So the other day, Apple announced a change in their iOS developer rules that enables apps to have subscription billed content.
Anyone who reads a magazine app now has an Apple-mandated choice to subscribe and buy content wholly within the app. Yes, choice.
Now the tech blogosphere pundit-tards are losing their freaking minds because Apple mandated that consumers have a choice of how to subscribe, and whether they want to give their personal info to publishers. It’s easy to see why some companies like Rhapsody are looking at taking their bat and going home when you consider their sales plan:
- make a free app which acts as a reader / viewer for your content.
- Get your customers to download that app from the appstore, for which Apple will wear the hosting and bandwidth costs.
- Sell access to content yourself, keeping all the profits, while stiffing Apple with the expenses.
Yeah, that was going to work. Apple are idiots, you see. They’re a social-good commons that all people should be able to exploit for nothing while reaping the benefits, right?
Oh wait, that’s not what’s happening, is it? No, the way it works now is:
- make a free app which acts as a reader / viewer for your content.
- The customer chooses if they want to subscribe through your website, or internally within your App.
- If they buy in-app, the customer chooses if you get their personal details (which you sell to advertisers) or not.
- You keep 100% of revenue when you process the subscription on your site, Apple keeps 30% when it’s done as an in-app purchase.
Ironic really that pundit-tards scream about Apple locking down consumer choice, then when they actually come up with a policy that mandates consumers get a choice, it’s not the right choice. Rhapsody are talking legal action, yeah have fun with that, and many organisations are threatening to leave the platform.
Well, don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. You see folks, what all these companies either fail to grasp, or are well aware of and weeping into their hats about, is a fundamental fact about what the obsession with design has meant for Apple:
Apple’s products are better at being what they are, than (any) developer’s apps or publisher’s content are at being what they are.
The iPhone is a better music player than Rhapsody is a music service. The iPad is a better tablet than the Kindle App is a book buyer/reader. For the vast majority of consumers, the Apple product experience is so much better than the competition that non-Apple “exclusive” software or content simply doesn’t enter the equation. This isn’t a matter of market abuse, monopolies or anti-trust, it’s a simple case that noone else has built a device that is close enough to being on par with Apple devices, that content availability is a factor in purchase decisions.
Why do you think the lack of Flash has meant bugger all to the vast majority of iOS users? Content is only king, if all other factors are equal.