The main point of the article is something else, but this is a pretty thoughtful sentence:
"In a world where everything must go through the rules and regulations of an app store without any oversight we, the developers, will suddenly be in the same abused stage as artists are with their labels."
Developers of mobile native apps can choose from a bunch of platforms and app marketplaces. If they choose to develop for iOS, they pay $99 a year, and they can offer their apps for free in the App Store, even if it's ad supported. If they offer paid apps, Apple will take 30% of the gross. The developer doesn't have to pay for bandwidth or credit card processing. Even some of the customer service and marketing will be done by Apple.
Compare that to the way how artists who sign with a major label are treated. It's clear who is getting the better deal.
What these two groups have in common is that their work is vetted, and the catalogs they wish for their work to end up in are curated. The chances of a musician being picked up by a record label are way, way, way slimmer than the chances for a developer to be accepted into Apple's developer program and having the privilege to publish their apps in the App Store.
Does Apple publish all apps that are submitted for consideration? No, and I'm glad that it doesn't -- there are plenty of lousy programmers out there. As a consumer browsing through the App Store, I regularly find lousy apps that aren't even worth downloading for free. If anything, I think Apple should be more diligent.
Yeah, one that brings huge numbers of potential customers to your door, processes credit card transactions for you and may give you some free publicity (featured spots, etc.).
agreed on those, and it should be noted that record labels do provide similar services to their artists. My post was more about how there is no way around these middlemen.
So if you're doing the app equivalent of pop music (twitter apps, casual games), you're probably fine. But try to do something more ambitious, and they'll crush you (well, close the only channel to the customers, at least)
True, although I feel there is still plenty of room for as-yet-unseen ambition in projects that fit within the rules (for every app store). And it's worth pointing out that there is a significant benefit to the users for restricting what apps can do -- albeit at the risk of reducing the more 'ambitious' projects for the sake of the least common denominator of users.
"In a world where everything must go through the rules and regulations of an app store without any oversight we, the developers, will suddenly be in the same abused stage as artists are with their labels."