[HN Gopher] Apple will charge 27% commission for alternative pay...
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Apple will charge 27% commission for alternative payment systems in
Netherlands
Author : walterbell
Score : 405 points
Date : 2022-02-04 09:25 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (9to5mac.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (9to5mac.com)
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| I like how they're literally explaining that the actual cost for
| app payment processing caps out at 3%, and everything they charge
| on top is just pure profit margin.
|
| Nice one Apple.
| makecheck wrote:
| Apple allows "free apps" that are _entirely_ ad-supported, _never
| giving Apple a dime_ (aside from $99 /year), yet they are
| consuming infrastructure: hosting pages, downloads, reviewer
| time, etc. Why isn't Apple concerned about any of _those_ costs?
| Simple: they make overwhelmingly most of their App Store money
| from the handful of developers that offer purchases. This also
| leads to perverse outcomes like Apple dragging its feet on scams
| that make them heaps of money.
|
| Developers are literally subsidizing other developers, and it's
| not necessarily the richest ones helping the poorest ones.
| Someone trying to make money on a $0.99 app is sacrificing more
| to Apple than Facebook does with their free app.
|
| That's why I find all these percentage and payment discussions
| weird: _income is so insanely distributed_ that a lot of this
| literally does not apply to more than 80% of the stuff on the
| store. There are fundamental issues that need to be resolved too.
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| I suspect as Apple ramps up their second attempt to make
| profits from Ads, you will eventually be required to include
| Apple's in-app ad solution if you include any third party
| (FB/G/etc). See what happened with "Sign In with Apple".
|
| It's the logical move for them as they move into being a more
| service-oriented business and leverage all the devices they
| have in the world.
| anaisbetts wrote:
| Ok, that's fine. If I can _choose_ to use Apple's services, in
| exchange for their cut, then that's a trade that I can evaluate
| as a business. Instead if I want to develop for iOS I am
| _forced_ to use these services, and pay the cost. That's the
| Problem.
| kmlx wrote:
| i don't get why you are forced to do this.
|
| the app for my phone network just opens a webview where i pay
| for stuff. then i close the webview and the funds just show
| up in the app. do they also pay 30% to apple?
| anaisbetts wrote:
| Because if you do this, and you do not have an explicit
| exception (carriers being one of them), your app will be
| removed from the store
| kmlx wrote:
| ah, so the carriers are exempted, interesting, thanks.
|
| so i guess the other route is what most companies do:
| webapp...
| yurishimo wrote:
| If they are following apple's rules, yes, that is what they
| want. If they catch you trying to skirt it, your app gets
| pulled from the store until you "fix" it.
| Spivak wrote:
| No, the 30% commission is for digital goods (i.e. goods to
| be consumed on the phone -- game "coins", ebooks, music,
| movies, comics, app features).
|
| The things that Apple takes a cut for is actually pretty
| small in the grand scheme of commerce.
| daveidol wrote:
| This is only allowed for "non-digital" goods - otherwise if
| you distribute in the App Store. Hell, you can't even
| _link_ to or mention that it would be possible to pay
| anywhere else.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| well, the thing is iOS itself isn't exactly a separate
| "thing" from these services. Also it wholly belongs to apple.
| You don't (and shouldn't) have a "right" to develop for it on
| anything but Apple's terms.
| alickz wrote:
| Is macOS a separate "thing"? Does macOS wholly belong to
| Apple? Do I have the "right" to develop a Mac app without
| Apples say-so?
|
| I don't say this to be combative, I just don't see the
| difference between iOS and macOS in this regard.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| You can develop apps all you want, but Apple can break
| them anytime with updates. iOS and macOS are marketed and
| positioned by Apple differently. One is an open platform,
| one isn't. This is and should continue to be at Apple's
| sole discretion. If they choose to update macOS to be a
| closed platform, they certainly have the right to do so,
| don't they?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Microsoft and Apple created Windows and MacOS as open
| platforms.
|
| Microsoft and Apple created XBox and iOS as closed
| platforms.
|
| The difference seems to be the intent of the platform
| creator.
| ellen364 wrote:
| > You don't (and shouldn't) have a "right" to develop for
| it on anything but Apple's terms.
|
| Sometimes I wonder what today's computers would be like if
| Microsoft had exerted that level of control over DOS and
| Windows. Forget downloading some random exe you found
| online, only approved programs can be installed. Would
| there have been a booming software industry? Would there be
| so much malware? Would Microsoft have allowed things like
| the first web browsers?
|
| No comment on the merits of operating systems as walled
| gardens. I just find it fascinating (and difficult) to
| imagine how things might have been.
| musicale wrote:
| > Sometimes I wonder what today's computers would be like
| if Microsoft had exerted that level of control over DOS
| and Windows
|
| www.xbox.com
|
| The iPhone is largely a game machine as well, as some 70%
| of Apple's revenue from the App Store is from games.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I just think we should allow both options to compete and
| flourish. As you point out, each has their merits. If
| users end up preferring walled gardens and appliance-
| style devices, then shouldn't that be what they get?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The choice needs to be independent of the rest of the
| stack. If Apple wants to make an option where you can
| lock your iPhone to only installing apps from Apple's
| store and taking it out of that mode requires a factory
| reset, that's fine, because the customer has a choice.
|
| Tying that choice to the choice of hardware and operating
| system is anti-competitive.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Why is tying software to hardware anti-competitive? It's
| commonplace in literally everywhere, from washing
| machines to televisions to game consoles to CNC machines
| to cars to tractors. An overwhelming majority of hardware
| is sold with software included, and is designed to work
| with that software alone. Why are we trying to force
| iPhones into a special, narrow category they are
| _actively avoiding_? Why do we need to make the
| distinction _at all_?
| anaisbetts wrote:
| > You don't (and shouldn't) have a "right" to develop for
| it on anything but Apple's terms.
|
| That's one perspective. However I would argue that Apple is
| big enough, and the number of alternative platforms is
| small enough, that it is in the Public Interest that Apple
| be required by the government (aka, Us, collectively), to
| play by a different set of rules, rules that are decided by
| you know, Democracy, rather than by fiat.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Who is being hurt here? Users are clearly flocking to
| this platform because it _does what they want_. Who cares
| that app developers are unhappy? There are lots and lots
| of smartphone manufacturers. It 's a thriving market.
| Most non-technical folks don't perceive the device and
| the OS as separate things.
|
| If any company wants to disrupt the market, much like
| Apple itself did with the iPhone, there is literally
| nothing stopping them.
|
| Edit:
|
| > _rules that are decided by you know, Democracy_
|
| At what point does democracy overreach? Is there one?
| Isn't it "democracy in defense of liberty"?
| yulaow wrote:
| If we are sure people like so much apple services and
| integration, should be no problem at all to have
| alternatives not even directly managed by apple (so that
| it won't cost anything to apple to support it, except for
| opening some "store api"), still most users would keep
| using only the integrated apple services...
|
| or not?
|
| Maybe users would like them even more!
| thegrimmest wrote:
| The point here is that _Apple itself_ should be able to
| choose when and how and to whom it open the _Apple
| Store_. It should not be compelled to do so by anyone but
| its own directors and shareholders. If someone wants to
| sell phones that don 't have this limitation, they are
| free to seek investment and build them.
| pixl97 wrote:
| There are two different things here.
|
| First is the Apple Store, and you are correct you have no
| right to have your application on it.
|
| Second is the hardware device I paid money for and exists
| in my pocket. There is no reasonable right that Apple
| says "Only we can put a program on it, and you will have
| no ability to run your own programs on it"
|
| We live in a world where hardware makers of all kinds
| think we own them a permanent rent. It is a poor and
| expensive path to let them continue.
| commoner wrote:
| It's not reasonable to exepct other app stores to build
| their own mobile operating systems, which is why there is
| momentum among lawmakers in the U.S. to pass a bill that
| protects the right of users to use alternative app stores
| and sideload apps.[1] It is unjust for Apple to use its
| market power in the U.S. smartphone industry (57% market
| share in Q4 2021)[2] to force users and developers to
| endure the effects of a 15-30% fee (offset by a
| 17.6-42.9% price increase) on the majority of revenue
| generated by app developers, a fee that would not survive
| a market where multiple app stores were able to compete
| for iOS users.
|
| Apple's market share is different in the Netherlands, but
| strong regulations in one major market are all it takes
| to punch a hole in Apple's monopoly/duopoly position.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30195167
|
| [2] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/q4-2021-us-
| smartphone-m...
| clusterfish wrote:
| Users have no choice, the market is a duopoly, and
| Android app store has all the same problems (because it's
| a duopoly). You can't feasibly escape platform tax on
| mobile.
| Retric wrote:
| You don't need to use Google's android App Store on
| Android.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| They make it sufficiently arduous to do otherwise that
| the bar is higher than what ordinary people can reach.
| The proof that this is not the case will be when a single
| store has less than half of the Android app market.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yep, apple and google are basically a duopoly, and if you
| want a "normal smartphone" (basically a device, where you
| can get apps for your online banking, mainstream games
| and other content, etc.), there are basically no real
| alternatives.
| realusername wrote:
| Hence the market abuse regulations, we can't really have
| only two companies controlling all the market. iOS became
| too big for Apple.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| why not exactly? As long as consumers are getting good
| devices and good competition (which they are), then
| what's the problem? It's not like the door is closed to
| innovation here, if any company can disrupt the
| smartphone market then the takings are all theirs. This
| is literally what Apple did with the original iPhone.
| Have you heard of Blackberry recently? I don't see that
| the incumbents are preventing this in any meaningful way,
| in the same way that RIM wasn't. Furthermore there are
| way more than two players in the smartphone game.
| realusername wrote:
| There's no competition, which competition exactly? The
| only tariff change Apple ever done in 10 years was due
| ... to a threat of an anti-trust lawsuit, you can't make
| this up. Even Apple basically admits indirectly the lack
| of competition. You only have two companies, with very
| similar rules and behaviour, there's no market anymore.
|
| Don't get my comment wrong, I'd say the exact same thing
| about Google. It's a duopoly without any competition
| whatsoever.
|
| > if any company can disrupt the smartphone market then
| the takings are all theirs
|
| I don't think that's possible, even Microsoft failed at
| it with their massive funding.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| https://www.gsmarena.com/makers.php3 loads of mobile
| phone companies, lots of healthy competition. Non-
| technical consumers don't perceive the device and the OS
| as separate things.
| realusername wrote:
| I'm talking about the mobile app market here, not the
| quality of the camera.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Right, but Apple is a mobile phone company, not a mobile
| app company. iOS app companies exist entirely at the
| pleasure of Apple, just like companies who depend on the
| Twitter API.
| realusername wrote:
| I disagree with that, Apple is a mobile app company and
| there's only two in the world.
|
| Twitter as big as it is, is just a website across
| millions of others. In the mobile app market there is
| exactly two companies, Apple and Google, that's it.
|
| Does Oppo or Samsung has any power when publishing an
| app? No? Then they are not part of this market.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| There aren't many mobile apps you can buy from Apple.
| Apple is primarily a hardware manufacturer. Their entire
| product lineup consists of devices[1].
|
| 1. https://www.apple.com/us/store
| colinjoy wrote:
| Entirely?
|
| https://www.apple.com/services/
| https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/
| https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/
|
| Of course, these are not the bread and butter products.
|
| I find it a bit pointless to separate their hardware and
| software. I know few people who run Windows or Linux on
| their Apple hardware. For me, Apple is primarily a
| _products_ company that excels in fusing hardware and
| software together. They are increasingly expanding into
| services, too.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Right, but Apple is a mobile phone company, not a
| mobile app company.
|
| Apple has consistently made more money from collecting
| their 30% tax than they have from manufacturing iPhones:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/263402/apples-iphone-
| rev...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/296226/annual-apple-
| app-...
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Isn't that the whole point? They can only make that money
| because they build the phones to begin with. They also
| invested in building the entire platform, literally from
| scratch. Isn't this just a return on their investment?
| Aren't they perfectly entitled to it? Why can't phones be
| loss leaders into mobile app ecosystems, just like razors
| are loss leaders into razor blades?
| owisd wrote:
| > Aren't they perfectly entitled to it?
|
| Up to a point, no. Common Carrier laws have been around
| for a long time and had demonstrable benefits. Net
| neutrality means phone companies can't use their
| infrastructure however they like. AT&T wanted to just sit
| on their patent for the transistor but was pushed by the
| government into to licensing it to Motorola, TI, etc.
| There's no reason why similar regulations couldn't be
| applied to mobile app platforms.
| smoldesu wrote:
| App developers shouldn't be beholden to using Apple's
| payment processing if they don't want to use it. Along
| that same line of logic, forcing developers to go through
| Apple for first-party distribution gives them a defacto
| monopoly over the iPhone. Apple could charge 85% overhead
| and there would be nothing developers could do about it.
|
| The only fair resolution here is to force Apple to
| compete with other storefronts to prove that the value
| they provide is competitive. Apple could resolve this
| issue in a number of ways, but they've only chose to make
| the problem worse; that's why 34 states have come forward
| voicing their concern[0], and why EU regulators have been
| stepping in to block Apple's service expansions. They're
| the largest company in the world, and they deserve the
| most regulatory scrutiny for it; anything else is a
| failure of democracy and capitalism.
|
| [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-dozens-u-states-
| apple-03470...
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _monopoly over the iPhone_ > _Apple could charge 85%
| overhead and there would be nothing developers could do
| about it._
|
| That's exactly right! Then fewer and poorer apps would be
| built on iOS, and users would notice, and they would
| migrate to other platforms. This has happened plenty of
| times before. Yes, Apple has a monopoly over the iPhone -
| it's an Apple product. Just like Sony have a monopoly
| over the PS5, and Samsung has a monopoly over the
| WF45R6300AV Front Load Washing Machine.
|
| The only fair resolution would be to allow Apple to do
| whatever it wants with Apple devices. If everyone at
| Apple collectively lost their minds tomorrow, they would
| have every right to pull all apps from the App Store
| completely. They could shut down the platform. It's
| literally _theirs_ in every sense of the word. They built
| it. They own it. They operate it. Just because people are
| concerned doesn 't make socializing iPhones or the App
| Store in any way reasonable.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Apple could decided third party apps aren't allowed and
| then developers make 0%. It's their platform to decided
| what to do with. If they think 15/30% works well, then so
| be it.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Apple is 100% a mobile app company. They guard all the
| doors, they hold all the keys to the hardware device.
| Thereby they dictate what you can run on _your_ hardware
| that _you_ paid for after the sale.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > Apple allows "free apps" that are entirely ad-supported,
| never giving Apple a dime (aside from $99/year)
|
| This is a hilarious quote, especially with the way you
| highlighted "never giving apple a dime"
| tobias3 wrote:
| That's a good point. They are taxing paid apps and not taxing
| ad-supported apps. Which incentivizes the ad-model and
| therefore reduces the number of paid apps.
|
| This has been the case since the beginning with mobile app
| stores so who knows how the distribution of paid vs ad-
| supported apps would be if this wasn't the case.
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| Uhm, the $99/year thing is actually substantial. It is not
| competitive at all.
|
| I'm pretty sure if Apple let people just download IPA files
| (like they do with APKs on Android), lots of developers would
| choose that over the walled garden.
| shagie wrote:
| What about the price to become a Playstation, Nintendo, or
| Xbox developer?
|
| ---- Sony ----
|
| https://www.retroreversing.com/official-playStation-devkit
|
| > Perhaps the most ingenious move on Sony's part was its
| decision to use the PC as a development platform, enabling it
| to call on the skills of huge number of developers. Licensees
| now receive a pair of full-length ISA cards that plug into a
| normal PC. These two cards contain the entire PlayStation
| chipset, as well as extra RAM and some logic to enable them
| to talk to the PC. 'lt's great having the system inside the
| PC,' reckons Peter Molyneux. 'With most bulky console
| development systems it sometimes feels like you're surrounded
| by NASA control.'
|
| > Such technology doesn't come cheap, though. PlayStation
| developers need to cough up PS 12,000 for the full system
| (which Sony is adamant it doesn't make money on), although
| all subsequent software tools and hardware upgrades are free.
|
| ---- Nintendo ----
|
| https://developer.nintendo.com/faq
|
| > Registering for the portal and downloading the tools is
| completely free. Also, if you plan to release a digital only
| title, you can use the IARC system to retrieve the age rating
| for no fee, which will allow you to publish in all the
| participating countries. All that is left is the cost of
| acquiring development hardware: you will find more
| information on this inside the portal.
|
| https://developer.nintendo.com/home/development-for-
| nintendo...
|
| > On 3/25/2021, the only Nintendo platform for which new
| development is possible will be Nintendo Switch.
|
| > Development for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U will only be
| possible for those who have already purchased development
| hardware. Those who do not have development hardware will not
| be able to develop.
|
| https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/nintendo-switch-dev-
| kit...
|
| > At the Game Creators Conference 2017 in Osaka, Japan,
| Nintendo announced that Switch development kits would only
| cost 50,000 yen, or roughly $450.
|
| > To put things in perspective, a PlayStation 3 development
| kit ran for $20,000 at launch.
|
| ---- Microsoft ----
|
| https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
| store/regist...
|
| > Individual accounts cost approximately $19 USD, and company
| accounts cost approximately $99 USD (the exact amounts may
| vary depending on your country or region). This is a one-time
| registration fee and no renewal is required.
|
| (having some difficulty finding the specifics of the Xbox
| series X and series S dev kits)
|
| --- --- ---
|
| The point of this is that as a game device, the iPhone is in
| line with other developer programs and in some cases (Sony,
| looking at you) quite a bit less expensive.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Too bad the iPhone is actually a phone, and not 'just' a
| game device.
| fr2null wrote:
| $99/year is literally nothing for most companies.
| Furthermore, Android has competing app stores, yet by far the
| biggest one is still the Play Store. Lots of developers (and
| users) did not and would not chose other distribution
| methods.
| [deleted]
| joseloyaio wrote:
| That's a lot. That's basically a $9/month SaaS.
|
| They are not subsidized at all.
|
| I've seen cheaper subscription services that also come with
| support, hosting and services.
| charcircuit wrote:
| It's less than a day's worth of wages for a software
| engineer and provides you a potential audience of
| millions of users.
| willhinsa wrote:
| $99/year, _AND_ you have to do your development on a Mac!
| Kwpolska wrote:
| > never giving Apple a dime (aside from $99/year), yet they are
| consuming infrastructure: hosting pages, downloads, reviewer
| time, etc
|
| Pretty sure $99/year is more than a dime. It should be more
| than enough to pay for hosting the app. As for reviews, app
| developers don't _need_ those, so if Apple wants to review
| apps, they should also be the ones paying for it.
| makecheck wrote:
| It's the only income they receive in that case, and it is
| fixed, whereas their costs are variable (e.g. whether some
| app is downloaded thousands of times or dozens; whether apps
| decide to post video previews or not; they receive the same
| money but incur different costs on infrastructure).
|
| App Review alone takes hours per update and is done many
| times a year for apps. Even if a single Apple employee is
| involved, and even if they are paid something pathetic like
| $5 an hour, that $99 will be eaten up quickly from reviews
| alone.
|
| My point is that it doesn't add up; Apple likes to claim all
| these "costs" for "running" the App Store but there are
| gaping holes in their accounting unless you consider that not
| all developers are really equal here.
| Orphis wrote:
| Do you really think the hardware costs THAT much too?
|
| Users are already paying a premium for the privilege of buying
| an iOS device. And Apple knows that usually it will add some
| pressure on friends and family to have devices in the same
| family. Everything related to the app store is already paid
| for, the bandwidth is cheap, maintaining the service is cheap
| enough and covered by the device premium AND the developer
| subscription.
|
| Whether the apps are free or paid for (with a big cut for
| Apple), the company is already making money. The tax on top of
| everything is just a way to make a lot of money and favor Apple
| services when compared to competitors in the same segment.
| consp wrote:
| It's a bit late in the discussion but basically they are saying
| at most 3% is cost , and emphasis on "at most". The rest is just
| profit or legal requirements (and thus not counted to loss).
| Isinlor wrote:
| EU is specifically drafting legislation for gatekeepers in
| Digital Markets Law.
|
| TL;DR Apple and Google will have to allow to install third-party
| app stores trough their stores.
|
| This type of private taxes will become impossible to enforce.
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?qid=16081168...
|
| Gatekeepers like Apple will have specific obligation according to
| Article 5:
|
| (b) allow business users to offer the same products or services
| to end users through third party online intermediation services
| at prices or conditions that are different from those offered
| through the online intermediation services of the gatekeeper;
|
| (c) allow business users to promote offers to end users acquired
| via the core platform service, and to conclude contracts with
| these end users regardless of whether for that purpose they use
| the core platform services of the gatekeeper or not, and allow
| end users to access and use, through the core platform services
| of the gatekeeper, content, subscriptions, features or other
| items by using the software application of a business user, where
| these items have been acquired by the end users from the relevant
| business user without using the core platform services of the
| gatekeeper;
|
| And Article 6:
|
| (c) allow the installation and effective use of third party
| software applications or software application stores using, or
| interoperating with, operating systems of that gatekeeper and
| allow these software applications or software application stores
| to be accessed by means other than the core platform services of
| that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from
| taking proportionate measures to ensure that third party software
| applications or software application stores do not endanger the
| integrity of the hardware or operating system provided by the
| gatekeeper;
|
| (k) apply fair and non-discriminatory general conditions of
| access for business users to its software application store
| designated pursuant to Article 3 of this Regulation.
|
| Following articles, like:
|
| - article 7: Compliance with obligations for gatekeepers
|
| - article 10: Updating obligations for gatekeepers and
|
| - article 11: Anti-circumvention
|
| Give the EU Commission quite a lot of maneuvering power to ensure
| effective implementation.
| MilaM wrote:
| A more general explanation of the new law can be found here:
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/euro...
| tomjen3 wrote:
| This should be changed so the end user gets to decide what
| payment service to use. I don't want to download and app and
| have to insert my credit card ever and I want to cancel
| subscriptions in one place the way I can now.
|
| It should not be up to the developer to choose how I pay them,
| only the amount.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Good point! If people are happy to pay 13EUR instead of 10EUR
| for the convenience of using the platform owner's payment
| system, that should always be an option.
| disiplus wrote:
| the app maker should have the complete freedom what payment
| options he offers. if i want you to pay me in stones that
| is my freedom, the same you are free to not use my app and
| find another app that offers methods that you like.
| john_minsk wrote:
| Great point. Also true: I already have some level of
| trust with Apple(I bought their device), not you. So
| Apple should return more relevant results for me on
| AppStore or even allow me to filter out those apps, that
| doesn't support preferred option of payment. Will you
| agree with such setting?
