I appreciate your clarifications, in some cases it seems I misunderstood what you were saying.

> I qualify for the Small Business Program 15%, and while I think that Apple's developer services are totally crappy and not even worth 15%, from my perspective the cut is not among the App Store's biggest problems, and I would happily pay an even larger cut if I actually got a good return for the investment.

I’m sorry you’re unhappy with the services and tools offered in exchange for the commission.

As I stated before, I was already happy with what I got for 30%, the 15% is a cherry on top for me.

I’m one of the few (it seems) that’s very happy with Xcode and its improvements, I’m also very happy with the advancements made on frameworks and SDKs over the last decade or so.
It has made my work so much easier and without many of the latest improvements much of what I currently do wouldn’t be possible.

Code level DST support has also proven to be invaluable to me.

> As invented out of thin air by Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. But I'm not really interested in arguing the legalisms. I think the decision was bad, but that's par for the course in our legal system. I'm more interested in the public debate over the issue, here on Hacker News, on social media, in the news media, etc. Regardless of what the judge decided, the people in the public who defend Apple often point to gaming consoles and consider them to be the relevant platform.

It’s not invented out of thin air, but based on well established case law and legal principles.

I used to practice law between my original stint in software and my current career in software and based on my legal knowledge I’d say that both the original judgment as well as the affirmation by the appellate court is a logical and sound legal conclusion.

But I understand that you’re mainly interested in the “every man’s discussion”, that’s fine.

> I'm not sure what you think I was arguing, but it was simply that iPhone is a general-purpose computing device.

I’ve addressed this both from a legal perspective as well as my personal perspective.

I think it’s safe to say that no new insights can be gleaned from a back and forth and we just fundamentally differ in our views on this.

> Yes. 30 cents is actually a very good deal for a 99 cent transaction. I don't think you'll find a better one, and many payment processors would charge 30 cents plus a percentage. At least as far as payment processing is concerned, though, 30% is a crappy deal for a $100 transaction.

I don’t think it makes much of a difference when taking volume into account. The “pain” is the same, it’s only a matter of difference to how it feels.

> So the question is, how much does the App Store add to the value above and beyond payment processing? I would argue, not much in most cases.

Perhaps not with that framing, I’d argue the question is really how much does Apple as a company add to the value as the commission structure first and foremost serves as payment for being able to use their IP.

The answer is easily found I’d say, try and reinvent the wheel for yourself, leave as many frameworks to the side and let me know how it goes.

For me SwiftUI alone is worth its weight in gold given how much time it has saved me.

> I dispute that it's good for consumers. You get a different type of software in a race-to-the-bottom market. When the platform makes it difficult for developers to produce quality, well-crafted, sustainable software, you get exploitative crap instead, and I think the epithet "crap store" is richly deserved.

I don’t agree with you on this either. I’d argue that the golden age of apps is here, if only because of the many high quality indie apps.

Something that would’ve been impossible without the available tools and frameworks, something that was completely absent in the software market decades ago.

> 30% of $100 is $30. 70% of $0.99 is $0.69. I'll happily take the 30% cut of the much higher price.

This seems rather shortsighted. $30 > $0.69 sure, everyone can see that.

But pushing 100 units at $100, leaving you with $300 is less than pushing 1000 units at $0.99 leaving you with $690 and that’s a conservative estimate.

I could’ve never dreamt of having as many sales as I have now and that’s not even opening the can of worms of recurring subscriptions.

Do I wish software was valued more these days? Definitely. Does the sheer volume make up for the loss in headline price? Also definitely.

> What happened in your comment was the same as I've heard in most arguments defending the App Store: the "history" goes directly from brick-and-mortar times to the App Store, completely ignoring the golden age of indie developers selling software on the web.

Great and you can still have that golden age. macOS is open enough to sustain that after all.

I didn’t skip from brick-and-mortar to the App Store, instead I highlighted the abysmal environment of the faux smartphone era. Why? Because a) we’re mainly talking about iOS and b) macOS is open.

You can choose to ignore that part, but that doesn't change the fact that everyone and their mom was cheering for a 30% haircut and a simple publishing process after having gone through hell with carriers.