Apple refuses affiliate program to promote apps from the App Store

One of the most talked-about news of the last week was Apple’s decision to review the terms of the partnership with third-party sources that attract traffic to the market. On August 1, thousands of developers and reviewers received a concise letter of notification from the administration:

Thank you for participating in the affiliate program for apps. With the launch of the new App Store on both iOS and macOS and their increased methods of app discovery, we will be removing apps from the affiliate program. Starting on October 1st, 2018, commissions for iOS and Mac apps and in-app content will be removed from the program. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) remain in the affiliate program.

The essence of cooperation was that the owners of personal sites or blogs could place a link to the company's products on their resource and receive a small percentage from each purchase that they contributed by redirecting the client to the market. The consequences of this decision are likely to indirectly affect so many.

On closer inspection, an unpleasant surprise is not such a surprise: Apple launched a test ball last year, voicing its intention to cut fees for promoting apps and inapps from 7 to 2.5%. However, at that time the rising storm of popular indignation was still able to impress her - in the end, the company limited itself to lowering prices only for inapps. Nevertheless, there was a precedent, and on the basis of this, it was possible to conclude that the affiliate program began to lose profitability.

Improving the discovery methods that Apple refers to in its letter is a process that was also launched about a year ago. In September last year, iOS 11 was released, where, among other things, the radically new design of the App Store was introduced. One of the main differences from the old version was a significant expansion of the recommendation component. The administration began to spend much more effort and space on the screen to draw the attention of users to the most worthy products. The classic top charts were supplemented by collections with different topics, the passing banners “Game of the Day” and “Application of the Day”, as well as a special column with small daily articles from the editorial office, where they talk vividly and interestingly about teams and projects. In autumn, the Mac App Store on macOS Mojave will get the same look.

At the same time, Apple began to show much more interest in a direct dialogue with developers. A page appeared on the site with an invitation to cooperation and a special form of communication for those wishing to get on the front pages. As it quickly turned out, this was done not just for the sake of formality: the editors really react to what they send to her. The chances of getting into phishing and getting a surge of installs from the average developer have increased significantly .

Already in the first six months, the new system began to show results. Despite the fact that the vast majority of users still reach the products they need through an internal search on the site, the number of downloads due to recommendations increased from 10 to 15%, which, considering the average values ​​for all categories, put them in second place among sources traffic. Third-party referrals began to lag - this is precisely what may have predetermined their fate.



Dynamics of the percentage of downloads through internal transitions

So, the reasons for refusing payments to partners are quite transparent. What consequences should be expected?

Those who were involved in the preparation of recommendations on a professional and semi-professional basis would obviously suffer the most serious damage: from standalone bloggers-reviewers to large publications with a whole staff of employees, such as, say, TouchArcade, whose editor-in-chief made a pessimistic official statement. Their services do not become unclaimed, but cease to bring stable profits. With the departure from the scene, the Apple Miscrosoft Store remains the only major app store offering conversion fees. Accordingly, as TouchArcade predicts, many advisory resources will not be able to stay afloat.

It is difficult to read it somehow differently than "if earlier we recognized some microscopic value for the work of third-party editions, now we have stopped seeing it at all." Honestly, I have no idea what will happen to TouchArcade now. Even in the most difficult times and after the most unexpected turns that we experienced with the industry, we could always count on income from the Apple affiliate program - and this is logical, because we brought a lot of customers to them. I don’t know what conclusion can be drawn from all of this, except that Apple decided to show the middle finger to sites like TouchArcade and AppShopper, which have popularized the App Store and iOS games for many years.

- Eli Hodep, Editor-in-Chief of the TouchArcade Game Portal

Developers will also suffer to some extent, primarily indie developers, for whom blocking even the side channel of cash receipts can have serious consequences. But this is not only about the loss of a direct source of profit for those who received a commission for links on a personal site. A more fundamental problem is that, due to the reduction in the number of sites, cooperation with the media on the Internet will become difficult.

As mentioned above, unlike reviewers, developers receive some kind of compensation from Apple’s new policy: expanded promotion opportunities on the market. However, one resource is unlikely to be able to cover the whole variety of formats that Internet media has so far offered, not to mention the exact targeting that could be achieved by selecting sites with the appropriate audience. In addition, although it is still difficult to identify clear trends at the moment, there is no doubt that Apple has its own opinion about which niches should be covered and which should be avoided. Utopia with equal chances for all teams is unlikely.

If we talk about users, the new policy will lead, first of all, to the fact that the Internet will become less polyphonic for them. Whatever level the Apple recommendation system has reached, it will always represent the point of view of a particular corporation with its interests and ambitions. Other groups and individuals lose the incentive to offer an alternative view in the form of in-depth analysis of products on a regular basis. If the reviews turn into a non-monetized hobby, many sites well-known among gamers and IT enthusiasts will cease to exist, and the corresponding communities will disintegrate with them. The most gloomy representatives see Apple’s desire to monopolize “public opinion” as threatening intentions; those who are less inclined to conspiracy theories simply mourn the layer of Internet culture, which may