Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So this last couple of weeks, I've seen a couple of interesting sort of like, I don't

00:00:14 ◼   ► know, relatively substantial changes in our sort of the things that you and I are interested

00:00:20 ◼   ► in or relate to our business. And I thought there were two of them in particular that

00:00:23 ◼   ► stood out to me as things that were worth talking about. And it's specifically, it's

00:00:27 ◼   ► app transparency tracking or app tracking transparency, ATT, and Apple's new podcasting

00:00:34 ◼   ► sort of overhaul initiative. And there was sort of a commonality between those two things

00:00:39 ◼   ► that I think just, it just sort of stuck with me this week. And specifically, it's that

00:00:44 ◼   ► I think, app tracking transparency, which is this, in case you don't know, in iOS 14.5,

00:00:49 ◼   ► which just rolled out a few days ago, Apple's changing the way that the sort of essentially

00:00:55 ◼   ► the rules around advertising and tracking within an application are applied. And so

00:01:00 ◼   ► that you cannot sort of essentially co-mingle any data about a user between multiple sources.

00:01:08 ◼   ► You can do sort of first party tracking potentially, but you can't share it. And so this comes

00:01:12 ◼   ► into play most often for advertising, where if you had a situation, say an app install

00:01:18 ◼   ► ad, where you're in Facebook, you see an ad for an application, you tap on it. And then

00:01:23 ◼   ► in the, you know, they go to the App Store, they download the app, they open it up, and

00:01:27 ◼   ► you can attribute that, you know, that install to that ad very specifically. And that's

00:01:32 ◼   ► something that they, Apple provides some amount of support with their SKAd network thing,

00:01:37 ◼   ► but generally they're restricting and changing that. And then on the other side, you have

00:01:43 ◼   ► the changes around podcasting and podcast subscriptions. And while sort of in the process

00:01:48 ◼   ► of rolling out Apple's new podcast subscription system, they seem to have changed or at least

00:01:54 ◼   ► now provided a mechanism by which it is possible for organizations to be in sort of a list,

00:02:01 ◼   ► have a podcast listed in iTunes, but listed in such a, sorry, in iTunes, in Apple podcasts,

00:02:07 ◼   ► but listed there in such a way that doesn't share the public feed for that podcast more

00:02:12 ◼   ► generally. And so this is something that I know you use and many third party podcast

00:02:17 ◼   ► clients use to serve as she used the Apple podcasts directory as an authoritative public

00:02:24 ◼   ► directory, which has lots of benefits in terms of they do, you know, sort of quality assurance

00:02:30 ◼   ► and filtering on people who submit to the, the, the Apple podcast directory to make sure

00:02:34 ◼   ► that they're appropriate, not doing things that are illegal or problematic and it can

00:02:39 ◼   ► be relatively sort of viewed as an authoritative reference. And they're changing that so that

00:02:44 ◼   ► now shows can optionally essentially not participate in that public directory sort of feature that

00:02:51 ◼   ► Apple has provided for years. And in both of these cases, the thing that really struck

00:02:56 ◼   ► me and I think they both have both of these things have fairly substantial impacts on

00:02:59 ◼   ► us in terms of if Apple ends up, if many shows end up sort of signing out or declining being

00:03:04 ◼   ► an Apple's directory, that'll affect you a lot with your overcast directory and ATT affects

00:03:09 ◼   ► me in so far as you know, a lot of my revenue in my applications is coming from advertising.

