The Developer Alliance has released a statement in response to the unveiling of the bill designed to remove “barriers” for developers and protect consumers.
Washington D.C., August 11th, 2021 – The Developers Alliance has issued a statement noting their concerns with the bill introduced today by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). The bill seeks to “set fair, clear, and enforceable rules to protect competition and strengthen consumer protections within the app market,” with primary attention on the application platforms of Apple and Google.
The following statement can be attributed to Bruce Gustafson, Developers Alliance President & CEO:
“Small developers have fought against clones of this bill in every US state, across Europe, and internationally for well over a year. While well-meaning, this bill fails to reflect the scope of the business relationship between app stores and small 3rd party developers. It could be beneficial if it was more reflective of the actual developer reality. As proposed, the bill is more likely to destroy the 3rd party developer economy than to help it.
App stores are critical to developers. They provide tremendous benefits and resources to the developer community, but they aren’t charities and developers appreciate that these costs need to be recovered. App stores do not underwrite platform profits, despite what their critics imply. At the same time, their practices could – and should – be more transparent and equitable.
Socializing app stores will not improve quality or drive innovation or create consumer benefits; it will only help a handful of billionaire developers at the expense of millions of developer entrepreneurs. Removing commercial incentives to run app stores will not help small developers. While we support the goal of rebalancing platform and developer market power, this bill won’t accomplish that outcome.”
###
About The Developers Alliance
The Developers Alliance is the world’s leading advocate for software developers and the companies invested in their success. Alliance members include industry leaders in consumer, enterprise, industrial, and emerging software development, and a global network of more than 70,000 developers.