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I don't mind it being a filter, but I think them sorting
| them like that by default could be an issue. Would you
| equivalate it to developers paying for higher search
| ranking? Apple favoring their own services over others
| definitely could be an anti-trust issue.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Sure. A reasonable compromise would be that the app developer
| puts Apple's payment system in the app, for you to use, but
| all transparently tells you that you have to pay the 30%
| Apple fee yourself.
|
| So, you'd be shown 2 options. Option 1 would be their payment
| processor, and option 2 would be Apple's. And you could
| choose to pay an extra 30% to use Apple's.
|
| Problem solved right? Everyone gets what they want, and pays
| the appropriate fee.
| lifty wrote:
| Card details can be stored in the phone and the OS can offer
| a payments API through which any payment provider can
| integrate. Similarly to how the File Provider API works.
| srcreigh wrote:
| What makes a business a gatekeeper? Would this require for eg
| discord to allow 3rd party clients?
| schmorptron wrote:
| Uuuh, things are gonna get interesting! Putting on my tinfoil
| hat here, if this goes through I forsee that we'll see a lot of
| fearmongering about malware in the near future, and even some
| well publicized cases of malware infecting people who go
| outside of the established app stores.
| MikeDelta wrote:
| Indeed, that is the argument Apple is making, and at the same
| time the app store itself seems riddled with scammers.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27413934
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14526156
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26015866
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25986515
| komuher wrote:
| App store is full of scam right now so wouldnt be a big
| change xD
| kybernetyk wrote:
| That seems very deserved. Not.
| pembrook wrote:
| It's interesting to me that the OS market in two separate
| generations of tech has naturally shaken out to become a duopoly.
|
| Desktop computing for decades has been just Windows or MacOS (For
| 98.5% of people, yes I know Linux exists, but quit being cute).
|
| Mobile computing took only a few years to shake down to iOS and
| Android.
|
| Are OS markets inevitably always going to mature into duopoly? To
| me this is the core issue here.
|
| Since computing is now the basis of the modern economy, the 3
| companies that are in the OS business across desktop and mobile
| (Microsoft, Apple, Google) are basically the wealthiest companies
| on earth due to their ability to extract rents from all of
| computing.
|
| I get that these companies built the market (although you could
| argue the tech was inevitable, so many teams were working on it
| in the early days) but once you become one of the winners and
| most valuable company on earth, extracting 30% rents starts to
| feel like a drag on future innovation.
|
| It's also interesting to me that Jobs originally courted John
| Scully from Pepsi to run Apple way back in the 80s---what a
| bizarre choice. Did he know the market would inevitably always be
| a duopoly like the Cola market, already back then?
| toolslive wrote:
| they're probably just anchoring the rate for future negotiations.
| natch wrote:
| I am a huge fan of Apple but... also a fan of reality so I'll
| share this story here.
|
| This fun anecdote is about what I think is Apple's treatment of
| other companies' pricing rules -- The Apple Company Store at 1
| Infinite Loop in Cupertino used to sell a variety of clothing,
| accessories, and various items including, seasonally, Lego
| Mindstorms kits.
|
| My impression from having observed Lego over the years is that
| they have very strict retail pricing rules. I have no other
| evidence for this than what I've seen in the market.
|
| Each year at the Apple Company Store, when Christmas season
| rolled around, the store would get Lego Mindstorms in stock. One
| year, we decided to buy a set.
|
| The store is frequented by Apple employees, who get a steep
| discount on Apple merchandise. But Lego... they have (I think)
| strict rules about discounts, so what was Apple to do here?
|
| Now I am making some guesses here, to be fair. But I found it
| very interesting that there at the store they had a large pile of
| Mindstorms sets that all had mysteriously carefully damaged
| boxes, which looked like the corner of the box had been gently
| stepped on, all in the same way, and that were all marked down
| significantly, something like 30 or 40% for "damage." Inside, the
| sets were fine.
|
| It could have been just a coincidence, but my spidey senses were
| telling me it was something else... I suspect it was Apple, not
| able to mark the items down for employees due to strict Lego
| corporate rules about when sets can be marked down and when they
| cannot (sound familiar? Apple is pretty strict about pricing as
| well, in my understanding). And they found a loophole in that
| damaged items could be marked down.
|
| So, somehow, the items ended up "damaged", as a nice holiday
| special gift item for employees (or for anyone who came into the
| shop, lucky for me).
|
| These days, the Apple Company Store after a revamp does not carry
| as much third party merchandise, so I don't know if this is still
| a thing.
| eli wrote:
| Or they made a deal with Lego to get them cheap in exchange for
| making them harder to resell or return to a different store for
| a profit
| natch wrote:
| Could be.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| This tactic is in no way specific to Apple or Lego, in many
| businesses with high markup they want to (in specific cases)
| sell at a lower price without breaking their contracts,
| insulting their costumers and inviting scalpers. So they sell
| items that can't be resold, aren't wanted by the costumers that
| buy at the original price and are not covered by their
| contracts.
| jeffybefffy519 wrote:
| I cant understand what justification Apple thinks they have for a
| payment processing cost this high? A couple of percent sure, but
| justify the rest?
| Spivak wrote:
| This is the biggest confusion. You're not paying 30% for Apple
| to process your payments -- you're paying 3% for that,
| apparently. Not really a surprise since that's what every other
| CC processor charges but now we know. The rest is a sales
| commission, always has been. If you read any of the documents
| for the Apple/Epic lawsuit you can see exactly that. You want
| to reach iOS users and sell to them on Apple's land, that's the
| price.
|
| You wanna sell stuff to players in your Xbox game, 30%. You
| wanna sell stuff to players in your Playstation game, 30%. The
| service they're selling is stalls in their market that gets a
| lot of foot traffic.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| A reminder: the original app store on iOS was saurik's Cydia. App
| Store wasn't even on iPhone 2G at launch.
|
| Cydia is free and open source. Hopefully saurik can clarify the
| commission for paid apps on Cydia, but something tells me it
| isn't 27%.
| can16358p wrote:
| Don't want to play devil's advocate here but if they didn't, many
| big players would be using their platforms to build their apps,
| reaching Apple's customers on Apple devices, giving the app for
| free and processing everything off-Apple land, basically using
| the whole platform for making millions without giving Apple
| literally anything ($99 dev fee is nothing compared to all the
| money being made).
|
| If I were a company who literally created a whole industry and
| many other companies were making millions off the platform I
| created, I'd of course take my cut, and a well-deserved big one.
|
| It's a for-profit company who enabled those apps/purchases* to be
| made in the first place, not a charity or a non-profit.
|
| (*: not talking about non-app related payments like real world
| items, obviously)
| tsimionescu wrote:
| So poor Apple would only be left with the 1000$ for each iPhone
| sold?
|
| I wonder if such arguments existed decrying Microsoft's immense
| charity in allowing others to make money off of its platform
| back when Windows was the dominant way of computing and
| connecting to the Internet with 0 fees for installing software
| on Windows...
| amelius wrote:
| > If I were a company who literally created a whole industry
|
| Because computing didn't exist before Apple?
| wccrawford wrote:
| Not even mobile computing. There was a Windows Mobile long
| before the iPhone existed. They may have really brought it
| mainstream, but if they hadn't, someone else would have.
| qalmakka wrote:
| Following your logic than all PC makers should be paying a fee
| to IBM for creating the PC? It doesn't make sense, it was never
| done this way in the past and it only goes on because sadly
| most politicians are borderline computer illiterate and are
| easily bamboozled by the complexity of the matter. Just look at
| when Sundar Pichai testified at the US Senate, most lawmakers
| have zero ideas on how the Internet works, and they don't
| really have the means to understand the similarities that exist
| between what Apple is doing and the "brick and mortar" world
| they are accustomed to.
|
| If you create an industry, a platform, you already have
| instruments to monetize on it. the Apple software platform is
| already tied to its own devices, from whose sales Apple has
| earned a vast amount of wealth over the years and profited
| thanks to their massive margins. What makes Apple different
| from Google in this regard is that the Play store has won due
| to _consumer choice_ , while Apple has basically prohibited
| side loading and alternate stores in any possible way and
| shape.
|
| The Amazon Appstore has failed to gain marketshare because
| people simply didn't like it, and Google play was just
| superior, end of it, and if you want to use Google services in
| order to give your customers what they want you have to pay
| Google's fee, fair and square. On an Apple device there are no
| ways to sell people anything without paying Apple because Apple
| does not allow it.
|
| If Apple starts providing a shitty service with its Appstore,
| there is no way to circumvent it, you must choose either to
| quit the iOS market entirely or play along whatever rules they
| decide to adopt. This is basically extorting protection money,
| with a few extra steps on top of it.
| Spivak wrote:
| > Following your logic than all PC makers should be paying a
| fee to IBM for creating the PC.
|
| This is called patents, so yes, actually. But this is more
| akin to Microsoft charging 30% for sales in Windows and Xbox,
| which would be totally allowed.
|
| > politicians are borderline computer illiterate
|
| And developers are ignorant of business and law which is what
| this case is really about. Absolutely nothing about Apple's
| sales commission is about tech. Wanting something to be
| different just because it's digital doesn't make it so. Uber
| is still a taxi company.
|
| > you already have instruments to monetize on it
|
| And that instrument is charging for access to the platform --
| some might say 30%.
|
| > there are no ways to sell people anything without paying
| Apple
|
| Right. This is the point. This is literally the thing Apple
| charges for. The one thing. The thing that people, very
| rationally, want for free. I also want to get all the
| benefits of a company's work without paying too.
|
| > you must choose either to quit the iOS market entirely
|
| This is the core issue, Apple, and the law in most countries,
| say you have absolutely no inherent right to access the
| market they created. You don't get to demand the ability to
| set up a stall in someone's mall because they charge 30% to
| the stores.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| It reminds me of ISPs' arguments that Netflix and like should
| pay more for fast connection to their customers because
| "otherwise who is gonna pay for the bandwidth?" We the
| customers do. We pay a high monthly fee for our connection and
| ISPs want to slow down our traffic to double-dip by charging
| content providers the access to us. If I pay 1500$ for a phone,
| I expect Apple to treat me as their _customer_ , not as a
| resource to be sold to App developers.
| sebastien_b wrote:
| Apple's _real_ customers are their shareholders, not its
| users.
| mrtksn wrote:
| If you paid attention to Epic v.s. Apple, that was also the
| conclusion of the US court.[0]
|
| When you use Apple tools to to make and publish software, Apple
| is entitled to a cut. The limitations Apple imposes on the
| payment processors are simply to make it easy to collect their
| cut and streamline the user experience.
|
| I think the only scenario where Apple is not entitled to a cut is
| when you use non-Apple toolchain to develop your apps and spread
| it through non-Apple distribution channels, i.e. Cydia. Currently
| that requires a jailbroken device but maybe if Apple is forced to
| allow side loading, the cut for distribution can be collected by
| other companies instead of Apple.
|
| [0] https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/14/apple-can-still-charge-its-
| ap...
|
| "Apple has the legal right to do business with anyone they want,"
| said Paul Gallant, managing director at Cowen & Co. "So Apple
| could change the terms of the App Store and say to developers,
| regardless of where you collect your revenue, you owe us 30%, and
| if developers refuse to pay it, Apple would be free to de-
| platform them."
| GeekyBear wrote:
| There's an excellent overview of the US Federal court's 180
| page decision on Youtube, but it's rather long. The diction is
| good, so it's still understandable when set to run at a faster
| speed.
|
| The first 15 minutes is a summary and the balance of the video
| is a more detailed look.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43CMV8KIs3E
|
| TL;DW, the judge makes it clear that Apple can still charge a
| cut even if developers use someone else's payment system.
|
| She also hints strongly that Epic screwed up by not challenging
| the size of Apple's cut instead of challenging their right to
| take a cut.
| ls15 wrote:
| If only they would allow sideloading. How cool would a F-Droid
| equivalent for iOS be? I can only hope that Apple or regulators
| will open up that walled garden a bit.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Doesn't that still leave the problem with "using apple tools"?
| Currently, the only way I know of to compile apps that run on
| iPhones are xcode, on a macintosh.
|
| Even when using frameworks like flutter I'm pretty sure you
| still need to use an apple compiler to make the final build,
| right?
| viktorcode wrote:
| Technically you don't need it. There's no mechanism
| preventing another toolchain from producing an iOS build.
| It's just nobody is interested in creating an alternative
| toolchain.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't think that you have to use Apple toolchain, it's just
| way way easier to do so. I think there was some linux
| toolchain that you can use to build binaries for iOS.
|
| On a non-jailbroken devices you will need to sign your binary
| with Apple's help but on a jailbroken device you can install
| whatever you want. It's also perfectly legal.
|
| Besides, some hacking companies manage to install their
| malware on non-jailbroken devices.
| kbuck wrote:
| There is no 3rd-party toolchain that you can use for a
| complete iOS (or even MacOS) build. Even if you cross-
| compile the majority of your code, you will need to
| transfer the binaries to a Mac for code signing. Everywhere
| I've worked that has produced Mac builds has had at least a
| small cluster of Mac machines to perform code signing. (But
| usually at this point, you just give up and perform the
| entire build on the Mac cluster.)
| foxfluff wrote:
| Huh so they were fined 5M eur and pulled this trick. I think they
| deserve a follow-up fine that's at least two orders of magnitude
| greater.
| rvz wrote:
| I don't see why Apple would back down from making their
| intellectual property to be used for free. But it is quite
| unsurprising and expected that they will find a way to collect
| the fees even if IAP was optional. [0] [1].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29490666
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29914273
| jacquesm wrote:
| What intellectual property?
| rvz wrote:
| So using Apple's SDKs, App Store, devices and services etc
| isn't their intellectual property and it is all public domain
| and free to use?
|
| In case if you haven't read the comment:
|
| From [0] of page 112 (b)
|
| > The Court agrees with the general proposition that Apple is
| entitled to be paid for its intellectual property. The
| inquiry though does not end with the bald conclusion. Apple
| provides evidence that it invests enormous sums into
| developing new tools and features for iOS.
|
| I don't think anyone would agree to develop all of that for
| free at a loss, especially when it is used by billions of
| users and devices. They will still collect the fees either
| way and as predicted.
|
| [0] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17442392/812/epic-
| games...
| pritambaral wrote:
| > So using Apple's SDKs, App Store, devices and services
| etc isn't their intellectual property and it is all public
| domain and free to use?
|
| Don't you have to pay $99/yr for that already?
| etchalon wrote:
| No.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Different court case.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Apple is acting a bit petulant.
| sebastien_b wrote:
| Instead of forcing Apple to allow alternative payment methods,
| Apple should have been forced to implement PWAs to full specs in
| Safari/WebKit. That would help take care of the AppStore
| monopoly.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| This is an appropriate way to handle the incentives. Not
| keeping par with PWA (as in what is available in modern
| browsers) is _the_ unfair competitive practice.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Realizing Jobs' dream, eh?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1nwLilQy64
| karmasimida wrote:
| What is the reasoning behind this????
|
| Can they be more blatant about the Apple Tax they are collecting?
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Sounds like waylaying to me. Hear me out...
|
| I can see a reasonable processing fee, and even a reasonable
| establish-the-purchase fee. Perhaps in the order of - or a bit
| more than - a credit card. So maybe somewhere between 5 and 15%.
| (Depends on how much more likely users find an apps through the
| app-store as opposed to a web search.)
|
| Anything above is abusing Apple's market dominating position.
| Especially because there are no (official) ways to install 3rd
| party apps on iPhones et al.
|
| Just MHO.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I personally think we should make it state/federal law that the
| 'store' fee be printed at the time of purchase.
|
| So when the person clicks the buy button on the app they get a
| invoice like
|
| Software subscription: 66.66 Apple hostage fee: 33.33
|
| Total: $100
| skeletal88 wrote:
| It is astounding to see so many people here argue for the 30%
| apple tax.
|
| It is like the mafia demanding you pay for the privilege of doing
| business on your street.
|
| 30% is just too much.
|
| My client is selling a service where they are selling a physical
| product together with something you do with it in the app.
| Currently the customers buy the service and device in a separate
| shop and the app is just for the convenience of the user, they
| could also use a laptop conputer or whatever else. The client
| wanted to include a link to the shop in the app, but apple
| wouldn't allow it without their 30% tax. With this 30% cut
| providing the service for apple users wouldn't make business
| sense, they would lose money on each sale. Should they have
| higher prices for iphone users to make up for that?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The profit margins scream lack of competition. In a competitive
| market you'd have dozens of companies scrambling in the hope of
| shaving off even 1% of the App store's revenue.
| echelon wrote:
| People fall in love with Apple the same way they do a sports
| team or actor. They begin to cheer for it and want their
| favorite to win all the games, the best roles, the awards.
| Unfortunately these fields are all zero-sum, and small
| companies get pulverized by the hits to their cash flow.
| mmar wrote:
| I wonder how many of those defending Apple position also own
| Apple stocks.
| vmception wrote:
| yeah usually the mafia has lower tax rates
| jacquesm wrote:
| People are arguing for that tax because they genuinely believe
| that Apple will somehow respond to this in a way that will
| cause their own income stream to be affected negatively (for
| instance: if Apple decides to raise the 30% to make up for the
| shortfall of companies that go outside of their platform).
|
| It's Stockholm Syndrome.
|
| Apple got away lucky that they weren't ordered to be split up
| and to run their payment service provider as an independent
| entity. It could still happen, the EU is pretty aggressive when
| it comes to monopolies overreaching their legal limits or
| abusing their position.
|
| The various phone operators here have been smacked down pretty
| hard time and again on things like roaming, service fees and so
| on. Apple is no different.
| endisneigh wrote:
| How much money did app developers make before and after the
| existence of the App Store?
|
| Do the math.
| wavefunction wrote:
| If my math checks out, it comes out to...? Trust-busting an
| Abusive Rent-Seeking Monopoly?!?
| endisneigh wrote:
| Yes I'm sure app developers were making tons before Apple
| and their rent seeking abusive monopoly.
|
| If it's so abusive for the developers why do they stay on
| it?
| aspenmayer wrote:
| If it were only abusive for the developers, why is EU
| intervening on behalf of all users, including developers?
| It's harmful to competition, and the harm to developers
| is the cherry on top.
| AJ007 wrote:
| Yeah but how much money did Apple make before the iPhone?
| Maybe they should be paying the telecoms for all this data
| use.
| rosndo wrote:
| I'm arguing for the tax because it provides a strong
| incentive for app developers to stick to Apples payment
| systems, that's good for me as an end user.
|
| I'm also arguing for the tax because I believe that Apple has
| the absolute right to collect such a tax, why wouldn't they?
| They're far from being a monopolist.
|
| Stockholm syndrome? Mobile app development sounds like the
| last thing I'd want to have anything to do with.
| efraim wrote:
| Wouldn't 50 % provide an even stronger incentive? Why is it
| that 30 % is the perfect number?
|
| Apples seems to have that right, but some people are saying
| that they shouldn't have that right. Laws are possible to
| change.
| matsemann wrote:
| > * that's good for me as an end user*
|
| You're probably paying 27% more for your app stuff than you
| would have to, though. Is that also good for an end user?
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I'm arguing for the tax because it provides a strong
| incentive for app developers to stick to Apples payment
| systems, that's good for me as an end user.
|
| You as an end user are not party to the agreement that
| Apple has with the developers. You are of course free to
| choose not to do business with parties that do not support
| Apples payment system, but the same goes for Stripe,
| PayPal, Adyen and all the other PSPs.
|
| > I'm also arguing for the tax because I believe that Apple
| has the absolute right to collect such a tax, why wouldn't
| they?
|
| Because they are abusing their position to do so.
|
| > They're far from being a monopolist.
|
| Your understanding of what constitutes a de-facto monopoly
| is broken.
|
| > Stockholm syndrome? > Mobile app development sounds like
| the last thing I'd want to have anything to do with.
|
| That is your choice and your right, but plenty of high
| performance and/or low level applications have no choice
| but to go native.
| mehrdada wrote:
| > You as an end user are not party to the agreement that
| Apple has with the developers. You are of course free to
| choose not to do business with...
|
| Under the same logic, you, as the developer is also free
| to not do business with Apple and build on iOS.
|
| Or you could see it with the angle that Apple is in
| effect hired by us, the end-users, to negotiate on our
| behalf to ensure the ecosystem cannot dictate unilateral
| terms unfavorable to us.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, you could see it that way. I'd ask for better
| glasses though, in that case.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| >Or you could see it with the angle that Apple is in
| effect hired by us, the end-users, to negotiate on our
| behalf to ensure the ecosystem cannot dictate unilateral
| terms unfavorable to us.
|
| Then continue to only use Apple App Store and Apple
| Payments. Free market says if all the end-users truly
| believe that, all the others will fail from no users. So
| why is Apple so afraid of a little fair competition?
| rosndo wrote:
| > You as an end user are not party to the agreement that
| Apple has with the developers
|
| In the end this will be a political decision. I vote.
|
| > Your understanding of what constitutes a de-facto
| monopoly is broken.
|
| The monopoly argument _may_ work in the US, but not in
| the EU. Apple may be up to nasty stuff that legislators
| should act against, but they're certainly not a
| monopolist.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are getting quite tiring.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_
| law
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_101_of_the_Treaty_o
| n_t...
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-
| eu/competit...
| cruano wrote:
| > You are of course free to choose not to do business
| with parties that do not support Apples payment system
|
| Take a look at the videogames landscape on PC. There is
| an ever-growing amount of game launchers because each
| company refuses to pay that 30% to someone (e.g. Steam).
| Having the option to create a store means almost everyone
| that can WILL create one. Not having that option forces
| everyone to play by the rules of the existing store.
|
| As a consumer, I like Steam's policies about refunds, I
| like being able to buy any game with the same in-store
| credit or the same credit card, I like their client's
| features like download throttling or scheduling.
|
| I certainly do not like that each half-assed client comes
| up with a bare bones implementation of the same thing and
| calls it a day. If Rockstar shits the bed and launches a
| terrible game, I can refund it on Steam but not on the
| Rockstar launcher.
|
| Same case for Apple, the minute they allow external
| stores, half the apps will be pulled from the App Store
| into their own proprietary store and all the consumer
| protection would go out the window
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| >Not having that option forces everyone to play by the
| rules of the existing store.
|
| So what you want is a convenient monopoly, when there is
| no such thing (unless it's under heavy government
| regulation). As a consumer, I like Epic's free games.
| GoG's policy of DRM-free. Which is why competition is
| good.
| zepto wrote:
| No, people are arguing this because they think the 15%
| represents good value compared to what you would have to do
| as an indie developer to support multiple stores and payment
| methods.
| ravenstine wrote:
| It's a mindset I'll never fully comprehend myself.
|
| Supposedly I did work to earn a profit, but clearly not so much
| work that I shouldn't thank whatever system I'm subject to for
| the _privilege_ of... making a transaction that barely involved
| said system, if at all.
|
| 5% or even 10% would be more acceptable. But _30%_? lol For
| what? There 's no way the vast majority of that cut is
| necessary for Apple's financial operations or for them to make
| a reasonable profit. How some people can't see this as greed is
| mind blowing. Where do they draw the line?
| dageshi wrote:
| I'll tell you honestly why. It's because if they charged 5%
| or 10% it wouldn't be worth Apples time.
|
| If they can't make 30% on the app store they'll go do
| something else which will make them 30%+ and leave it to rot.
| Because 5% or 10% is a commodity business and they can do
| better than that.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Well, the Mac software landscape flourished before Apple
| had an app store. I wouldn't mind if they just gave up and
| let people distribute software how God intended.
| threeseed wrote:
| Yes the Mac flourished with it's 5-10% market share.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| If there was something else that they could be making that
| kind of money for that little work, they'd already be doing
| it. Apple got lucky with a lock-in ecosystem and they
| obviously design great hardware, but I don't see them just
| up and deciding to dominate another market to make similar
| profits just because they're Apple.
| temac wrote:
| Above something that is probably quite marginal this is
| basically free money for Apple. What are you comparing 30%
| to? Profit vs gross income? That's not what the 30% are
| here. That's 30% of an amount which depends on:
|
| * a market that is so large that in a bunch of area it is
| basically not limiting - Apple has an influence on that but
| capturing so much value on 3rd party apps should not be
| warranted IMO, otherwise it would be warranted for them to
| also capture a big part on most of software for MacOs sales
| (esp. since the configuration by default is now quite
| secure so the argument that the App Store for iPhone is so
| valuable because it is curated is getting weaker) and for
| MS to capture a big part on most of software sales for
| Windows (and maybe give some crumbs to PC hardware
| manufacturers)
|
| * the success of 3rd party apps, most of which has not much
| to do with Apple
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Yours is a mindset that I'll never understand. You appear to
| believe that the price of a thing should be related to the
| marginal cost of the seller. Whereas, in reality, it's only a
| question of what a buyer will pay and what a seller will
| accept.
|
| When you look at an airline that's about to fly a plane with
| twenty empty seats, do you say "sheesh, it's totally
| unreasonable that seat is selling for anything more than
| zero, it costs the airline nothing to have someone sit in it,
| the greed is mind-blowing"?
|
| Maybe you do?
| virgilp wrote:
| > Whereas, in reality, it's only a question of what a buyer
| will pay and what a seller will accept.
|
| Which is why you don't have to let a monopoly/oligopoly set
| the price at will, they need to be regulated. Smartphones
| are becoming essential tools in many people's lives, and
| there are only 2 main providers; they need to be regulated.
| You can argue at the exact regulation but this Apple move
| has proved beyond doubt that we (as a society) need to
| impose tough regulations on them; because by themselves,
| they're not going to be reasonable, they're looking to
| extract maximum feasible rent.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| This. And before some libertarian starts rambling about
| how not to regulate stuff: I'm an libertarian myself and
| the current tech monopolies are only possible because of
| the state's intervention in the free market. Without
| ridiculous copyright and patent laws we wouldn't have
| those monopolies we see right now.