00:03:14 ◼   ► And it's a bit too early to say, but I think it's very likely that there will be a substantial

00:03:19 ◼   ► short term drop in my revenue for the next few months while people work out what they're

00:03:23 ◼   ► going to do. My hope is that eventually it'll kind of settle back up to where it was. But

00:03:28 ◼   ► who knows, like there's this very seismic change in my business. And what's strange in some

00:03:34 ◼   ► ways is like, you and I are the like the small little fish in this giant ocean that are being

00:03:40 ◼   ► affected by the waves caused by like two giant sharks fighting like we're these little minnows

00:03:43 ◼   ► swimming along and then these big sharks fighting and it's like in ATT case, it is Facebook

00:03:48 ◼   ► and Apple, I think who are the two that are sort of at ends at sort of sort of at ends

00:03:53 ◼   ► about this where I think Apple probably sees that, you know, the bulk of app install marketing

00:04:02 ◼   ► seems like it's being driven by Facebook. As far as I can tell, like I've been spending

00:04:05 ◼   ► a lot of time in a world that I'm not particularly familiar with, which is the like, UA, which

00:04:10 ◼   ► apparently is the user acquisition world. It's by far the best tool as far as I can

00:04:17 ◼   ► tell, people would say is the Facebook tool where it's this very kind of mechanized system

00:04:22 ◼   ► of getting people to download your app and you have deeply integrate with the Facebook

00:04:26 ◼   ► SDK. And so it provides metrics back on how valuable by customers to you. And so you can

00:04:31 ◼   ► essentially end up in a world where Facebook can tell you this user is going to be worth

00:04:36 ◼   ► a dollar to you, I can show your ad for, you know, 90 cents, and so you'll make 10 cents

00:04:41 ◼   ► on each user. And so if that's the case, and you have very high confidence of that, we

00:04:44 ◼   ► may as well dial that up, you know, as much as you can. And but I think Apple doesn't

00:04:48 ◼   ► like that at a certain point, they're losing control of, you know, app acquisition, which

00:04:53 ◼   ► you previously had been guarded by the App Store. And so they're having this kind of

00:04:57 ◼   ► argument about, you know, essentially who could control that and ATT is one of the results,

00:05:02 ◼   ► but it has a big impact on me. And I think the podcasting side, this introduction of

00:05:07 ◼   ► the, you know, optional public URL thing, it's like, I think Apple is, I could imagine

00:05:12 ◼   ► very much in the same place of feeling like them and they and Spotify are now competitors

00:05:18 ◼   ► in the podcasting space. And, you know, Apple providing things that are kind of more altruistic,

00:05:25 ◼   ► or sort of just generally public goods, maybe come be probably something more problematic,

00:05:31 ◼   ► because they and Spotify are now competing for who's going to be the dominant player

00:05:35 ◼   ► in podcasting, who's going to have control of that, who's going to be the one there.

00:05:40 ◼   ► And for all I know, this public URL thing is a result of, you know, someone like NPR,

00:05:45 ◼   ► or National Public Media, or some large organization that says they don't want to see this control

00:05:51 ◼   ► with Apple, or they want to, you know, it's like there's all kinds of strategic things

00:05:55 ◼   ► you could imagine where these large organizations are having these arguments, and the result

00:05:59 ◼   ► is a checkbox in Podcast Connect or whatever it's called, that now can have this profound

00:06:04 ◼   ► impact on you. And I think this is just one of these things that I'm, over the course

00:06:08 ◼   ► of my indie career, it's happened several times where you have to, hey, I think there's

00:06:14 ◼   ► just the question of accepting that this is sometimes what happens and, you know, sort

00:06:18 ◼   ► of that we don't have control or a seat at the table for some of these situations that

00:06:23 ◼   ► affect us profoundly. And some of these things will just happen to us and we're just like,

00:06:27 ◼   ► okay, well, let's just roll with it as best we can. But it's also like, sometimes it's

00:06:31 ◼   ► just rough, and it's just tough. And it's like, I've been seeing you talk about sort

00:06:35 ◼   ► of this impact on Overcast and how it's, you know, the things and changes that you

00:06:39 ◼   ► have to do and roll from it. And I just kind of feel for you because it's like, it's not

00:06:42 ◼   ► your fight. It's not nothing to do with you. But you're, it's not, you're affected by it

00:06:47 ◼   ► nevertheless.

