On App Store Economics and Accessibility
I came across a post on Daring Fireball yesterday, written by my friend John Gruber, in which he links to a RevenueCat piece which reports the results of a test comparing conversion rates for App Store in-app purchases (IAP) versus outside web checkout. RevenueCat’s test used the same app for its experiment, comprising 5,600 users.
The big takeaway from RevenueCat’s testing is right there in the lede: “Turns out, in-app purchases are good for conversion rates. In fact, at least 30% better,” writes Jacob Eiting. Eiting explains the impetus came from the court order from earlier this month compelling Apple to allow customers in the United States to be alerted to external payment methods available outside of the App Store’s virtual walls. As Eiting notes, the ruling is of great import because it allows software developers to avoid Apple taking its 30% cut of all IAP transactions. Put another way, the recent ruling means Apple isn’t getting a considerable amount of money to line its already considerably large coffers.
The company said it plans to appeal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ decision.
As Gruber notes in his commentarial blurb, RevenueCat found through its testing the initial IAP conversion rate was approximately 28%, whereas the rate through the web flow was only 18%. Like Gruber said, that 10% represents a precipitous drop-off.
What inspired me to write this piece lies in his comments on the study.
“I don’t find it surprising at all though,” Gruber said. “[In-app purchase] really is more convenient. Apple’s built a great system, and they don’t need exclusivity to keep users preferring it, and thus keep developers using it.”
Ah, convenience. Gruber is undoubtedly correct when he says Apple’s IAP functionality is easy and convenient; it is truly more alluring to pay for something within an app than be kicked to a website. As I’ve argued innumerable times, however, convenience and accessibility, however close cousins they are, are not interchangeable concepts. They’re different words for a reason: they connote different meanings. For Gruber and others, in-app purchases indeed may be convenient; for others—namely disabled people—in-app purchases may be a de-facto accessibility feature that makes buying something more inclusive by being less of a barrier. See also: Apple Pay. For all the Apple community’s handwringing over this in-app purchase topic, the accessibility ramifications of Apple’s mechanism go (predictably) overlooked and undervalued.
I’m not here to rehash Apple’s hand in App Store economics. At a philosophical level, I agree Apple should let developers inform users of their options, and I believe most people—including many with disabilities—aren’t buying the notion that buying things on the web is the big, scary boogeyman Apple wants users to believe it is. And I understand no one has said Apple’s IAP system is bad in and of itself. My main point is simply that, as a practical matter, using Apple’s IAP system is arguably far more accessible for a not-insignificant number of people with disabilities. In this context, the economical aspects are irrelevant; I’d venture to say people just want to buy what they want and focus their attention on more important things in their lives. Again, I believe in transparency and consumer choice, but nonetheless think it’s not remarked upon often enough how genius the IAP system is for simplicity’s sake. Likewise for alternative app stores. There a lot of people, particularly in the European Union, who want to be able to install iOS (and iPadOS) software from anywhere, akin to how the Mac works. Hell, I do it myself; the text editor I’m writing these very words in, called MarkEdit, lives on GitHub and updates must be installed from there, with new versions needing to be manually moved from Downloads to the Applications folder. It’s not rocket science in an absolute sense, but does involve some technical know-how and is far less seamless than were I to use the Mac App Store. But I’m an avowed nerd, so I do it and it’s fine. But I don’t represent everyone; not everyone wants to, or can, download software from the internet. There are real considerations around cognition and motor skills that must be taken into account. For these people, outlets like the App Store, whether on an iPhone or an iMac, can be literal technological lifesavers. That is not at all a trivial matter.
Even if one isn’t disabled, I believe Eiting and team’s data is pretty clear: most people like Apple’s IAP. As Gruber said, to use it means one has a fast, efficient way to buy things. And I’m here to say accessibility is a meaningful component of that flow as well.