|
| So yeah, as long as there's state intervention in the
| free market let the state regulate bad actors. I would be
| glad if it all went away but reality is that we have to
| live with this system.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| >Which is why you don't have to let a monopoly/oligopoly
| set the price at will
|
| Even monopolies are generally allowed to set their own
| prices; it's only the point at which there's abuse that
| there's a regulatory concern. The argument that Apple is
| looking to "extract maximum feasible" rent is undermined
| a bit by some facts I discuss in one of my comments
| elsewhere in this thread.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > Whereas, in reality, it's only a question of what a buyer
| will pay and what a seller will accept.
|
| I didn't say that's not what determines a price.
|
| > When you look at an airline that's about to fly a plane
| with twenty empty seats, do you say "sheesh, it's totally
| unreasonable that seat is selling for anything more than
| zero, it costs the airline nothing to have someone sit in
| it, the greed is mind-blowing"?
|
| No. Plane tickets are quite cheap regardless when you
| consider the amount of force involved in lifting that much
| weight into the air across the planet. Even when it's more
| expensive, I'm saving a ton of time compared to if I drove
| my car across country and back, making even pricier tickets
| worth it. In fact, the way I look at it, a plane with a
| bunch of empty seats is a good thing because that allows
| people to make last-minute travel plans. If one had to
| reserve a plane ticket months in advance, that'd be pretty
| lousy.
|
| So perhaps that was just a bad example.
|
| Here's the flaw in your oversimplifying of the argument.
| The price being as simple as what the buyer is willing to
| pay for is only adequate when you ignore the seller's level
| of monopolism and the market incentives that drive the
| buyer to taking it in the rear. Apple not only dominates a
| massive percentage of the mobile phone market, but they
| along with Google have created systems where your digital
| service is unlikely to be successful unless you play their
| game... because they are oh so concerned about the safety
| of the end user. And app that's not found in the App Store
| is never going to reach widespread use because even Android
| users don't really want to use apps their friends who have
| iPhones can't interact with them on. Even if you host
| binaries on your own site, good luck having iOS users
| figure out how to side-load the app or even have the
| courage to do so.
|
| Would you be fine if your bank just ripped off 1/3 of your
| income? After all, what are you gonna do? Use cash for
| everything and be closed off from the modern economy? Sure,
| you can do that. But does that mean that this hypothetical
| banking system isn't ripping you off regardless of if you
| choose to pay it? It's a large amount of value that the
| buyer earned that the seller arguably didn't earn. In the
| case of Apple, they effectively get a 30% share in every
| company that hosts an app in the App Store because at any
| moment Apple can just say "nah" and delete the app.
|
| But sure... let's have a society where everything's a free-
| for-all and we don't regulate scams and ripoffs because
| _the buyer was willing to pay for it._
|
| EDIT: I now realized what I said was on the snarky side...
| I changed it but left some of it and hope you're not
| personally offended or anything.
| passivate wrote:
| I do not know which reality you are referring to. There are
| various laws in the US related to pricing, price gouging,
| price controls, etc.
| hnra wrote:
| That equivalence is awful. What is the profit margin of
| airlines vs the app store? There is a real cost to an
| airline seat, and there is a real cost to publishing an app
| on an app store (and all that it entails). The difference
| here is that airlines have tons of competition driving down
| margins, while no one is allowed to compete with Apple for
| iOS customers.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The existence of large profit margins is not prima facie
| indication of a lack of competition. Apple makes a huge
| profit margin on iPhones but I don't think there's anyone
| who suggests that the smartphone market is uncompetitive.
| To that extent, the first part of your point doesn't
| really hold up.
|
| On your second part: one of the defining qualities of a
| retail store experience is, in my experience, that no-one
| is allowed to compete with the owner of the store. No-one
| would say it is uncompetitive that the owner of a
| supermarket doesn't allow you to put your own goods on
| their shelves.
|
| Presumably your point is really that Apple's App Store is
| such a large fraction of the total smartphone app market
| that it has, and uses, monopoly pricing power in abusive
| way. That's a more interesting point.
|
| The fact that's interesting to me is that, as far as I
| know, since Apple created the App Store, it has always
| charged 30% (modulo the recent small business program);
| from the very beginning when the market was practically
| non-existent, with no guarantee of success, up until
| today. So despite the fact the market has grown from
| nothing, Apple hasn't sought to increase their fees.
|
| Also, look at comparison points. If you look at PC video
| games, those can often be bought in physical form,
| downloaded direct from their publishers, etc. etc. I mean
| to say there is no restriction on alternative sales
| channels. Nonetheless, a huge number of game developers
| choose to sell on Steam; where, coincidentally, the store
| cut is also 30%. They complain about it, but they do it.
| Gorbzel wrote:
| > while no one is allowed to compete with Apple for iOS
| customers.
|
| This is basically the core question in Epic vs Apple,
| wherein the court has ruled that "iOS Customers" is not
| the relevant market to consider.
| threeseed wrote:
| It's 15% for developers making up to $1m a year.
|
| And you are paying for the cost of the channel i.e. customer
| acquisition.
| passivate wrote:
| You can show an online ad on any platform to acquire a
| customer. Apple is greedy grabbing 30% of sales.
| kmlx wrote:
| > 30% is just too much.
|
| i see you never had to deal with retailers.
| weberer wrote:
| >It is like the mafia demanding you pay for the privilege of
| doing business on your street. 30% is just too much.
|
| Or like the IRS
| [deleted]
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| It would be FAIR if you could charge iPhone customers more than
| Android customers but Apple is not stupid. The small print in
| your contract forbids just that.
| scarface74 wrote:
| They stopped that almost a decade ago. When Spotify still
| allowed in app purchases , they charged more than on their
| own website.
| awildfivreld wrote:
| > It is like the mafia demanding you pay for the privilege of
| doing business on your street
|
| If Apple were to add this tax or raise it long after launch I
| could perhaps see this argument.
|
| However, this tax is nothing new. AFAIK it has been like this
| for _years_. App developers must have known (before starting
| development) that there is a fee if you were to use the
| platform.
|
| If you knew a certain street has mafia activity (or other
| similar taxes), would you make the concious choise of moving
| your store there? Well, if the business opportunuties are good
| enough, then it might be worth it. If the mafia suddenly showed
| up, then the equation could be different. This is just like any
| other business investment analysis.
|
| If 30% is too much all in all, then it is unsustainable to keep
| the app store as an option.
| zachrip wrote:
| App developers don't get to choose which platforms their
| users are on. There's a reason why things like react-native
| mainly target ios and android - that's where the users are.
| That is why people compare it to the mafia, you have to do
| business there, which means you have to pay them. Where are
| you finding users that aren't on android/ios?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| If they do it, it's because they know they can get away with it.
| They studied the risk and cost associated with a lawsuit, and
| estimated it was more profitable to keep the commission high.
|
| Which is one more hint that our legal system is not working as it
| should. It is completely ineffective at enforcing laws above a
| certain threshold of power.
| amelius wrote:
| > it is anti-competitive behavior that they themselves would
| never tolerate
|
| TSMC should force Apple to pay a 30% tax, and if they don't
| comply, kick them out of the FabStore.
| thathndude wrote:
| But developers do tolerate it, and that's the problem. And they
| tolerate it because there's immense value there.
| clusterfish wrote:
| There was "immense value" in every monopolist that was
| rightfully broken up or restricted. There's "immense value"
| in every monopoly / duopoly market. So what. The richest
| company in the world is swimming in money, pays little taxes,
| and gouges every developer who made its products successful.
| They are nothing without the developers, they're simply in a
| good position to abuse them, a position that they carefully
| crafted for themselves.
| amelius wrote:
| On top of that, we really don't want to be in a situation
| where every large software producer has to create their own
| phone to maximize their income. It would be a terrible
| waste of resources. What Apple wants to own can't be owned.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Until there isn't and then they should be free to take their
| payment services elsewhere because a 30% cut to your payment
| provider makes no sense.
|
| The value is there but then again, Stripe and other PSPs
| provide much of that same value at a much better price point,
| and that's because there is competition in the realm of
| payment processing.
| apexalpha wrote:
| Developers "tolerate" it in the same way that I tolerate
| having my income taxed. You really don't have a choice.
| jb1991 wrote:
| There is definitely _some_ value to the App Store and Apple
| 's management of it and the payment service, listing, etc.
| But I would not say it is "immense" value, and 30% is _a
| lot_.
| sunderw wrote:
| Well they tolerate it because there is no other choice. You
| can't say f** all the apple users.
|
| Would you have the same argument if Windows took a 30% cut of
| all transactions that happened on "their platform" ?
| interpol_p wrote:
| It's not the number of Apple users that matter. There are
| many more Android users world wide. It's the fact that
| Apple users spend more, and more often than users on other
| platforms.
| spiffytech wrote:
| Phone market share has different distributions in
| different markets. In the US it looks like the iPhone
| hovers around 50% marketshare. That's pretty significant
| to ignore.
|
| Then there are the network effects. Many apps have a
| social component, and if your app isn't on iPhone you'll
| only get the customers who both use Android and who never
| want to collaborate with iPhone-owning
| friends/family/coworkers.
|
| This is of course true for iPhone-only apps, too, which
| is why folks argue Apple and Google are a duopoly: it's
| infeasible to succeed in the mobile market without
| bending to the gatekeepers, and they don't give anyone
| the market power to force them to change.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean you absolutely can. If the commission was 90% would
| you still pay it? Hell nah. Apple knows it's still worth it
| to most publishers at 30%.
|
| And yes, if Windows wanted to charge 30% then go for it. It
| is their platform.
| ksec wrote:
| Apple Apple argue buying iPhone was only the hardware while 30%
| cut was for their IP. And yet accuse Qualcomm charging them 5%
| for IP and selling them hardware modem ( with rebate ) as
| double dipping.
| rocketChair wrote:
| Apple, and two other companies, are now taking out rent for
| computing. That's not how the world should work.
|
| I like some of their products, but these companies have to be
| curtailed.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The path that computing is on is "You will buy a screen, pay
| monthly for internet access, and then pay monthly to access a
| cloud service where you access all your SaaS applications.
| [deleted]
| jacquesm wrote:
| They're nuts. All they are doing is setting themselves up for
| another set of lawsuits.
|
| Seriously: Apple should focus on selling hardware and be happy to
| facilitate those payments that people - and application
| developers - voluntarily process through their system.
|
| All this stupid taxation of other peoples' businesses should
| stop, it is anti-competitive behavior that they themselves would
| never tolerate.
|
| Imagine if in the past Apple would have had to pay 30% of their
| gross to Microsoft in order to be allowed to run their software
| on Windows.
| sekathlon wrote:
| Nonsense. Most of those businesses only exist because of the
| App Store. Apple can ask whatever they want as users can buy
| whatever they want. There is no need for whining.
| ketralnis wrote:
| This is clearly bullshit. There was a software industry
| before Apple came along.
| threeseed wrote:
| Not a mobile software industry though.
|
| And I know because I developed an app for Palm.
| [deleted]
| pbreit wrote:
| 27% versus 30% for cards?
| huhtenberg wrote:
| > _They 're nuts._
|
| They aren't nuts. It's a middle finger to the legislators.
| virgilp wrote:
| > It's a middle finger to the legislators.
|
| I.e. they're nuts.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| They're not. Apple is essentially acting like a government,
| and they're certainly way more powerful than the Dutch
| government:
|
| - They have an income tax -- 30% (wait until they come up
| with a capital gains tax, and a property and inheritance
| tax as well)
|
| - Use monopoly of "force" by removing us if we "evade
| taxes"
|
| - Have their legislation branch to come up with their own
| set of "laws" - they call it "terms", but can't be "terms"
| if we have to swallow it without coming to terms with it
|
| - Their judiciary branch judge our actions with no recourse
|
| - Have their executive branch to put into practice what
| their judicial branch decides (usually in an automated
| fashion)
| virgilp wrote:
| Netherlands has a strong voice in the EU; I'm betting
| that Apple doesn't want to cease all business in the EU.
| Heck, they bent to China.... they'll bend to EU, make no
| mistake.
|
| This is an mind-blowingly-risky move on Apple's part.
| They show malice here - if they are acting like a
| government, they invite governments to fight them. I.e.
| they're nuts.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And it's not even just the EU. The U.S., South Korea,
| Australia, India, Russia- a lot of countries and markets
| are taking notice. This is a global phenomenon. The
| sharks are circling.
| alexashka wrote:
| Is it nuts? Or is it just business as usual?
|
| There's a department and the head of that department's
| responsibility is to make the profit number go up.
|
| So, he/she is doing just that.
|
| It'd be nuts if that _didn 't_ happen, _that_ would be nuts.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| The point of making competitive mobile hardware is to make sure
| users stick to it so you can extract values from left and
| right.
| [deleted]
| zepto wrote:
| The problem is that people can easily be induced to install
| software that negates the benefit of Apple's hardware. Apple
| can't deliver their hardware benefits without also controlling
| the operating system.
|
| It's as simple as that.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Apple can't deliver their hardware benefits without also
| controlling the operating system.
|
| Nobody is talking about loading something besides iOS on
| Apple mobile devices. The argument that "The OS is
| everything" failed over 20 years ago in US v Microsoft.
| zepto wrote:
| That's irrelevant.
|
| It would be simple enough for Facebook for example to build
| a store into their own App, and build their own 'platform'
| within the Facebook app.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| So you mean how WeChat and Alibaba do it, and are allowed
| to do so by the App Store. Then why hasn't Meta done
| that? Perhaps they don't care to? Not that the Facebook
| app isn't already hugely overstuffed.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Because Apple bent down for WeChat and Alibaba, but Apple
| won't do it for Facebook?
|
| I'm 100% sure that if Facebook could have an iOS app
| store, they would start one. It's worth all the work for
| the improved tracking alone, as app download ads are a
| big part of Facebook's mobile revenue.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The GP is talking about Meta embedding its own app store
| within the Facebook app, not about Facebook creating its
| own iOS app store. An "internal" app store would still be
| subject to the same restrictions and security that the
| actual Apple App Store already has. I don't believe the
| mini-apps within WeChat or Alibaba's apps can flout those
| regulations, but it's China and those are big apps so who
| knows.
|
| From a technical perspective, I'm not sure how hosting
| littler apps within your own app, which is already on the
| Apple App Store and subject to its review process and
| rules, would allow you access to improved tracking.
|
| On the subject of a Meta third-party app store
| independent of Apple's control- yes, there is motivation
| there to do that, but I am dubious of how much of a
| threat that is to the end user because:
|
| 1. Apple still maintains control of iOS and can restrict
| invasive tracking from the OS level.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30199125
|
| 2. I'm not actually convinced that Meta, Google, Amazon,
| et al are really capable of executing successful
| alternative app stores. They would need to make it a
| sufficiently seamless and friction-free experience, _and_
| offer enough incentives for users to overcome having to
| sign up for yet another service just to use the apps they
| already have access to.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30204012
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > The problem is that people can easily be induced to install
| software that negates the benefit of Apple's hardware. Apple
| can't deliver their hardware benefits without also
| controlling the operating system.
|
| Apple is less concerned about this than profits.
|
| They could make their hardware ecosystem more open, that's
| easy, but that wouldn't make them a significant amount of
| extra money, so why would they?
| zepto wrote:
| You don't seem to realize that Apple's profits come mostly
| from hardware sales.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| They don't. They come from the new "Services" division.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| They don't, but even if they did, that has nothing to do
| with my comment.
| jsnell wrote:
| Is it really nuts though? This should be a completely
| unsurprising move, given this is exactly what Play Store did in
| South Korea [0]. That's three months old, has anyone heard of a
| followup suggesting their solution is being treated non-
| compliant by the regulators? This solution also seems to be in
| line with what the US courts found in the Epic vs. Apple case.
|
| > Imagine if in the past Apple would have had to pay 30% of
| their gross to Microsoft in order to be allowed to run their
| software on Windows.
|
| Anyone making software for the Xbox has to pay Microsoft. Why
| is this different?
|
| [0] https://developers-kr.googleblog.com/2021/11/enabling-
| altern...
|
| Edit: Good grief, people. I am not pro-App Store. But jacquesm
| is literally claiming that Apple is nuts and that their
| solution will never fly. But everything we've seen so far in
| analogous cases suggests it will.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Anyone making software for the Xbox has to pay Microsoft.
| Why is this different?
|
| Historically, writing software for the Xbox meant getting dev
| kits not sold to the public as well as access to private
| documentation. And there was a level of support from
| Microsoft game studios could expect. The deals between
| studios and Microsoft could also include co-marketing or
| exclusivity. Plus to get an Xbox tittle out you needed a
| distributor (remember brick and mortar stores) so it really
| was B2B. Today I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft just
| going with the Store model and taking a very small cut from
| indies. But distribution is nowhere as hard and expensive as
| it was back in 2001.
|
| I really don't think it's the same as Apple that advertise
| it's developer program to individuals. Apple's developer
| program almost seems like a consumer product (term and
| conditions are pretty much the same for every individual dev
| out there, it's a flat fee).
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| I think that the Xbox should be an open platform. Microsoft
| has built in enough sandboxing and security that I'd hope
| they could handle arbitrary downloads while offering their
| store + online services for games that use their store
| (provide actual value for their cut).
|
| It's not like they make money off of the hardware, and their
| new push is in Gamepass subscriptions which people will still
| want.
|
| There will of course be people who pirate, just like they do
| on the switch, but piracy is likely to be so small that it
| won't affect Microsoft's profits.
| kmlx wrote:
| > It's not like they make money off of the hardware
|
| microsoft hasn't made any money off of the whole xbox
| ecosystem since it's inception 20 years ago. it's been loss
| making since day zero.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| Quotations needed please. You are not 20 years in an
| industry without making a buck
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| They make it up on software royalties
| threeseed wrote:
| > but piracy is likely to be so small
|
| Odd take given how rampant piracy is within the PC gaming
| market.
|
| Losing a similar percentage of sales in consoles would
| absolutely make it unprofitable for smaller developers.
| clusterfish wrote:
| Right because you have data to show that piracy takes
| away more than 30% of small devs' desktop games' revenue?
| Given that most pirates wouldn't actually buy it if they
| had to pay?
|
| Smaller developers publish PC games just fine, you know,
| choosing whichever store they like most, or choosing to
| entirely self publish. This is how it should be
| everywhere.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| > _Anyone making software for the Xbox has to pay Microsoft.
| Why is this different?_
|
| It's different because Apple sells and markets their hardware
| as general-purpose computing devices. An Xbox is a gaming
| console and that's what it's sold and marketed as.
| SllX wrote:
| To my continued disappointment, this is exactly how they
| have _not_ marketed iPhones since the beginning.
| clusterfish wrote:
| "A general purpose computer is a computer that is
| designed to be able to carry out many different tasks."
|
| "There's an app for that"
|
| Seems pretty straightforward that they did. Them doing
| their best to lock down the ecosystem for profit does not
| make the device non-general-purpose.
| 30204604 wrote:
| >Apple sells and markets their hardware as general-purpose
| computing devices
|
| Could you point to what makes you think this? As well, are
| there any court rulings that indicate this matters when it
| comes to this issue?
| nightski wrote:
| The fact that they provide development tools and almost
| anyone can write an app for it?
|
| Xbox is not open to anyone to develop on. It's very
| closed to new developers and expensive.
|
| FWIW - I think Xbox should be forced to open up it's
| platform as well, not be used as a justification for
| closed computing platforms.
| threeseed wrote:
| Xbox is very simple and affordable to develop for. On par
| with iOS actually.
|
| How do you think all of the tiny indie studios build
| games ?
|
| [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/xbox-
| live/get-starte...
|
| [2] https://www.xbox.com/en-AU/developers/id
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| nirvdrum wrote:
| Apple ran an ad campaign with the message "Your next
| computer is not a computer": https://youtu.be/awTP7IUY3uo
| kmlx wrote:
| that's just one of many ad campaigns, plus a computer is
| not by definition a general purpose device.
| nirvdrum wrote:
| I cited one campaign that very clearly answers the
| question posed. It was not incumbent on me to go through
| all of their campaigns and conferences and earnings calls
| and whatever else. Although, this campaign was hardly the
| first time Apple suggested their mobile devices could
| replace a computer.
|
| > plus a computer is not by definition a general purpose
| device.
|
| What are we even talking about then? It's not like this
| campaign was suggesting the iPad would be a fantastic
| purpose-specific replacement of my TI-89 or my web cam.
| What, based on the context of this discussion, are we
| supposed to understand "general purpose device" to mean
| if not the colloquial definition of a computer?
| SllX wrote:
| I looked at that ad you posted earlier and refrained from
| commenting at the time, but if you take the ad at face
| value, Apple is claiming that iPads are _not_ computers,
| or at least not the general purpose ones that culturally
| we refer to as computers (desktops, notebooks) and do
| this in both the slogan ("your next computer is _not a
| computer_ ") and by demonstration, inviting the user to
| think of iPads as something else. It's not an ad for
| tablet computers, it's an ad for iPads.
|
| Technically, iPhones and iPads are absolutely computers.
| General purpose computers. In fact arguably they are even
| more general purpose because you can easily and non-
| trivially manipulate them in 3D space in ways you
| probably wouldn't even manipulate a notebook computer,
| which makes the inclusion of various sensors in the body
| of the device more useful to a broader array of
| applications. I will absolutely use my phone as a wallet
| in the way I never would a MacBook Pro. Apple has
| absolutely never marketed them as general purpose
| computers though even though I think you and I can agree
| that's exactly what they are. Duplicitous? I think so,
| but it's also the exact same strategy that game consoles
| benefit from today and in either case I think both Apple
| and game console makers are at the moment on solid legal
| footing.
| nirvdrum wrote:
| We'll have to agree to disagree. This ad to me looked
| just like the "Mac VS PC" ads, where Apple wanted to
| convey to you that their personal computers weren't
| "PCs", but something else, something better. But, they
| very clearly were advertising the product as a
| replacement computer.
|
| They want people shopping for iPads, not tablet
| computers. I'll grant you that, but that's just a
| marketing gimmick as far as I can tell. This ad to me
| says "don't bother with another laptop because the iPad
| can do the same stuff, but better (and you might look
| really cool using it)." It's a marketing campaign, so
| it's going to resonate with people differently.
|
| I still don't know anyone that went out and purchased an
| Xbox to replace their laptops, but I know plenty of
| people that have done so with iPads. And they're checking
| email, commenting on Facebook, taking pictures, editing
| video, surfing the web, managing todos, making video
| calls, watching video streams, playing games, and doing
| many other activities that they used to on a laptop or
| desktop, while Xbox users play video games, maybe consume
| media, and possibly deal with being called racist names
| on a voice chat.
| SllX wrote:
| We probably will have to agree to disagree, but I'm
| trying to see the message I think Apple intended to sell
| and I think trying to sell a replacement _for_ or an
| alternative to computers is a lot more in line with how
| they've always marketed iPads. The reason to look at
| their intended message specially is because this is the
| marketing gimmick that colors their PR and lobbying
| campaigns.
|
| I don't think it is severable from the manner console
| manufacturers operate either. They sell locked down
| computers with operating systems and license the software
| that can operate on it. In terms of functions and
| capabilities, they're as Turing complete as any other
| machine, you just have to jump through extra hoops to run
| unlicensed software and they take explicit action to
| prevent this or make it more difficult.
|
| The intended use is basically irrelevant. A device that's
| there to operate Facebook or Spotify or a device that's
| there to operate Halo or HBO is functionally still just
| an entertainment device. Where they significantly differ
| is that Apple licenses a broader array of software and
| Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo license mostly entertainment
| software (games, video apps, music apps and comic book
| readers). If you actually bought an Xbox to do the
| functions you could on a Windows PC, you would be
| disappointed but not because there's some inherent Xbox
| property preventing this, but because Microsoft does not
| license Xbox software in the manner Apple does iPhone and
| iPad software nor allow unlicensed software to run the
| way it does on Windows. That's a corporate choice, and
| because that corporate choice was made, it would be a bad
| choice to buy an Xbox for those functions or else some
| people might actually choose to use an Xbox to check
| their email or do whatever else they do on their PCs. If
| you think about it, $500 is not bad for a decent gaming
| computer that lets you get rid of your PC.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So you would be okay if Apple just opened up the App
| Store for iPads?