00:06:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like, like this reminds me a lot of back, geez, probably 10 years ago now,

00:06:54 ◼   ► it was a while ago, when we started seeing the mostly widespread disappearance of useful

00:07:01 ◼   ► public APIs to web services. You know, a lot of us, for example, were building apps and

00:07:06 ◼   ► things and other utilities on the Twitter API. And the Twitter API was, you know, ran

00:07:12 ◼   ► fine for years. But then it started to become, I would say, strategically costly to them,

00:07:20 ◼   ► or at least, or possibly even strategically abused by their competitors. One of the greatest

00:07:24 ◼   ► examples and I think one of the things that really made them shut it down quickly was

00:07:29 ◼   ► when Instagram launched, one of the fastest contributors to its early growth was that

00:07:36 ◼   ► you could basically import your Twitter social graph. And it was one of those like, find

00:07:39 ◼   ► your friends on Twitter, now on Instagram kind of things. And Instagram grew so quickly

00:07:44 ◼   ► from that, and so successfully, and they so like, successfully basically took Twitter's

00:07:49 ◼   ► social graph and built theirs on top of it, that Twitter very soon after that, started

00:07:55 ◼   ► really locking down their API and shutting it down. And they cut Instagram off from that

00:08:00 ◼   ► feature. And, and that was an early example of like these two big companies, you know,

00:08:05 ◼   ► Twitter, Instagram, and then later, you know, when Facebook bought them, they continued

00:08:08 ◼   ► to fight in other different ways. And so all the all the ways that Twitter locked down

00:08:12 ◼   ► their API back then, or change the terms or whatever else, they were doing it to prevent

00:08:19 ◼   ► people like Facebook from taking advantage of them. But it impacted all the small developers

00:08:23 ◼   ► to who were using that same API for things that Twitter normally would be, you know,

00:08:28 ◼   ► it would be too small for Twitter to even care about. But that like these two giants

00:08:32 ◼   ► fighting kind of wrecked that world. And, and we saw like, you know, the great, the great

00:08:38 ◼   ► like web 2.0 trend of all the public services or all the big services having public API

00:08:42 ◼   ► that you could, you know, write cool things against, we saw that trend come to an end

00:08:46 ◼   ► as these companies all got bigger and, and realize that, oh, we're better off like,

00:08:51 ◼   ► keeping the keys to our kingdom ourselves. And if we're going to have an API, it'll

00:08:54 ◼   ► be very limited and, you know, only give people like these kind of accessory purposes that

00:08:58 ◼   ► we don't plan to do ourselves, but not give away like the core product as API access.

00:09:04 ◼   ► And so I think you see a lot of that with the, certainly with the new podcast changes.

00:09:11 ◼   ► You know, it's, it's frustrating. The app tracking transparency thing, I think is multifaceted.

00:09:17 ◼   ► You know, that is Apple trying to preserve privacy, but they also have a monetary incentive

00:09:24 ◼   ► to do so. And so it's, it's a little uncomfortable because when, when Apple execs talk about

00:09:30 ◼   ► how they want to protect people's privacy and limit tracking and everything, I believe

00:09:33 ◼   ► them like, I believe they truly do believe that. And that is a major reason to do this,

00:09:38 ◼   ► but it's uncomfortable that Apple also financially gains from limits they place on this. I think

00:09:46 ◼   ► it's absolutely true. You mentioned a few minutes ago, you mentioned that like the Facebook

00:09:52 ◼   ► system and network of like app install ads and everything largely has taken over distribution

00:09:57 ◼   ► control from the app store and Apple really doesn't like that. Apple also tried to build

00:10:02 ◼   ► their own thing, app store search ads, which I funnel lots of money into kind of a scary

00:10:07 ◼   ► amount that I shouldn't ever really look at the total for. But, and the reason why Apple

00:10:13 ◼   ► made app store search ads was in part to address that demand, but also because Apple is now

00:10:19 ◼   ► the company that like, there was this quote a long time ago, I forget, I forget where

