[HN Gopher] US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Ap...
___________________________________________________________________
US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still
collect commission
Author : virgildotcodes
Score : 813 points
Date : 2024-01-16 22:58 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| virgildotcodes wrote:
| Apologies for the maimed title. The maximum title length for
| submissions is too restrictive IMO.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Why was this downvoted? It is a good comment. Thank you to
| clarify.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| This list of requirements to save 3 percentage points is absurd.
| Approximately no one is going to use this. Which I'm sure is the
| point.
| pmontra wrote:
| I'm sure about that. I forecast that there will be plenty of
| money spent to remove those hurdles and to defend them. Lawyers
| rejoice!
| maronato wrote:
| You know what else is usually close to 3%? Credit card fees.
| az226 wrote:
| r/MaliciousCompliance
| meteor333 wrote:
| wow! Looks like Apple finally caved.
|
| This is a huge win for the developers, despite that pesky
| warning. They can still ask users to circumvent apple pay/in-app
| purchases and get away by not giving a revenue cut to Apple.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Contractually, developers are still required to pay 27%
| commission to Apple (or 12% for the small business programme).
| i.e. Apple are only removing a 3% payment processing fee here.
|
| They say it'll be hard to actually audit this, and it will, and
| many developers may manage to get around it, but technically
| that's a breach of contract and they could be removed from the
| store for it, so I'm sure many won't risk it.
| jrks11o wrote:
| What about sketchy apps with subscriptions, are those still
| managed via Apple? As an end user, I like the fact I can just
| cancel through Apple instead of having to find my way around
| a 3rd party site that is trying its best to prevent me from
| unsubscribing.
| danpalmer wrote:
| This change means that users could go and subscribe
| externally, including to scam subscriptions, and you would
| no longer be able to cancel via Apple. That's probably part
| of the motivation for why they don't want to implement this
| sort of thing.
| MBCook wrote:
| That's been one of their arguments against it. You're
| right. And honestly they're not wrong.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if using a non-Apple payment
| system quickly became a very good way to figure out if
| you were about to get scammed by a random third party.
|
| If it's a company that I already know and trust, I might
| be willing (though Apple payments will still be more
| convenient).
|
| Rando company? No way. Honestly this whole thing is
| probably going to prove their point. Even if they don't
| exactly deserve the win.
| MBCook wrote:
| They didn't cave. A court gave them no choice.
| nerdawson wrote:
| They want a 27% commission on sales made from those links and the
| right to audit companies' accounts for compliance.
|
| https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747406430054097099
|
| It's beyond a joke. Between that and the payment processing fees,
| you're no better off. In fact, you get all of the same costs but
| none of the benefits of Apple's app store native payment
| infrastructure.
| danenania wrote:
| It seems a lot more egregious that anything Microsoft did in
| the 90s. While MS tried to push their own products and lock out
| competitors, they never tried to take a massive cut of all the
| software on their OS. The level of sheer FU everyone chutzpah
| is pretty impressive.
|
| They're indeed making quite a joke out of antitrust at this
| point.
| karlshea wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a direct comparison. Back then sure you
| could get shareware but mostly the market was paid boxed
| software. I can't find a direct source but I remember hearing
| brick-and-mortar retailers would take even more than 30% of
| sales. And Visual Studio sure wasn't free.
|
| Everything was different though, you'd be paying for your OS
| upgrades too which doesn't happen on iOS. I agree 30% is
| crazy, but the market on iOS they're enabling has to get paid
| for somehow. That source of revenue was different for
| Microsoft in the 80s/90s but it still existed.
| MBCook wrote:
| Throughout the multiple trials that has been a big argument
| Apple makes. That especially for smaller companies their
| cut is drastically lower than it would have been for retail
| software on shelves.
|
| Which conveniently ignores the fact that you can buy
| software for digital download on the Internet for
| significantly lower overhead.
|
| But they keep arguing it.