| nirvdrum wrote:
| I think it was pretty evident that computers were going
| to continue to get smaller, handheld, wearable, what have
| you. Apple didn't invent the space, they just made the
| product that got people to adopt the new form factor en
| masse. That's no small thing. But, I don't think they
| deserve near full control and a 30% tax on all revenue
| transacted on that form factor as a result. We wouldn't
| have tolerated it if Microsoft had done it on the desktop
| environment. We wouldn't have tolerated if Microsoft
| forced all purchases through their platform.
|
| We've backed ourselves into a weird spot. It's
| essentially impossible for a new platform to develop in
| the computing space. Google did everything it could to
| kill off Windows mobile. Mozilla took a crack at it and
| failed. There's an illusion of choice, but it's quite
| difficult to get by without an Android or iPhone. That
| became very evident to me with the pandemic. Virtual
| doctor visits, check-ins, mobile passports, and so
| required a device running one of Android or iOS/iPadOS.
| My wife isn't fond of smart phones, but we had to get her
| an iPhone to participate in society. Companies don't want
| to support web sites for mobile and Apple's support for
| PWAs is pretty bad, forcing you back into their app
| ecosystem. Moreover, switching platforms is quite
| expensive and often impractical, in no small part because
| your purchases are bound to a particular platform
| (desktop licenses, on the other hand, often work across
| operating systems or charge a nominal fee to have
| licenses for macOS and Windows).
|
| That's a very long-winded way of saying, sure let's start
| with opening up the App Store for iPads. I think we
| should do it for phones, too, but I'll take what I can
| get. For many people, their phone is their "computer"
| these days as well and as I said, I think that result was
| inevitable. We can argue about whether smart phones are
| general computing devices, but I'd argue the only reason
| they're not as "general" as desktops is because Apple
| won't allow them to be. Microsoft and Samsung both had
| interesting technologies (Continuum and Dex,
| respectively) that could turn your phone into a portable
| desktop that showed promise for what the space could be.
| But, people make do with the restrictions placed on them,
| if for no other reason than switching is expensive and
| hard.
|
| Regardless, smart phones a completely different class of
| device than video game consoles. People run many of the
| same tasks on phones & tablets that they would on a
| laptop. Despite that, video game consoles are more open.
| I can buy video games from a dozen different stores, get
| them on a secondary market, and I can lend them out to
| people. But, let's open up the consoles too if that's
| what's holding us back with Apple and Google.
| [deleted]
| scarface74 wrote:
| Apple sells a device that is called an i _Phone_ how is it
| any more general purpose than a powerful computer sold as a
| game console?
|
| Heck most of Apple's App Store revenue comes from games.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Even from the beginning it was more than a simple phone.
| It was at least a phone, an iPod, and a breakthrough
| internet communications device.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o
| scarface74 wrote:
| But it didn't have an App Store....
|
| You could always "sideload music"
| pininja wrote:
| What do I know, but I see Xbox as more than a gaming
| machine with its steaming and web browsing features, and
| iOS as less than general-purpose since I can't execute code
| outside of a very narrow and curated api. OSX is general
| purpose, no doubt, but I'm not sure it's relevant since I
| can basically run whatever I can compile.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > That's three months old, has anyone heard of a followup
| suggesting their solution is being treated non-compliant by
| the regulators?
|
| Yes, reported on yesterday by Reuters [1]:
|
| > As for Google's plan, the official said the KCC was aware
| of concern over Google's planned policy of only reducing its
| service charge to developers by 4 percentage points when
| users choose an alternative billing system, and the regulator
| is waiting for additional information from Google.
|
| > "As a result of any policy, if app developers find it
| realistically difficult to use an alternative payment system
| and resort to using the dominant app store operator's payment
| system, it would not fit the law's purpose," the official
| said, adding that this stance would likely be reflected in
| the final ordinance.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-seeks-improved-
| com...
| clusterfish wrote:
| Why? Because how much you have to pay is determined by how
| much the platform owner can get away with. There is no
| fundamental logic to it other than market power. Why don't
| you compare to better, open platforms instead - desktop apps,
| the web. Why does everything has to be as shitty as something
| else.
| jsnell wrote:
| I'm not comparing to those other cases because the question
| being asked was "what if Microsoft had been charging a
| fee", so it seems rather relevant that Microsoft has been
| charging exactly that kind of a fee for a couple of
| decades.
|
| I hope we can agree that laws need to apply to everyone
| equally. For a long time, it's been fine for platform
| owners to charge e.g. licensing fees, for store owners to
| charge a fee, etc. Why is Apple different, such that they
| cannot charge such a fee while others can? If they're not
| substantially different, do we expect that going forward
| nobody can charge a fee?
| shkkmo wrote:
| > I'm not comparing to those other cases because the
| question being asked was
|
| The question being asked was specifically about windows,
| and wasn't about Microsoft being "good", but rather about
| how Apple benefited from platforms being open.
|
| > If they're not substantially different, do we expect
| that going forward nobody can charge a fee?
|
| That seems reasonable.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > Why is Apple different, such that they cannot charge
| such a fee while others can?
|
| The difference is market power.
|
| Yes, literally if a company is big enough, then they
| should be legally prevented from doing certain things
| that anti-competitively take advantage of it's market
| power.
|
| For video game consoles, I am less concerned about the
| platform taking a fee, because there are 3 major
| consoles, as well as an absolutely huge PC gaming market,
| and the PC gaming market is very open
|
| Where as for smartphones I am concerned, because it is a
| 2 company duopoly, and there is no major open competitor,
| with significant market share.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Doesn't Google allow alternative app stores to be loaded onto
| Androids though? If that's the case I'm not sure the
| comparison makes sense because consumers aren't forced to use
| the Play Store to install software. Give Google 30% of sales
| or have no sales at all the way it is for iPhone developers.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Yes, but side-loading, either directly or through third-
| party stores, prompts the user with dire warnings, making
| it almost impossible for developers to realistically use
| that method.
|
| The exceptions are hardware manufacturers that ship custom
| versions of Android that have their own stores.
|
| If it weren't for that detail, or that Google warned _all_
| installs about the same thing (even from their own store),
| I wouldn 't have a problem with it.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Just out of curiousness, does the Xbox have a shell like my
| iPhone? Can I ssh from my Xbox? I can from my iPhone, for all
| intents it seems like a personal computer (PC) and can do
| anything my computer can do. My phone wasn't marketed as a
| gaming console either. I'm not sure comparing an Xbox and a
| phone is anywhere near the same thing. I could be wrong
| though.
| jsnell wrote:
| The Xbox certainly has sufficient hardware and software
| capabilities to run a shell or a ssh client; it is
| basically PC hardware and a PC operating system, just
| locked down. If it doesn't have a ssh client, it's only
| because Microsoft didn't let the app onto the Xbox store.
| If that's the line you draw, then the obvious thing for
| Apple to do is to remove ssh clients from the store.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Heh, that'd actually be entertaining. After that it would
| be image editing, then text editors, then, actually just
| delete the utilities section from the App Store...
| tehbeard wrote:
| The previous gen had a developer mode which practically
| let you run Windows apps... All for a one time fee of
| $20?
|
| Of course this was within their hypervisor and security
| systems, so you were kept well away from the
| games/dashboard/Xbox live.
|
| But, homebrew and emulators could run pretty well on
| there, an SSH client or vscode probably would just take a
| small amount of porting.
| nomel wrote:
| Imagine how well the xbox would sell if there was a PC
| "homework" mode, where you could just boot into windows.
| I doubt Microsoft would do that to their PC making
| brethren though.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| It has Edge on it so if you can do a browser version you
| can do whatever. If you plug in a keyboard and mouse you
| can gamedev on our platform for example.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The latest models of Xbox and PlayStation are basically
| just Ryzen 3700X + Radeon 5700XT PCs, with the former
| running a Windows variant and the latter running a FreeBSD
| variant. They're pretty similar in stymied potential to iOS
| devices.
| amelius wrote:
| > Is it really nuts though?
|
| I don't know. But I do know it is nuts that we programmers
| still support these extortionists.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Consoles are a super interesting comparison. In principle, I
| agree that they should have to be open too. On the other
| hand, consoles' hardware is nearly always subsidized by
| expected future software royalties, while Apple makes a lot
| of profit just by selling the hardware alone.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| It would be interesting to see the reaction if consoles had
| to be open to other store (my opinion is that they
| shouldn't since their are not general purpose devices per
| se). When the Epic Game Store appeared, the pc gaming
| community was up in arms against it because it was a Steam
| rival (sort of a tribal reaction) but were complaining
| against the NVIDEA GPU monopoly
| schmorptron wrote:
| How would you feel about a, say 100EUR, fee to "unlock"
| your PS5 and turn it into a general purpose device that
| can run ubuntu?
|
| And I think if you put your xbox into development mode
| you can run your own code on it, like RetroArch although
| I don't know to what extent that goes.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| But these are internal details that _shouldn 't matter at
| all_ when deciding if a business practice is valid or not.
| If I want to sell a toaster (regardless of whether it's
| sold at loss or gain) that only toasts bread that I bake, I
| should be perfectly entitled to do so. And if users flock
| to my toaster due to its simplicity, predictability, and
| ease of use, then the fact that other bakers are upset
| about this shouldn't matter in _the least bit_.
|
| Whether a toaster or console or smartphone is sold at a
| loss or gain is an internal detail that isn't even public.
| It's totally irrelevant.
| linspace wrote:
| A simple line of reasoning, like the Earth being flat.
| Big companies love it because it's the perfect way of
| avoiding competition, leveraging existing monopolies to
| build new ones, locking customers, using assimetry of
| information to hide true costs from them, etc... It has
| plenty of regulation against it, although it is not truly
| enforced thanks to deep pockets.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| It's a line of reasoning that follows the original
| intended definition of liberty. Anything I should be free
| to do in my basement and sell to my neighbours I should
| be free to do at massive scale. There's no avoiding
| competition. If someone out there innovates the next
| generation of personal computing, they will eat Apple's
| lunch, just like Apple ate RIM's.
| clusterfish wrote:
| That's just ideological propaganda that ignores the last
| 200 years of economic theory and observations.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| It's ideological because this whole idea of forcing terms
| onto Apple to open it's store is basically socializing
| parts of Apple infrastructure and parts of its workforce.
| To me this is totally unacceptable. Apple's innovation
| has advanced the state of the art a great deal. This
| company literally invented the concepts that we're now
| seeking to rob it of. Why can't we just be grateful that
| the free market was able to produce such a marvel, be
| glad for the nice devices we all carry around, and leave
| the org and its investors well enough alone?
|
| Also which economic theory am I ignoring? Didn't Apple
| itself enter the smartphone market by massively
| disrupting the existing players and forcing the entire
| industry to play catchup for over a decade? Didn't they
| do this without any regulatory intervention to weaken the
| market incumbents at the time? Why can't we expect that
| the next smartphone-level innovation to personal
| computing will come without similar intervention on our
| parts?
| 8note wrote:
| Once it's in the hands of the user, they have the freedom
| to make it work with whatever bread they want
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Well, sure, and you can _try_ to and some even succeed in
| jailbreaking their iOS devices. That doesn 't mean that
| Apple should be anything but hostile to such attempts.
| schmorptron wrote:
| We've reached the first point in recent history where
| we're really seeing products with actively anti-user
| features at scale. Coffe machines that only take
| proprietary coffe pods, printers that have DRM on ink
| cartriges, and more. These are all on a much smaller
| scale than a computing device that we use for a
| significant portion of our lives, both for management and
| entertainment.
|
| Another comparison would be a car that can only drive to
| restaurants that agreed to give the car company 30% per
| customer that arrives in one of their cars, and there
| have to be fences around it to make sure you're not
| walking to the restaurant next door by foot.
|
| I'm not sure I agree with "I should be able to sell
| anything with any anti-features I want" anymore to a
| certain extent, since it does affect such a large part of
| our lives, as general computing machines.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Arrangements that subsidize a large purchase (printer,
| paper towel dispenser, coffee maker, razor, smartphone,
| tractor, etc.) by locking the purchaser into an
| exclusivity agreement for consumables from the same
| company (ink, paper towels, coffee pods, razor blades,
| smartphone apps, tractor maintenance, etc.) are as old as
| these have been feasible. This innovation tremendously
| benefits both parties. I'm not sure why you'd dispense
| with it really.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| > On the other hand, consoles' hardware is nearly always
| subsidized by expected future software royalties
|
| Legally that has no bearing on the matter though.
| 30204604 wrote:
| >Apple makes a lot of profit just by selling the hardware
| alone.
|
| Do you suppose that means Nintendo, which has sometimes
| turned a profit on their consoles, should have an open
| system? Interesting take, and I wonder what, in your mind,
| the threshold is for "makes a lot of profit." I.e., if
| Apple cut the price of their devices to make as much profit
| as Nintendo, would they get a pass?
| schmorptron wrote:
| To be honest, I haven't thought about that much, and
| don't have the mental capacity right now to really think
| about the answer. It's a good point.
|
| On the spot though I'd say that that would make Nintendo
| the ones that should open up their system in my mind
| though, provided they are making a sizeable (10%
| including stuff like R&D over the span of a few years)
| profit.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| I'm not sure that Google Korea blog post supports your
| assertion. It says:
|
| "97% of developers don't sell digital content and are not
| subject to any service fee for having their apps displayed in
| the Play Store or for any of the services listed"
|
| And it mostly talks about fees going down.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >Imagine if in the past Apple would have had to pay 30% of
| their gross to Microsoft in order to be allowed to run their
| software on Windows.
|
| Sure, instead Best Buy would record a 22% gross margin for
| selling the software on a CD [0] (I know it's not a perfect
| example since Best Buy sells a lot of things, but Software was
| 22% of sales in the linked period)
|
| [0]https://s2.q4cdn.com/785564492/files/doc_financials/2006/bby
| ...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| If Apple lists an app on the app store and it does not sell,
| how much money does Apple lose?
| RC_ITR wrote:
| As much as Best Buy did, since they required vendors to
| reimburse them for markdowns and unsold investory.
|
| We receive vendor allowances for various programs,
| primarily volume incentives and reimbursements for specific
| costs such as markdowns, margin protection, advertising and
| sales incentives. Vendor allowances provided as a
| reimbursement of specific, incremental and identifiable
| costs incurred to promote a vendor's products are included
| as an expense reduction when the cost is incurred. All
| other vendor allowances, including vendor allowances
| received in excess of our cost to promote a vendor's
| product, are initially deferred and recorded as a reduction
| of merchandise inventories.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Why does Best Buy require vendors to reimburse them for
| markdowns and unsold inventory? Why doesn't Apple do the
| same?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| So you're argument is that an online digital store justifies
| a higher fee (30% vs 22%) even though it's significantly
| _less expensive_ for Apple to run a digital store than it is
| for Best Buy to operate physical retail stores?
|
| If anything, that's just evidence that Apple is grossing
| abusing its market position.
| nappy wrote:
| Right, but there are at least many competitors to Best Buy
| all competing for your business, driving down margins.
| Running physical stores is costly. If Apple allowed competing
| digital stores, I would expect margins would be less than
| 30%, and even less than 22%, and the value would end up in
| consumer and developer's pockets.
| tssva wrote:
| Google allows competing stores but this isn't the case.
| withinboredom wrote:
| If Best Buy doesn't sell the software, they lose money,
| because A. They already paid the developer for it. B. It
| takes up space that could be used to sell something else. If
| Best Buy wants to sell it at a discount, it doesn't affect
| the developer, they were already paid by Best Buy.
|
| With Apple, its the opposite. If Apple sells something at a
| discount, the developer suffers (or Apple has to pay the
| difference in some countries). If it doesn't sell, no one
| gets any cash. Apple has no incentive to market something
| and/or move inventory. Apple has only the incentive to market
| things that you spend money on vs. Best Buy that has to take
| a risk on something by spending money to buy it from the
| publisher first.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| We receive vendor allowances for various programs,
| primarily volume incentives and reimbursements for specific
| costs such as markdowns, margin protection, advertising and
| sales incentives. Vendor allowances provided as a
| reimbursement of specific, incremental and identifiable
| costs incurred to promote a vendor's products are included
| as an expense reduction when the cost is incurred. All
| other vendor allowances, including vendor allowances
| received in excess of our cost to promote a vendor's
| product, are initially deferred and recorded as a reduction
| of merchandise inventories.
| jurassic wrote:
| By the same logic BestBuy, Verizon, and other hardware
| retailers should get a cut of Apple's revenue.
| Razengan wrote:
| TYL that they do.
| bdowling wrote:
| > By the same logic BestBuy, Verizon, and other hardware
| retailers should get a cut of Apple's revenue.
|
| Best Buy, Verizon, and other hardware retailers buy Apple
| products at a discount and sell them for retail price. So, in
| a way they _do_ get a cut of the revenue that Apple would
| make when Apple sells products at Apple 's retail stores.
| wccrawford wrote:
| When Develop X sells IAP for their app, Apple demands a
| cut. Apple didn't ship that IAP or have anything to do with
| it.
|
| When Apple collects their cut from an app, they don't pass
| any portion of that on to Best Buy, who sold that device.
|
| Apple insists that Developer X wouldn't have made that
| profit without Apple's support, and they're due that cut.
| By that same logic, Best Buy is due a portion of that
| because they enabled Apple to make that money in the first
| place.
|
| It's bonkers, which is why everyone's mind rejects that
| Best Buy would be entitled to anything of the sort. But
| Apple has managed to sell that line somehow.
| selectodude wrote:
| Wholesale pricing for brick and mortar is usually about 50
| percent of MSRP.
| somethoughts wrote:
| I think Apple would actually have more of a case if they
| charged different rates for different types of apps based on
| technical reasons (i.e. Basics - web/touch/image/audio, video
| media, gaming/ARKit):
|
| 1.) web view/touch/audio streaming app - 10%
|
| 2.) accelerated web view/SDvideo app - 15%
|
| 3.) HDvideo H.264 app - 20%
|
| 4.) 3D Graphics/ARKit SDK app - 30%
|
| 3D and ARKit which are pushing the boundaries of the silicon
| probably do have associated R&D costs as well as silicon COGS
| costs that perhaps do need to be recouped in a manner similar
| to gaming console SW licensing agreements (i.e. Xbox, PS,
| Nintendo royalty payments).
|
| In the court of public opinion it would also minimize the
| effectiveness of "think of the solo iOS dev" type scenarios
| that the big guys such as Epic, etc. like to hide behind.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wonder if that would run into net neutrality-type issues,
| but setting different rates is definitely a novel way of
| looking at things. Charging higher rates for publishers of
| larger app binaries would also make sense. Certainly tech
| giants such as Facebook and Uber who have bloated app sizes
| could pay the extra expense for the hosting and so forth.
| Gorbzel wrote:
| > I wonder if that would run into net neutrality-type
| issues
|
| It absolutely would. Who is Apple or anyone on HN to tell
| one developer that their app is more important/costly/uses
| higher priority SDKs than another?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Well, maybe app binary sizes are an objective metric.
| Apple could even raise the existing cap and give Uber a
| bit more room to breathe, while charging them for the
| inevitable expansion of their app.
| somethoughts wrote:
| I think the analogy would be more equivalent to AWS.
| There are different costs associated with using the
| various SDKs (i.e. Lightsail, EC2, S3, SageMaker).
|
| I'd also say the more it can be defined in terms of
| technical reasons the better.
|
| There are R&D costs to maintaining a cutting edge,
| industry leading 3D Graphics SDK for iOS that the primary
| users beneficiaries of said library (i.e. Epic, Xbox)
| should contribute to.
|
| This would require a bit of mindshift and context.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| The original app store on iOS was saurik's Cydia. App Store
| wasn't even on iPhone 2G at launch.
|
| Cydia is free and open source. Hopefully Jay can clarify the
| commission for paid apps on Cydia, but something tells me it
| isn't 27%.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Game developers do just that on Microsoft's consoles...
| paulpan wrote:
| I think Apple's stubbornness at keeping their commission ~30%
| underscores how critical that percentage is to their bottom
| line profitability - both present and future. "Services" is
| foundational to Tim Cook's vision to continue to grow the
| company and increase its revenue streams.
|
| Based on latest Q4 earnings, Services is one of the highest
| growth segment of Apple at 25% YoY (others being Mac at 25%,
| Other Products at 13%). As the clamor for M1-based Macs
| subsides, monetizing its existing 500M+ users is the only major
| revenue-growth area. But what happens if their commission rate
| is cut in half to 15%? Apple doesn't break out the specific App
| Store revenue amount or percentage but it must be quite
| significant.
|
| Hence they're willing to risk these continued lawsuits and
| regulatory backlash. The day that Services division no longer
| reports 20%+ YoY growth could well be one when Apple stock
| faces the reckoning like FB/Meta.
| gilgoomesh wrote:
| Please don't attack services in general. There's nothing
| wrong with selling your _OWN_ services.
|
| Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade are examples of good services
| where Apple are commissioning and paying content producers.
| The services are good value, good quality and have
| competition on a level playing field (e.g. Netflix directly
| compete against both and don't have to pay a commission to
| Apple despite both their games and video services appearing
| on the App Store).
|
| Other services from Apple like cloud storage, Apple News and
| Apple Music are more debatable value but they have
| competition so if you don't like them, use something else.
|
| The App Store is different because you don't have an
| alternative. It is a parasitic system where where 70% of
| revenue (not a guess, that's the real number) comes from loot
| box grifting in games and there's literally no alternative to
| Apple's 30% tax. It is a poison chalice from top to bottom.
|
| It comes down to the monopoly.
| polyomino wrote:
| How long until they sell phones at a loss?
