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You’re likely familiar with global efforts to open up app stores, to allow app and game developers to monetize directly and provide choice for users. But how did we get here, and what can lessons about the past tell us about where open mobile commerce will be in the future?
In this episode of Growth Stage, open access veteran and FastSpring CMO David Vogelpohl shares his thoughts on the incredible untold history of open mobile commerce, how things have changed over time, what is happening in today’s world, and what lessons from the past can tell us about the future of open commerce.
If you’re looking for the chance to zoom out and understand what’s happening in mobile commerce — to help you imagine what you might do to take advantage of this trend toward open commerce — don’t miss this episode of Growth Stage. Watch or listen now!
This podcast is brought to you by FastSpring. As the leading merchant of record payment platform for digital products, FastSpring delivers an all-in-one solution for payments, subscriptions, and automated tax compliance — enabling digital businesses to expand globally with reduced complexity and lower costs.
Podcast Full Interview: Audio
Podcast Full Interview: Video
Transcript
Jesse Paliotto
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Grow Stage, podcast by FastSpring, where we discuss how digital technology companies grow revenue, build meaningful products, and increase the value of their business. I’m your host, Jesse Paliotto. I love being a part of the community as part of my role with FastSpring, and I love bringing the best of the community to you here on the Growth Stage podcast. In this episode of Growth Stage, open access veteran and FastSpring CMO David Vogelpoel shares his thoughts on the incredible untold history of open mobile commerce, how things have changed over time, what’s happening in today’s world, and what lessons from the past can tell us about the future of open commerce, David. Thanks for doing this, man. This is great.
David Vogelpohl
Glad to be here. Thanks, Jesse.
Jesse Paliotto
So let’s start off with just a quick softball question. What was the first app or game that you bought on your phone?
David Vogelpohl
Okay, phone is a key point there.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah,
David Vogelpohl
but it would have been the iPhone, and the first app I bought was the $99 Garmin app map app. So before Google Map and Apple Maps existed, you had to buy the GPS app, and it was $99 from Garmin. So that was the first mobile app that I spent money on.
Jesse Paliotto
Oh, right on! You went in big $99 right out of the gate.
David Vogelpohl
I mean, the physical Garmin GPS units you would have in your car were like monty $9. Right. It actually seemed like a kind of a deal at the time.
Jesse Paliotto
Oh, right on. Yeah, it’s all relative. Can you tell us about? And I know a bit, obviously, but can you tell us a little bit about FastSpring and what you do at FastSpring?
David Vogelpohl
Yeah, absolutely. So FastSpring is a monetization platform that helps with global payments and subscriptions. So we’re what’s called a merchant of record, which means that we handle all of the tax and compliance needs worldwide. So that’s a little bit about what we do. And then my role here is CMO. I’m our chief market marketing officer.
Jesse Paliotto
Awesome, and then what is your background? Since today’s topic, we’re diving into mobile apps and commerce and all of this. What is your background at monetizing mobile apps and games? The
David Vogelpohl
deepest I’ve gone has been through my agency, which built and optimized mobile apps in a variety of contexts. So we built both B 2c and B 2b apps. We would build, optimize, and help them grow. So I have experience with both the building and the optimizing and marketing side. Obviously, things are changing rapidly, and that that world is evolving very very quickly. And then on the mobile game front, other than being an avid mobile gamer, the majority of my experience there has been in supporting FastSpring’s customers with their strategy of growing the D2C direct monetization, if you will, for their games, and have had the privilege and opportunity to go pretty deep with a lot of our larger publishers there, and get a good understanding of their strategies, how we support them, and tactics and things they can do to help grow that part of their business.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, it’s interesting with like an agency scenario where there’s just such a high frequency of different types of engagements and different types of apps and customers and audiences and such. When along that journey did you first become interested in open access issues?
