[HN Gopher] Apple complies with Dutch ruling, lets dating apps u...
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Apple complies with Dutch ruling, lets dating apps use other
payment systems
Author : sAbakumoff
Score : 134 points
Date : 2022-01-15 12:14 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nltimes.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (nltimes.nl)
| olliej wrote:
| Everyone is quoting 30%.
|
| For the majority of apps it's 15%.
|
| That commission is _not_ a payment processing fee, it 's very
| clearly a platform commission as has been common in the industry
| for 30-40 years at this point.
|
| All this (and the similar rulings elsewhere) seem to confirm is
| that
|
| * A developer can use their own preferred payment processor
|
| * A developer still has to pay the platform commission
|
| Finally, no one in their right mind should think that even if
| there was a reduction in commission that prices would decrease.
| We already have direct evidence: Both Google and Apple dropped
| platform commission to 15% for the vast majority of apps and
| there was no reduction in app prices. Additionally it is common
| sense: app devs already know that you will pay X for an app, if
| they get an arbitrary reduction in expenses through any mechanism
| why would they reduce their prices? This is the same flaw present
| in trickle-down economics. The price for _anything_ is determined
| by what the market will bare, not the cost of production - this
| is as true for an app, as it is for an NFT, as it is for a
| banana.
| wdb wrote:
| Nice, so they going to lower the subscription prices now that
| they don't need to pay the 30% cut from Apple?
| cute_boi wrote:
| "The ruling allows dating app developers to avoid the
| commission fee between 15 to 30 percent Apple charges. "
|
| Looks like everybody gangsta till regulator steps in.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Apple is/was just making hay whilst the sun shined. I know
| many on this site would disagree, but regulation generally is
| for everyone's benefit. Just like a healthy progressive
| taxation system.
| mlindner wrote:
| Most regulations I have been directly impacted by that have
| happened since I was born have made my life harder or worse
| in some way, so I strongly disagree.
|
| Two easy examples:
|
| Obama passing health care regulations greatly increased my
| health insurance costs.
|
| EPA mandating new regulations on "safety" of gas cans has
| made gas cans nearly unusable with dangerous splashing of
| gasoline when using them.
| maccard wrote:
| I can point to dozens of regulations in the EU that have
| made my life better as a resident of an EU country. Some
| very easy examples off the top of my head that I have
| benefitted from; no roaming charges between EU countries,
| PDO regulations, EURO standards for car fuel, Freedom of
| movement in the EU (and pet passports), Flight
| compensation and working time directive. Sure I can pick
| some out that suck, but that doesn't mean that they are
| all bad; overwhelmingly they are positive changes.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Obamacare's impacts varied. In NY, Obamacare at least
| temporarily lowered healthcare premiums despite being a
| new regulation. Most of those rules were already in place
| within NY state law, but the introduction of the employer
| and individual mandates added many healthy people to the
| risk pool, fixing a pre-existing adverse selection
| problem and therefore lowering premiums. The Obamacare
| risk corridor provisions also helped.
|
| I only say "at least temporarily" lowering premiums to
| reflect subsequent events, like the removal of the
| individual mandate and the risk corridor, and the general
| increase in healthcare costs over time.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Two easy examples:
|
| >Obama passing health care regulations greatly increased
| my health insurance costs.
|
| This is called paying into a system to support others in
| society who suffer healthcare events. Sucks if you are
| healthy and never need healthcare, nice for when you get
| hit with a NICU baby, cancer, heart attack, or any other
| healthcare event where you need hundreds of thousands or
| millions of dollars of healthcare.
|
| ACA explicitly transfers wealth from the young and/or
| health to the old and/or sick. There is no other way to
| provide more healthcare to more people, at current levels
| of healthcare supply.
|
| Of course, letting people go without healthcare if they
| cannot afford it is also a perfectly valid position.
| echelon wrote:
| Not necessarily. Now smaller software shops can now make a
| healthy margin to pay their engineers and grow their product.