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Ironically, this 30% and the pivot to "Service" is why iOS
| devices get updates after 3 years while Android phones just
| become paperweights.
|
| Android OEM are incentivized to sell as many phones as they
| can. They only make money on new hardware. Apple on the other
| hand still makes money on older hardware as long as the user
| still buy from the ecosystem. So it makes sense for them to
| keep the products working longer.
| rogerbinns wrote:
| Apple's approach is even simpler from a technical point of
| view. The oldest supported iPhone is the second generation
| of 64 bit processor. There were almost certainly problems
| with the first generation (of anything). The oldest
| supported Watch was the first with (a now mature) 64 bit
| processor. They made it mandatory for apps in the store to
| be 64 bit.
|
| Android meanwhile supports 32 and 64 bit, multiple
| instruction sets, multiple (incompatible) SOCs etc. That is
| a lot more challenging.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| >The oldest supported iPhone is the second generation of
| 64 bit processor. There were almost certainly problems
| with the first generation (of anything)
|
| The iPhone with the oldest version of a 64 bit processor
| (the A7 used in the 2013 iPhone 5s) fell out of support
| after six years because it no longer had enough RAM for
| the new version of the OS.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| >Ironically, this 30% and the pivot to "Service" is why iOS
| devices get updates after 3 years while Android phones just
| become paperweights.
|
| Apple's support window advantage long predates their
| services initiative.
|
| Every flagship iPhone since the iPhone 4s in 2011 has
| gotten at least five years of OS and security updates.
|
| If you count years where you only get a security update,
| but not an OS update the way the Android ecosystem does,
| they have devices that have gotten eight years of support.
| cmelbye wrote:
| App Store has been a >$1B business for at least a decade.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| If it's just a question of revenue, Google can certainly
| afford to update it's Pixel devices for more than three
| years. Heck, they can afford to offer customer service
| and technical support hotlines the way Apple does as
| well.
|
| However, the claim made was that Apple only started
| offering a longer update period after they started
| calling out service growth. This simply isn't true.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| They can except... They don't control the SoC! Qualcomm
| decides if a SoC gets to boot a newer Android or not. And
| it's in Qualcomm's interest to sell more chips, since
| they get no revenues post sales; only maintenance costs.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| That claim doesn't hold water. If people doing unpaid
| community support can produce custom ROMs for older
| devices that are no longer supported, Google can support
| older devices too.
|
| Not to mention the ability of any company to make demands
| of their suppliers. If Google can demand device makers
| not use a fork of Android, they can demand suppliers
| offer support for their products.
|
| Google simply doesn't care, because the customers they
| care about are the advertisers, not device purchasers.
| flerchin wrote:
| Google figured out the game better than that. After a few
| years there's no ongoing costs for those devices, but they
| still take their vig if users continue to use them.
| paulpan wrote:
| Great point. Apple is lauded for their 5-6 year of iOS
| updates but it's not an altruistic move - the updates
| enable users to keep using their apps/services.
|
| Also there's an upper-bound on price for an iPhone Apple is
| able to charge and if I can speculate, the "Pro" lineup
| does not outsell the "base" iPhone significantly. For one,
| there isn't enough product differentiation for an average
| consumer to pay the $300/40% price premium.
|
| So in the world of 3-4 year iPhone cycles, keeping up the
| walled garden and monetizing those within is the surest
| path to revenue growth.
| geodel wrote:
| > but it's not an altruistic move - the updates enable
| users to keep using their apps/services.
|
| What is altruistic in this world? Government welfare?
| parental love? I don't know of anything that is truly
| altruistic.
| Joeri wrote:
| So Apple has around one billion customers. When you look at
| global income distributions there are not that many more
| people that actually have enough income to afford their
| products. Practically speaking while they may grow their
| customer base a bit further, they cannot double it without
| making far cheaper products or the world's population
| becoming a lot more equally distributed income-wise.
|
| The consequence of this is that they have to lean into
| inequality: get their existing high income customers to pay
| them more money. This is why services are such a good
| strategy and they are so unwilling to give up on that
| revenue, and it is also why they are planning to launch very
| expensive (and therefore high profit) new product categories
| like vr goggles and cars targeted at their existing customer
| base.
|
| Apple is so ridiculously big that it is fun to map them back
| onto the world economy. Their yearly revenue is 0.4% of the
| world economy. Their market cap is 0.6% of global wealth. But
| that does present a real challenge to Tim Cook to keep
| growing. If apple doubles again they will be 1% of the world
| economy. Does that make sense for what amounts to a luxury
| brand?
| nicoburns wrote:
| > The consequence of this is that they have to lean into
| inequality
|
| They don't _have_ to do this at all. They _could_ decide
| that they have 1 billion customers which is plenty and
| stick with that.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And the problem for them is as they shed the luxury brand
| and become mass market general computing... the antitrust
| regulations will just keep accumulating, increasing the
| pressure. A vicious cycle.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Maybe they should provide some actual services instead of
| just trying to collect a 30% tax on everything that happens
| on a iPhone.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > The day that Services division no longer reports 20%+ YoY
| growth could well be one when Apple stock faces the reckoning
| like FB/Meta.
|
| Is that what happens to a piece of software after it has
| eaten the world?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Yes, ironically, a piece of software that becomes used by
| everybody, or at least everyone it ever might be used by,
| becomes worthless in the eyes of investors, because merely
| tracking with population growth would be seen as a sign of
| a dying business. This leads to self destructive behaviors
| as the product tries to monetize itself in unpleasant ways
| and expand into non-core competencies. Dropbox is an often
| sited example.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The evolution of a tech company into a utilities company.
| infogulch wrote:
| What if you planned a complete software product lifecycle
| and create a pool of talented teams / organizational
| modes that can adopt stewardship of the software at
| various life stages with the goal to smoothly transition
| between stages without harming users or workers?
|
| Lets say it looks like this for the sake of argument:
| stage - organizational mode - goals
| Idea / Proof of Concept - individual or team - prove the
| idea out Growth Software Product - startup -
| carve a space for the product, grow its useful user base
| to a target number, transition to Utility Utility
| Software Product - utility - maintain the project and
| optimize costs and delivered value, transition back up to
| Growth or down to Archived Archived Software
| Product - library / anthropology - tell the story of the
| project, minimize costs, make it available to a wide
| audience, organize its community, transition back up to
| Utility
|
| The idea is to have a pool of teams and organization
| templates where you aim to "pass the baton" between modes
| depending on the lifecycle stage of the software, and
| individual teams and orgs are rewarded based on how they
| meet their objectives including delivering a seamless
| transition to the next stage.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| That's very well thought out. Sadly feels overly
| aspirational when just "keeping the lights on" is often
| underrated and neglected in many companies. Maybe
| eventually a good business will have the foresight to
| think of their organization in terms of different
| lifecycle stages.
| infogulch wrote:
| Thanks. I agree that today's profit-oriented
| organizations are generally unsuited to act out this kind
| of product-centric methodology. Maybe future nonprofits
| or DAOs or something could pull it off.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| What about Facebook. They have over 2 _billion_ accounts
| supposedly and Wall Street still invests in them
| (ignoring this past week).
| disillusioned wrote:
| > (ignoring this past week)
|
| How can you ignore this past week when this past week is
| _directly related_ to their account growth falling off a
| cliff because of the exact over-saturation of the market
| we're discussing here?
| rhizome wrote:
| > _merely tracking with population growth would be seen
| as a sign of a dying business_
|
| If this isn't a perversion within capitalism I don't know
| what is. Heck, a market failure of capitalism itself.
|
| "There's nothing worse than making something everybody
| uses."
| mminer237 wrote:
| Yes, they're not valued on making $10 billion per year.
| That P/E means it would take 24 years to make your money
| back. They're valued so highly because they're growing and
| it's expected that in ten years, it'll $30 billion per
| year, cutting your return time. If growth ends, then this
| overvaluation corrects itself.
| jbay808 wrote:
| 24 years to earn your money back works out to a 2.9%
| annual rate of return, which is a little bit above both
| the 20 and 30 year treasury yields (~2.23%), reflecting a
| small but positive risk premium for a big blue-chip
| company that is generally seen as a low-risk investment.
|
| This looks like another example of how low interest rates
| cause stock valuations to run up until their long-term
| yields end up only slightly higher than bond yields.
| Investors expecting that rapid growth to continue might
| be disappointed.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Zero-Interest rate policy explains the world
|
| https://www.readmargins.com/p/zirp-explains-the-world
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| I honestly prefer to use Apple payments and Apple "Hide My
| Email" as I'm sure a non-trivial number of users do. If they
| could just refocus on making developers prioritize that flow
| for users over outside payment systems (e.g. create a flow
| requiring users to agree to disclose their private
| information to the app maker and third parties in order to
| use an outside payment system) then they'd keep most of their
| customers in the Apple ecosystem and keep the payment
| processing.
|
| The fact they are trying to keep a stranglehold on this
| revenue seems penny wise and dollar foolish. Clearly
| regulators are gunning for them and it's not long before they
| lose this and don't get to set the standard.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > I honestly prefer to use Apple payments and Apple "Hide
| My Email" as I'm sure a non-trivial number of users do. If
| they could just refocus on making developers prioritize
| that flow for users over outside payment systems (e.g.
| create a flow requiring users to agree to disclose their
| private information to the app maker and third parties in
| order to use an outside payment system) then they'd keep
| most of their customers in the Apple ecosystem and keep the
| payment processing.
|
| It's pretty good stuff.
|
| But they seem to be admitting that the payment processing
| is only worth a 3% cut. And you wouldn't charge apps for
| the email hiding.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| They're charging the apps for distribution, which is a
| lot of infrastructure and a lot of human-driven process
| that doesn't come for free. There are good platform
| reasons for not allowing alternate distribution methods.
|
| There are no wholesale prices for digital goods so they
| get tacked on as fees. All Apple is really doing is
| asking developers to give their customers an all-in price
| that they'll display. You as a developer are free to
| raise your prices 30% on iOS, and many in fact do.
|
| Every segment of every market does not need to be
| relentlessly competitive. Apple's App Store rules are
| obvious, and if you don't like them, you're free not to
| develop for their platform (which itself is the product
| they sell to their consumers; not your app and of which
| the iPhone is only one component).
|
| You are not entitled to be profitable any way you want;
| you have to find a niche in the market that's profitable
| and if you can't make money on iOS, the market solution
| is to just do something else. Countries -- especially
| relatively small ones -- that try to legislate around
| this are just as likely to be seen as more trouble for
| Apple than they're worth to have an official presence in.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| If Apple had confidence in the superiority of their service
| they would not be afraid of someone undercutting them.
| [deleted]
| softwarebeware wrote:
| I think 30% is only unreasonable if apps in their ecosystem
| start to leave. Honestly, when the marketplace votes by staying
| on the platform at 30%, then it doesn't matter how ridiculous
| it seems to some of us, they're going to keep doing it.
| threeseed wrote:
| It's 15% for developers making up to $1m a year.
|
| That's pretty reasonable compared to other distribution
| channels.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| There's no place to leave to.
|
| Or if you mean developers abandoning support for iOS and Mac,
| then yes, that is precisely what we did.
| Razengan wrote:
| How many of your users left you?
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| They are doing everything they think they can get away with. I
| agree that ethics and morale should factor into corporate
| decision making, but at this level I'd argue that corporate
| decision making is purely an optimization game between profits
| over various horizons.
|
| If they think this maximizes their payoff, they'll do it. I'm
| 100% certain that they realize that this may/will invite
| further lawsuits and have factored this into their
| calculations.
| thathndude wrote:
| Precisely. Let them reap what they plant.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Apples?
| Hokusai wrote:
| Or not. Short term bonuses are key, achieving quarter goals
| is extremely important, that the company crashes and burns in
| 10 years may be someone else problem.
|
| Big corporations are giants with clay feet. From inside one
| can see the real humans behind the curtains.
|
| So, you could be right and its a long term strategy, but it's
| also possible that they are just thinking about their next
| bonus.
| echelon wrote:
| > Imagine if in the past Apple would have had to pay 30% of
| their gross to Microsoft in order to be allowed to run their
| software on Windows.
|
| iPod wouldn't have happened and Apple wouldn't exist today.
| Apple relied on the fact that most of its customers used
| Windows and that they got to transact for free on the platform.
| Heck, they didn't even need Microsoft's approval to offer
| iTunes downloads.
|
| Think about all of the small businesses and startups that are
| getting snuffed out today by Apple's aggressive over-
| harvesting.
|
| Some non-trivial percentage of Apple's $3T market cap owes
| itself to a system of feudalism and mafia-style tactics rather
| than innovation and product sales. Imagine of those dollars
| were instead represented just about anywhere else.
| blihp wrote:
| When they eventually lose a major lawsuit, any 'record setting'
| settlement or judgement is likely to be a tiny fraction of the
| profits they were able to reap in over a decade of bad
| behavior. Name a single multinational company in the last 20
| years where the consequences were more than a fraction of the
| profit they made from their bad behavior.
| [deleted]
| ROTMetro wrote:
| You just made Apple's point though. The Microsoft ecosystem of
| flexibility introduced so much variation that lots of people
| moved to Apple BECAUSE of it's enforced uniformity. Microsoft's
| ecosystem of flexibility allowed their system to be abused and
| exploited by bad actors more easily resulting in people MOVING
| to Apple to get away from this. If you want flexibility,
| develop for Android or Windows. You don't have a right to have
| access to people who moved to Apple for the express purpose of
| living in a managed ecosystem that just worked and simplified
| their lives. Everyone is talking about the developer's rights
| but no one is talking about end users, many of whom choose
| Apple for the very reason this is trying to negate, even if
| they couldn't articulate it as such.
| [deleted]
| spideymans wrote:
| You're not wrong, it what does this have to do with App Store
| commissions? I (an end user) would be quite happy to see iOS
| remain a restricted environment for developers, while also
| lowering App Store commissions, such that more business
| models will be competitive on iOS.
| passivate wrote:
| There is absolutely nothing is preventing Apple from creating
| an easy to use 'checkout' process that pretty much every
| single e-commerce websites have. Developers can choose to
| integrate with Apple payments, pay pal, square or whoever.
| Its no different than Amazon. Users can check a payment
| processor as a default and never be bothered. In my opinion,
| this is simply Apple being a bully, for commercial reasons,
| not technical, or UX ones.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > many of whom choose Apple for the very reason this is
| trying to negate
|
| I already use apps in iOs that bypass the store to transfer
| money, pay for train tickets, parking, etc. Many people in
| Sweden likes Swish and probably will be ok with being able to
| choose it for all their transactions.
|
| I could be wrong, but I don't think that there is data to
| support the opposite either.
| oaiey wrote:
| The industry could build platforms which are both safe and
| flexible. They just do not want it. Some for keeping their
| revenue other for sticking to backward compatibility
| anm89 wrote:
| They have armies of economists, lawyers, and accountants. Do
| you really think that they are naive and you simply understand
| the situation better than them or do you think it's possible
| that they've run the numbers?
| readams wrote:
| They have provided a convenient breakdown for their invoices:
|
| 3% payment processing
|
| 27% monopoly rent
| threeseed wrote:
| For developers making up to $1m a year:
|
| 3% payment processing
|
| 12% cost of channel
| sfe22 wrote:
| Other payments processors charge 30c + 3%, so it would be
| interesting to see how it would work here for smaller
| payments
| IncRnd wrote:
| It's pretty straightforward, assuming that you have the
| standard charge amount correct. (I don't know)
|
| Between the two approaches, the costs break even when 30c =
| .27*cost.
|
| Apple's 27% exceeds the 30c whenver the purchase costs less
| than $1.11. 27% of .99 is 26.73c.
|
| So, this is a strong case Apple has calculated the other
| processor's charges for all app sales of .99 or less. It
| seems they are trying to charge more than normal processors
| for all micro-transactions.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| 5c + 5% is also standard for smaller payments.
| Razengan wrote:
| > _Apple should focus on selling hardware and be happy to
| facilitate those payments that people - and application
| developers - voluntarily process through their system._
|
| Why don't you apply that to the Xbox, PlayStation, etc.?
|
| > _All this stupid taxation of other peoples ' businesses_
|
| Exactly. Stop trying to overthrow Apple from the ecosystem they
| built.
| keleftheriou wrote:
| Steve Troughton-Smith on Twitter[1]:
|
| > Absolutely vile. This says everything about @tim_cook's Apple
| and what it thinks of developers. I hope the company gets exactly
| what it deserves. Everybody on their executive team should be
| ashamed, and some of them should not be here when it's all over.
| We all see you.
|
| > We've been told that if Apple ever asked its employees to
| betray their principles, they'd leave. In a similar vein,
| everybody, top to bottom, involved in planning, editing,
| implementation of everything in this document should leave Apple.
| You betrayed us.
|
| 1:
| https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/14895589519056691...
| viktorcode wrote:
| Pretty strong word, betrayal.
|
| Someone on 9to5 Mac suggested Steve to put his money where his
| mouth is, i.e. pull his own software from App Store, before
| demanding from Apple employees that they leave the company. I
| think that's a good advice.
| irskep wrote:
| So he should destroy his business? Seems like extremely
| terrible advice.
| dagmx wrote:
| Their second tweet doesn't make sense. How does his feeling of
| betrayal mean that the employees betrayed their principles and
| should therefore leave?
|
| That's a projection of his own belief in the way it should work
| onto the beliefs of thousands of employees who may not share
| his thoughts on the matter.
| traveler01 wrote:
| I got an iPhone in August. Their I've never seen such a crappy
| and expensive AppStore before and I'm a longtime Android user.
|
| And this won't improve it, apps are very expensive for they do,
| phone is pretty much a closed up black box which apparently is
| easily hackable if you manage to find the security holes.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Good thing iPhone holds resale value for longer than an Android
| phone, so you can just ditch it.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I don't see any difference in prices between android and iOS.
| They are both expensive. But the quality of apps on android is
| definitely lower.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I hope that the Dutch demand a breakdown on that commission to
| see where it goes, if it's not just a number that they pulled out
| of their ass.
|
| Surely they wouldn't put hosting and approval processes there if
| free apps don't pay separately for those?
| jacquesm wrote:
| It will be smacked down hard is my prediction, because clearly
| Apple is trying to argue that they have an innate right to
| other parties' business income. It's the Mafia model: you have
| a partner in the business who wants a sizeable chunk of your
| gross without doing anything for it.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Of course they don't, those businesses are free to develop
| their own phones and not pay Apple at all.
|
| Now maybe 15 percent is a more reasonable price, but Apple
| developed the phone, apple developed the SDK, apple made it
| available to everybody, heck Apple even developed the
| computer language used.
|
| This is all available for anybody for a fixed percentage,
| which means that it scales pretty well with how much you make
| and it cost you nothing more than 100 dollars a year if you
| don't charge people.
| Spivak wrote:
| This comment section is rich coming from a group that does
| thing like massively charge more for "enterprise plans"
| that are are basically nothing except SSO. You charge based
| on how much the person on the other side wants your stuff,
| not how much it costs to provide it. And businesses moving
| a lot of product on iOS definitely want it more.
| myspy wrote:
| But when you use the store, you need to pay for using and
| maintaining the store, which is the other 27%. Why would you
| expect to upload apps in the store and let them be downloaded
| for free?
| 7steps2much wrote:
| You need to pay 99$/Year for a developer account though.
| That's very much not "for free"
|
| I would argue that 99.9% of apps on the app store ever get
| to the point where 99$ a year is even remotely the cost
| incurred by Apple.
| Spivak wrote:
| This makes no sense, say apple drops the $99 developer
| fee. The 30% commission is suddenly justified?
| sofixa wrote:
| You pay for it via the developer account. Isn't that what
| it is for?
| Hamuko wrote:
| No developer can upload anything to the App Store for free.
| You need to pay $99/year for access.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Because that is the model that Apple has chosen for. If the
| downloads can be priced or can be free that is Apple's
| choice. Then they should raise the minimum price for
| distribution.
|
| Distribution is a one-time expense, and it does not entitle
| you to a 30% cut of services that use Apps as endpoints.
| It's a mob move, taxation because you are powerful enough
| to harm another business, not because you have contributed
| to the business.
| maccard wrote:
| > Distribution is a one-time expense
|
| No, it's not. Distribution requires ongoing storage and
| bandwidth costs.
|
| > It's a mob move, taxation because you are powerful
| enough to harm another business, not because you have
| contributed to the business.
|
| This is just flaming. Apple absolutely have contributed
| to the business. They provide hosting, storage,
| versioning, a marketplace, storefront reviews, developer
| tools, various high-availability services (auth being one
| of them). We can argue all day how much that is worth,
| but it is definitely worth some number greater than 0,
| otherwise people would just ignore the platforms.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Explain please how distribution is tied in to the unknown
| price point at which the other company proceeds to do
| business?
|
| Or are you arguing that the 30% cut is used to subsidize
| the remainder of the free apps?
|
| You really should bone up on anti-competitive behavior
| before accusing people of flaming.
|
| People are forced into this model, the alternatives have
| been degraded to the point that they no longer function
| for all intents and purposes you _have_ to distribute
| your app through Apple.
| maccard wrote:
| This is a much more reasonable comment than your original
| coment.
|
| > Explain please how distribution is tied in to the
| unknown price point at which the other company proceeds
| to do business?
|
| This is not what you said, you said it was a one time
| expense. Those two statements are not the same.
|
| > Or are you arguing that the 30% cut is used to
| subsidize the remainder of the free apps?
|
| You're putting words in my mouth here. I'm not arguing
| the 30% cut is used to subsidise the remainder of the
| apps, I'm arguing that free apps still have distribution
| costs.
|
| > You really should bone up on anti-competitive behavior
| before accusing people of flaming.
|
| I stand by my accusation of flaming - just becasue you
| have a point doesn't mean it couldn't be made in a better
| way.
|
| > People are forced into this model, the alternatives
| have been degraded to the point that they no longer
| function for all intents and purposes you have to
| distribute your app through Apple.
|
| That I don't disagree with one bit, and if your initial
| comment had said that rather than " It's a mob move,
| taxation because you are powerful enough to harm another
| business, not because you have contributed to the
| business." I wouldn't have commented on it.
| viktorcode wrote:
| You expect there should be no profit, and the whole commission
| therefore must cover some costs? That was the line of argument
| of Epic in court; it didn't go well.
| xuki wrote:
| Apple ran out of people to sell iPhone to and they're turning
| into a service company to keep the stock price flowing. Infinity
| growth is cancer.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Last quarter results say they didn't.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| See also them exempting themselves from the cross-app tracking
| thing.
|
| Personally, I predict that they'll need to either give up on
| service revenue growth, or roll back on these changes.
|
| This will occur as the next big f2p games will find it much,
| much harder to monetise profitably without being able to
| measure/optimise at a user level.
|
| It'll be interesting to see what happens here.
| ksec wrote:
| >Personally, I predict that they'll need to either give up on
| service revenue growth, or roll back on these changes.
|
| There is no need to give up on service revenue. Before 2016,
| my expectation of future Apple Services was growth from
| AppleCare and iCloud. Today, Apple put $10 per devices to
| services revenue for OS, Map and other Software. Apple could
| hike the price and move those to services. For example iPhone
| price hike but with 2 years AppleCare by default.
|
| Nearly 80% of App Store revenue are from Gaming. There is no
| reason why Apple cant separate Game into a different Store
| and continue to charge 30% off it. That would have protected
| 80% of App Store revenue alone. EPIC wouldn't be happy, but I
| am sure most people couldn't care less. Gaming are not the
| fabric of our modern society ( I am sure there will be people
| who disagree ).
|
| Then it is the Apps and Services. Which is not only just a
| revenue problem but a power play problem. Why does Apple get
| to dictate which business it is allowed on their platform
| when it holds 60%+ of usage in US / UK market. I have an app
| for my restaurant, but Apple refuse to host it. While QSR
| next door get to use Apps and customer are flying in. Under
| which law does Apple gets to discriminate small business? May
| be that is fine by US standards, I can assure you this wont
| fly in EUR. And where are business and developers going to
| complain? And how is Apple responding? If you watch every
| speech, interview or answer Tim Cook gave, it is obvious he (
| representing Apple ) doesn't think they have a problem at
| all. And the biggest problem in the world is not
| understanding there is a problem.
|
| It is sad those who were on Steve Jobs side are all gone.
| Phil Schiller, Katie Cotton, Jony Ive, Scott Forstall, Bob
| Mansfield, Ron Johnson. And only Tim Cook and Eddy Cue left.
| There may be not of people with high intellect at Apple, but
| very little with intuition.
|
| "Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than
| intellect, in my opinion," - Steve Jobs
| Apocryphon wrote:
| You're forgetting Craig Federighi!
|
| One wonders if he's in line for succession after Cook. And
| how he'd do in the captain's seat.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > Nearly 80% of App Store revenue are from Gaming. There is
| no reason why Apple cant separate Game into a different
| Store and continue to charge 30% off it. That would have
| protected 80% of App Store revenue alone. EPIC wouldn't be
| happy, but I am sure most people couldn't care less. Gaming
| are not the fabric of our modern society ( I am sure there
| will be people who disagree ).
|
| Yes, exactly. And how do those games monetise?
|
| They target a small number of people who spend absurd
| amounts of money on in-game purchases. FB (and Google, but
| that's not relevant on iOS) have tools that allow a
| marketer to optimise towards this event. If you can't
| measure which people actually purchased, it gets much more
| expensive to spend loads of money acquiring users on iOS
| (relative to Android).
|
| Therefore, while Apple are fine now, I suspect that they'll
| see far less growth from in-app purchases from games in the
| future, which will hold back their services revenue.
|
| Hence my comment, they'll either roll this back or give up
| on service revenue growth.
|
| It doesn't really matter to me (no longer in the industry)
| but it'll be interesting to see what they choose.
| ksec wrote:
| Yes, I know Mobile Gaming is the reason why Internet ad
| revenue are up, it is pretty much a whole cycle where IAP
| gets money and these company use percentage of them for
| advertising, the cycle repeat until a point it dies and
| they will make another game using other IP.
|
| But do less effective ads necessary means less spending
| on Games? I am going to assume there will be other form
| of discovery. The whales will just go somewhere else and
| spend it. Or am I missing a link here somewhere?
|
| I do see you point of how service revenue and the game
| and ads are tied together. Probably need sometime to sit
| down and think deeply about it.
| dandanua wrote:
| > Infinity growth is cancer
|
| But every shareholder of any corporation wants exactly that.
| Moreover, Tesla proves this can be achieved largely on promises
| (look at the capitalization/revenue).
| Jyaif wrote:
| > Each month, developers will have to send a report to Apple that
| lists their sales. Apple will then send out invoices for its
| commission, that must be paid within 45 days.
|
| LOL!
|
| Apple has no way of knowing how many sales actually occurred in
| the app, so they have to trust the developers to report the
| correct number. How the tables have turned :-)
| dsnr wrote:
| They though about that too, they will provide an API, that the
| developer has to call before redirecting the user to the
| external payment provider. So they can approximate the amount
| of sales the app generates. It's in the article.
