Large customers normally have lots of leverage: "if you don't give me a good deal, I will take my business elsewhere". I run an alternative to the Apple App Store for jailbroken iOS devices (Cydia); and, when I have sold software (which I did "at scale" for a decade) I absolutely was forced to cut deals--sometimes ones extremely lucrative for the developer--to keep the business of my largest clients from not only listing their products (which notably were generally ineligible, for technical reasons as opposed to content ones, from being available in the official App Store) with competing stores or even merely accepting payments themselves, but actively building their own competing stores! Think about it: if you are paying a hefty percentage of your revenue to someone else in fees--and are doing enough volume (as you are a large customer)--you can afford to hire an entire team to work on this problem as the App Store is in no way "magic" or anything... at which point you "may as well" offer the service to others in an attempt to cut the margins of your prior fee recipient. It should be the small customers who generally tolerate the (on a percentage basis) higher fees, as they are willing to pay a potentially "hefty cut" for the privilege of using an off-the-shelf, integrated solution that users trust, as the absolute cost of that larger cut is small, and is thereby unlikely to be large enough to make sense expending a bunch of effort building (and marketing) a bespoke solution (that users might not trust anyway); but if you aren't having to fight for the larger customers, something distorted is happening: that Apple and Google (both, which might be surprising to some but maybe less if you read Epic's lessor-known lawsuit against Google surrounding anticompetitive moves Google has taken--and maybe are now attempting to address, but only now--to lock in their Play Store) feel able to specifically squeeze their largest customers with seemingly no ramification is a testament to the power they possess to control and direct the relevant markets from their respective positions.
Sure, but it’s important to note that over time both companies have carved out special deals and considerations for larger customers. You can read this for yourself in the news and numerous court proceedings where emails have been released showing the companies having these exact discussions.
It’s a bit contentious but it appears Epic itself tried to get a special deal from Apple [1]. Why would you even bother asking if they don’t negotiate or cut deals with different app vendors? Apple (and maybe Google idk) even changed/lowered pricing for certain app categories because of developer complaints.
Do you have a source that Apple’s waived or otherwise modified their cut with other vendors or “app categories”? Your source only shows that Epic attempted to make a deal and failed. Apple then cut the fee for small developers to appease the public _after_ the Epic lawsuit.
You’ll have to do some digging too if you’re interested. I can’t remember exactly and now when I search I just get current news as it relates to pricing for different app categories/subscriptions, etc.
Thank you for your comment. One minor nitpick: The words app store shouldn't be capitalized because Apple does not have a trademark on that term. They have a pending trademark and when Amazon started their "AppStore" app store, Apple took them to court over it and they ended up dropping the case before it was concluded because they would have lost.
Of course your iPhone automatically capitalizes it and it's still listed as a trademark on their site because Apple is so petty.
OK, so, as a native English speaker (and maybe specifically one in America), I generally try to capitalize "proper nouns", whether you have standing for a trademark or not... I thereby will happily talk about how "the App Store is an example of an app store" (though I also tend to disambiguate at least one instance with "Apple App Store", which, I think, certainly should be capitalized).
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse", amirite?
Uncle is a title, so if it’s used as GP did (rather than as a noun like you did), it doesn’t require the commas in this way. Consider the word Mister/“Mr.”
Yeah. FWIW, I had considered modifying it to capitalize "Uncle" as well, but honestly I don't know the rules for that, and the original copy of this I was quoting hadn't done so (though I had seen others which had) ;P.
"because they would have lost" -> we don't know if this would indeed happen because words "app" and "store" are so generic... writing them capitalized does not change this much, because everything you write in a title is capitalized in English language...
If we're guessing, another reasonable guess is that they worked out a licensing deal so they wouldn't have to fight Amazon but they could still go after the next guy that tries it.
Not really. What they want is to protect their Trademark and avoid direct competition. Licensing serves to protect the mark in a way that just ignoring Amazon's behavior doesn't.
Apologies, I should have asked if you have evidence that they licensed it? If so, that would require Amazon to note it in their site, no? I see no reason to think that is the case.
Companies also drop cases where winning is simply not worth the money. Owning an App Store trademark doesn’t seem be valuable in the way say iPad is because it’s not a separate product.
That’s not the test, Word is a trademark despite WordPerfect coming out several years earlier. Trademark law is kind of silly, but forcing every product to be called either a made up word or some long description wouldn’t be a net benefit.