| This will result in higher quality software and services.
| the_other wrote:
| Not if you believe the complaints that 30% is too much "Apple
| Tax". No, they'll keep the price the same and use the profit to
| improve their apps and business model.
|
| (Can you see my crossed fingers?)
| axlee wrote:
| It's already the case: if you buy your subscription on
| tinder.com rather than within the app itself, it is noticeably
| cheaper.
| olliej wrote:
| No.
|
| The commission charged by apple is not a payment processing
| fee. It's a platform licensing fee, as has been common practice
| in the industry since day 1.
|
| What this means is that the companies are allowed to use a
| separate company to charge users, and now _they_ are required
| to manage refunds, etc themselves in line with local laws and
| the apple license.
|
| Now they also have to manually track everything and pay apple
| the appropriate 15-30% licensing fee.
| bradly wrote:
| They have now seen consumers are willing to pay the higher
| price with the 30%, so it would seem unlikely to me.
| saagarjha wrote:
| To provide more insight, this is what the process is:
|
| * There are two new entitlements related to this, which you ask
| Apple to give you if you're a dating app.
|
| * Once you get the entitlements, you need to create a new version
| of your app (it cannot be the same as your international one)
| that will ship _exclusively_ in the Netherlands with that
| entitlement.
|
| * Details of how this entitlement work will come at a later date.
|
| * Apple will still charge a commission on these purchases, the
| details of which will also come at a later date.
|
| * It is your privilege/responsibility to conflict resolution with
| regards to refunds and such.
|
| In essence, Apple complied with the law in the narrowest terms
| they could, but they did indeed change things and I suspect many
| companies will go through this process even if it's made somewhat
| inconvenient. I guess what remains to be seen is if these
| entitlements slowly get rolled out in other countries as they
| also enact legislation to require it.
| imchillyb wrote:
| > ...Apple complied with the law...
|
| This is the _only_ part that matters here. Doesn 't matter how
| narrowly the law was complied with. Laws are the purview of
| lawmakers. If the lawmakers leave loopholes in their
| legislation all companies that can will avail themselves of
| these loopholes.
|
| Blame the legislators. Those assholes left barn-door sized
| loopholes in their legal requirements for Apple's compliance.
| Maarten88 wrote:
| > Blame the legislators. Those assholes left barn-door sized
| loopholes in their legal requirements for Apple's compliance.
|
| Well that remains to be seen. The court just applied existing
| law for this specific conflict. Apple was found not
| complying, which is why the court issued this ruling. After
| implementing this narrow change they probably still do not
| comply. It would surprise me if dating apps would somehow be
| legally different from any other app. Apple is just stalling
| here. The next court case is going to cost money in addition
| to broadening the requirements on Apple, I think.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I'm not sure it makes sense to blame legislators for
| loopholes. Bugs exist all the time in a variety of products.
| And few have to withstand the scrutiny of trillion dollar
| companies paying experts to pour over every aspect to find
| them.
| Y-bar wrote:
| I wonder if Apple restricting this to Netherlands only
| complies with the EU Digital Single Market:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Single_Market
|
| > The Geo-blocking regulation adopted by the EU in February
| 2018 prohibits any attempt to restrict consumers access to
| goods and services on e-commerce websites on the basis of
| their nationality or country of residence and
| establishment.[31]
| saagarjha wrote:
| I think they did a rather good job and personally expected
| almost exactly this outcome given Apple's position, to be
| honest. I was concerned that we'd get some sort of weird
| "you're making these rules about us but we actually follow
| the rules" that they did elsewhere that was a real
| headscratcher.
| solarkraft wrote:
| You can be pretty sure that Apple lobbied hard to leave these
| holes. The legislators are happy they can tell their voters
| they finally did something and that they found a compromise.
|
| It's a bit on us, the public, to not accept those alibi-type
| compromises.