David Vogelpohl
Well, we need to jump in our way back machine for that because it even predates mobile. But I started my career at the end of the 90s and really hit like high gear in my career in the early 2000s. And when I started, I worked for an internet service provider that was doing dial-up internet access. It was this really transformative moment when it came to telecommunications and digital, because kind of any company could become an internet company. You could set up your own bank of modems. People could dial into them with your dial-up routers and modems, if you will, and and you could sell access to the internet. But then in the early 2000 s, the world started to shift towards broadband, and in the U.S. this meant DSL, so internet over your old phone line, if you will, and then cable modems. And what happened is a lot of these early ISPs that came into existence in the dial-up era were basically boxed out of existence in the cable modem and DSL world, and so there were all these upstart ISPs that were basically kind of being pressured, almost put out of business. A lot of them actually are out of business today. That began my interest in at the time what they called open access, which was granting companies access to these telecommunication networks at a wholesale rate, and this was the precursor actually to what we now know today as net neutrality. So this was the kind of genesis, if you will, of my interest in open access as it relates to telecommunication networks, internet, and kind of the balance between you know free market and kind of monopolies and duopolies. So there’s like this tension, but for me, it started really in earnest in the early 2000s,
Jesse Paliotto
yeah, it’s interesting. I actually, I guess I must be old enough that I remember stories going around when like stuff was getting auctioned off from the government around access and who was able to bid and stuff like that.
David Vogelpohl
A lot of that’s related to the mobile wireless spectrum, which is a whole other thing. But yeah, I don’t know this backstory about open access, and it even predates the you know early 2000s even. But this was when I first started to begin to be interested in it.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, well, and then okay, so then about mobile, when and how did mobile commerce kick off? Then
David Vogelpohl
I think the standard answer, like if you ask people like who invented the internet, they’ll joke and say Al Gore because he made that back in the day. I think this is one of those ones where people are like, “Oh, you know, when Apple released the App Store. The reality is, mobile commerce actually existed well before that. Notable examples include the Palm Pilot. So you asked me earlier what was the first game or app I bought on my phone, and I was like, “Well, phone’s an important word there. I actually bought many games and apps for my Palm Pilot before getting the iPhone and before the App Store. And so, really, if you think of mobile, obviously centered around the idea of a mobile phone and cell phone. The app store launch was obviously kind of like this big moment, and it was really interesting at the time because if you looked at the way cell phones worked then, your cell phone or mobile company made all of the decisions for you. They were the gatekeepers, so they decided what phones worked on their network. They decided what software were on those phones. If there were marketplaces, they decided that. And some places of the world, this still happens today. But they had won the auctions you talked about earlier, and so they had effective monopolies and duopolies in various markets around the world, and they made all of the decisions. And so, what happened with the introduction of the App Store is that it really kind of, and really the iPhone primarily, is it really shifted that power dynamic away from the telcos to the manufacturers, which I thought was this interesting kind of transition moment, but I do think people, you know, typically will think about the invention of the Apple App Store, but the reality was mobile commerce had existed many years prior to that.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah. In addition to iPhone, BlackBerry, right, was also kind of in that stage. So, would you, how would you frame that? Like, was it kind of the BlackBerry and then the iPhone like a one-two punch of breaking open that monopoly or how did that play out?
David Vogelpohl
There’s a really cool movie out right now and I think it’s called BlackBerry. I watched it actually on a plane ride not too long ago and it kind of walks through the history of BlackBerry. And BlackBerry was really I would say, the first mobile device where it was a had to have device. Prior to that, you would go up to your phone company store, and they would have a you know a series of devices there, and you would look at them. And there were like Nokia had some popular models and things like that, but it wasn’t really like oh my goodness, I have to have that phone. If you don’t have that phone, I’m going to go to a different mobile provider. And BlackBerry actually was the first series of devices where people started to really think about that. Like, I’m not going to pick my phone company and pick the devices they have. I’m going to pick my phone company based on if they support BlackBerry or not. Apple really also did this, of course, with the iPhone. So BlackBerry had the tactile keyboard and the little roll selector thing on the right, and people got really addicted to that. If you’ll recall, I don’t know if you’re around that time, but they called them, you know, crackberries because people.