00:10:23 ◼   ► it was from about Bill Gates. And it was like, it was like somebody's mother describing Bill

00:10:27 ◼   ► Gates and as like the kind of person who would come to your house for dinner and say, I'll

00:10:32 ◼   ► take all the potatoes. Thank you. And that's becoming Apple now. Apple wants a piece of

00:10:40 ◼   ► every single market that they have any control over whatsoever through the funnel of iOS

00:10:46 ◼   ► and app store and at purchase policy, they want all the money from all the industries

00:10:51 ◼   ► and all the apps, and they will not be satisfied until they get it. And they seem completely

00:10:59 ◼   ► maybe blind to the problems of antitrust pressure and everything that result from this. But

00:11:05 ◼   ► regardless, when Apple sees an area where someone else is making money in the app store

00:11:09 ◼   ► and they're not getting their cut, they move into the area in a big way so they can get

00:11:13 ◼   ► their cut. And that's really destructive and it's a really bad look. And they don't even

00:11:20 ◼   ► need the money that badly. You know, like, destroying some industry, you know, for them

00:11:24 ◼   ► to make 0.1% more revenue is also not a great look. And so the app tracking transparency

00:11:29 ◼   ► stuff definitely falls into this to some degree. You know, they really don't want other ad

00:11:35 ◼   ► networks and other big data brokers like Facebook making all this money on this app install

00:11:41 ◼   ► channel that's not running through Apple. But they also want to clamp down on all the

00:11:45 ◼   ► other crappy ad providers that are in a billion, you know, crappy apps and crappy games and,

00:11:52 ◼   ► you know, snuck into like weather apps and stuff to sell your location and everything.

00:11:56 ◼   ► There are legitimate privacy concerns to what they're doing as well. So that one is, I think,

00:12:01 ◼   ► a little less cut and dry. The podcast thing though, I feel really just sour about that

00:12:10 ◼   ► because what they, so you know, there's two changes they made. Number one, they launched

00:12:14 ◼   ► a subscription podcast payment option in the app that basically works just like the App

00:12:19 ◼   ► Store but for your podcast. So Apple takes 30% for the first year, 15% for subsequent

00:12:24 ◼   ► years of subscriptions. And they did this obviously with in-app purchase. And if any

00:12:33 ◼   ► other app wants to do that, we can't without giving Apple 30%. Which means we have to either

00:12:38 ◼   ► offer podcasters a much worse deal like, you know, because Apple keeps 30% and then we

00:12:44 ◼   ► have to give them 30% so then we can maybe only give podcasters, you know, 50% after

00:12:49 ◼   ► we take 20 for ourselves to run the whole thing. Or we have to take nothing ourselves

00:12:54 ◼   ► and run this whole program with no money which is kind of impossible because this kind of

00:12:58 ◼   ► program requires a lot of administration. So they've now created this additional market

00:13:03 ◼   ► for like paid directly into apps podcast services that we literally can't compete with them

00:13:08 ◼   ► on because of their own App Store policy. And they know it. And they did this to compete

00:13:12 ◼   ► with Spotify really. That's like Spotify is like their big bad enemy because Spotify

00:13:16 ◼   ► is making a bunch of money that Apple wants. But it also affects everyone else who's making

00:13:21 ◼   ► a podcast app because now there's this expectation now that the two biggest podcast apps are

00:13:26 ◼   ► going to have these paid options for publishers to sell podcasts, sell premium podcasts right

00:13:33 ◼   ► in the apps. Now every smaller app can't compete. And it's because these two big companies

00:13:38 ◼   ► like you were saying like these two big sharks are fighting with each other trying to take,

00:13:43 ◼   ► you know, bigger portions of each other's money while the rest of us smaller players

00:13:47 ◼   ► in the game are just kind of getting hit by the flag here. The other problem again was

00:13:51 ◼   ► the as you mentioned the the whole iTunes API which like every podcast app has been

