When Steve Jobs launched the App Store in July of 2008, it was a groundbreaking, visionary innovation — arguably as important as the invention of the iPhone itself.
The iOS SDK, hosting and distribution of apps to every iPhone user on the planet, and of course, the 70/30 revenue split for developers were all game-changing and, up until then, had no precedent in tech lore.
Not only did they change the game, but they set the standard for the industry in such an influential way that the ripple effects of those decisions reverberate through all of our connected lives, even today.
If you were an iOS developer in those early days, it was an exciting time.
It’s undeniable…
Apple changed the lives of countless developers (and created millions of jobs and billions in revenues) in a real, meaningful way by allowing them to distribute their newly-minted apps at an unprecedented scale.
But, it wasn’t a one-way street of course.
In fact… The App Store would have been a digital ghost town, and certainly wouldn’t have been possible without developers.
By sheer participation, developers granted implicit consent & agreement to Apple’s terms.
Since there were no predecessors OR a frame of reference on how an App Store of this kind would operate prior to Apple, it is perfectly understandable that most developers opted into all the terms as a default choice back then.
I mean…
It was the only game in town as far as developers being able to create, distribute and make their apps accessible on a global scale… from the palm of someone’s hand.
…and the App Store was just the beginning.
Just a few months after the App Store, like any budding duopolistic love story — The Play Store was launched by Google with an identical economic model to Apple with the same 70/30 split.
The details might differ to some degree, but, generally speaking — it’s the same paradigm, different companies.
But, here we are, almost two decades later… in a different world… and the terms between this monolithic duopoly and developers have yet to change.
In fact, it’s concerning that many developers in unrelated products & industries continue to use the same 70/30 model (or one similar to it) as a default simply because of its popularity.
P.S: Linked to the longer version since Medium has better readability etc, but wanted to share this with the Dev community, and if anyone has any questions/comments, would be happy to answer in the comments below! 🙂
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