| 7steps2much wrote:
| Would be too bad if the developer just doesn't do that right?
| haar wrote:
| Apple review your apps before approving them onto the App
| Store.
|
| You can opt to not follow their rules, and they can opt to
| not approve your app.
| denni9th wrote:
| Unfortunately code that did that would probably not pass
| the App Store review process.
| post_break wrote:
| My app has a 90% bounce rate Apple, sorry!
| rosndo wrote:
| Fraud is a crime you can go to prison for.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Probably apps with low numbers of sales will be punished in
| rankings, with low numbers of sales it means your users don't
| really like you.
| grenoire wrote:
| Does that mean I can buy my app into the rankings by paying
| more in commission?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I mean maybe I am being cynical here, but it was implied
| that developers could just under-report their sales without
| negative effects, in order to fight that possibility I
| might suppose that Apple would increase positioning of apps
| in the Netherlands that reported high sales, under theory
| that they were 'better'.
| grenoire wrote:
| Apple is basically a local tax authority now. For the... Apple
| tax, y'know?
| brimble wrote:
| As a user, a huge part of their value proposition is that
| they act as a private regulator, to good effect.
|
| It's the libertarian dream of paying companies to be your
| private regulatory enforcement agency (see Friedman and
| others).
|
| Then they tax companies for access to their little haven of
| sanity.
|
| I'd prefer the government just regulate out all the plainly-
| bad behavior that goes on in the software industry, but
| lacking that... I prefer to retain this option.
|
| I wish their cut were lower but that they levy a "tax" makes
| a certain amount of sense, given the circumstances.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| s/local/global
| Longhanks wrote:
| Except you can always opt to not use, develop for or deploy
| onto Apple devices. Just use Android if you're uncomfortable.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Do you think that your approach to life would have made a
| better world than it is now? If we said like "Don't worry
| about companies throwing shit into the rivers, just buy
| bottled water", or "Don't worry about workers rights just
| find a better job", "Don't worry about purchases, just buy
| from a different company", like we need to make sure that
| the system can thrive, that small businesses can develop
| without being blood sucked, we are all at stake of making
| sure that the system as a whole can grow and not only the
| fruit company and its stakeholder, so no we don't have a
| choice of ignoring fruity shit, we need to make sure that
| what they can do is regulated to let every one work and
| fairly earn, I am fairly annoyed by this libertarian brain
| damage trying to make everyone reading more stupid, you
| want to let apple get away, then do that use apple and set
| up a direct debit so that they can keep exploiting you, for
| the rest of us with opposable thumb, we're going to try to
| make sure that regulators regulate
| sunderw wrote:
| And if I'm uncomfortable with Android, what should I use ?
| I have the choice between being abused by Apple, Google or
| having no apps because no one bothers developping apps for
| Linux phones.
| hexo wrote:
| Extortion practices.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It would benefit Apple if they had to compete with other payment
| processors. Competition sharpens the product.
| Traster wrote:
| This is great, because it serves as a basis for what Apple can be
| forced to reduce their commission to. What Apple has said here is
| "The cost of the payment processing is 3% and the rest is our
| commission", which obviously opens the door to legislators then
| saying "Well, you said the costs of payment processing is 3%,
| that's what we'll cap your commission at".
| kmlx wrote:
| this makes absolutely no sense.
|
| apple never said 30% is just payment processing. they claim the
| infra, the testers, the approval etc etc costs a lot. so now we
| know it's 27%. which is absolutely normal.
|
| should any app use their proprietary apis, without their
| explicit approval? of course not. the phone might be yours, but
| the code running on it a hard no.
|
| but at the end of the day it's all politics so i normally
| assume the worst: a worse overall end-user experience because
| some companies spent more on lobbying than others.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| > now we know it's 27%
|
| Bah, we most certainly don't.
|
| They pulled that number completely out of their ass, just
| like the previous 30%. The only rationale behind it is
| because they could get away with it.
| musicale wrote:
| > They pulled that number completely out of their ass, just
| like the previous 30%.
|
| As recently as 2019, 30% was pretty common:
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-
| steams-30-cut...
| 8note wrote:
| the testers and approval costs are per app though, not per
| transaction. the infrastructure is per download.
|
| what cost does apple incur per iap on somebody else's
| payments service?
| musicale wrote:
| Clearly the incremental platform fees of Apple, Nintendo,
| Sony, etc.) amortize both capital and operational expenses,
| and also enable those companies to make tons of money.
|
| The assumption that Apple only has to pay for
| infrastructure when people are downloading things is
| incorrect. Data centers still incur ongoing operations and
| maintenance costs even if they're fully paid for and
| nobody's downloading anything.
| olliej wrote:
| Yes, it shows that payment processing is 3%, and the remaining
| 27% has _nothing do to with payment processing_
|
| Why do people insist on acting like the platform commission is
| a payment processing fee? No one says that about the platform
| commissions by Xbox, Playstation, Twitch, Patreon, ...
| endisneigh wrote:
| Should all businesses be capping their fees to their costs?
|
| If so, then that implies no profit. If no profit, why bother?
| moonchrome wrote:
| Because it enables/sells the rest of their ecosystem and
| right now they are in a position where they are just rent
| seeking on their market position.
| gruez wrote:
| >they are just rent seeking on their market position.
|
| No, they're providing a service and charging for it, just
| like anyone else.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| What "service" are they providing? Not stopping you from
| using someone else's payment processor?
| PeterisP wrote:
| The big question here is why should Apple be entitled to any
| fee whatsoever if a user wants to buy something from a vendor
| without using Apple's payment infrastructure? Users should be
| free to transact directly with vendors without involving
| Apple if they don't want to involve Apple (which the court
| case approved) and if they aren't involving Apple, as in this
| case, a demand for a "commission" on non-Apple transactions
| is anticompetitive and should be prohibited by law.
| lolinder wrote:
| The fight over alternative payment methods is fraught with
| misunderstandings. Apple has _always_ stated their
| intention to collect the 30% regardless of what payment
| method you use, because as far as they 're concerned it's
| _not_ a payment processing fee. They view it as a platform
| fee that you pay for access to iOS, the App Store, and
| other services, and so far regulators and governments have
| agreed with them on that.
|
| What's changed here is that Apple has now set a number to
| the "payment processing" portion of their fee. This gives
| them a way to cave on alternative payments while still
| retaining the bulk of their profits.
| 13415 wrote:
| Not bothering would be the equivalent of the app store
| closing in this case, which would mean that iPhones would
| have to be open. So that would be the ideal outcome (except
| for Apple).
| Guest42 wrote:
| It's rather tiresome for people to alternate between general
| and specific in order to be argumentative as opposed to
| staying on topic and contributing to the issue at hand.
|
| No, the poster isn't implying that all businesses should be
| capping their fees. That's absurd. However, Apple is not all
| businesses and regulation is structured in a way that has a
| number of conditions. I for one am glad that the department
| of insurance makes my car insurance affordable and that when
| I purchase water it's not from a private equity firm.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > No, the poster isn't implying that all businesses should
| be calling their fees. That's absurd.
|
| That's literally what they said
|
| >> "Well, you said the costs of payment processing is 3%,
| that's what we'll cap your commission at".
| [deleted]
| yokoprime wrote:
| For payment solutions, yes. You don't see VISA charging 30%
| on top of each transaction.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Nothing is stopping you from just using a web app and
| collecting money with a cheaper method and not having an
| app on the Apple app store, though.
|
| If it's so bad, don't do it?
| clusterfish wrote:
| Nice whataboutism, except Mobile Safari is intentionally
| crippled to not support PWAs well.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Nobody said anything about PWAs. Your app can be a pure
| web app.
|
| If you don't want to do that then pay the fees. Simple as
| that.
| lolinder wrote:
| Apple has always argued that the 30% is not a payment
| processing fee. It's the App Store fee, which until today
| has _bundled_ their payment processing fee with fees to
| cover their other expenses (and make them a tidy profit).
|
| The argument over alternative payment methods has always
| struck me as odd for precisely this reason--throughout the
| Epic case Apple has made it clear that if they allowed
| alternative payment methods they would _still_ charge the
| 30% fee for the other services.
|
| Is 30% (or 27%) too steep for what the App Store provides?
| Probably. But fighting over the 30% as a payment processing
| fee is a huge misstep, because regulators will _always_
| take Apple 's side on that question.
| olliej wrote:
| I don't see apple doing that either. This article says very
| clearly that the payment processing fee is 3%.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| It's not 30%, but a very large portion of VISA's profits
| comes from the fees they charge; VISA's fees are not capped
| to their "costs" of operating. VISA exists as a literal
| precedent that you can profit off a commission for a
| financial transaction.
|
| The issue in question isn't whether Apple should be allowed
| to profit, it's whether they should be allowed to abuse
| their effective monopoly position to set their commission a
| literal order of magnitude higher than any other processor.
| clusterfish wrote:
| In EU credit card fees are capped by law, and the duopoly
| is surviving just fine, just with less obscene profits.
| Should do the same with mobile app stores.
| dathinab wrote:
| Hm, does that mean they implicit accepted that 3% is a maximum
| price for a payment system to not count as profiteering?
|
| And hence 27% is the price for the service of forcing you to use
| their app-store, sorry I mean non well working scam scanning,
| sorry I mean sup-par mac only build tools, ah wait I mean
| download cost, ... or maybe their sometimes abusive and often
| non-well working moderation, ah no that can't be it either. Maybe
| it's subvention the hardware cost as a iPhone only costs...
| wait... Why does it seem like profiteering no matter how I try to
| look at it??
|
| Jokes aside, in app payments are basically only monetary
| processing. Now you can claim that in app-payments are subvention
| reduced up-front payments. But that only holds up up to some
| degree of average per-active-user payment. But at least the more
| revenue rich phone games to quite a bit above that.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 3% sounds about right. That's the order-of-magnitude fee
| charged by commercial payment service providers (1 ... 5% in
| practice).
| etchalon wrote:
| This is exactly what I'd expect from Apple, and Google, and any
| platform provider.
|
| It makes the point that their fee isn't about credit card
| processing.
|
| I suspect, baring specific language in the law baring the
| practice, Apple, Google, etc. will force their commissions no
| matter what other allowances they're asked to make.
| endisneigh wrote:
| What I don't understand is - if you don't like the fees, why
| don't you just not use it? If you make money after the fees then
| isn't it worth it compared to the alternative?
|
| If people actually just stood firm against the fees then viable
| alternatives would manifest.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Good luck running a business where (in the US) you lose 50% of
| potential customers instantly, and those 50% will tell everyone
| else to use x because it's available on both platforms.
|
| It's really the 50% shouting on social media that hurts the
| most. Instead of maybe recommending your app, they will
| recommend one of your competitors that support both.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yeah, if you don't like the fee, just make your own phone
| hardware, your own processor, your own screens, your own OS..
|
| The same way when automakers tried a similar game and then..
| the government stepped in, slapped the tar out of them with
| regulation, and told them to play nicely with third parties or
| lose the ability to do business.
|
| Or when utilities had natural monopolies were preventing
| competition and.. then the government put strict regulations on
| them, set pricing rules and allowed significant control of
| them.
|
| The answer is that if the two dominant parties have managed to
| keep out competitors and basically engage in collusion, the
| government should correct the situation.
| abletonlive wrote:
| > Yeah, if you don't like the fee, just make your own phone
| hardware, your own processor, your own screens, your own OS..
|
| So should companies not be rewarded for making an awesome
| system so they can charge these commissions? I mean Amazon
| and Microsoft can't blame Apple for their failure to produce
| phones people want to use...they certainly had the resources,
| and still do.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| They are.. by selling a phone. You didn't get your iphone
| for free. Apple makes money off the hardware - more money
| than it does the app store.
| abletonlive wrote:
| So you're arguing that because apple makes a profit from
| the initial sale of the phone...they shouldn't _also_
| make a profit from the services they provide for that
| phone (such as maintaining an app store and the
| infrastructure for that app store)?
|
| That's a bold position to take. What makes you feel
| entitled to that? Did apple ever sell iPhones as a one-
| and-done purchase? I'm pretty confused about how you're
| justifying this argument. It seems to me that you think
| all developers have some kind of entitlement to make a
| profit off of Apple's ecosystem without Apple making a
| profit from an ecosystem they risked a lot to build,
| because Apple is already making a profit off the iPhone.
| Am I following that correctly?
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > Did apple ever sell iPhones as a one-and-done purchase?
|
| Yes, the original iPhone 2G. It didn't even have App
| Store on launch version of iOS. In fact, Cydia, the
| original jailbreak app store, existed on iOS before the
| official App Store. Saurik can speak to any fees for paid
| apps featured on Cydia. I remember an SMS app that
| allowed reply from notifications that I bought through
| Cydia, but I forget the name, maybe biteSMS? Most apps
| were entirely free, and Cydia supports adding arbitrary
| repositories.
|
| So, arguably, the original app purchasing experience on
| iOS was free and open source. Apple and their App Store
| couldn't compete, and thus the war against right to
| compute and jailbreaks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS/iPadOS)
| abletonlive wrote:
| So you basically agree all phones since the original
| iPhone are not sold as one-and-done purchases?
|
| I just don't understand where developers are coming from.
| Let's say I build a wildly successful theme park. It's
| the best theme park in the world and only a couple other
| theme parks exist that is as fun as my theme park.
|
| Because I'm so good at building theme parks, do you have
| some kind of entitlement to put your ride in my theme
| park and charge people money to ride it?
| endisneigh wrote:
| You can make a web app which can be run on the same phones
| with no fees. The vast majority of apps can be implemented as
| web apps.
|
| Comparing utilities, based on physical constraints, with
| digital goods doesn't make any sense. It doesn't require any
| effort to make a web app relative to the status quo.
|
| Furthermore your example doesn't make any sense because you
| make money with Apple and pay a fee - you're not paying for
| nothing. Natural gas, for example, has constraints around
| distribution and collection. These don't exist for apps.
|
| Ironically, if more developers just made web apps instead of
| going to app stores it would not only make their apps more
| accessible as they are inherently cross platform, but would
| likely lead to the creation of a web App Store to resolve the
| distribution problem.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Except your PWAs won't run or be very nerfed on Safari
| because it is missing and has been missing all of those
| APIs for many years.
|
| You could just install Chrome.. oh wait no, no you can't.
| Apple won't let you.
| endisneigh wrote:
| So what? It's an option. If more people take it, it will
| get better. Stadia is literally a web app on iOS, for
| example.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| This. Especially with the advent of technologies like
| WebAssembly, WebGPU, and WebXR, developers can now
| distribute real-time 3D applications like games universally
| via the open web, without having to sacrifice 30% to a
| walled garden.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Do those APIs work on safari, the only browser you can
| have on iOS?
|
| No. No they don't. Oops.
| kmlx wrote:
| > Yeah, if you don't like the fee, just make your own phone
| hardware, your own processor, your own screens, your own OS..
|
| no, you just need a webapp.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Yup. Wish more developers would realize this.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I wish more developers would realize Safari doesn't
| support most modern browser APIs.
| kmlx wrote:
| it depends how modern, but most are there. we develop
| primarily on safari and see no issues.
| post_break wrote:
| How many options do you have for gas, water, or power where you
| live? If I don't like the $18 a month fee for my gas bill,
| before I use a single ccf of natural gas can I just not use it?
|
| If I don't like the app store fees can I just not use it? You
| see what I'm getting at?
| endisneigh wrote:
| Silly comparison - natural gas prices are regulated, but
| furthermore you don't make money from your natural gas
| payment inherently.
|
| You only pay Apple store fees if you make money. Your
| comparison is dumb. Charge more to your users and be done
| with it a all of your Apple competitors are bound by the same
| rule.
| post_break wrote:
| If I make an app that Apple doesn't like, I can't put it on
| my iPhone. I literally cannot put my own apps on my phone.
| Or install apps from developers outside of the app store. I
| can do so on my computer, why not my phone. "well just
| switch to android" isn't a good excuse.
| endisneigh wrote:
| You can make a web app that works on safari, which runs
| on iPhones. So your entire point is wrong.
|
| Do you think this site you're on is originally an iPhone
| app?
| post_break wrote:
| Ahh yes, you want a native app on your phone? I can offer
| a website instead.
| formvoltron wrote:
| Why would the Dutch allow this?
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| This is usury, full stop.
| notsrg wrote:
| I'm shocked those defending the Apple tax aren't considering the
| fact that businesses are just offloading that tax onto consumers
| making things artificially more expensive for iOS users. Even
| worse, when you do this you can't communicate _why_ this is the
| case or tell people you can use the web for cheaper so users feel
| like you 're just scamming them.
| yokoprime wrote:
| This is the very reason why I always check if a subscription
| can be purchased outside of the app store before even
| considering buying it there. Its usually more expensive as an
| in app purchase.
| flatline wrote:
| More expensive as a one-time cost, but managing subscriptions
| through Apple allows you to pay once for a recurring
| subscription then cancel and use it for the remainder of the
| purchase period. Even one unintended renewal will wipe out
| whatever discount you got from a direct purchase.
| badwolf wrote:
| I follow an almost exact opposite flow. If I'm on a
| site/service that has a subscription, I check if they take
| in-app subscriptions and use that.
|
| I have no desire to deal with endless dark patterns to get me
| to not cancel a subscription.
| Osiris wrote:
| That just shows that Apple doesn't have to have a monopoly
| to compete. They can offer better features, services, etc
| that people may be willing to pay more for.
|
| Not everyone pays for the extended warranty when they buy
| electronics/tools but some do because they find value in
| it.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Unfortunately, they don't have to actually offer better
| services. Because they already have the customer base
| signed up with cc on file, they simply have to not be
| terrible. Then, no one will even try out individual
| subscription services because they already have good
| enough with apple defaults.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I think a more apt analogy would be: I'd pay a premium to
| shop at a store where there aren't any pushy associates
| trying to get me to buy an extended warranty in the first
| place.
| wingworks wrote:
| ^ This! At least here in New Zealand almost all perks of
| "extended" warranties are useless, as pretty much all
| things you buy here are already covered under our
| consumers guarantee act.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Nothing is free. An extended warranty is an insurance
| policy, the purchase price for it is the premium. It's
| pretty much the same for the original warranty. It may be
| included in the purchase, but it's still just an
| insurance policy that the manufacturer has rolled into
| the price of the product.
|
| So when you have strong regulation like a consumer
| guarantee act, it just means everything you buy is priced
| higher to account for it.
| wingworks wrote:
| Very true, which is why it's such a scam to sell extended
| warranties here in NZ, as you get almost no value for it.
| Yet allot of the big retail chains still do it.
| heartbeats wrote:
| This is ... not true, though?
|
| Consumer goods are more expensive in most of Europe,
| sure, but that's because of VAT - after adjusting for
| VAT, the price is usually the same.
|
| This makes sense if you consider that customer protection
| usually covers (1) returns and (2) defective goods.
| Returns are not exactly a cost to the retailer - they can
| still sell the merchandise, and replacing defective goods
| obviously only applies if you stock them. If you weren't
| selling bad goods, you wouldn't have that problem.
| FpUser wrote:
| I do not pay a premium and have no problem telling pushy
| "associates" to go eff themselves.
| ninkendo wrote:
| Good for you.
| smoldesu wrote:
| If that were true of most customers, Apple could easily
| allow other storefronts, since nobody would be inclined
| to use anything but their service. Without competitors
| though, there's no way to determine if Apple's offerings
| really are competitive.
| asiachick wrote:
| I'd pay a premium to shop at a store where I could buy
| something quickly. Vs Apple stores where first I have to
| flag down someone, then they go tell me to stand at some
| table and wait, then 5-10 mins later someone comes to
| help me and ask too many questions, then they say in 5-10
| mins someone will bring out the thing I wanted. And
| finally I can buy >:( Even ordering online for pickup my
| stuff wasn't at the pickup counter and they had to call
| into the back room. That might be fine if it was
| unannounced but they made choose a 15 minute window to
| pickup. You'd think they'd prep for that window. Instead
| of waiting until the pickup time I could have just gone
| to the store without the preorder and waited a similar
| amount.
| [deleted]
| LiquidSky wrote:
| > making things artificially more expensive for iOS users.
|
| It's not artificially more expensive, I'm happy to pay for the
| service and reliability offered by the App Store.
|
| >users feel like you're just scamming them.
|
| Users feel that way because so many subscription services ARE
| trying to scam them. As a commenter said below, subscribing
| through the App Store provides a simple, reliable way to manage
| your subscriptions and guarantee a cancel if you want without
| having to deal with whatever dark pattern bullshit apps
| normally throw up at you.
|
| Choose to pay less and enjoy a world of endless unreliable,
| shitty apps and shady practices if you want, I'm happy to pay
| not to.
| sircastor wrote:
| I'm willing to bet that when developers are able to sell
| directly without the 30% add on, that it'll be a short time
| before they start selling at the same price and taking the 30%
| for themselves.
| xuki wrote:
| Exactly. I didn't see any indie developers drop their price
| when Apple reduced the commission to 15% for the first
| million.
| viktorcode wrote:
| > making things artificially more expensive for iOS users
|
| Do you have examples of software that costs more on iOS than
| elsewhere?
| bspammer wrote:
| YouTube Premium costs a third more to purchase through the
| iOS app than it does through their website.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Apple has restricted the ability of an app to point this out
| so it's not as well known as it should be. Subscriptions are
| the easiest to compare because you can order the exact same
| thing two ways on iOS (in app or web) and there it's easy to
| see just look at Netflix or YouTube or Spotify for obvious
| examples of apps avoiding the cost or costing more if you pay
| the Apple tax.
|
| It's a bit silly this needs to be defended by example though,
| where else do people think the 30% cut on stuff subscription
| is coming from? Certainly not a 30% margin cut or 30% for
| payment processing, it's ~27% Apple tax apparently.
| duck wrote:
| Not the OP, but it could be very well inflating the costs
| elsewhere as well so you wouldn't be able to see differences
| across platforms.
| paraph1n wrote:
| There are several examples listed in this article:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaharziv/2020/07/08/heres-
| why-...
| Kique wrote:
| Not sure if it's still the case, but Spotify would charge me
| $12.99 through Apple and encouraged me to switch to paying
| them directly for $9.99
| jeffybefffy519 wrote:
| Netflix, spotify... you dont have to look far
| jiscariot wrote:
| If I recall, the amount Netflix is paying to Apple for a
| cut of subscriptions, is comparable with their AWS bill
| year over year. Absolute madness.
| vini wrote:
| I noticed that in games here in Brazil, in Hearthstone, a
| card game from Activision Blizzard a 40 cards pack cost
| 279,90 BRL ($52) in the iOS app, if you buy in the PC app
| it'll cost 99 BRL ($18), almost 200% increase, crazy.
| orasis wrote:
| That's not really true. Consumers have a fixed willingness to
| pay and professional app publishers are good at discovering
| that number, so there really isn't much passing costs onto the
| consumer.
| notsrg wrote:
| The company I work for literally charges 30% more for iOS
| users lol.
| Spivak wrote:
| And if your iOS users actually pay it then you're a fool to
| not charge 30% more to your non-iOS users as well.
| clusterfish wrote:
| Um, no, cost of doing business affects the equilibrium
| market price. There's no Apple tax outside of Apple's
| walled garden, so everyone competing outside of it has
| lower costs and can thus offer lower prices (outside of
| the walled garden). If you don't, your competitors will,
| and you'll lose customers.
| Spivak wrote:
| So yes, in the broadest possible abstract, sure. But
| we're talking about the sale of digital goods here. What
| market for game coins, app features, digital content w/e
| is so intensely price sensitive, apparently fungible
| enough that switching apps doesn't matter, but then also
| not at all actually price sensitive since the mostly
| arbitrary distinction to the consumer "what brand is your
| phone" means you can charge 30% more?
|
| Like I totally believe you, I'm actually just interested.
| lolinder wrote:
| > then also not at all actually price sensitive since the
| mostly arbitrary distinction to the consumer "what brand
| is your phone" means you can charge 30% more
|
| This distinction isn't arbitrary at all. They're
| effectively different markets. iPhone owners make more
| money and spend more money than Android users.
|
| There have been a number of surveys that have shown this,
| here's one:
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iphone-users-
| spend-...
|
| And an older one, but from a bigger source:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/the-median-income-for-
| iphone...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Consumers have a fixed willingness to pay and professional
| app publishers are good at discovering that number, so there
| really isn't much passing costs onto the consumer.
|
| Prices are set by supply and demand. If you take a 30% cut
| out of the supplier's revenue, you get fewer suppliers and
| the price each one can charge goes up because the customer
| can't switch to a competitor who was driven out of business
| by the high fees.
| lewisflude wrote:
| Seems fair to me, 27% commission implies 3% for card handling
| fees, to level out to the same 30% developers would have to pay
| doing things the intended way.
|
| All this talk of using "alternative payment systems" just seems
| like a way to skirt around paying Apple commission.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I thought that the justification for the 30% commission was the
| tightly integrated payment system, and not just the fact that
| you can install the app in the first place.
| lewisflude wrote:
| That's definitely one aspect of it, but I've always thought
| most of that fee is simply for the "privilege" of being a
| part of the Apple ecosystem, being mostly profit for Apple
| with a portion going towards the hosting, distribution of the
| App, search/discoverability aspect.
|
| I can definitely see why this fee and it's associated lock-in
| upsets many consumers and developers. It's clearly a divisive
| issue right now, and I am unsure we'll see any resolution to
| the overall narrative until the EU/US forces Apples hand.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| There should be no Apple commission in the first place.
| lewisflude wrote:
| I think the big sticking point is whether smartphones are a
| generic, standardised thing that requires some level of
| guarantees for the end consumer on accessing software of if
| each smartphone is one of many products in a broad category
| that all have different restrictions and limitations.
| Essentially the "you have a choice, just use Android"
| defence. I'm not saying which one is correct here, just that
| this seems to be the specific fork in the road between
| differing opinions.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > whether smartphones are a generic, standardised thing
| that requires some level of guarantees for the end consumer
| on accessing software
|
| I certainly believe so. Computing freedom should be
| guaranteed by law.
| neximo64 wrote:
| They're signalling that other methods or payment are fine, but
| they're entitled to that commission of 30% (- processing fees i
| guess)
|
| If people thought the lawsuits were about the commission they're
| wrong, they were about forcing Apple's method of payment, but
| even after you get through that they still feel they are entitled
| to the commission.
|
| You might have your opinions about whether thats right or wrong,
| but Apple's approach was to look as both as 2 different things
| whereas everyone seemed to see them as the same. And thats what
| they took advantage of.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They are as much entitled to that commission as the Mafia is
| entitled to theirs.
|
| It's a ridiculous demand. It is a pretty American way of
| thinking that the courts order is about the payment system
| rather than because of the commission when clearly, if the
| commission weren't there companies would not be looking for
| alternative payment systems to begin with. It's ignoring the
| spirit of the ruling. Prediction: this won't end well for Apple
| and it will cost them plenty of goodwill in NL.
| martimarkov wrote:
| They kinda are entitled - you are build for their OS, using
| their APIs and SDKs, targeting their customers.
|
| All that needs to be funded somehow plus as I always say -
| nobody has forced engineers to build iOS apps.
|
| An example: what if US engineers dislike the privacy laws of
| the EU and start asking to get them removed because you know
| their app wants to track and stalk ppl without their
| knowledge.
|
| Maybe not the best example but I hope you get the point
| Isinlor wrote:
| It's very likely that EU laws will not allow this type of
| tax anyway.
|
| EU is specifically drafting legislation for gatekeepers in
| Digital Markets Law.