00:13:56 ◼   ► built on for forever basically except like a few of the very biggest ones that were exceptions

00:14:02 ◼   ► but for the most part almost every podcast app that most people listening to this will

00:14:06 ◼   ► have heard of queries the iTunes API for directory and filtering. And it's important you know

00:14:12 ◼   ► because not only does it keep out things like you know low quality search results, things

00:14:17 ◼   ► like you know spam and illegal copies of other people's podcasts, but it also prevents us

00:14:21 ◼   ► from having to deal with things like illegal content. You know certain content is illegal

00:14:25 ◼   ► in certain countries. Hate speech is illegal or at least in very poor taste almost anywhere.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Things like pornography that might show in the artwork of podcasts. Like there's all

00:14:36 ◼   ► these problems that we don't have to deal with if we use Apple's API. And Apple has

00:14:40 ◼   ► maintained that API you know kind of like hands-off basically and kind of quietly allowed

00:14:46 ◼   ► us to all use it for I think 15 years, 16 years something like that. So it is really

00:14:52 ◼   ► disappointing when that changes and that seems to be the result of like literally I think

00:14:58 ◼   ► it was mostly the result of pressure from one podcast network. That was what prompted

00:15:02 ◼   ► that change. And again it's like some company complains to Apple that their needs aren't

00:15:07 ◼   ► being met by Apple solution. So Apple you know company to company kind of makes this

00:15:11 ◼   ► thing and now it screws all the little guys. And it's unfortunate but I think we will

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00:17:20 ◼   ► for supporting our show and all of Real AFM. So I wonder like my strategy for avoiding

00:17:29 ◼   ► I mean so ad tracking transparency doesn't really affect me because I do all my own in

00:17:33 ◼   ► house ads and there's no tracking anywhere and so that doesn't affect me at all. Although

00:17:37 ◼   ► I recognize that's a special case and that many apps are affected by this including yours.

00:17:41 ◼   ► The podcast changes so far it's not that big of a deal. So far it's you know a very small

00:17:51 ◼   ► percentage of Apple podcasts queries have resulted in a missing feed URL where people

00:17:57 ◼   ► have removed their feed URL from this API. I have currently for the last day I have it

00:18:02 ◼   ► at 0.1% of queries have a missing feed URL. So so far it's not that bad but it could become

00:18:10 ◼   ► bad if a lot of you know big company shows do this and what this has taught me to do

00:18:18 ◼   ► is you know what it was it was not wise to rely on Apple's benevolence for all this time

00:18:24 ◼   ► because Apple has Apple has been a wonderful benevolent steward of the open world of podcasting

00:18:29 ◼   ► for a while like a you know like a sleeping giant. Unfortunately the giant woke up and

00:18:34 ◼   ► it's hungry and it's the giant of services revenue or at least potential services revenue

00:18:41 ◼   ► and this is an area of Apple where we can no longer trust them to do things that aren't

00:18:47 ◼   ► really slimy blatantly for money because they keep doing it over and over again like they

00:18:53 ◼   ► keep selling out their user experiences their their kind of incentive cleanliness and things

00:19:01 ◼   ► all in the name of services revenue and that's just going to keep happening. So I think it's

00:19:05 ◼   ► smart for us as indies to plan for that to assume that these big companies are going

00:19:11 ◼   ► to keep hitting each other and it's going to it's going to occasionally hit us and to

00:19:16 ◼   ► try as much as possible which I know is hard but to try as much as possible to keep a bit

00:19:20 ◼   ► of distance. So you know for me I'm not going to launch my own paid program even even if

00:19:26 ◼   ► the in-app purchase stuff was solved which it isn't and even if I was allowed to compete

00:19:31 ◼   ► on a level playing field with Apple which nobody is which again I have a lot to say

00:19:37 ◼   ► on that topic we'll save that but even if I could do that I don't want to have to run

00:19:42 ◼   ► this giant payment program and and make deals with every single podcaster individually and

00:19:46 ◼   ► everything I'm also prohibited by in-app purchase policy from integrating anybody else's system.

