r/technology • u/ErinDotEngineer • 17h ago
Software Y Combinator says Apple's App Store has hindered startup growth
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/22/y-combinator-says-apples-app-store-has-hindered-startup-growth/51
u/akkawwakka 15h ago
There are business models that you straight up can’t do on the App Store.
Are some of them predatory and should be disallowed? Yes.
But the anti-steering rules preventing developers from even mentioning the fact that you could subscribe to a premium service off-platform is straight up anti-competitive.
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u/teddyKGB- 12h ago
Maybe YC should create their own phone and sell 3 billion of them with their own app store.
Apple has absolutely been greedy and anti competitive but mostly not illegal. More importantly fuck YC
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u/turtledancers 13h ago
Ya I don’t care about YC. YC is fucking insufferable and I hate the people that fill up this part of SF when it’s going on. Apple should be taking a smaller cut however.
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u/RockDoveEnthusiast 11h ago
yc is basically garbage these days, if it honestly ever even had redeeming value in the first place.
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u/Keylime29 5h ago
I know there’s problems, but I actually went into the Apple ecosystem because it was safer
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u/turb0_encapsulator 5h ago
this is absolutely true, but YC has morphed into a libertarian crypto / effective altruism cult and shouldn't be trusted on anything.
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u/robustofilth 16h ago
I’d rather use a secure App Store than not.
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u/themightychris 14h ago
making the app store secure doesn't cost Apple 30% of all digital purchase revenue
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u/robustofilth 14h ago
There’s more to an App Store than just security
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u/themightychris 13h ago
I know that. The 30% is clearly based on what they can get away with skimming rather than what it costs to provide the service. They face zero consumer pricing pressure because they're using a monopoly in one market for undue pricing leverage in another
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u/robustofilth 13h ago
You understand how business works right? It’s not about costs. It’s about more
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u/themightychris 13h ago edited 13h ago
Yes and we have anti-trust laws for cases where businesses are able to leverage their position in one market to avoid competitive pressure to reduce prices in another
Selling phones is one market, selling apps and services are another market. Apple uses their position in market A to prevent competition in market B and maintain unfair pricing
No one else can deliver apps to iPhones, devices which consumers ostensibly own, so Apple faces zero competitive pressure on their pricing for app delivery
Maybe letting them have a monopoly on app delivery is necessary. If it is, then they are a regulated monopoly. If it isn't, they should be required to permit competing app marketplaces.
You understand how markets work right?
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u/robustofilth 13h ago
I don’t think anti trust laws would work here given Apple isn’t the dominant player. Clearly I understand markets in more depth than you. There are plenty of examples of hardware being tied to software. Boeing doesn’t let airlines side load into their planes. Auto makers also.
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u/themightychris 12h ago
Planes and cars haven't created a second market
Apple has a monopoly on app stores for iPhone users. Looking at the broader market it's a duopoly with Google trying to pull the same shit and they should be subject to the same actions
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u/robustofilth 13h ago
I don’t think anti trust laws would work here given Apple isn’t the dominant player.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 13h ago
Well this will come as a surprise to the DOJ + ~half the states, who are currently preparing for their antitrust trial - which Apple already failed to get dismissed.
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u/iamapizza 14h ago
The two are not related. The trillion dollar company doesn't need you carrying water for them.
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u/robustofilth 13h ago
That was a meaningless sentence. This is about software. Not water. Or water transportation.
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u/sluuuurp 14h ago
You should have the freedom to make that choice yourself then. Apple doesn’t let you.
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u/robustofilth 14h ago
You can. It’s called buy an android phone
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u/fatbob42 12h ago
So you can’t just choose a different App Store can you? You have to change a whole bunch of other stuff at the same time.
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u/robustofilth 12h ago
Nobody is forcing you to buy Apple products 🙄
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u/fatbob42 11h ago
This is you answering the question of whether you value direct personal freedom vs economic efficiency. (You’ve answered freedom)
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u/robustofilth 11h ago
No. My answer was rather clear. Nobody forces you to buy apple. Plenty of choices out there.
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u/fatbob42 11h ago
Yep. Usually markets satisfy both constraints so you get to have your cake and eat it. But sometimes they don’t, and you have to pick one or the other. I’m usually on the side of economic efficiency, that’s all. You can go the other way, it’s fine.
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u/sluuuurp 13h ago
True, I wish I could have of iPhone with a free App Store though. Sensible laws would allow me to have that.
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u/yaricks 11h ago
Tell that to Sony, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo, Wallmart - you can't publish a Playstation game without giving 30% of revenue to Sony + the license to develop for Playstation in the first place. Same with the other consoles. You can't go to Walmart and say - "I demand you sell my product without taking a cut". It's the same everywhere. You DO have a choice, buy Android. Same with Playstation, if you don't like them taking 30%, go to Xbox, or Nintendo.
I'm not saying I LIKE this - I despise it, but Apple is not the only one here, it's standard practice globally.
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u/sluuuurp 11h ago
I dislike PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo for the same reasons. My principle is that you should be allowed to run any software (that you pay for or otherwise get permission from the developers to use) on any hardware you own. This is the norm for personal computers, but sadly not for smartphones or game consoles.
I don’t have a problem with Walmart, you can always buy from somewhere else if you want.