| Maarten88 wrote:
| I think Apple does not hold much sway over lawmakers here
| in the Netherlands. US tech companies are not very popular
| in general, and politicians are not corrupt for the most
| part. Many laws originate in Brussels.
|
| Incompetence/cluelessness and lack of resources around tech
| is the bigger problem here.
| maccard wrote:
| > It is your privilege/responsibility to conflict resolution
| with regards to refunds and such.
|
| Every time the apple fee comes up, this part of the discussion
| rarely comes up. This is a huge part of what you pay
| Apple/Google for. Lets say you roll your own on top of stripe
| [0]; each dispute/chargeback costs you $15 on top of the
| transaction cost. On an app with $0.99 purchases, each dispute
| will undo 15 purchases. If you get enough of these you _will_
| be banned, quickly and with very little warning. I'm not going
| to claim that this on it's own is worth the full 30% whack but
| it does neet to be taken into consideration.
|
| [0] https://stripe.com/docs/disputes
| smoldesu wrote:
| I dunno, traditional payment processors have gotten away with
| 1-2% charges in order to mitigate that kind of problem. I
| think Apple/Google are entitled to up-to a 5% cut to keep the
| lights on, but everything after that... it's a stretch. The
| big issue though (as many others have noted) is that there is
| no alternative. You have no opportunity to compete with Apple
| in this space, and _that 's_ what pisses off a lot of people.
| Normally, a competitive market is what ensures that those
| kinds of taxes stay reasonably low. Without anyone to compete
| with, Apple can set their own prices.
| DSingularity wrote:
| That's because they are forcing consumers with high
| interest (usury) rates.
| maccard wrote:
| > I dunno, traditional payment processors have gotten away
| with 1-2% charges in order to mitigate that kind of problem
|
| They do? In my experience it's much higher, particularly if
| you're dealing with low value transactions. When I worked
| in retail 15 years ago our payment handler charged a 1% fee
| on cash drops, and charged 0.30 plus 2% capped at some
| number I can't remember off the top of my head, _plus_ the
| card issuer fee. On a $100 transaction sure that's close to
| 2%, but on a $2 IAP or a $10 subscription (like Netflix)
| that's 17% and 5% respectively. I'm also pretty sure on top
| of that we had to pay a dispute fee if one was lodged with
| the issuer; presumably in the region of $10-15 per dispute.
| the risk of those disputed being opened on an online
| purchase vs an in person purchase is significantly higher.
|
| > You have no opportunity to compete with Apple in this
| space, and that's what pisses off a lot of people
|
| That's what a lot of people say, but how much of that is
| _really_ they just don't want to pay a 30% cut?
| smoldesu wrote:
| > They do? In my experience it's much higher
|
| I'm not sure where you work (or where you live), but my
| experience has indeed been that payment processing is a
| pretty cut-and-dried technology at this point. People
| charge insane overhead for it because, as a marginal
| utility, other people have no way of determining what
| it's _actual_ value is.
|
| > That's what a lot of people say, but how much of that
| is _really_ they just don't want to pay a 30% cut?
|
| I don't really think it matters, the statement is true
| nonetheless. If third-party app stores exist, Apple would
| be undercut in a heartbeat. By obstructing other people
| from competing with their App Store business, they're
| eliminating the need for the market to set a price.
|
| You can argue to the ends of the earth with that logic
| (lord knows Apple keeps lawyers on retainer for that
| express purpose), but Apple's strategy here is to prevent
| them from having to compete with the rest of the market.
| There's a reason why European regulators are wising up to
| this nonsense (and a reason Apple obeys); it's a lost
| case. Everyone knows that it's dumb, the only defenses
| I've seen for it boil down to apologism and
| misunderstanding.
|
| Why do we need to keep giving the world's largest company
| the benefit of the doubt? Can't we just hold them
| accountable for once?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Generally, developers I have seen that seem to want their own
| payment solution (which is not all developers, but the ones
| that matter here obviously) this is a good thing, because it
| lets them be in control of when refunds are done. Until now
| all app developers had to throw up their hands and put up a
| line on their website asking customers to contact Apple,
| which was obviously a poor experience and increased friction
| even in cases where a refund was desired by both the
| developer and user.