00:19:53 ◼   ► I can't do that if somebody makes like you know like like there's a couple of like you

00:19:56 ◼   ► know bitcoin based things going around if somebody makes a podcast system where people

00:19:59 ◼   ► can pay each other and I probably can't integrate it in my app because Apple will probably reject

00:20:04 ◼   ► it for not using their in-app purchase system and I probably can't use their in-app purchase

00:20:07 ◼   ► system because of the rates and everything else and that would wreck the whole system.

00:20:10 ◼   ► So I'm just not going to do this for now and I'm not going to have any kind of competing

00:20:14 ◼   ► offering and I'm going to have to recognize like okay well I just have the app full of

00:20:18 ◼   ► free podcasts and that's not a bad place to be.

00:20:22 ◼   ► Most podcasts will continue to be free or will do their own payment system that I am

00:20:26 ◼   ► compatible with where they just you know they give you like a private URL that you can subscribe

00:20:29 ◼   ► to like I'm fully compatible with that and there are ways that I can make that even better

00:20:33 ◼   ► and so I'm going to focus on that kind of thing and being being the place for free podcasts

00:20:38 ◼   ► and and the open world of podcasting and I'm going to reduce and maybe someday eliminate

00:20:44 ◼   ► but at least for now reduce my dependence on Apple's directory and really focus on the

00:20:48 ◼   ► things I can do because ultimately all that other stuff is not within my power and it

00:20:53 ◼   ► never will be and so it's not worth wasting a lot of time on.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Yeah and I think there's such an element of it's like the two things that come to mind

00:21:01 ◼   ► for how to sort of think about these sort of large big business to business conflicts

00:21:07 ◼   ► and how they impact us like the two words that come to mind for me are acceptance and

00:21:11 ◼   ► diversity and it's like at the first level it is just accepting that this is the case

00:21:16 ◼   ► and that it isn't a situation where it's like wishing that it was a different way or being

00:21:22 ◼   ► like well it was like this in the past and now it's different and kind of getting stuck

00:21:25 ◼   ► on that I think would be an easy way an easy sort of rut to get stuck into that's like

00:21:31 ◼   ► why you just want the easy version or the version that it was before and you do not

00:21:36 ◼   ► have to work at it but at a certain point I think it's just I've and this is you know

00:21:39 ◼   ► talking to myself is I just have to accept this is the reality and there may have been

00:21:44 ◼   ► a world where in the past like for up tracking transparency if it reduces the sort of the

00:21:49 ◼   ► income that I can get from advertising in my applications which by the way it's like

00:21:52 ◼   ► I'm not implementing ATT in any of my apps in terms of all of my apps were essentially

00:21:58 ◼   ► transitioning to being untracked which is a decision that I'm delighted and happy to

00:22:02 ◼   ► do but I know we'll have you know a financial cost associated with it but it's like that's

00:22:08 ◼   ► just the reality of the circumstance I find myself in and I can just accept that and I

00:22:12 ◼   ► feel good about it in some ways and I feel better that I have the ability to kind of

00:22:16 ◼   ► influence the ads that are shown in my app in a better way now that I can just sort of

00:22:21 ◼   ► by inaction in some ways by not showing the ATT prompt you know my users are having presumably

00:22:28 ◼   ► and hopefully having you know a slightly more private experience online which is great and

00:22:35 ◼   ► I think the other side is just diversity and it makes it just sort of is that sense of

00:22:39 ◼   ► that being too reliant on any one thing in terms of in the ATT case it's a revenue model

00:22:46 ◼   ► or in the case of the podcast thing it reminds me just about in general with APIs or sort

00:22:51 ◼   ► of third party things that we're reliant on it could be a library it could be an API it

00:22:56 ◼   ► could be anything that it's like being too reliant or too sort of bought into one thing

