This is not true. Yes, Android users tend to pay less for apps, but useful apps that provide daily utility actually make good money as well.
If you have a brand-name app like Runtastic, Netflix, Headspace or whatever, the platform doesn't really matter. You buy the product, because you want it.
It's probably different for utility apps like a different Camera, a photo editor, small productivity apps you need only once per month.
I'm happy about this change and it will definitely affect my bottom line in the range of several thousand euro per month – and I'm an indie dev.
Edit: I just looked it up and calculated the difference. I will make roughly 17,000€ more per year through this change.
Yeah but that comment is kind of ignoring the segment for whom it does matter...
There are tons of free crappy apps on Android, but for the ones that generate moderate value and are paid for because they are functional apps and not games or ad-ridden networking apps then this is a huge change.
The "vast majority" of developers might just not be making apps that benefit from this but its a bit misleading to say this isn't a good change or helpful. If anything it will incentivize people to perhaps look into developing more away from an ad model into a sustainable paid model (given the margins just got 100% better)
It is just true. Compared to the only other major mobile app ecosystem, Android users are relatively cheap. That doesn’t mean nobody pays or that nobody who distributes an app earns money through purchases. It just means that on Android it’s a smaller group than on, say, Apple.
It's pretty straight forward. Users buying phones that cost $250 on average [1] will also spend less money on apps that users buying phones that cost on average closer to $700.
That being said, worldwide Apple only has 20% of the market now so while the average user is cheaper, there are quite a bit more users. That's probably why ad-based monetization also works a lot better on Android (more users).
Even though Android is 80% of the market, the numbers are still shockingly tilted.
People who choose the cheap option really don't do much discretionary spending, people with iPhones actually make up the majority of revenue for many apps.
I'd actually argue that Android users have more options, thus the market price for apps is reduced by the amount of supply.
When you're looking for a "Todo" app, there's 1000's on Android, and many or most are free. Many people might be better served by a quality app, but when the alternatives are good enough, it's a hard sell.
> When you're looking for a "Todo" app, there's 1000's on Android, and many or most are free.
There are also a massive number of "Todo" apps on the Apple app store. Searching for numbers online seems to indicate that there are about 50% more apps total on the Google play store than the Apple app store, but for the more common use cases that still means massive numbers of choices on each store, both free and paid.
If you have a brand-name app like Runtastic, Netflix, Headspace or whatever, the platform doesn't really matter. You buy the product, because you want it.
It's probably different for utility apps like a different Camera, a photo editor, small productivity apps you need only once per month.
I'm happy about this change and it will definitely affect my bottom line in the range of several thousand euro per month – and I'm an indie dev.
Edit: I just looked it up and calculated the difference. I will make roughly 17,000€ more per year through this change.