After a week of outrage from communities all across the iOS ecosystem, Apple remains silent following their declaration that they will end the affiliate program for apps. I have an executive contact at iTunes. He's been a great help over the years; sorting out issues that have cropped up with the affiliate program. We've even spoken on the phone. Now I can't get him to return an email.
Last Friday many of you stepped up to help out with Patreon pledges. I'm rarely humble, but I am humbled by those of you that have demonstrated your support by giving me your hard-earned money. To show my gratitude I've added a new section on the site that lists and thanks the active Patrons and advertisers.
Unfortunately your contributions cannot offset the huge deficit I face when Apple stops paying me a commission on app sales. Without additional funding, I'll be working for less than minimum wage. I'm willing to take a pay cut to keep the site going, but this is unsustainable. This site requires 3-4 hours every day to maintain, so seeking additional employment jeopardizes the site's future.
We've seen that before in the loss of nearly every other site that's catered to our small niche. There have been so many before. First to go was Touch Sound, then iOS Musician, and iOS Mars. Alex got a new job and shuttered iDesignSound. Doug Woods and Jakob Haq combined forces for a short lived thesoundtestroom site. iOS Music & You has been off-and-on for several years, with Chip too busy at his day job. Palm Sounds was closed when Ashley began to write for CDM. And this year John stopped updating Music App Blog to pursue other opportunities. discchord has outlived them all, but for how much longer?
I need to find new funding for the site to continue to be worthwhile for me. I've looked at how other sites generate revenue and given them all their due consideration.
Sell Out
I get a lot of offers from super shady people who want to do "native advertising" or guest posts. They offer money to post their garbage here with links back to whatever it is they are trying to sell. Obviously this isn't going to fly. Besides being unscrupulous, this a dumb move. Any site doing this will quickly lose all credibility.
Sell Supplements
Alex Jones has also had an unfortunate week too, but despite being banned from YouTube he's still going to be making a lot of money for himself by selling supplements. These range from the purely nonsensical to the "if that actually worked it would be illegal" varieties.
My dietary supplementation is much more modest. I started working out last year and dabbled a bit with supplements, but I only tried those with actual science to back them up. Then I only kept the ones that seemed to do anything. Lately I only take Creatine and L-Citrulline DL-Malate. I've found them both to be helpful in getting my "pump" on. I find I have the raw power to keep going even when I'm feeling fatigued.
I can whole heartily recommend that everyone should get into lifting. And while you're at it, buy those supplements from my Amazon affiliate links. Your results may vary. You may or may not look like a badass cyberpunk when you lift.
Sell Advertising
While my call for support was heard by many of you, I have not gotten a lot of additional support from developers. I sold 0 new ads. This is disheartening. I hear from so many developers telling me they sell more apps from discchord than anywhere else, but none of them stepped up to help keep discchord going.
I'd like to encourage every developer to take a look at their iTunes Connect account and look at referral traffic. If discchord is how you sell the most apps, please consider keeping discchord around! I only need about 4 more advertisers at either of the $100 slots, or 8 at the $50 slot, or some combination there of! Really I'm just looking for about $400 more per month so I don't feel like my time is poorly rewarded. Surely discchord is a better investment than having to pay Apple to compete on search results.
I'm not looking for people who just want to advertise for a month or two. I'm looking for developers who believe discchord is of value to the community and its continued existence will ensure their own future sales. To that end I need advertisers who will stick with me for the long haul. I need more people like White Noise Audio, who has been with me since day 1. Secret Base Design was with me for 4 years. Jam Maestro has been with me for the last 5. These guys invest in the future of iOS music and the community that supports it.
We've been hitting record views for the last 3 months. This isn't a charity, this is a symbiotic relationship.
Reader Comments 26
I would sign up for advertising if I were a developer.
For developers that are reading this, i can honestly say that i have bought multiple apps that were advertised on this website. These ads actually work and draw attention. So consider advertising here especially when you see that chart. That is more exposure than the weak Apple store will ever offer you. It is nearly impossible for users to find newly released music apps on the App store unless you are already aware of their existence. Apple store sucks and we need sites like Discchord to promote your apps and inform us about their existence.
Thank you developers, you've worked hard and brought us lots of great apps, and I really do appreciate that (as do many others of course). When you think about all of the time and hard work you devoted to creating these great apps, please realize that Tim has been working very hard to get the word out about your great app too. And note that he is very effective in doing that. He does help you sell your apps and other electronic related products too. For any developer considering the wisest choices to make with their advertising dollars, please take a closer look at Discchord.com. I've certainly purchased many apps after learning about them first via Tim's hard work @ Discchord.com.
Just for clarity: After learning about Apple's abrupt cancellation of their affiliate program, and it's looming impact on Discchord.com, I joined Patreon to do my part to help keep Discchord.com going. I am hoping to increase my support later this year. Discchord.com is indeed a very important music app/software/instrument news site to me. As a minor YouTube content creator, Tim has also been very kind to me by sharing some of my videos, which allows me to attempt to connect with other musicians & sound designers across the globe. So really Tim has created a community site, that helps developers connect with us musicians as well as helping musicians connect with each other. Thanks Tim!!!
