Siracusa on the App Store: ‘Apple Needs to Decide if It Wants to Be “Right” or if It Wants to Be Happy’

John Siracusa:

But throughout all these changes, Apple has never given up on its dream of an App Store filled with great apps that make everyone happy and make lots of money for both Apple and developers.

Today, Apple’s stance seems to be that if they just hold the line on a few key provisions of the App Store rules, companies will build their business models around Apple’s revenue cut in the same way companies built their business models around the costs of brick-and-mortar retail in the pre-Internet days. Apple seems to firmly believe that its ambitious goal state can be achieved with something close to the current set of App Store rules.

This belief is not supported by the evidence. Years of history has shown that Apple is getting further away from its goal, not closer.

Agreed. It feels like Apple is fighting for its own long-ago-established vision for how the App Store ought to be, rather than making sweeping changes to account for how it actually is. They can do this because they have such tremendous power, but why? Why fight it? Is Apple really happy about this whole state of affairs?

See also: This explication of the reference to rather being happy than right.

★ Saturday, 20 June 2020