Take it from someone who’s worked with client apps making ten times as many downloads at similar price points: if you want to be successful in the app business you need to look beyond optimizing App Store search terms. You need to be marketing and promoting your application across multiple channels to a wider audience. It does not sound like this developer was doing that, so while it is sad he has had revenue slashed in half overnight he could have avoided this kind of big hit if he was reinvesting some portion of revenue back into promoting his application.
First off, yours is a great message to send out to anyone reading this. You can mitigate risks like this by having a more direct relationship to your users, and this was a wake-up call to me.
That said, a few counterpoints:
1. Something like 70% of all installs, for all apps, come from App Store search. It's the most popular way for users to find what they're looking for.
2. My business had to come alive before it could grow to be robust. I built this app from scratch. I didn't have an audience. I just built it, and App Store search connected me to people who were looking for an app like this, and it grew to the point where I could do it full-time.
Has the time come for me to take steps to make my business more robust? Yes. And your advice is great in that regard.
But a fledgling business must first survive before it can grow to be robust. This is a tale of me hitting an inflection point. I hope to learn from it, and grow.
The app dev put time and energy into understanding and optimizing for search within the store (and also keeping analytics), so to say they put 0% of their budget is not correct. Their time is money.
Other than Facebook and Google, what are the preferred marketing services for iOS indie developers in 2019? Is it mostly domain/niche specific, or are there horizontal promotion services for apps?
If Apple's 30% fee charged to developers does not include any marketing services, what additional percentage should be budgeted for the companies that are promoting apps? 10%? 20%?
Apple quite literally is the market, and they refuse to allow external influences on the market's listings (mostly, sorta).
Apple chose to adopt it's existence as being a market and they're getting the revenue that goes along with assuming responsibilities which they are shirking.
Apple really needs to be hit with anti-trust investigations. Ditto for the play store.
Except that is part of the quid-pro-quo of letting them take 30% of your revenue, the idea that they will curate and market apps. Something they were doing for rooster8 and then inexplicably stopped. If we have to do our own marketing, then WTF is the point of the vig?
Why should Apple care more about indie developers vs a much larger developer with multiple apps and more marketing reach? Sure, you've got grit and determination but who's making them more money?