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/en/TXT/?qid=16081168...
|
| Gatekeepers like Apple will have specific obligation
| according to Article 5:
|
| (b) allow business users to offer the same products or
| services to end users through third party online
| intermediation services at prices or conditions that are
| different from those offered through the online
| intermediation services of the gatekeeper;
|
| (c) allow business users to promote offers to end users
| acquired via the core platform service, and to conclude
| contracts with these end users regardless of whether for
| that purpose they use the core platform services of the
| gatekeeper or not, and allow end users to access and use,
| through the core platform services of the gatekeeper,
| content, subscriptions, features or other items by using
| the software application of a business user, where these
| items have been acquired by the end users from the relevant
| business user without using the core platform services of
| the gatekeeper;
|
| And Article 6:
|
| (c) allow the installation and effective use of third party
| software applications or software application stores using,
| or interoperating with, operating systems of that
| gatekeeper and allow these software applications or
| software application stores to be accessed by means other
| than the core platform services of that gatekeeper. The
| gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking proportionate
| measures to ensure that third party software applications
| or software application stores do not endanger the
| integrity of the hardware or operating system provided by
| the gatekeeper;
|
| (k) apply fair and non-discriminatory general conditions of
| access for business users to its software application store
| designated pursuant to Article 3 of this Regulation.
| neximo64 wrote:
| None of these stop the % commission they merely say it
| has to be applied fairy and equally. The fees aren't a
| gatekeep since everyone has the same treatment and no one
| is being 'gatekept'
| Isinlor wrote:
| The law will require to allow third-party app stores. If
| Apple decides to impose 27% tax on everything sold in the
| third-party app store then I'm sure other EU competition
| laws will kick in. As Apple will be explicitly using
| their power to make direct competition non-viable.
|
| Also, EU does not need to spell everything explicitly.
| The law will give the EU Commission a lot of executive
| power to respond to this type of shenanigans from
| gatekeepers.
|
| Article 7, compliance with obligations for gatekeepers,
| paragraph 2:
|
| Where the Commission finds that the measures that the
| gatekeeper intends to implement pursuant to paragraph 1,
| or has implemented, do not ensure effective compliance
| with the relevant obligations laid down in Article 6, it
| may by decision specify the measures that the gatekeeper
| concerned shall implement. (...)
|
| Article 10, updating obligations for gatekeepers,
| paragraph 1:
|
| The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in
| accordance with Article 34 to update the obligations laid
| down in Articles 5 and 6 where, based on a market
| investigation pursuant to Article 17, it has identified
| the need for new obligations addressing practices that
| limit the contestability of core platform services or are
| unfair in the same way as the practices addressed by the
| obligations laid down in Articles 5 and 6.
| simondotau wrote:
| None of that gets around the fact that the 27% can be
| defined as the licence fee for intellectual property.
| There's no principle of capitalism that allows someone
| else to compete with you on the sale of your own goods.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A good start for interpreting EU law is to let go of the
| US literal view of the law and to start looking at the
| intent of the law. That's a much better predictor for how
| EU courts will rule.
| neximo64 wrote:
| I am from an EU country, and studied law. It doesn't work
| the way you're saying in court.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ah, the appeal to authority. To me your just another
| anonymous commenter on HN. Really, I couldn't care less,
| every lawsuit has lawyers on both sides and half of them
| will lose their case, but will maintain that their
| customer was right all along and that they will now
| appeal and then when they run out of appeals they quietly
| slink off into the dark with their money.
|
| EU anti-competitive law has been tested in court time and
| again by the big telcos and as a rule they have lost
| every time they tried to get smart with words.
|
| Apple will - I predict - fare no different.
| neximo64 wrote:
| Whilst my appeal may be to authority yours is based on
| what you feel is right and wrong and that isn't the same
| as how the law works. In fact it's built to work against
| what a consumer feels to what that is fair. You might not
| like it but fair is tilted towards the large company not
| the consumer in the EU, especially when it comes to a
| company making profit.
|
| The big telcos btw always win, but always makes the
| consumer happy. Have looked at Orange do this countless
| times.
|
| Why don't you tell me about how happy you feel the EU is
| green, and then i'll tell you how happy European
| companies are 'green' now includes natural gas. Both
| sides win I suppose.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > The big telcos btw always win
|
| You are factually incorrect, if you really did study law
| you likely did not finish the course.
| Jensson wrote:
| EU already forced visa and mastercard to lower their
| fees, this is exactly the same kind of scenario. EU
| doesn't tolerate giant companies making themselves into a
| bottleneck so they can extract more money from the
| economy.
| sofixa wrote:
| > All that needs to be funded somehow plus as I always say
|
| You pay for that privilege, in the form of a yearly
| developer account, so that's a _very_ poor excuse.
| simion314 wrote:
| >They kinda are entitled - you are build for their OS,
| using their APIs and SDKs, targeting their customers.
|
| The fix is super obvious, Apple selling shit in my country
| uses my country population and wealth, so 30% tax on each
| sell, NOT on profits, We could use the Apple Tax against
| Apple, if they don't like it they are not forced to sell
| the products in my country.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > We could use the Apple Tax against Apple
|
| Just using the tax system against big tech would be a
| start. It's ludicrous how little tax gets paid once the
| stupid dodges have been played. Fix those holes and have
| them pay what the small players pay. That alone would
| satisfy me.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > you are build for their OS, using their APIs and SDKs,
| targeting their customers.
|
| Which takes us right back to "Imagine if in the past Apple
| would have had to pay 30% of their gross to Microsoft in
| order to be allowed to run their software on Windows."
|
| I'm apple's customer, _and_ I 'm these apps' customer. None
| of them own me. Apple's not doing any meaningful referring,
| it should be possible to opt out of any referring they do,
| and building for an OS should not cost these fees.
| thathndude wrote:
| You choose to do business with Apple, knowing the terms
| of the deal. At a certain point that's determinative.
| Apple doesn't have a majority user base in the US. Google
| is ready and waiting for defectors.
| candiodari wrote:
| This is excellent news. You see, I work in networks. I
| (helped) write the driver that is used on the carrier
| side of 4G networks, and it's open source, so, like
| Apple, I retain the copyright. A driver that you have
| undoubtedly used to order pizza. My code is the
| "platform" you used to pay that pizza! I am entitled to
| compensation, and apparently 30% ... wow. Great news!
|
| I'll have 30% of everything you ever paid over your phone
| now.
|
| Remember, you CHOSE to pay using "my" infrastructure, so
| it's only fair that I be compensated for that.
|
| Or is your point that these rules only apply to massive
| US corporations?
| etchalon wrote:
| You say this as if there aren't deals between patent
| holders and platforms that are based on revenue
| percentages.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Patents are quite different from infrastructure. And
| critical patents are normally kept from charging very
| high rates by multiple mechanisms.
| etchalon wrote:
| There are infrastructure agreements which function on
| revenue basis too.
|
| Critical patents have some limitations, but only because
| of agreements which were reached in the establishment of
| specific standards.
|
| If you own the IP, you get to decide how you're
| compensated for it.
| smcl wrote:
| > They kinda are entitled - you are build for their OS,
| using their APIs and SDKs, targeting their customers.
|
| I don't think "my ball, my rules..." applies here,
| especially since this is all happening as a result of them
| responding to a regulator in the first place
| (https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/24/apple-netherlands-dating-
| apps...)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Oh I got the point alright: a large US entity (who by hte
| way is an expert at dodging taxes themselves) believes that
| they can ignore a court ruling by playing word games and
| are entitled to a 30% tax on all of the income peripherally
| generated if their eco-system was touched at some point in
| time. It's ridiculous.
|
| As for that privacy law: that pertains to EU data subjects.
| So it isn't 'not the best example' it is a terrible
| example, especially given that the ruling here is very
| similar in nature.
| harperlee wrote:
| > you are build for their OS, using their APIs and SDKs
|
| Already paid by the user. You are building for the user. Do
| you pay the house builder for the poster you nail in your
| wall?
|
| I only get that argument for the actual store, since there
| is a curation service being provided. But the OS? No way.
| If anything, apps in an OS ecosystem give more value to the
| OS; the OS owner should be paying for that ecosystem, not
| demanding payment.
| simondotau wrote:
| > Already paid by the user.
|
| Right! So as soon as I've bought one game built with
| Unreal Engine, I've paid for the engine and should get a
| discount on all other games which use it.
|
| I'm the customer. I can decide when the company is fairly
| compensated.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| Well, you probably would pay the house builder for the
| poster you nail in your wall if the house builder stored
| and delivered the poster that was built with tools the
| house builder provided. Your analogy does not apply.
|
| For your second point, apps vary in value and I'm sure
| that there are times when Apple pays somebody to put an
| app on their store.
| kouteiheika wrote:
| > They kinda are entitled - you are build for their OS,
| using their APIs and SDKs, targeting their customers.
|
| So do you also think that Microsoft is entitled to 30% of
| every developer's income if they want to release an app for
| the Windows platform? After all they're building for their
| OS, using their APIs and SDKs and targeting their
| customers.
| simondotau wrote:
| They did exactly that for their Xbox platform.
|
| The fact that Microsoft _chose_ to do otherwise with
| Windows isn't a particularly strong argument.
| sva_ wrote:
| I know that Apple's Terms say that you can't explain to your
| users, that they have to pay some 30% "Apple Tax" for in-app
| purchases. But could you just say something like "30% mobile
| phone app fee", to go around it, while making it clear to the
| user why they're paying this amount? I feel like it would be
| illegal for Apple (or Google Play) to prohibit developers from
| breaking down costs like that? Like I don't get it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Fortnite did this, which lead to them being removed from the
| App Store shortly thereafter.
|
| [0] https://www.ithinkdiff.com/fornite-mega-drop-offers-
| discount...
| xuki wrote:
| Fortnite also allowed alternative payment methods. I think
| that's the main reason why they were removed.
| gjs278 wrote:
| lolinder wrote:
| They _do_ prohibit developers from breaking down the costs like
| that. This is the guideline they would cite you for:
|
| > 3.1.3 The following apps may use purchase methods other than
| in-app purchase. Apps in this section cannot, within the app,
| encourage users to use a purchasing method other than in-app
| purchase.
|
| Yes, it should be illegal for them to prevent you from breaking
| the cost down, but they have historically interpreted this
| statement that way.
| sva_ wrote:
| I suppose you could read it like that. I think consumers
| should have a right to know what they're paying for. One
| should be able to say that you pay x for hosting, y for
| software development/maintenance, and z for the platform
| offering the app for you. I don't see how anything against
| this could prevent someone from breaking it down like that.
| But here we are.
| pixl97 wrote:
| We need to make it a state law first, that fees like this
| cannot be hidden. Have CA or someone else large do it.
| klelatti wrote:
| Problem for Apple is that if it charges less then it shows that
| it can run the store for less than 30% in total - and what is
| true in NL is true everywhere else - which is not helpful for
| them in antitrust actions.
|
| Burning goodwill and brand value while they do it though.
| thathndude wrote:
| We know they can run it for way less because they disclose
| numbers in their earnings, and the Epic litigation turned up
| emails from Phil talking about this issue and going down to
| like 10%.
|
| The issue is what's the recourse and remedy? Go to
| Google/Android, which charges a comparable fee and tends to be
| less valuable?
|
| Folks are getting their money's worth on Apple's ecosystem. But
| they somehow feel like they should just be getting more, just
| because. But apple doesn't have a monopoly. They just have a
| good product.
| baxtr wrote:
| I have an app in the App Store and pay 15% commissions, since we
| are below 1 mn USD in sales. In exchange, I can roll-out my app
| in 175 countries and have not deal with local authorities re
| taxes etc.
|
| For me, that's a pretty good deal. I could never do this on my
| own. Any other provider would probably take the same cut for that
| kind of service.
| vkou wrote:
| How much revenue do you earn in the lower 170 of those
| countries, and does it exceed 15%/30%? of the revenue you earn
| in the upper 5?
| samwillis wrote:
| There is a massive difference between 15% and 30%. The latter
| could never be justified, I think the former probably could be
| with the services that Apple offer as a vendor (particularly
| for small businesses). But it still feels too high.
|
| The 27% in the article is just mad, I think they could justify
| 10% when not using their payments, maybe. But it would be
| better to have an opt out where there is a set rate for app
| approval (this could easily be hundreds of dollars) and a
| download cost for app/data delivery and storage.
| jacquesm wrote:
| PSPs typically charge between 1 and 5% depending on the
| amounts, the kind of transaction and the risks involved.
| samwillis wrote:
| Quite right, however I do think Apple offer slightly more
| than just payment processing. If we say transaction costs
| are 3%, do I think apple can justify an additional 26%? No.
| Do I think they can justify 12% for the validating of apps,
| providing marketing tools in the App Store, data storage
| and distribution? Maybe yes, it still feels a little high.
|
| It's why I would like to see it broken down as line items
| and for them to make it optional to just pay the costs of
| each service directly rather than them charging a % cut.
| schmorptron wrote:
| 12% is the number Epic Games arrived at for their game
| store, which they heavily used to pressure steam. How
| realistic it really is for all of the services SteamWorks
| offers and how much of that 12% would change in the
| future once tencent loss-leader funding runs out remains
| to be seen, but based on the current (games) market it
| seems like a reasonable number, especially at the scale
| apple operates at.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If it would be valuable enough then people would not be
| trying to avoid this particular part of their service.
| samwillis wrote:
| True, and I fully support the push back against the fees.
| Hopefully they will end up lowering them to a point where
| everyone is happy.
| thathndude wrote:
| This whole fight is a bunch of billionaires slinging mud at
| each other and trying to win over the court of public opinion,
| which is largely not affected.
|
| The drop to 15% took too long. But it's here now. If the Epics
| of the world want to enlist/manipulate the suffering of the
| "little guy," they really can't anymore.
| sofixa wrote:
| > The drop to 15% took too long. But it's here now
|
| Only thanks to the Epics of this world.
| thathndude wrote:
| Maybe so. But it wasn't due to developers leaving or
| putting market pressure on Apple. If developers feel so
| cheated and abused by Apple why not go to the US majority
| platform of Android? They don't because Apple presents them
| tremendous value. They just want more of the pie. Nothing
| wrong with that. But let's call it what it is.
| sofixa wrote:
| There's also a big power disbalance - a developer
| complaining about Apple's policies and rent seeking is
| completely at their mercy and mind find their account and
| apps blocked for "violating their ToS" or some other
| reason. Yes, the Apple platform is vastly more profitable
| for developers because most Apple customers are
| accustomed to spending money ( as opposed to the Android
| market which includes everything from $/EUR 100 headsets
| from obscure brands like Wiko to $/EUR 2k premium Samsung
| or whatever devices - the latter might be okay on
| dropping $/EUR 10 on app, the former certainly wouldn't).
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > Any other provider would probably take the same cut for that
| kind of service.
|
| Too bad we'll never know because Apple prevents the competition
| on their platform!
| [deleted]
| baxtr wrote:
| That's an easy one. Let's look at the other big ecosystem
| Android. There we have a couple of alternate stores like
| Amazon's. They take 30% as well? I am not sure why it should
| be different with Apple.
|
| Maybe, just maybe, running a well-curated app store is just
| something that is expensive.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > Maybe, just maybe, running a well-curated app store is
| just something that is expensive.
|
| Are you trying to claim that Apple and Google are each
| running a "well curated" app store?
| abletonlive wrote:
| Apple's app store is the best app store that I've ever
| seen. Please point me to a better one?
| ambicapter wrote:
| I'll bite, show me an example of a "well curated" app
| store to your standards.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Definitely not the App Store with all the trash and scam
| apps allowed.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| F-Droid is right there. They're niche, but that further
| underscores that even a group of open source volunteers
| can maintain a well-curated app store.
| abletonlive wrote:
| There's like less than 10,000 apps on that store. You're
| comparing apples to oranges.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Comparing apples to pomegranate seeds, surely. But
| perhaps that's the point. If third party app stores were
| allowed, they needn't all be shoddy wannabe Apple App
| Stores run by rival tech giants trying to publish as many
| apps willy-nilly to cut into Apple's market. Instead,
| perhaps there could be many boutique curated app stores,
| some non-profit even, that aim to cater to specific user
| experiences.
|
| The benefit is that it could be a solution for the app
| discovery issues that currently come from having a single
| App Store with a single search interface. Users with
| specialized interests or needs can subscribe to smaller
| third party app stores as they see fit. There would be
| competition in app discovery. More customization in user
| experiences. Variety in editorial control.
|
| It's a bit akin to reversing the current state of the web
| where giant closed sites such as Facebook or Google are
| single-entry points, and going back to the past where
| there were web communities and webrings. A Neocities for
| apps would be neat.
| [deleted]
| viktorcode wrote:
| Has nothing to do with the costs. 30% is the de-facto
| default revenue sharing scheme, and developers are well
| accustomed to it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Has nothing to do with the costs
|
| A price that has nothing to do with costs is a monopoly
| rent; in a competitive market marginal prices are driven
| down to marginal economic costs by competition.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Android has several free stores, inclusing ones that
| support open source software.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| F-droid is free.
|
| Is f-droid magic?
|
| The Kindle store doesn't take 30%.
| searchableguy wrote:
| Android has plenty of free stores and with v12, those
| stores can also update apps automatically. It's going in
| the great direction.
|
| I use 3 different stores on my phone for example.
|
| Of course, an average person doesn't need that many. I use
| fdroid for sensitive apps (I can verify an app build there
| compared to playstore) and some developers provide apps
| without google services framework on froid as an
| alternative to their playstore version.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Nah, it's because Apple and Google are a cartel with
| respect to app fees.
|
| Like, 30% is a _crazy_ amount to take, at the scale they
| operate at.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Stripe does taxes and is way cheaper. 10% of apple's fee or
| smthg
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Stripe doesn't do taxes. Only recently they added ability to
| calculate how much tax you legally need to charge in some
| jurisdictions. Filing the right taxes in those countries is
| still your responsibility.
| mrtksn wrote:
| "Does tax" is a bit too broad:
| https://stripe.com/docs/tax/registering
|
| They help you collect taxes but they don't manage the tax
| payment processes. You will still need to create a company in
| France or register for VAT in France, understand the French
| accounting and laws, them pay the French taxes if you sell to
| people in France, for example.
|
| It's also only 35 countries. No match for what Apple does.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Bigger developers who pay 30% can do that on their own. Hence
| the legal lobbying to make platform gatekeepers to cede some
| ground.
| jacquesm wrote:
| At your level that makes sense. But if you were more successful
| there would come a point at which you would be better off to
| process your payments yourself and you should be free to do so.
| Because then you would be doing all the work rather than Apple.
|
| Apple is not a government, they should not be able or allowed
| to levy taxes.
| baxtr wrote:
| How do you think big apps started?
| jacquesm wrote:
| That is not the kind of argument that works in an anti-
| competitive setting.
|
| The fact that I went to your school does not give you a
| right to a chunk of my lifelong income, the fact that you
| once sold me a tool doesn't either and so on.
|
| If there is no performance there is no right to invoice.
| The only entities that can do that legally are called
| governments, which - incidentally - Apple is doing their
| damnest to not pay taxes.
| baxtr wrote:
| Of course it does, when you get big by visiting my school
| and knowing this before.
|
| It is just absolutely ludicrous to get big on the back of
| a giant and then to start complaining. Just get big
| without it that is what you wish.
|
| Re tax evasion: EVERY mid-sized company in Europe that I
| have worked for has elaborate tax evasions schemes in
| place, mainly by having other entities in countries like
| Luxembourg.
|
| It's the fact that the EU tolerates places like
| Luxembourg an Ireland that this happens. No one talks
| about it because it's just better for headline to go for
| the big Californian names.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Well, I hope you pay your mom 30% of your income then
| because you got big on the back of her work.
|
| Seriously though, how you get started is immaterial, you
| should be free to change service providers, especially
| service providers that are price gouging you when you
| feel that you can no longer justify their cut.
|
| As for the tax avoidance (not evasion, that's an
| important distinction here), yes all the big guys do it,
| but that does not make it right and if Apple were to
| actually pay their taxes I would see that as them at
| least understanding the pain of having to pay a good
| chunk of your income every year.
|
| I pay _my_ taxes and contribute to my community through
| them, Apple siphons off a very large chunk of the worlds
| wealth into the pockets of a very small number of
| shareholders and now wants to argue that they have an
| unassailable claim to 30% of the income of other
| companies. And I strongly disagree with that.
|
| If they charged between 1 and 5% for their service that
| would be fine by me, but it would still not give them an
| automatic right to this fee, they would have to compete
| with everybody else.
|
| Anti competitive behavior has one clear and common thread
| running through it the world over: an element of abuse
| and that is clearly present here.
| baxtr wrote:
| Unfortunately, my mom died a couple of years ago, so no I
| don't pay anything :)
|
| I believe we have a fundamentally different world view,
| so I am not sure if it makes sense to continue debating.
|
| I believe in meritocracy. Apple put hard, hard work into
| building an ecosystem of 1.8 bn active devices. I believe
| they are entitled to reap the benefits and not let any
| upstart compete with them as they wish.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > Apple put hard, hard work into building an ecosystem of
| 1.8 bn active devices. I believe they are entitled to
| reap the benefits and not let any upstart compete with
| them as they wish.