Jesse Paliotto
Yes, I do remember.
David Vogelpohl
Yep, and then the iPhone really just blew everybody’s mind, and that was really when the power dynamic shifted away from the people that owned the spectrum to the people that delivered the hardware, and this completely flipped everything over on its head. And so we ended up with monopolies and duopolies that were phone companies in your local market, but there would be many monopolies and duopolies all around the world. You know, my two self providers in my region were different than yours, were different than someone else’s in another country, and so while everybody kind of dealt with one or two companies that they had to do business with, they were different companies all around the world. Well, when hardware. Became the desirable thing, and then all phone companies had to support iPhone. Then that shifted that power dynamic to the manufacturers, to in this case iPhone, and that was this massive, massive shift. At every moment prior to that moment, the monopoly and duopolies that we we experience in telco were related to who owned the wires going into our homes or who owned the spectrum that was flying through the air, and I don’t think people really fully understand how powerful it was when the iPhone came out and just created this tremendous demand. It completely flipped that over on its head, and that was this huge, huge moment in open access. And I think you know, if as we look at it today, and we’re like, oh, you know, all of mobile commerce flows through these two companies. When they started Apple, Apple with the you know iPhone, and ultimately Google with Android, they were up against their own monopolies and duopolies, and they had to like make their way in there. So it’s just kind of this really interesting dynamic how things have kind of come full circle here.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, it’s one side note. The funny thing with CrackBerry is like people were so like it’s so addictive. People are into it. It’s like fast forward 20 years, man. People are on their phones so much. That was just the tip of the iceberg. But at the end, there you got into kind of the other player. That’s obviously a big deal. That sort of affects open access, and really, I guess you could say is the most open, which is Android. Could you talk about like how did that particularly affect things and sort of breaking open consumer choice.
David Vogelpohl
Android was really interesting when it came out. So Android was released, and I don’t know the exact like time frame here, but I would put it in Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” era. I’m not saying even today, but I’m just saying like this was part of their sentiment and part of their kind of approach. And I think in general, especially when it comes to big tech companies, Google has always been one of the best at embracing this idea of openness in in technology in various ways. And I think like there’s you know good parts and bad parts of what they do, and I think people have different opinions. But when Android came on the scene, one of the big things that it brought forward that Apple absolutely did not pursue was this idea of open source, and it allowed many phone manufacturers to take advantage of the Android operating system to fork it, to innovate on top of it, and develop their own ecosystems. So earlier, when I said there’s other phone companies out there today that have their own app stores and their own approved kind of collection of software that comes with your phone, they’re doing all that with Android. They’re not making their own operating system. So this really did change that dynamic because Apple is such a closed, you know, walled garden ecosystem, but there was a lot of anticipation and excitement over kind of the open posture of Android. I think over time, though, what we saw, and in particular, I would say, relative to Google Play, is that we still ended up with kind of a closed garden ecosystem. The rest of it, you know, it’s all open source. Sure, I can, you know, use it in my own way and fork it and build on top of it and things like that. And I think that’s fantastic that Google does that. But if you’re like measuring for openness, Google Play is still somewhat restrict. You know, very restrictive actually. And that said, when we see the app stores now starting to open up. I do view Google as being more progressive in terms of supporting that and enabling this idea of open access. Like at the end of the day, the most the computer we spend the most time with in our lives is the one on our pocket. It’s the majority of screen time, and so one way you could look at this is, you know, that computer in your pocket should have open commerce. Like you shouldn’t be necessarily a gatekeeper telling you what software you can and can’t install. And Google’s credit, they also support side loading, so that effectively lets you install any software you want on your own computer in your pocket, and so again, I don’t think Android like saved the day on openness or anything like that. But certainly, when you compare Android and iOS, Android is much much more open in its posture than iOS.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, yeah, 100% And then, well, and so, staying a bit in historical narrative, even though I think we’re starting to catch up to current day here, like when did Apple, Google start being okay with web stores so long as they were marketed outside of the game or app? So, I mean, a little bit of like going outside the walled garden, but they were okay with it at this point. And and when was that? Why did they do that?