Comments
Large customers normally have lots of leverage: "if you don't give me a good deal, I will take my business elsewhere". I run an alternative to the Apple App Store for jailbroken iOS devices (Cydia); and, when I have sold software (which I did "at scale" for a decade) I absolutely was forced to cut deals--sometimes ones extremely lucrative for the developer--to keep the business of my largest clients from not only listing their products (which notably were generally ineligible, for technical reasons as opposed to content ones, from being available in the official App Store) with competing stores or even merely accepting payments themselves, but actively building their own competing stores! Think about it: if you are paying a hefty percentage of your revenue to someone else in fees--and are doing enough volume (as you are a large customer)--you can afford to hire an entire team to work on this problem as the App Store is in no way "magic" or anything... at which point you "may as well" offer the service to others in an attempt to cut the margins of your prior fee recipient. It should be the small customers who generally tolerate the (on a percentage basis) higher fees, as they are willing to pay a potentially "hefty cut" for the privilege of using an off-the-shelf, integrated solution that users trust, as the absolute cost of that larger cut is small, and is thereby unlikely to be large enough to make sense expending a bunch of effort building (and marketing) a bespoke solution (that users might not trust anyway); but if you aren't having to fight for the larger customers, something distorted is happening: that Apple and Google (both, which might be surprising to some but maybe less if you read Epic's lessor-known lawsuit against Google surrounding anticompetitive moves Google has taken--and maybe are now attempting to address, but only now--to lock in their Play Store) feel able to specifically squeeze their largest customers with seemingly no ramification is a testament to the power they possess to control and direct the relevant markets from their respective positions.
Sure, but it’s important to note that over time both companies have carved out special deals and considerations for larger customers. You can read this for yourself in the news and numerous court proceedings where emails have been released showing the companies having these exact discussions.
It’s a bit contentious but it appears Epic itself tried to get a special deal from Apple [1]. Why would you even bother asking if they don’t negotiate or cut deals with different app vendors? Apple (and maybe Google idk) even changed/lowered pricing for certain app categories because of developer complaints.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/21/apple-contends-epics-ban-w...
Do you have a source that Apple’s waived or otherwise modified their cut with other vendors or “app categories”? Your source only shows that Epic attempted to make a deal and failed. Apple then cut the fee for small developers to appease the public _after_ the Epic lawsuit.
You can search around for various large companies and deals or discussions they’ve had with Apple. Uber, Netflix, Facebook come to mind.
Please note the specific language I used in my comment as well.
As an example: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/5/22421734/apple-epic-netfli...
You’ll have to do some digging too if you’re interested. I can’t remember exactly and now when I search I just get current news as it relates to pricing for different app categories/subscriptions, etc.
Thank you for your comment. One minor nitpick: The words app store shouldn't be capitalized because Apple does not have a trademark on that term. They have a pending trademark and when Amazon started their "AppStore" app store, Apple took them to court over it and they ended up dropping the case before it was concluded because they would have lost.
Of course your iPhone automatically capitalizes it and it's still listed as a trademark on their site because Apple is so petty.
OK, so, as a native English speaker (and maybe specifically one in America), I generally try to capitalize "proper nouns", whether you have standing for a trademark or not... I thereby will happily talk about how "the App Store is an example of an app store" (though I also tend to disambiguate at least one instance with "Apple App Store", which, I think, certainly should be capitalized).
Well... "I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse" is the actual correct way to write that sentence.
Uncle is a title, so if it’s used as GP did (rather than as a noun like you did), it doesn’t require the commas in this way. Consider the word Mister/“Mr.”
Both are correct but use the words differently.
Yeah. FWIW, I had considered modifying it to capitalize "Uncle" as well, but honestly I don't know the rules for that, and the original copy of this I was quoting hadn't done so (though I had seen others which had) ;P.
"because they would have lost" -> we don't know if this would indeed happen because words "app" and "store" are so generic... writing them capitalized does not change this much, because everything you write in a title is capitalized in English language...
If Apple dropped the case, I think it is fairly safe to assume they saw defeat in their future. Any reason to assume otherwise?
If we're guessing, another reasonable guess is that they worked out a licensing deal so they wouldn't have to fight Amazon but they could still go after the next guy that tries it.
Right, but that is the same as a loss being expected. They want to wait for someone that they think they can make a winning case against. Right?
Not really. What they want is to protect their Trademark and avoid direct competition. Licensing serves to protect the mark in a way that just ignoring Amazon's behavior doesn't.
Apologies, I should have asked if you have evidence that they licensed it? If so, that would require Amazon to note it in their site, no? I see no reason to think that is the case.
You're on 3rd order assumptions at this point
This feels like a useful metric, but one I haven't really heard asserted before. Care to elaborate?
It's nothing formal just saying an assumption based on an assumption keeps having lower chances of being correct the further you take it.
Companies also drop cases where winning is simply not worth the money. Owning an App Store trademark doesn’t seem be valuable in the way say iPad is because it’s not a separate product.
It might have been a settlement out of court?
That isn't the same as dropped, to me. So, maybe?
Maybe it was part of the settlement that they "drop the case"...
That’s not the test, Word is a trademark despite WordPerfect coming out several years earlier. Trademark law is kind of silly, but forcing every product to be called either a made up word or some long description wouldn’t be a net benefit.