| maccard wrote:
| > which was obviously a poor experience and increased
| friction even in cases where a refund was desired by both
| the developer and user.
|
| I've had much more luck with apple than I have with
| "developers". NYT is the textbook example that comes up
| here. You can sign up in one click but cancelling still
| requires phoning them up.
|
| It's also analogous to a physical store; I don't ask
| kellogs for a refund if my cereal doesn't work, I ask the
| grocery store.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| Note this is in the EU, not the USA, so consumer
| protection is a lot higher.
|
| If the NYT tried this here, I'd just revoke access from
| my bank account, assuming they even had any. There is
| probably also a law specifying how to unsubscribe, but I
| can't tell how it works in the Netherlands.
|
| UPDATE: Thinking this through, it allows us to put a
| monetary value on consumer protection. Much of what the
| apple 30% tax gives you as a consumer is built into law.
| So assuming a more reasonable cost of say 5%, small time
| devs get a loss of 25% of income because of the state of
| payments and consumer protection in the USA. You can
| haggle over percentages, but there is a cost.
| maccard wrote:
| NYT offers a subscription that can be purchased outside
| the US (I'm a subscriber to NYT cooking living in the
| UK), and to the best of my understanding you're still
| required to call even outside the US.
| mr_aks wrote:
| I was able to cancel NYT subscription from the EU without
| calling them.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| At least from Germany. And at least last year I could
| just cancel online
| saagarjha wrote:
| Right, but ideally it would be that Apple would step in
| for cases where the developer is not cooperating. For
| cases where the developer wants to give you your money
| back, they still have to refer you to Apple so that they
| can make their own decision on whether you're owed a
| refund, which is kind of stupid.
| maccard wrote:
| So does apple have to foot the bill for this service
| independently, or do we charge the developers some
| percentage of their revenue to provide this service?
|
| Snark aside, I do think you're going to require some sort
| of hold/guarantee from the developers to apple if you
| want to force that sort of relationship.
| ericpauley wrote:
| I would imagine all purchases to be a low dispute risk, as
| the merchant can simply offer refunds to all no questions
| asked. After all the marginal cost of goods sold for an app
| is probably effectively 0.
|
| That being said, a $1 purchase through stripe likely has an
| effective fee higher than 30%, so this would only make sense
| for larger purchases.
| threeseed wrote:
| Not everyone who does a chargeback is looking to get their
| money back.
|
| Some do it specifically because it will harm the merchant.
| Especially if they feel they've been wronged.
| maccard wrote:
| > I would imagine all purchases to be a low dispute risk,
| as the merchant can simply offer refunds to all no
| questions asked.
|
| That only works if you offer a no questions asked refund,
| and even at that, that doesn't imply 0 risk. Cards get
| stolen and tested on low value purchases all the time; if a
| scammer decides to check 1000 credit cards on your app,
| you're going to have a very bad time.
| nexuist wrote:
| The problem is that even with a no-hassle refund process
| some customers will still call their credit card company
| and ask for a chargeback because it's a process they're
| familiar with and it's easier for them to do than to go
| through any kind of custom process you've built for them. I
| imagine after dealing with customer support BS enough times
| your goodwill is eroded and you're just going to choose the
| path of least resistance for yourself.
| informationslob wrote:
| So what does this mean store Epic Games and fortnite? Well it be
| coming back to the app store?
| cute_boi wrote:
| I don't think so but the title seems to be generalized too
| much.
|
| "The ruling allows dating app developers to avoid the
| commission fee ..."
|
| It says dating apps so I don't think apple allowed other app to
| bypass the rule. But good thing is it sets a precedence.
| einarfd wrote:
| I wonder if this law is similar with legislation in other EU
| countries? My impression is that consumer legislation usually is.
| If it is. This might end up being EU wide in the future.