David Vogelpohl
Well, their hand was forced a little bit. Epic versus Apple helped to push this, and I forget the exact date, but it was not terribly long ago. It was maybe five to seven years ago, or something like this. And it was always-I mean, there was always paths to do it. So, by sake of example, Netflix-you’ve always been able to pay for Netflix on the web and use Netflix’s app on your phone without Apple or Google taking a cut, but it was really kind of forcing the hand in terms, especially around things like gaming, where now they were allowing you to do transactions outside your gamer app and then use entitlements from those transactions inside the gamer app, where they still had restrictions, though, is steering, linking from inside the gamer app to a website outside, or even just embedding your own payments. And so, what we’ve seen in recent years around regulations, laws, and lawsuits is really kind of pushing and nudging, and kind of in a sense, forcing these companies to be more open with this access. Now, of course, in the rest of the computers in our in our lives, this is shock. This would be shocking. Like if I went to you and said, “Hey, your computer manufacturer is going to take a cut of every transaction you do on every website you visit, like you’d be like, “What are you talking about that’s that’s nuts, and so but early days relative to like someone could go to your website and buy, or should I say in the last whatever it was five to seven years, they were now kind of officially allowing this if you would. Now I think that’s really interesting also in a way, because you know, as the app developer, you’re looking for different ways to monetize your your software, and so this is a really powerful opportunity for you if you can you know avoid the 30% tax, if you will. But you know, obviously, you’re not able to embed it. You’re still having to force visitors to go to an outside website.
Jesse Paliotto
Well, so that was like five or so years ago, as you were saying, with Epic. But there’s been a lot that Epic’s done more recently, or at least different legal decisions that have happened. Maybe you could kind of even catch currently more up, like with what role has Epic played in opening the app stores versus like recent legislation, regulation, all that stuff. Like, how does that play out?
David Vogelpohl
They are absolutely the tip of the spear. But what was happening as the Epic versus Apple and as Epic versus Google was progressing through the courts in the U.S. is that in parallel there was legislation and regulations evolving and emerging throughout the world. Now, of course, Epic started to push the limits with Apple early on in the early days, and Apple basically banned Epic from the store. I can’t remember if they were steering or embedding third-party payments, but they were doing something they weren’t supposed to. And then Epic made that classic protest video with the Fortnite character with her pickaxe, kind of smashing the TV, and they’re making fun of this old Apple commercial. Actually, in that video, if you haven’t seen it, you should Google it. This amazing video. So again, tip of the spear for all that, and I think it really woke people up. There were also some antitrust lawsuits against Google that started to spur some of this. And so while Epic played a huge role, especially early on in this kind of push towards openness and mobile commerce, they absolutely were not the only game in town. We’ve seen progress from the EU with the Digital Markets Act. We’ve seen legislation in Japan, Brazil, and other jurisdictions, and then we also saw things in the U.S. with the attorney generals and antitrust suits against Google, and all of these and many others, we’ve seen progress on towards openness. So while Epic certainly was the kind of tip of the spear, helped to kick things off, by no means does all of this kind of roll back and rest exclusively on Epic. And my hat hat tip to Tim Sweeney and his his commitment to that over time, but you know, again, there was a lot of things happening that helped to create the the era of more openness that we’re experiencing today.
Jesse Paliotto
Well, and then how are Apple and Google reacting towards this trend of like forced open commerce in mobile?
David Vogelpohl
Yeah, and that that word forced, of course, because like you know they’re going to defend their own revenue and things like that.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, yeah.