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u/ABCosmos 8h ago
Zoomers have never experienced a tech ecosystem that wasn't fractured by anti competitive anti consumer business practices.
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 16h ago
I support Apple! I pay a premium as a consumer because I don't want your junk app code on my device. The security protects the entire Apple ecosystem.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 16h ago
Nearly 5% of apps they approve are scams, according to their own transparency report citing 82,509 removed last year for fraud with 1,961,596 on the App Store.
AKA their cheap-ass review process makes a mistake every ~20th review.
And it's no surprise why - the Epic trial revealed Apple's own accounting says their fees are 75% profit margin.
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u/chief167 16h ago
that number means nothing if you can't compare it to other app stores, or Android Play store at least. In my experience, there's a bunch more shit on those other ones (and sayin this as an android lover)
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 15h ago
if you can’t compare it to
I actually would rather just not eat shit instead of seeking less shit to eat
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 15h ago edited 15h ago
I don't believe Google being more shit (most likely) is a very good justification for $3 out of every $4 rent Apple charges going to stock buybacks and dividends instead of improving their own situation.
The judge in the Epic case called them out for how little they do in their ruling:
it’s been “slow either to adopt automated tools that could improve speed and accuracy or to hire more reviewers” for its app review process. “Apple’s slow innovation stems in part from its low investment in the App Store”
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060631-apple-epic-judgement/
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 15h ago
And yet Apple still has the most secure ecosystem. A judge is a cute answer to technology and statistics.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 15h ago edited 15h ago
Where "most secure" is selectively measured against Google, rather than Steam or GOG or shit even the Epic Games Store has ~0% scams. Pretty sure ~5% of software on GitHub isn't a scam either lmfao.
Should stop being proud they do the bare minimum and one other behemoth does slightly less, start asking "could ~5% of apps being a scam be improved".
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u/sixwax 14h ago
No one wants to hear that this is in part why iPhones are relatively inexpensive for what they are.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 13h ago
What no iPhones have a sizable profit margin themselves and generate about half of Apple's near-$100-billion/year profit before app commissions.
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u/electracool 16h ago
If an alternative app store emerges, nothing stops you to continue to use the app store and pay the apple premium. You do understand that you would not be forced to install anything you do not want to right ? Choice is always good for the end consumers.
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u/DrQuantum 16h ago
This is a misunderstanding of how security works. The mere fact that now attackers can put more junk on the app store makes it unsafe for everyone. There are now more vectors regardless of my choices. That is how a walled garden works. Another thing this argument fails to understand is that you are limiting choice. People have clearly bought iPhone's for a reason and you're claiming that they shouldn't be able to have that. You ultimately have restricted choices for consumers, not added them.
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 15h ago
Exactly. They have their "choice" with different devices and OS, if they want them.
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 15h ago
Alternative exists. Which is why you can use a Chrome device and Google store, instead of Apple.
The ecosystem is a chain link. If one is compromised, they all can be. That's the idea, until a bunch of idiots start talking about the need for a "choice" to be unsecure. Apple isn't for you, and that's fine. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
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u/EdgiiLord 13h ago
Lol, lmao even
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 13h ago
Edgelords = trolls
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u/EdgiiLord 13h ago
Apple shills have no right to call others trolls, xd
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 13h ago
You want to not pay an extra buck for security screening on apps? Fine, get the app off an alternative phone and stop trying to put your sht on us. You have choices. Do you even understand what it is you're being a contrarian for?
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u/EdgiiLord 12h ago
Lol, do you think only Apple does security screening? Xd, what a tech illiterate shill
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u/twinpop 14h ago
Monopoly and a closed marketplace hurts innovation. News at 11.
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u/Jusby_Cause 4h ago
Seeing as how the Apple App Store has been a closed market place since day one (since year one as there was no App Store on day one), that would mean there’s been no innovation in the marketplace between then and now? Interesting
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u/Next_Instruction_528 8h ago
Apple needs to die I wouldn't touch anything they do.
Apple’s done a ton of damage to America that people overlook:
Economic hollowing out – They offshored basically all their manufacturing to China, wiping out what could have been hundreds of thousands of solid U.S. factory jobs. Now their supply chain dependence makes America vulnerable. On top of that, they sat on hundreds of billions in cash overseas to dodge U.S. taxes for years.
Monopolistic behavior – The App Store is a walled garden where Apple takes a 30% cut, bans competitors, and locks you into their ecosystem (iMessage, AirPods, iCloud). They kill startups by copying their best features, then quietly shutting the originals down.
Political & ethical rot – They’ve avoided paying their fair share of taxes, lobbied hard against antitrust and right-to-repair laws, and bent the knee to authoritarian regimes like China by censoring apps. For a company that markets itself as “ethical,” they play some very dirty games when power and profit are on the line.
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u/Actual__Wizard 10h ago
How are there still branded app stores in 2025? That has to be the second biggest scam in scamtech right now. That all has to be deleted with regulation, all of it... I'm sorry but, it doesn't make any sense that a company generates any profit at all from a 3rd party's app getting installed... It's not their business... Why would they make a single cent?
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u/chimerasaurus 16h ago
Easy way for YC to (1) blame why a lot of garbage startups fail and (2) peddle a libertarian “no regulation” view that has given rise to some of their alum like Airbnb.
YC deserves zero political clout.