|
| So you don't believe in meritocracy, you believe in
| perpetually inherited wealth.
|
| Meritocracy would mean that, at any point in time,
| whoever is the best at doing something should rise to the
| top. Maintaining someone else's advantage because they
| were the best at some previous point in time actively
| works against a meritocracy.
|
| This is like saying that nobility is a form of
| meritocracy, as Queen Elizabeth II's great great great
| grandmother put hard, hard work into building an empire,
| so she should now entitled to reap the benefits, not let
| some upstart president of a colony compete with her as
| they wish.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If you believe in a meritocracy then you should see the
| irony in that you are defending a de-facto monopolist and
| their rent-seeking behavior, which is an abuse of power.
|
| The rent seekers are the inheritors of a machine that
| they themselves did not build (the shareholders of
| Apple), and who are taking away a good chunk of income of
| those whose products people wish to use, a sure sign of
| merit.
| simondotau wrote:
| Calling it a tax doesn't make it a tax.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are right, it isn't a tax. It is graft. But the effect
| is much the same.
| simondotau wrote:
| Is the license fee on games for PS4 or Xbox a tax or is
| it graft?
| Aulig wrote:
| There's merchants of record like Paddle.com that do the exact
| same thing (handle taxes on software sales for you) and they
| charge 5%. And that includes payment processing fees they have
| to pay to Paypal etc. So with Apple's scale, they could easily
| offer this service at below 5% commission.
| onion2k wrote:
| _For me, that 's a pretty good deal. I could never do this on
| my own._
|
| No one is saying Apple shouldn't offer the service, or that
| it's not a good service, or even that Apple shouldn't charge
| 15%. If you think Apple do a good job and offer value for money
| then you should use their service and pay what they charge.
|
| The only thing people want is the opportunity to use a
| competing service. That's it.
| thathndude wrote:
| Google Play Store. What am I missing?
| onion2k wrote:
| It doesn't work on iOS.
| zepto wrote:
| Don't use iOS then. That's always a choice.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Cool, let me install linux or android on my iphone then.
| stale2002 wrote:
| It is also our choice to use anti-competition laws, to
| require Apple to not engage in anti-competitive
| practices.
|
| If you don't like it, then feel free to vote for
| something else (but if you lose the vote, thought luck),
| or move to a different country. Your choice.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| My phone does not have the Google Play Store
| martin_a wrote:
| F-Droid is a thing. And I think it's gaining popularity,
| too.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| What people and what competing service?
|
| People as in consumers? 99% of Apple consumers don't care
| about this drama. They just want to click and install an app
| that's safe, vetted, and no one will steal their credit card.
|
| Same as I don't care when digitally buying PlayStation games.
| I don't care how much Sony charges developers to be on their
| marketplace, and I don't want to use alternative stores with
| additional places where I have to put in my credit card or
| ask for refunds.
| leoedin wrote:
| Consumers might start to care if it means every app is 20%
| cheaper.
| simondotau wrote:
| As someone who has had to deal with subscriptions on apps
| on my wife's phone, "20% cheaper" but outside of the
| Apple payment ecosystem sounds way more expensive.
| onion2k wrote:
| _99% of Apple consumers don't care about this drama._
|
| At the moment there's no point in caring. You don't have a
| choice, so why worry about it?
|
| You have to remember that you, as someone who doesn't care
| about alternative stores and wouldn't switch, aren't the
| market for an alternative store. This is about _other
| people_ and _their_ freedom to choose. Arguing that the
| Apple iOS store works for you and therefore it should work
| for everyone else is not how free markets work.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| If Apple iOS store doesn't work for you, there's Google
| Play store. Free market has nothing to do with how
| software is loaded on a hardware.
|
| There were more options in the past.
|
| There was Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, BlackBerry,
| Nokia, Symbian, etc.
|
| But when Apple came to market, they made such an
| excellent device, along with great developer and consumer
| experience, that developers agreed for 30% cut and most
| decided to ditch developing for other platforms, and
| consumers decided to ditch other now "shitty" phones
| where they couldn't download their favourite apps for.
|
| Microsoft released great phones, but still had issues
| with software. They tried solving that with throwing
| money at developers, but developers still didn't want to
| develop for Windows Phone.
|
| Developers played crucial part in the last 10 years to
| form the market where we are today.
|
| And suddenly in 2022, after playing on the same terms for
| the last 10 years, an access to a marketplace with 1+
| billion active users needs to be a free, basic human
| right that everyone cries for.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Would I be free to choose to pay for your App through
| Apple? Or would the developer have the choice, and I end
| up having to call them to end the subscription the way so
| many news papers require you to?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Can you currently pay for gas through Apple? Or for your
| Netflix account? Or for installing Mentor Graphics on
| your Mac?
|
| Why would a business transaction between you and a third
| party necessarily involve Apple being a payment option?
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Because Apple given the third party access to you via a
| marketplace.
|
| And you are a participant of this marketplace, because
| Apple spent billions on R&D and ended up being so good,
| that developers and consumers abandoned other platforms
| in droves.
|
| Apple also smoked previous multibillion competitors
| (BlackBerry and Nokia) into shame, and they're now part
| of history and MBA lectures on how a young and innovative
| player can kill your slow and boring business in a short
| time.
|
| That's why Apple is a market leader, with the best
| vertically integrated hardware and software devices, as
| well as a marketplace with billion people that both devs
| and consumers eagerly want to be part of.
|
| The same marketplace developers agreed to join by paying
| up 30% of revenue 10+ years ago, while abandoning Windows
| Phone and others, and playing part in the shaping the
| market where it is today.
|
| And suddenly developers cry wolf that it's a basic human
| right to have access to a marketplace with 1 billion
| people for free, which they played active part in
| building.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Apple forces me to use their marketplace to do business
| with any third party selling software for _my phone_.
|
| It is not "giving access" to third parties, it is
| restricting them from accessing _my phone_ unless they
| use Apple 's preferred software distribution method.
|
| The fact that they were in the right place at the right
| time with the right fashion and right look and feel to
| capture this market does not entitle them to perpetually
| profit from it. And I do say "happened to", because the
| iPhone had nothing other than chance going for it, and it
| was simply an idea whose time had come. Several others
| were developing smartphones at the same time, such as
| Nokia, LG, and Google's Android. Apple had better and
| faster execution, much better marketing, and luck.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| ... sorry but I'll get out here.
|
| I really don't like people downplaying other peoples' and
| companies' success that went through sweat and tears,
| calling it "nothing but chance, simply an idea whose time
| had come... with a bit of luck".
|
| Yes, just chance and luck a company few days away from
| bankruptcy became the worlds most valuable business worth
| 3 trillion in ~20 years and keeps producing world and
| industry changing services and products.
|
| Not hard work and brilliant execution, just chance and
| luck! /s
|
| Makes me sad really
| bredren wrote:
| These are fair points, I am curious how you perceive the
| existing wireless industry in the United States.
|
| It seems to me that Verizon and others are in a state of
| perpetually profiting their consolidation of companies
| that were in the "right place at the right time."
|
| Would you agree with this? If so, do you think these
| companies are making outsized profits given lack of
| entitlement?
|
| How would you craft policy that would cover not just the
| Apple but other companies like wireless carriers?
|
| Separately, you mention Mentor Graphics above. Did you
| mean to refer to chip-level design tool software?
| passivate wrote:
| That is a facetious argument. Just because the majority
| doesn't care doesn't mean the issue isn't important. We
| don't decide importance of things just based on a vote - we
| can use also use reason, logic, empathy, etc.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Wait, so you didn't buy the $60 ten year old game
| digitally? You went to the GameStop down the street and
| bought it used for $10? /s
|
| There are alternatives there.
| throwaddzuzxd wrote:
| > 99% of Apple consumers
|
| That's 5 million people who do care then, considering 500
| million iPhone users (which is a conservative number).
| ambicapter wrote:
| Jailbreak your iPhone, put a competing service on it.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Is jailbreak supported by Apple?
| tinus_hn wrote:
| 15% is really low, considering you can pay using discounted
| iTunes cards. Typically in the Netherlands you can buy them
| with 15% extra credit, which is about 13% off.
|
| So you can almost take money from Apple by buying these cards
| and spending them on your app. The only problem is taxes.
| mongol wrote:
| Good for you it is a good deal. The problem is that it is the
| only deal.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Exactly. It literally enables level playing field for smaller
| developers who can't simply incorporate in 175 countries and
| navigate through the rules, regulations of taxes.
|
| The value that Apple provides for the smaller developers is
| immense, you don't actually see small developers complaining
| about Apple(with exception to those who were sherlocked maybe)
| but you see multi billion corporations pretending to be
| advocating for the little guy.
|
| I'm very annoyed by all this, I'm afraid that they will win and
| solo developers will lose any chance to make it big without
| getting screwed by large publishers.
|
| Can you please stop saving the small developers from Apple?
| Thank you.
| MilaM wrote:
| And yet somehow indie devs have managed to sell software for
| macOS for decades before the invention of the Apple App
| Store. Only the larger software shops are atually running
| their own payment and licensing backends. Most use payment
| providers like Paddle or Fastspring. There are also other
| distribution channels like SetApp for expample.
|
| One thing that Apple has made very easy for devs are In-App
| Payments. But I think you can argue if that is such a good
| thing for Apple's customers.
| mrtksn wrote:
| macOS app ecosystem isn't really thriving and the
| regulatory complexities arrived after the Internet matured.
|
| Something being possible isn't the same as being good.
| Selling 1000 copies at %30 commission(it tends to be around
| %50 once you ad stuff like VAT) is much better than selling
| 10 copies at %1 commission.
|
| I also think that from the users perspective it's much
| better to have one place where you manage all your
| payments/subscriptions/downloads etc. That can be solved
| through some kind of unified purchasing interface though.
| MilaM wrote:
| I'm not saying that App Store distribution is useless.
| But I think vendors should have a choice. If Apple's
| system is so superior, they have little to worry about.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The problem is, small developers won't have access to all
| the options - especially the good options - that the big
| companies would have.
|
| Currently, if you you manage to make a great app or game
| you have access to the exact same processes as the Epic
| or Microsoft.
| pritambaral wrote:
| > ... you have access to the exact same processes as the
| Epic or Microsoft.
|
| No you don't. Netflix and Amazon got special deals
| (before the whole Epic saga) [1] [2]. From partial
| waivers of the Apple Tax, to Apple-run editorial
| promotions, to bundling!
|
| "The emails could serve as evidence that for lucrative
| and powerful partners, Apple seems to be willing to make
| concessions."
|
| [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/5/22421734/apple-
| epic-netfli...
|
| [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206400/apple-
| tax-amazon-...
| jacquesm wrote:
| > you see multi billion corporations pretending to be
| advocating for the little guy.
|
| And they are.
|
| The little guys won't stand up to 30% of their gross taken
| but the big guys can and do. As a result after all the
| lawsuits have run their course Apple will be charging a much
| lower fee in the hopes of regaining their payment processing
| marketshare.
| mrtksn wrote:
| How do you decide that %30 breaks the business but %15 is
| fine? Can I see your math please?
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is not an argument made in good faith so I will
| ignore it.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Please don't ignore, I'm curious how I will not stand a
| chance at %30 but it's fine at %15.
|
| I want to know if this is your gut feeling or do you know
| something concrete.
|
| Thanks.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I just look at what other payment service providers
| charge, they are between 1 and 5% based on volume, risk,
| transaction size.
|
| There is _plenty_ of competition in the payment
| processing space.
|
| When you take the card companies' cut into account the
| fees are even lower for the transaction processing.
| simondotau wrote:
| Suggesting that what Apple does is equivalent to a
| payment processor is ridiculous. I suggest looking at
| Epic v Apple and how that argument went down in court. It
| was embarrassing to witness.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, agreed they are more like a mob running amok in a
| neighborhood but for the moment I'll give them the
| benefit of the doubt and looking at it purely as a
| transaction processor.
|
| I wonder how all of those defending Apple in this thread
| would respond if they jacked up the prices to say 75%.
| And why stop there?
| simondotau wrote:
| I was hoping for a serious conversation.
| mrtksn wrote:
| How do you pay your taxes in UK, Turkey, Poland, USA,
| Japan, China, Australia and the rest of the 175
| countries? How do you handle the regulatory requirements
| in each country and how do you navigate through the trade
| agreements?
| jacquesm wrote:
| If you don't know the answers to these questions, why are
| you even active in this thread?
|
| I've been running an international business for a couple
| of decades and this has never been a problem at all.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I'm asking you to enlighten me. Currently I don't have to
| deal with any of these, Apple handles all that for me, I
| like that and that's why I'm active in this thread. I'm
| defending a service that I see value in but maybe you can
| shine a light and demonstrate that all these can be
| handled for cheaper and easier than using Apple's service
| that charges %15 to %30.
|
| I'm asking legitimate question, I'm puzzled by your
| dismissive tone. How do you sell software and services in
| 175 countries for less work and commission than Apple's
| service?
|
| Good for you that you are running international business
| for a couple a decade know, would you share some of that
| knowledge?
|
| Thank you.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That it works for you is fine. You obviously have no
| incentive to look further than what works for you and you
| are fine with paying 30% for a service that is not
| competitive but that is convenient.
|
| If you were a bit larger that equation would change. Your
| first step would then be to use a commercial payment
| services provider such as Stripe, Adyen or any of the
| others to process the transactions for you (rates: 1 to
| 5%), possibly falling back to Apple in case their
| coverage doesn't perfectly overlap. Then at an even
| higher level of transactions you could choose to do the
| payment processing yourself.
|
| It's pretty simple, really. And as for taxes: that too is
| something that you can arrange in different ways,
| depending on where your main place of business is
| registered.
|
| My dismissive tone is because it appears that you want me
| to do a bunch of homework for you while at the same time
| arguing that there is nothing to be concerned about in
| 10's of comments in this thread. You have already made up
| your mind and seem to use questions as a way to argue
| rather than that you are really interested in the
| answers. I predict that as a result of this response you
| are going to come up with another set of questions for me
| to answer or a new set of arguments that move the
| goalposts away from your previous claims.
|
| But the essence of my response is: anti-competitive
| behavior can not be argued for by utility to some subset
| of the customers. The phone company provides a lot of
| value. But if they behave in an anti-competive way, for
| instance by price gouging customers on something that
| costs them peanuts such as roaming then they deserve to
| be smacked down, even if some people will argue that you
| could of course buy a different phone for every country
| as an alternative, and so those roaming charges are
| acceptable because they are cheaper. That misses the
| point entirely.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > If you were a bit larger that equation would change
|
| Right.
|
| Can you please stop saving smaller developers from Apple?
| Thanks!
|
| PS: You maybe need some homework too. Essentially, Stripe
| etc. doesn't handle anything else that processing your
| payments(Maybe that changed or will change in the
| future). They have list of countries that they support
| and links to the governing bodies, you are on your own to
| figure out how to sell in these countries. There are some
| companies that handle stuff like that but you don't
| simply pay 99$/year and start using them, there are also
| publishers that will do it for you but they are much much
| more predatory and restrictive that Apple. So please, if
| you have something that you know say it, instead of
| passive aggressively attacking my character. If you are
| business genius you say you are, it would be much nicer
| of you to share some of that with those who know less
| instead of throwing generalised assumption and saying
| things like "go do your homework".
| jacquesm wrote:
| Nobody said that you can't do business with Apple in any
| way that you want.
|
| Your arguments in this thread are based on some kind of
| extrapolation that is not warranted.
|
| As for what Stripe and other PSPs do: I'm intimately
| familiar with that stuff. You are free to do your own
| marketing/sales/payment processing/whatever but you
| should not be forced to deal with any particular party,
| including Apple at some price that they set.
|
| Note that if Apple would charge regular PSP fees we
| probably would not be having this discussion and _you_
| would be making more money.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I'm glad that you are intimately knowledgable but your
| original claim was that %30 is a bad deal and large
| corporations are in a mission to help small developers
| agains Apple.
|
| Then when I press you to show some calculation, you admit
| that you actually need to be "a bit bigger than a small".
| Essentially, what you say that all you need is a dream
| and a few million dollars in the bank. Thanks, great
| advice.
|
| You keep repeating that you know a lot and I am sure you
| do but your arguments fall short of actual information.
| You keep saying things that "you need to learn" which I
| tolerate and try to be respectful despite I really don't
| enjoy being patronised.
|
| Besides, I want to note that the real issue for me is not
| the %30 or %15 or whatever cut Apple takes. The real
| issue is that Apple/Google/Amazon or any other company
| can cut you off if they want. At this point, I think
| these services must be regulated like utility, i.e.
| businesses that depend on these must be guaranteed to be
| treated equally and fairly. Apple is has done fine for
| the most part but IMHO what we need is rights, not all
| that BS about making Apple change their software to
| accommodate something.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 30% is a bad deal because it was a one-sided affair.
|
| Let's see your reaction when they crank it up to 50%, 70%
| or even more. Your arguments are going to be exactly the
| same, right?
|
| > At this point, I think these services must be regulated
| like utility, i.e. businesses that depend on these must
| be guaranteed to be treated equally and fairly.
|
| This is _exactly_ the crux of this court case. Apple is
| abusing its position, it has turned itself into a utility
| and there is no way to opt out and switch to another
| utility.
| emteycz wrote:
| There isn't going to be any reaction because they can't
| crank it up to 50 or 70 percent because developers would
| leave. Which means it's not a monopoly.
| Jensson wrote:
| Developers wouldn't leave, the apple app store generates
| so much revenue that it would be much more profitable
| than android even if they lost half of it. What would
| happen is that governments all over the world would
| quickly rush to regulate Apples power away, that is what
| Apple is worried about and why they lowered it for small
| developers to 15% already, they aren't worried about
| competition here.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Do you think that a 99% tax/commission would be fine? If
| not, how do you decide that 99% breaks the business, but
| 30% is fine?
|
| The answer of course is that different businesses have
| different margins. For some, even paying 99% commission
| to Apple would not break the business, as they have such
| great margins that even getting 1% of each sale would
| still leave them profitable. For others, even a 1%
| commission is too much, as they have such low margins
| even losing 1% of sales price makes them unprofitable.
|
| For any set price, some business models are excluded from
| the App Store, for better or for worse.
| harshitaneja wrote:
| This 15% happened after all the outrage. Yes, all these mega
| corps don't care about the little guy but apple allowing
| third party options doesn't take away from their ability to
| continue to provide the services to developers who see value
| in apple's payment services.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Are you a developer? Can I see your apps? I'm curios about
| your business model where selling coins or unlocking
| premium features at %30 commission instead of %15 breaks
| your business to the point that incorporating in 175
| countries is more desirable.
| harshitaneja wrote:
| I develop. No, 30% doesn't break my business majorly
| because my business model is not around app sales but I
| agree with your point that for most 15 and 30 won't break
| the business. But you are presenting a false dichotomy.
| Why are we assuming if apple doesn't offer these
| services, a third party won't as well? And I am not
| proposing that apple stop offering its payment and other
| distribution services but rather that third parties be
| allowed to do the same.
| mrtksn wrote:
| There's nothing desirable in dealing with multiple 3rd
| parties to reach your customers instead of one that is
| essentially providing equal service at equal price to
| (almost)everyone.
| harshitaneja wrote:
| And I am not advocating that any one takes away that from
| you, just for us to have a choice.
| pritambaral wrote:
| > providing ... service
|
| The mafia also provides services. You don't just pay them
| and get nothing in return. Of course, there, as here, you
| really have no choice but to pay; and to pay ridiculously
| inflated rates.
|
| > ... at equal price
|
| Not true. Apple's price is zero. Sucks if you're
| competing with them, then. Maybe we should all be
| thankful Apple at-least let's you compete, even if with a
| handicap. Unlike the mafia.
| albertopv wrote:
| So why is Apple so scared by competition? Why denying other
| payment services at all?
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Apple so scared by competition
|
| That's a loaded question.
|
| I don't think they are scared, it's just easier for them to
| collect their cut when the payments flow through their
| systems. It also enables them to do really good customer
| service and this helps them sell more iDevices. Purchasing,
| refunds, cancellations are all handled by Apple and are
| accessible from a single place and that makes for a superb
| customer experience.
|
| Let's not forget that companies are not charities. When
| they are charities, they register as such.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You make no sense. _No one_ is arguing Apple should stop
| offering this service to developers.
|
| However, Apple shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the market
| for mobile apps (or "oligopolize" it together with Google, if
| you want to be extremely pedantic). There should be other
| _options_ for these types of services.
|
| If Apple offers the best case for your business: Great! Keep
| using Apple. If someone else's business doesn't need
| availability in 175 countries (say, they are a taxi app
| operating in one city), perhaps they should be able to choose
| some other payment processor who won't demand 30% of every
| in-app purchase for offering _them_ the exact same service as
| Stripe.
| hraedon wrote:
| The problem is that they _aren 't_ offering the same
| service. The payment processor is not maintaining the
| ecosystem or doing anything outside of the relatively
| narrow scope of accepting payments and maybe dealing with
| taxes.
|
| Even if you think Apple's (and Google's, and Microsoft's,
| and so on) cut is too high, the idea that the entirety or
| even the bulk of the value that they offer is strictly in
| facilitating transactions is incorrect.
| MilaM wrote:
| This is a valid argument. But it's not like devs are completely
| on their own outside of the App Store. There are at least two
| other companies that provide payment and licensing services to
| software vendors like Fastspring or Paddle. I only know these
| companies as a buyer software licenses. Never had any problems
| with them. But I can't say how it is to deal with them as a
| software vendor.
| Aulig wrote:
| I use Paddle as a seller and it's an amazing experience. No
| VAT hassle (both paying it and displaying prices correctly on
| my website) and super easy integration on my website
| (comparable to Stripe). Plus you get a bunch of payment
| methods at once (Apple Pay, Paypal, credit card, bank
| transfer,...). A great experience all around for a fair price
| (5%).
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| What Paddle and Fastspring offer is what Apple values at 3%
| of the 30% fee.
|
| This is about access to marketplace with 1+ billion people
| for a vertically integrated device that cost billions of R&D
| money.
|
| Same as if you want your SaaS to be on Shopify or Salesforce
| store. You'll pay a cut to be there. Because Shopify and
| Salesforce offer you access to their customers to install
| your app in 1 click.
| danuker wrote:
| As a consumer I do not want to enter an ecosystem where 30% of
| any software entering my device is leeched away into by an ever-
| increasing monopoly.
|
| As such, I use second-hand Android devices with Lineage OS, and
| get my software from F-Droid.
| homarp wrote:
| is your bank app on F-Droid?
| xxs wrote:
| I use a standard web for banking. Works on anything.
| YaBomm wrote:
| sofixa wrote:
| It probably isn't, but bank apps usually are free so it
| doesn't matter.
| YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote:
| Most bank apps don't work properly anymore on rooted phones
| or custom roms.
| bmicraft wrote:
| I didn't have a problem with them since Magisk got so
| good at hiding itself which has been at least 3 years
| gkbrk wrote:
| Sounds like a job for regulations if an essential service
| like banking can keep users out on such arbitrary terms.
|
| I think only one of the banking apps I use check for
| rooted phones, and it only uses that to warn the user
| once on app install and never again.
| YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote:
| Is it just a warning? Mine explicitly teels me that if
| anything happens to the bank account they won't be liable
| because I used the app on a rooted phone.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Regulators can't force banks to provide service in an
| unsafe environment, which a rooted phone essentially is.
| kevincox wrote:
| s/don't work properly anymore/refuse to run on/
| danuker wrote:
| Indeed. They want to correlate the user through their
| Google account.
| danuker wrote:
| No. I only use web banking.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Oh well, they will claim you can use pwa's as recently announced
| in 2007.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application
|
| No surprise here. They will literally block/slowdown progress
| every way they can.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Courts are not amused by such tricks.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| But apple isn't a monopoly since you can add a website to
| your start screen.
|
| We are just behind on features and it's a "highly technical
| issue"
|
| ;)
| jshen wrote:
| I've been an Apple fan for a very long time, but I bought my
| first windows laptop ever this past year because of the direction
| Apple has been going with things like this. I really wish the
| alternatives to iPhones, Apple watches, and tvOS weren't so much
| worse.
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