David Vogelpohl
And I mentioned before how I started my career in digital in the late ’90s, and I had a boss who explained to me that all of the internet and all of digital gets down to one struggle, and it is the struggle between I. Balls and content, and so in the Apple and Google universe, the reason why they feel justified to provide really, really strict gatekeeper functionality on their devices is because they feel they’re bringing the eyeballs, they’re bringing the audience, similar to how remember how I said the cable TV companies and cable modem companies and DSL companies didn’t want to give access to all the dial-up ISPs. It’s the same thing. We we we strung the wire to their house. We own the eyeball. You might have con. Other people might have content, but we have the eyeball. We’re going to control that. And so when you have this idea of you know we’re okay if you do a transaction on your website and then they come to the app later and we’re not going to charge you a fee for that that is kind of in this underlying concept that you know you brought the eyeball you brought the customer to your website, and they’re just using the app as a mechanism to use the entitlement, the app store, or the existence of a phone in your pocket was not the reason why you acquired that customer. Now, in the very early days, it absolutely was the reason, right? Apple made an app store. I remember I used to watch every app that was released every day when the app store was first released. I was like, “Oh, do I want to use that one? Do I want this? Is impossible today? But that that’s that’s where they’re coming from. Is they they view like we brought the customer to the table, so you know we deserve a cut. And there is a lot of truth in that, and for a lot of apps and a lot of games, and and from a pragmatic perspective, you could see where there’s should be a balance there, where Google should get you know full credit, if you will, for doing that, and then in other cases where hey look, maybe they’re not the driver of that activity, maybe they’re not the driver of that eyeball. So this is where they’re coming from. So then, what are they going to do about it when laws and regulations come out? Well, first off, they fight it. We’ve seen them fight all the way up to the Supreme Court with Apple versus Epic. I’m not sure about Google. I don’t recall. They may have gone to the Supreme Court. We see them fight it with regulations in the Europe and Japan and other places, and then as these things come out, then they’ll release ways to comply with them. But sometimes ways can be a little obtuse and difficult to figure out, and so that benefits them because the mor they can make it complicated to comply. The less people will want to pursue it. The more spicy folks might reference this as “quote malicious compliance. I like to think of it in like a balanced way, but they’re kind of dragging their feet is another way you could think about that. And so, mobile publishers then have to kind of figure out well what are the courts saying what are lawmakers saying what are regulators saying how are Apple and Google reacting to that and then how do we color within those lines to make sure we’re driving our business forward but not you know violating our agreements with Apple and Google but still taking advantage of the openness that laws, regulations, and lawsuits are, you know, bringing forth.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, that’s interesting. Like even observing over the last year or so, there’s kind of this cottage industry among publications of trying to interpret the court rulings, and you see it if anybody goes to, you know, app shows or gaming shows, or you read any of the publications? There’s constantly articles that are like, “Well, what does it mean? How do I actually apply or navigate rather the latest ruling? So, yeah, 100% That’s that’s a like you said, malicious compliance might be one flavor to take away from that. The other would just be that it requires a lot of work to figure that out.
David Vogelpohl
That’s another thing. Is like even if you weren’t being malicious about it, why would you do a good job at it? You know what I mean. Like it’s not your core business. It hurts your revenue. So even if you’re not being a jerk, that doesn’t mean you’re going to do a good job at you know implementing systems and supporting avenues for people to like reduce your own revenue. So again, you don’t even have to like assign maliciousness to it. It’s just literally, you know, the way any human or company would react to implementing things that hurt their bottom line.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, there’s just there’s not an incentive to go do this at 110 level. And sorry, just to go back one more thing that you were saying about your the advice you got about it’s always between eyeballs and content. It’s such an interesting shift over the history of app stuff that in the last few years, I think like developers for a long time were very happy to pay the commissions on app store fees because it was worth it for the eyeballs. Like you said, you were checking the app store every. Day to see what thing came out, but the but the the change of tide between people realizing, wait, I’m driving eyeballs for my ad campaigns or from my web traffic or my organic listings or my whatever the other source is, it changes the calculus. Where it’s like, I’m I’m not getting what, especially as the app store gets more crowded, it dilutes the value of how many eyeballs I’m getting, or dilutes the number of eyeballs I’m getting, so to speak. So yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting kind of like title shift.