00:23:03 ◼   ► necessarily creates a circumstance where you can have difficulty like this and you can

00:23:09 ◼   ► be it can be you know sort of the degree to which you are stuck into one particular thing

00:23:12 ◼   ► is the degree to which you you will be in sort of discomfort if that whatever it is

00:23:18 ◼   ► that you're sort of locked into turns in a way that you don't like or doesn't benefit

00:23:23 ◼   ► you and so it's like I feel very glad and I'm that you know over the last couple of

00:23:29 ◼   ► years I've been trying to get you sort of diversify my income away from advertising

00:23:34 ◼   ► and now I have a meaningful amount of my income coming from things like the subscriptions

00:23:39 ◼   ► that I have in widgets Smith and watch Smith and it's you know before that it's like

00:23:43 ◼   ► my advertising was the main thing of that was my business it was like probably 90 95%

00:23:48 ◼   ► of my revenue was coming from advertising and so if you know there's a sudden 30%

00:23:54 ◼   ► 40% drop in that then that's a pretty profound impact whereas now I don't overall basis

00:24:00 ◼   ► it'll be you know more muted it'll be something that I can sort of accommodate more specifically

00:24:07 ◼   ► and the thing that's I think too it goes along with a bit of acceptance is when I think

00:24:11 ◼   ► about Apple making their moves and that well I can sort of have kind of just sort of like

00:24:16 ◼   ► emotional or personal opinions about is it the right thing is it the wrong thing I very

00:24:20 ◼   ► much understand why they're doing what they're doing and it's nice in some ways to have

00:24:26 ◼   ► some clarity about that that it's very much like the old thing of you know Apple's

00:24:30 ◼   ► priorities it's like it's Apple first then it's customers and then it's developers

00:24:34 ◼   ► and in that order and in some ways that's a bit of a slam is or at least that's the

00:24:38 ◼   ► way it's often used is that it's like oh you know Apple doesn't care about developers

00:24:41 ◼   ► that Apple cares about itself and it's like well but if they didn't if Apple cared about

00:24:45 ◼   ► developers more than they cared about themselves or their customers would lead to a circumstance

00:24:51 ◼   ► that would likely not be as good in the long run that many of the situations that if Apple

00:24:55 ◼   ► is not defensive and does not sort of put its interests and its platform ahead sort

00:25:02 ◼   ► of if it isn't a good steward of that it could end up in places where it loses control

00:25:07 ◼   ► it loses the ability to affect the change it wants it is bending over to serve too much

00:25:11 ◼   ► to accommodate things and ultimately the platform would suffer and I think it's a reasonable

00:25:16 ◼   ► thing for a company to want you know it's like Apple's interest is Apple it's like

00:25:20 ◼   ► it does not exist as a charitable organization does not and like at this nonprofit that exists

00:25:25 ◼   ► it can have principles and it's reasonable I think for us to hold it it's you know

00:25:31 ◼   ► serve the organization to its own principles but it is certainly something that goes along

00:25:36 ◼   ► with that acceptance that it's like they're they're always it makes sense for them to

00:25:39 ◼   ► work in their own in their own self-interest and the mess the best I can sort of diversify

00:25:44 ◼   ► myself to sort of soften the blow of that or potentially to align myself with their

00:25:48 ◼   ► interests is going to put me in a better place and then trying to do something that is going

00:25:54 ◼   ► to be you know sort of antagonistic or service to be being in be being in that conflict like

00:26:02 ◼   ► the last thing I want to do is to get into a fight with Apple that's just doesn't

00:26:06 ◼   ► make sense to me I'd rather just be my little minnow swimming along in the ocean and sometimes

00:26:10 ◼   ► these big waves will you know sort of knock me around when they're bit having their

00:26:13 ◼   ► fights with these big companies but it's like I'll just do my best to just keep swimming

00:26:17 ◼   ► and hope for the best and hopefully I've done enough diverse diversity that I can sort