| threeseed wrote:
| > buy software for digital download on the Internet for
| significantly lower overhead
|
| But you are looking at that through the lens of an end
| user.
|
| As a developer, Apple's total acquisition cost i.e.
| 15/30% is far less than what it costs me to acquire
| customers through other channels e.g. Paid Ads, Referral
| etc.
| zamadatix wrote:
| And if another developer disagrees for their app it
| doesn't matter because it made sense for you?
| danenania wrote:
| "I remember hearing brick-and-mortar retailers would take
| even more than 30% of sales"
|
| I'd say the key difference there is that Microsoft didn't
| own all those retail stores.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Right, and anyone could open a retail store and sell
| software with a lower mark-up.
| toast0 wrote:
| > And Visual Studio sure wasn't free.
|
| Visual Studio wasn't free, but it also wasn't required.
| There are a wide variety of ways to develop software for
| Microsoft OSes.
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| I used to sell shareware back in early 2000s and have never
| sold a box, only online. There used to be payment
| processors tailored just to this, who were charging way
| less than 30% for the privilege.
| biztos wrote:
| > but the market on iOS they're enabling has to get paid
| for somehow
|
| How about paying for it with the massive profit they make
| selling the devices?
|
| As far as I can tell, the only reason Apple's doing the
| whole rent-seeking App Store business is "because they
| can." Upside is all that money, downside is the developers
| kinda hate you.
| MBCook wrote:
| Microsoft had like 95% of the market.
|
| Apple has 50%. Courts have already ruled they're not a
| monopoly. Epic asked the Supreme Court to look at that again
| and they specifically decided not to and to leave the
| decision in place.
|
| That's why Apple can do what they're (now, post order) doing
| legally and Microsoft couldn't.
| danenania wrote:
| iOS and Android taken together are clearly a monopoly
| though. So call it a cartel or duopoly with price fixing if
| you like rather than a monopoly. It's _exactly_ the kind of
| situation that antitrust laws were created to prevent.
| MBCook wrote:
| Unless you can find proof of collusion I'm not sure it
| matters.
|
| Making matters worse the Google Play Store is completely
| optional you've been able to side load for years. To the
| degree Google prevented that they just got kicked in the
| teeth for it.
|
| So you're going to have to argue that the combination of
| the Apple App Store, plus Google, plus Samsung, plus
| everything else all work together to screw over users.
|
| Good luck.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > iOS and Android taken together are clearly a monopoly
| though.
|
| That's impossible by definition, a literal contradiction
| in terms.
| danenania wrote:
| Thus the following sentence in my comment: "So call it a
| cartel or duopoly with price fixing if you like rather
| than a monopoly."
| threeseed wrote:
| Except that it isn't a cartel and there is no evidence of
| price fixing.
|
| And there is nothing preventing other companies e.g.
| Samsung making their own store.
| danenania wrote:
| Price fixing doesn't require active coordination. It can
| be tacit/implicit.
| mr_toad wrote:
| For it to be illegal it has to involve an agreement
| between competitors. It doesn't have to be in writing,
| but it does require communication.
|
| Setting the price the same as your competitors is not
| price fixing.
| greg_V wrote:
| Apple is acting like a state within their domain. Collecting a
| VAT and requiring compliance that's reserved usually for the
| national tax office with inspective powers.
|
| Having locked in the richest consumers of the world, they get
| to say what goes and what doesn't, worldly courts and laws be
| damned.
|
| It's both hilarious and gruesome at the same time, because
| we're supposed to be equal under consumer laws or whatever, but
| there you go!
| klabb3 wrote:
| The infuriating part is that this isn't about computing or
| distribution. They already charge for that separately. It's a
| triple dip just because nobody stops them.
|
| Most of the modern digital consumer economy is based on
| products and services which are device-agnostic. If I'm using
| Spotify or Netflix or something they are service providers
| and the iPhone/ipad is just a client device. Apple should
| have no marginal returns (a cut) on money that should go to
| artists, actors, developers. They've already charged
| massively for both their physical products and their
| services.