David Vogelpohl
Well, think about it. Just even and you you know you’re apt to point out that the early app store was a much bigger driver of new things. But in today’s world, if I make an app or a game, unless I’m top 10, top 20 of games or apps on an app category page. The the app store search engines and category pages don’t really help me all that much. I mean, and with agentic development, you know, exploding the number of apps that are
Jesse Paliotto
yes.
David Vogelpohl
How many productivity apps are out there, and are you going to rank in the top 10 or 20? Because people aren’t scrolling, you know, 2030, apps down in these stores, and so then you’re like, well, okay, so how do I grow my app then, or game, or whatever? And then you go out and you spend a bunch of money on UA. Well, you drove the user to your app or game, and then the other side we see and kind of gave the Netflix example earlier is like I downloaded the Netflix app because Netflix’s marketing and whatever else made me aware of their brand and their product, and I just want to use that on the computer in my pocket. We see this in gaming as well. You have like these really huge brands, these super popular games. Like I’m going to play it on my computer. I’m going to play it on my console. I’m going to play it on my phone. But the console, the phone, nor the computer were the reason I wanted the game. It was because I really liked that particular game by that particular publisher studio, and so this idea that app stores bring you customers for most apps and games is actually just not true, and you have to go out and spend a bunch of money to make that happen. And so if I got to do that anyways, well then what am I paying the 30% for to so you can install it on the phone? That doesn’t sound like that’s worth 30%
Jesse Paliotto
So okay, let me ask you this question. Then, given some of the you know compliance complexity from Apple and Google and stuff, what do you think regulators, legislators, judges? How are they likely to react? Kind of given the level of compliance and like maybe the obfuscation that’s even happening.
David Vogelpohl
Yeah, some are going to be more aggressive than others. I mean, again, Apple and Google are kind of going to drag their feet a little bit on the compliance front, and you know, some judges and regulators are going to have shorter patience than others. We’ve seen you know judges in Apple versus Epic and Google versus Epic be pretty pointed in terms of you know saying like hey what you’re doing isn’t really complying with my ruling? We’ve seen pushback from regulators in the EU. I think we’ll also see that with regulators and lawmakers and you know Japan and other countries. So I think it just depends on the region, depends on the law, depends on the legislator. I think what’ll happen though over time, you know, Apple and Google, what they’re pushing for are universal programs for embedding third-party payments and linking to third-party payments outside the apps and games, and they’re they’re kind of viewing this as like the grand compromise. I’m gonna will only charge you 15% or 20% if you link to your web store. The reality, though, is that the lawsuits, regulations, and laws will be different all over the world. So while they want a universal program, the reality is it’ll probably be different in different countries. With some countries requiring zero fees at all, no matter the scenario, and other countries being okay with kind of these middle grounds that Apple and Google are proposing, so I suspect the future will be a patchwork. But I don’t think that every country and government in the world will agree to one program, and I think Google would really love that to be true, but that’s just not going to happen. And so I think that introduces complexity for mobile publishers, but it also introduces opportunity because if you know how to navigate that world, you can drastically increase the profitability of the software and games that you’re creating.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, that means a little intimidating. Actually, I think as an app or game developer to stare into that, you know, diversity of the landscape and figure out how do I approach it. You know, are there key strategies that you think that apps or game developers should follow as they’re trying to pursue direct relationships with their users in the future?