00:26:21 ◼   ► of weather it and enough flexibility that I can just accept it when it happens and you

00:26:26 ◼   ► know just roll with it yeah I mean I don't think we have much of a choice because like

00:26:29 ◼   ► like I also don't want to get into a big fight with Apple because frankly that's

00:26:33 ◼   ► a full time job like you need the like you need to be a bigger established operation

00:26:39 ◼   ► and basically devote you know hire some lawyers and basically devote yourself to like sticking

00:26:44 ◼   ► a finger in Apple's side or you know presenting yourself at all these like congressional or

00:26:48 ◼   ► court hearings like that's that's a huge job and I have no interest in that world

00:26:54 ◼   ► I want to make apps and I want to you know do my thing over here and I and I also don't

00:27:00 ◼   ► think there's anything wrong with the strategy of avoidance you know like when when I decided

00:27:04 ◼   ► to make a podcast app whatever it was seven years ago that's a long time now but you

00:27:10 ◼   ► know at that time this was pre-serial podcasts were a pretty good business but they weren't

00:27:17 ◼   ► like a mainstream massive thing yet they it was nowhere near like as as hot as they are

00:27:23 ◼   ► now I don't know if I would have jumped into it if I was starting today like I think

00:27:28 ◼   ► I think right now I have an actual tendency to go to areas that are underserved because

00:27:33 ◼   ► frankly I don't like like heated competition and I don't like entering super hot markets

00:27:39 ◼   ► where a lot of big companies and VC people are throwing a bunch of big money around I'd

00:27:43 ◼   ► rather take a step back and kind of do my own thing over here in like a smaller pond

00:27:48 ◼   ► and when I started making a podcast app that was a smaller pond it no longer is but and

00:27:53 ◼   ► I have no intention of leaving this business but like I think there's nothing wrong with

00:27:57 ◼   ► taking that strategy of like going where there's not a bunch of turbulence from big companies

00:28:02 ◼   ► and big money because that's that's a that's just you're playing with fire at that point

00:28:07 ◼   ► and if you if you thrive on that kind of thing great but I really don't and it's worth

00:28:13 ◼   ► kind of knowing yourself in that area like knowing whether you want that level of of

00:28:17 ◼   ► heat and turbulence and competition or whether you're much happier kind of you know flying

00:28:22 ◼   ► under the radar. Yeah exactly and I think that's a great point

00:28:26 ◼   ► is and I think that is the so often is like it's the benefit of being it's like that's

00:28:31 ◼   ► the benefit of being an indie I think in a lot of ways and it's like turning it around

00:28:34 ◼   ► in a sense of if you were trying to be a venture backed company you need to be in the area

00:28:40 ◼   ► that has that like is the next big thing right that that's what you're aiming for if you're

00:28:46 ◼   ► in that market if that's what you're going for and it's like in some ways what I love

00:28:50 ◼   ► is that the indies like the best place for you to be is not the next best thing is to

00:28:55 ◼   ► be the thing that is solid and reasonable and interesting and compelling and intellectually

00:29:00 ◼   ► stimulating but is just going to be a nice comfortable like interesting space to explore

00:29:06 ◼   ► and work on and that is unlikely to be full of conflict and turmoil that you can just

00:29:10 ◼   ► merrily make a nice living doing the thing that you enjoy and then hopefully just sort

00:29:15 ◼   ► of stay out of the way. Yeah and it can be tricky to find an area

00:29:19 ◼   ► that is calm but not dead but I'd much rather roll that roll that die I guess my metaphors

00:29:28 ◼   ► are falling apart here but I'd much rather try to find that kind of thing than jump into

00:29:33 ◼   ► the the big turbulent wave pool and get my butt kicked. Exactly. Thank you for listening

00:29:38 ◼   ► everybody and we'll talk to you in two weeks. Bye.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:29:42 ◼   ► [End of Audio]

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