|
| Antitrust law is a joke. This has always been glaringly
| obvious since Jobs first came up with this shit. The fact
| that it still ain't fixed is a travesty, not just for tech
| nerds, but it impedes the digital economy at large.
|
| The greediest thing of it all is that they're actually
| providing a service people would pay premium for - in-app
| purchases and their "all subscriptions in one place" without
| dark pattern harassment is very nice for consumers. They have
| a legit product worth a ton yet they still refuse to compete
| fairly. Anti-market capitalism..
| throwitaway1123 wrote:
| > Apple is acting like a state within their domain.
|
| Someone unironically complained yesterday that developers who
| don't like paying the 30% fee probably don't like paying
| their taxes, and I made the exact same argument that Apple
| was acting like a sovereign state [0]. And now Apple is
| doubling down by announcing that they'll be performing
| financial audits just like the Internal Revenue Service if
| you include a link to purchase content/services outside of
| the app store.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39007657
| btown wrote:
| This is still huge for mobile gaming, though. Per
| https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...
| :
|
| > Apple's commission will be 27% on proceeds you earn from
| sales ("transactions") to the user for digital goods or
| services on your website after a link out (i.e., they tap
| "Continue" on the system disclosure sheet), provided that the
| sale was initiated within seven days and the digital goods or
| services can be used in an app.
|
| As any F2P gamer knows, "whales" don't just spend up front -
| they make microtransactions on a regular basis for months or
| years as new rewards become available. This is incredibly
| meaningful for game publishers who depend on long-term customer
| engagement.
| 542458 wrote:
| > right to audit companies' accounts for compliance
|
| I'm not sure why the audit requirement is getting called out.
| That seems pretty standard for this type of revenue sharing
| agreement to me.
| lxgr wrote:
| So Apple will be collecting 27% (instead of 30%) for... what
| exactly?
|
| They might just get away with something as crass in a vacuum, but
| given that the DMA will go into effect very soon, there will be a
| point of reference in a similar economy, and I don't think it'll
| be pretty for Apple.
|
| US regulators (federal or state; I could see something equivalent
| to GDPR and CCPA) will be taking a very close look.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > So Apple will be collecting 27% (instead of 30%) for... what
| exactly?
|
| Off the top of my head...
|
| - Bandwidth
|
| - Running the App Store for users
|
| - Marketing the App Store
|
| - App review
|
| - Security efforts to keep malware off the store
|
| - Making App Store optimisation tools for developers
|
| There's a lot of moving parts to this. You could argue that
| none of this is necessary if you sideload, but _distribution_
| is worth a lot in general to businesses, and I think it 's
| clear that the App Store is a good distribution channel in many
| ways - easy to use for sellers (vs via traditional publishers,
| or physical retail), and easy to use for buyers.
| lxgr wrote:
| If that's true (and I even believe that it is to a large
| extent!), there should be no problem for Apple to let its
| value proposition stand for itself and allow some
| competition.
|
| Besides that, that list is very bundled. What if I e.g. want
| the convenient subscription payment processing, but want to
| (or need to) bring my own CDN for most content? What if I
| want their marketing and am willing to pay for it, but prefer
| my own payment processing?
| danpalmer wrote:
| I agree, although I think this is doing that to some
| extent. Sure there's some scary text in the popup that I
| think could be toned down, but I'm not an expert, and to be
| fair there are risks going externally.
|
| Allowing other app stores would be the big win in
| competition here, properly forcing Apple to win on value
| proposition. The DMA could force this, but I'm not certain
| about the details.
| lxgr wrote:
| The scary text doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact
| that they are not unbundling anything. They are charging
| an effectively equal/higher fee for _less_ services than
| developers would get from just sticking with in-app
| purchases.
|
| It's an arguably quite sloppy illusion of
| competition/choice.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| So charge a fee based on usage of the specific services then?
