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Comment by mchusma | Hacker News Reader

The author misunderstands some of the complaints against Apple. In this case: (1) Apple is effectively a monopoly, much more so than shopify. (2) the author can still sell to customers your SAAS service, just not through the shopify store. (3) I could be wrong but I believe the shopify store brings lots of customers. For most developers on the app store, apple does not bring customers (this is why many people argue that apple might take a higher cut for those who find your app on a chart, and a lower cut for just using the link or branded search).

If they don't believe the inbound flow is worth it, then just selling direct to customers should make sense.

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We don't know this specific scenario, but it's highly likely that the application in question directly reads or writes non-public data on their clients' storefront operations and accounting. In that case, there's very much a sense of lock-in. Shopify does not have an open API where anyone can access data given an OAuth token; it will not let this app use their API unless it complies with their terms. See: https://shopify.dev/concepts/apps#public-apps

In comparison to Apple, phone user : Shopify merchant :: app developer : this SaaS business. If I as a consumer think that Apple policies are too stringent, I can pay money to buy an Android phone. But the cost to me as a merchant of switching from Shopify to a custom site where I can choose who connects over API, once my business is underway and has built a brand identity, is absolutely prohibitive.

App approval processes are app approval processes, plain and simple. And if you make revenue share a precondition of using your APIs, you don't have open APIs.

> Shopify does not have an open API where anyone can access data given an OAuth token

We do offer a full GraphQL and REST API that can be accessed through private app keys (apps installed outside of the app store) or through the app store oauth tokens.

https://shopify.dev/docs/admin-api/rest/reference https://shopify.dev/docs/admin-api/graphql/reference https://shopify.dev/docs/admin-api/getting-started#authentic...

If properly motivated SaaS companies can switch from one cloud provider to another (AWS <-> GCP <-> Azure), a far more technically difficult operation, it’s eminently possible to switch off Shopify. It’s far from cheap or easy so the business may decide it’s not worth the time or money, but far more difficult technical migrations have happened. Be aware of your options - if Shopify decided to raise the price they charge 10x, would you really just roll over and pay it because it’s “absolutely prohibitive” to move of them? 100x? Your branding is your own, and Shopify does not control that - you do. I’m not saying you should move off Shopify for the fun of it, just that alternatives exist.

This is a completely bullshit justification. The behavior is identical to Apple's.

> (1) Apple is effectively a monopoly, much more so than shopify

I’m just curious, by which metric?

Apple has > 60% market share in the US [1]. 60% is considered by courts to be a barrier to entry for new competitors [2]

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

[2] https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c10784/c10784.pdf: "60% is a favorite threshold for the courts"

A quick search for worldwide data shows that both Shopify as iOS have a market share in the ~23% area.

All the search results for iOS US market share give such wildly different answers, from 15% to 65%. I wonder what the deal is.

Thanks!

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