David Vogelpohl
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, and I just want to kick you know kick this part off by just re-emphasizing. I’m definitely not anti Apple or Google. I think makes some amazing products and deliver incredible value to the to the web and technology as a whole. And you know I was huge fans of them as they were initially going up to like break open this very closed world of mobile telecommunication providers. You know when they were first kind of coming into existence. So please don’t misinterpret my views on openness as being anti any particular company or not. But I would say the first thing to do is you’re thinking about direct to consumer or direct monetization. You know, selling outside the app stores is number one. Do what’s best for your users, your players, and your customers. For me, being rooted in openness isn’t just a commerce argument; it’s a people argument. In in in that choice is better for everyone. Choice is better for your players. Choice is better for you. Choice is better for the global digital economy, and what roots all of that is number one: do what’s best for you and your users, you and your players. If you follow that, everything else that comes behind that’s going to be a ton, much, much, much easier. Number two: follow the rules. Granted, you may share my passion for openness. You may even go beyond how I position it, but don’t break the rules. If Apple or Google have terms of service and they explicitly prohibit X, Y, or Z, don’t go do. Don’t violate those rules. You will have a very bad day, even if you, even if you are in kind of a moral superior position, if you will, follow the rules. Your business is at stake. Number three, watch the rule changes, especially those that benefit you. So sometimes the rules can go against you, be worse, maybe. But pay attention to them. If you have like news alerts and like Google News or something like that. That’s a help helpful way to keep track. A lot of providers like FastSpring will keep track of it and will post it on their blogs and their newsletters, so you can kind of cheat a little bit. I don’t know. Maybe you have an AI agent that goes out there and scours the world or scours the news publications. Whatever it is, keep up with the rule changes and think about how you’re going to pursue them to benefit your business, and then next, this is really important, and I think this is important just for general openness, but certainly for an individual company’s strategy, is your ultimate goal is not to get one transaction from your web store or your website, but rather to establish a behavior of buying in the mobile game space on FastSpring. What we see is like 90 something percent of transactions that happen on these web stores were from players that purchased in the last 30 days, and our competitors report similar numbers. So this isn’t just like a FastSpring thing, and so what’s happening is that these game companies are establishing the behavior of buying from you directly. So then you don’t have to worry about steering or fees or embedding payments or any of this other stuff. You have a direct relationship with your customer, and you’ve helping to establish this behavior of buying on the web, buying from you directly, and all of that, especially when they just type it into their browser and go to your website, is 100% removed from steering fees or anything odd like that. And then finally, it’s back to follow the rules one, but work with partners you can trust. So if you’re leveraging, you know, web store providers, payment solutions like FastSpring, other things like that, you know, work with partners. You know they’re going to follow the rules. Help make sure they make you aware. If maybe you’re coloring outside the lines a little bit, but you know, as I tell my kids, like live a bulletproof life. You’ll sleep like a baby, and you’ll build a business that endures.
David Vogelpohl
And so, building an endurable and enduring business to me is about following the rules. It’s about establishing direct and strong relationships with your players and your customers. And to me, that’s one of the key parts. So again, just think about what’s best ultimately for your users. Everything else will come naturally, but those are the key areas I think about as I think about giving people advice on how to approach direct monetization and direct direct to consumer in the future.
Jesse Paliotto
That’s great. I love that. Live a bulletproof life, lead a bulletproof business, and you can sleep a lot easier at night. That’s that’s that’s right on. This has been such an epic, like I think, arc to like get above the fray of sort of the the moment to moment nuances of legal rulings that probably a lot of people are paying attention to right now. Just think about like what’s the meta story and how have we gotten where we are. So thank you, David. This was. Awesome, really appreciate talking through this today.
David Vogelpohl
Thanks for having me and interviewing me, Jesse.
Jesse Paliotto
Yeah, absolutely. If you’d like to know out there in podcast world what David is up to, make sure you check fastspring.com. Like he was saying at the end, even if you just want to catch up on what’s going on with the legal rulings in the space, it’s a good place to go. And then thanks everybody for joining us on Growth Stage Podcast. I’m your host Jesse Paliotto. Really grateful to be able to spend time with folks like David here on the podcast. So yeah, many thanks, and catch you guys all on the next one. Cheers.