| toyg wrote:
| Even if it isn't, because of the Common Market any EU company
| can just open an entity in the Netherlands and start using this
| trick.
|
| The next step is for somebody else to sue to remove the limit
| to dating apps, which is obviously ridiculous (and likely still
| not compliant with NL law). After that, the door is effectively
| opened for the whole Union. I expect at that point Apple will
| just allow it for all EU countries, with much fanfare, trying
| to spin it as them doing good for us plebs.
| cronix wrote:
| And the mighty walled garden breaks into smaller walled gardens.
| Eventually each country will have its own version of each app to
| comply with local laws.
| gruez wrote:
| >The ruling allows dating app developers to avoid the commission
| fee between 15 to 30 percent Apple charges
|
| Was this actually confirmed? I remember in the epic vs apple
| lawsuit (in the US), the media reported something similar, but if
| you read the decision more carefully, it explicitly says that
| apple was still entitled to their 30%/15% cut. The logic was that
| the 30%/15% cut wasn't the fee paid for processing payments, it
| was also the fee paid for access to the ecosystem, SDK, and
| placement on the app store.
| smoldesu wrote:
| IIRC, the loophole gave Apple the right to bill you afterwards
| for the use of their services. I don't know if that means they
| tally the 30% and come back to collect later, or just pass the
| direct charges of hosting onto you, but in any case I doubt
| Apple would be ballsy enough to try that outside the United
| States.
| supreme_berry wrote:
| That's not loophole. That's common sense.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Which part? I think retroactively billing people for
| arbitrary values like "30%" is dumb, since it doesn't
| actually address the issues people have. I wouldn't be mad
| if Apple passed me an itemized bill for my hosting costs
| and whatnot, but without that kind of transparency it still
| feels like I'm being scammed.
| gruez wrote:
| >I think retroactively billing people for arbitrary
| values like "30%" is dumb [...]
|
| >[...] without that kind of transparency it still feels
| like I'm being scammed
|
| It's not arbitrary because it was part of the developer
| agreement you signed.
|
| >since it doesn't actually address the issues people have
|
| Must all regulator action "actually address the issues
| people have"? Regulators/courts are limited in what they
| can do, so it's not surprising that the ruling isn't some
| sort of decisive victory for independent software
| companies.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > It's not arbitrary because it was part of the developer
| agreement you signed.
|
| The value is arbitrary, not the fee.
|
| > Must all regulator action "actually address the issues
| people have"?
|
| Not necessarily, I'd think "address the issues people
| have" is a good place to start when you're regulating
| American corporate policy in a modern democracy.
| [deleted]
| bekantan wrote:
| According to Dutch authorities, dating apps were first on the
| list because they generated the most complaints. They don't
| confirm or deny that this will continue with other apps.
| Jnr wrote:
| EU should follow.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Allowing _dating_ apps to use other payment systems.
| arbirk wrote:
| Developers still have to pay Apple a commission on transactions.
| https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...
|
| As in the Epic case, this interestingly expands the number of
| transactions that apple could potentially claim commissions for
| (in-app and out-of-app) depending on the specific definition of a
| transaction. In the case of dating apps nearly all user-activity
| is within the app, so Apple could claim that all transactions for
| iOS uses are within scope.
|
| This will of course be negotiated and settled in some way, but as
| long as the 30% cut has not been deemed illegal, Apple can still
| demand the cut on relevant transactions.
| londons_explore wrote:
| So theoretically a dating app could today add a PayPal button or
| stripe pay box.
|
| They don't even need to go through appstore review if they add it
| to a webview server side.
|
| So... Have any apps done this yet? Seems like the kind of thing
| that could be pushed out in a few hours by some teams.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Apple will pull it for not going through the StoreKit
| entitlement process.
| my123 wrote:
| Using StoreKit allows Apple to measure the number of
| purchases done, to take their cut.
| supreme_berry wrote:
| They still are going to pay a fee to Apple.
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