. I'm sure that's true for them. It is not, however, true for all of us. And these remarks hurt in many of the same ways Apple's free apps remark did. https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Most people (and certainly most iPhone developers) understand that the phone was a generational change in computing. But we tend to focus on the multitouch UI, where actually there were actually two generational changes: the UI and the software model. Marco Arment / @marcoarment : I bet they come to a compromise where neither side has to lose face and “back down”, such as Hey adding some free functionality such that the app can do something without a purchase but also without adding IAP. (Apple's letter effectively invited them to do this.) https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : @stevesi I love Brent's product but I don't understand the idea that installing software was easy before the App Store. it was easy for people know what a third party RSS reader is, but that is not the same thing. John Wilson / @johnwilson : This doesn't speak to why consumers love using the App Store though. And too often developers don't consider that side of the equation. https://twitter.com/... Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi : inessential: The iOS App Store Brings Users Only Because It's the Only Choice // “no one goes there anymore because it is too crowded” or “the food is terrible and the portions are too small”. https://inessential.com/... Matt Birchler / @mattbirchler : Not even is Apple's own Dark Sky immune from this. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : 🙅♂️ The app is only crippled on the App Store because that's what they had to do to fit Apple's written and unwritten rules. By the book. It's not ‘an email app’, it's the Hey app; Apple's framing is BS, and it's disappointing to see people fall for it https://t.co/ONJjr0uzTA Marco Arment / @marcoarment : Anyone arguing that the App Store graces developers with incredible distribution and promotion should read this: https://inessential.com/... My experience matches @brentsimmons's. Today's crowded App Store is merely a (bad) search engine you send people to from your own marketing. Marco Arment / @marcoarment : What a beautiful, elegant, and utterly damning website about Apple's arbitrary, inconsistent, ever-shifting enforcement of the IAP rules to accommodate strategically important companies like Netflix while pretending to enforce the same rules for everyone: https://youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwor k.com/ @dylanmcd8 : On this topic, my app “School Assistant - Planner” does not show up, at all, when searching “school assistant.” https://twitter.com/... Ahmed Al Omran / @ahmed : “This is a misconception that many people have — they think the App Store brings some kind of exceptional distribution and marketing that developers wouldn't have on their own. It's just not true. It lacks even a grain of truth.” https://inessential.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : This ‘the App Store is a business, they can do what they want’ thing is nonsense. The App Store is a utility. It defines the future of software. If you're not on it as a developer, you don't exist. If you don't have access to apps, as a user, you're excluded from the modern world Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : (Whereupon it will present an ad for a competitor who bought the keywords to appear before your app in search, anyway) https://twitter.com/... Don MacAskill / @donmacaskill : This whole thread is a really fascinating historical look at why App Store incentives are difficult, complicated, and “abused”. Highly recommended read. https://twitter.com/... Ouriel Ohayon / @ourielohayon : One question for Apple and one suggestion. Does apple consider their app developers as *customers* or *suppliers*? If they are obsessed with customer satisfaction would they be ready to run an widespread anonymous customer/dev satisfaction survey? https://www.nytimes.com/... Cindy Sridharan / @copyconstruct : 🙄🙄🙄🙄 🙄🙄 at the highlighted part. More fool him for not knowing how distributing an iOS app works. Man, the dudebros sure like throwing out all their toys out of the pram when they don't get treated like the Twitter celebrities they are. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Steven Aquino / @steven_aquino : A great take on Apple and the App Store, vis-a-vis the spat with Basecamp, by @siracusa here. https://hypercritical.co/... Nando Vieira / @fnando : 30% fee on Apple Store/Google Play is ok, as long as you have options. I find this whole “don't mention paid plans from outside our store” policy the must utter bull crap. @Apple must be fined. Like @Microsoft. $1.3B back in 2004. Let's make it $50B now? https://hey.com/... Jack Beyer / @thejackbeyer : “Apple seems to firmly believe that its ambitious goal state can be achieved with something close to the current set of App Store rules. This belief is not supported by the evidence.” I half expected this from @tim_cook but not a product person & photographer like @pschiller. https://twitter.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : “Apple captures 30% of billings through its App Store. My estimate for these billings were $67.9 billion in 2019 which means App Store billings were 13% of the 2019 ecosystem. Apple's 30% cut of Billings amounts to 3.8% for the whole ecosystem. It's hardly an oppressive number.” https://twitter.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : (It's fascinating to see how different the takes are between several of the industry analysts who focus on Apple. And all how different some of those takes are from media that cover Apple. My guess is focusing on 30% is less important than focusing on consistency/transparency.) https://twitter.com/... Rogue Amoeba / @rogueamoeba : This piece from @jasonfried covers a whole lot of the problems with Apple's App Stores: https://hey.com/... These things aren't just bad for developers. They're bad for users and even Apple. Don MacAskill / @donmacaskill : This. 1000%. As another business with exceptional customer care, this right here is everything you need to know about @Apple and IAP. https://twitter.com/... Paul Thurrott / @thurrott : “Phil Schiller's suggestion that we should raise prices on iOS customers to make up for Apple's added margin is antitrust gold.” Ohh. Beautiful. https://hey.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands mid-2020, when the anti-competitive mechanics of the iOS App Store were already under regulatory scrutiny and just before Apple retained economists to argue its commissions were defensible (Apple hired economists weeks after this post ran). The argument cuts at the core of Apple's defense: if the Store's draw for developers is that it is iOS's only storefront rather than superior marketing, then the 30% take reflects captive access, not added value.
First-order effects
- Apple's justification for its commission structure has to rest on something other than distribution quality — which is exactly why it moved to build an economic case via hired economists rather than rely on the 'we market your app' pitch.
Second-order effects
- With organic placement treated as scarce rather than valuable, Apple monetized the shelf itself, extending App Store ads from search results to the Today homepage and individual app pages; meanwhile lax enforcement let scam lookalike apps flourish, undercutting the curation-quality counterargument.
Third-order effects
- If the 'only choice, not better service' framing holds, the endpoint is structural intervention — the US DOJ's case against Apple shows the argument migrating from developer blog posts into antitrust litigation aimed at the gatekeeper model itself.
The trend: The App Store's economics are shifting from an unexamined default to a litigated question of whether mandatory distribution justifies mandatory payment.