That is the problem. How can we consumers strike back? I think it is totally unfair and unsustainable for Apple to think that sites like this can keep giving us such excellent curated access to the kind of content that we can never discover outside of this community. The Appstore will never accomplish that. The context will always be missing, even when the Appstore gets a refined section for music production.
So how can consumers put a stop to the arrogance and stupidity that Apple is portraying? Taking a stand? How? Not buying apps? Hmm that will only hurt sites like Discchord.
Tim is right. Developers need to acknowledge the importance of a vivid communal website like this one. The figures do say alot, the number of comments not so much. If this site goes down it will hurt developers in their pockets. There is nothing wrong with developers becoming big Patreons I guess. If they are not interested in advertisement space, maybe Tim can give them another flair/color as developer-Patreons? Or just take the opportunity and advertise!
Steve Balmer was never my type, also he did not work out, but he had it right when he clamoured: “developers, developers, developers!”
And I did try to do what Tim does... not for money, but for fun. My niche in a niche blog about guitar apps ( Unstringed ) lasted 8 months and became pretty un-fun ... Its a lot of work and there are real overheads!
I think ad supported content is the only way it can be delivered ‘free’.
So advertise away Tim!
Because, people working in the public face, for whatever industry, make it a more human experience.... Something we can relate to having a shared interest/investment in. Having worked my whole life to become self sufficient and then have all that work taken away because it didn't meet the need of the big Corp making their money out of me, I see it all the time. I didn't say, stop buying apps, apples technological decisions to demand the equipment to produce on the level I want, has already nullified me from that side of the game, and I am done spending money just to play catch up for 'the next big app' only for it to be ruled out later down the line. Dabbling in iPad music making for me was all about the fun and being accessible, heck, even easier for someone without any background in music on an educational level. At the end of the day, the world won't change, as it still comes down to money. What can you afford, ones things for sure... Time is precious.
Not only famous humans... I'm thinking in terms of an educational based platform, bring music ipadding to the schools as part of the curriculum.
Having chosen to suspend my own work on the Music App Blog some months ago to spend more time focused on my production/library music work (although I'm still doing the occasional iOS app review as part of my SOS stuff, so I keep track of what's going on), I'm now even more certain that was the right call for me personally.... This change by Apple would have done the same for me as it looks like it is doing for you (without things like greater ad uptake or more paterons) and pushed things to the point where the income earned simply didn't justify the time spent.... and that's sad for the whole iOS music making scene which the various websites/channels you mention have done so much to give a focus to....
I find it difficult to imagine that the mainstream music tech media are going to provide anywhere near the amount of coverage required to replace it.... and for developers, that will mean less people seeing and reading about their apps.... that's going to be a loss for them also....
..... I can't help but speculate that, for developers - they might have been better served if Apple had simply suggested a global increase in the price of all apps on the App Store by 10% to cover the 7% and a bit of extra to make things work better for the developers and/or cover the cost of maintaining the affiliate programme.... The economic model of the App Store has always been something that works against serious or niche applications. If you sell a million copies of a game of $0.99 maybe you make a profit (maybe).... but 1000 copies, 10,000 copies, 100,000 copies? Once costs are dealt with, at what point do you get into profit? Maybe some developers might tell us? We have all speculated that the pricing model (or rather the pricing model that users have come to expect to operate) in the app ecosystem is unsustainable.....
Anyway, here's hoping that you find a way to resolve things that let you keep discchord active.... Good luck....
Very best wishes,
John
I’ve bought several do-dads, mics, portable mixer, headphones, headphone amps, cables, etc. all related to my iOS sound hobby.
Maybe you could start mixing into the blog feed, some recommended and/or reviewed gear items that would be of interest to your audience? Gear costs more than the average app so commissions could be higher.
Here’s an iOS sound-centric item I bought off Amazon and like, that I could’ve easily bought off an affiliate link on your site: (Just Mixer)
https://www.amazon.com/your-orders/pop/ref=oh_aui_i_d_old_o12?_encoding=UTF8&gen;;=canonical&lineItemId;=jojnlpjsmktpsny&orderId;=111-7053226-6808208&packageId;=1&returnSummaryId;=&returnUnitIndices;=&shipmentId;=D0bqPJ3GB
Thank you so much, Chris! I'm super psyched to have Audio Damage represented on the site.
Amazon does, but it is a weird sliding-scale that goes as low as 2% for some items. It is honestly too confusing to figure out without consulting their chart, and then some items simply aren't eligible. I do include Amazon links with my referral when appropriate. I don't want to try to force it, like I'm suddenly trying to hawk gear. So for songs that use hardware I might include a link to them. Like this: http://discchord.com/gear/2018/07/30/coster-scott-live-dark-techno
Note to developers: I bought over 300 music apps in the last few years and most of them through Discchord. I rarely buy anything music related that’s not featured here.
Thank you very much!
And thank you to others who have been joining me on Patreon this weekend!