They also go out of the way to make these stores prohibitively expensive to set up and still applies app review to apps distributed through those stores (even though they claim they don't and won't)

▲ nabla9 4 days ago | parent [-]

> prohibitively expensive

fact checking

Apple Tier 1 mandatory store services:

  0.5€ Core Technology fee per install
  2%   Initial acquisition fee 
  5%   Store service fee

This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection. This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options.

Compare that to 20-30% that Apple's own AppStore take and its a bargain.

Even with Tier 2 with marketing tools, automatic updates, app recommendations, analytics dashboards, and promotional features the cost is only 10% for small business program members, 15% for others.

▲

troupo 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> fact checking

You forgot that just to set up an alternative app store you need this:

--- start quote ---

Provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit in the amount of €1,000,000 from a financial institution that’s at least A-rated or equivalent by S&P, Fitch, or Moody’s, and maintain that standby letter of credit as long as your alternative app marketplace is in operation

--- end quote ---

> 0.5€ Core Technology fee per install

per install

So if your app is suddenly popular, you have to pay through the nose.

> This includes app reviews, manual updates, and fraud protection.

Why is Apple involved in app review on alternative app stores?

Why is Apple doing manual updates?

Considering the amount of scam apps on App Store, Apple isn't doing fraud protection in their own store.

> This tier is mandatory for any app that promotes external payment options.

Why? What does Apple have to do with external payment options?

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nabla9 4 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

	▲	troupo 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I was just trying to protect other readers for falling your "prohibitively expensive" argument thrown in to the mix. Never new that "having a letter of credit for 1 000 000 dollars" and "having to pay 0.5 cents for every install potentially amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars just because people are installing your app" isn't prohibitively expensive > Now after you started Googling That's what you did. I knew about all those charges before you pretended they are nothing to write home about.

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half-kh-hacker 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

50c per install (of which there are hundreds of thousands) to a party who should be uninvolved is not reasonable