| Flat 30% of monthly subscriptions when they're not even
| providing the service of sending that audio and video to the
| device is insane.
| lxgr wrote:
| I agree, but I also don't know what actually would be a
| fair price for either of these specific services.
|
| The advantage of mandating alternative distribution
| channels (i.e. sideloading or alternative app stores, both
| with their own payments infrastructure) would be that it
| wouldn't be up to a regulator to figure that out - the
| market could decide.
| grishka wrote:
| Sure, all these things cost a lot of money. What if I would
| like to market, host, and distribute my own app, without any
| Apple involvement?
|
| From my own experience, the app store brings negative value
| to both the users and the developers in many cases. It's most
| often seen not as the godsend like Apple portrays it, but as
| a stupid obstacle course that you need to clear every time
| you publish a new app or an update to an existing one, and
| sometimes even when you don't.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| So basically nothing that companies couldn't do themselves if
| Apple didn't explicitly block it. You pay 27% for fuck all.
|
| > distribution is worth a lot in general to businesses
|
| No, digital distribution is worth so little it rounds to $0.
|
| > App Store is a good distribution channel in many ways
|
| It's the only distribution channel allowed so of course it's
| the "best" there is no competition allowed.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Digital distribution is much easier than burning discs,
| sending them to shops, etc. It's also not just the process
| but the visibility, a million tiny storefronts will be much
| harder for users to browse and likely result in fewer
| overall sales, than one massive storefront.
|
| I get that there's no competition on iOS, but I was
| comparing to other ecosystems and mechanisms.
|
| > So basically nothing that companies couldn't do
| themselves if Apple didn't explicitly block it. You pay 27%
| for fuck all.
|
| No, you pay 27% for those services I mentioned. Those
| things aren't free if developers do them themselves.
| Developers may _prefer_ to do some themselves because they
| think they can do them for cheaper, and in this case
| payments have been opened up so that there can be
| competition there - the DMA in the EU will do similar and I
| look forward to it.
|
| You may disagree with the price (and I personally feel it's
| high), but these things cost real amounts of money to do.
| Not just this, but free app developers would also need to
| pay all these costs despite potentially having no revenue
| directly attributable to the app.
| rstupek wrote:
| You can probably include development of SDKs and
| documentation as well.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > You can probably include development of SDKs and
| documentation as well.
|
| With limited exceptions, platform vendors (Microsoft, IBM,
| Sun/Oracle, etc) are generally not in the business of
| paywalling their development documentation, tools, and
| SDKs, otherwise it makes their platform far less attactive
| to third-party developers that they absolutely need in
| order to.
|
| ...and ever and never-mind that Apple's documentation is
| sub-par[1], even with the billions of dollars they're
| raking in. It boggles the mind because nothing is stopping
| Apple from hiring the people it needs to ensure decent
| documentation and DX, which can be paid-for directly from
| the $99/yr developer membership fee.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046691
| rstupek wrote:
| They're not now generally paywalled and free but it
| didn't always used to be that way.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| My company's SaaS product used to have an iOS and Android app
| which we discontinued a couple of years ago when Safari
| finally started supporting more web-standards that enabled
| our PWA to more-or-less have parity with the old app
| (confession: our app was using Xamarin instead of being truly
| native, not that it mattered much).
|
| ...so with that context in-mind, we don't benefit from - nor
| really need at all, most of those services you're referring
| to;
|
| > Bandwidth
|
| We're a small B2B SaaS with a userbase sized under 100,000
| users and our old app bundle was around ~20MB and updated a
| handful of times per year, so even if 100% of our users used
| the iOS app with auto-updates then that's less than 2GB of
| data-transfer per published update - the cost of serving that
| is far less than a rounding-error on AWS/Azure.
|
| > Running the App Store for users
|
| I accept that.
|
| > Marketing the App Store
|
| No-one should be paying for Apple to market their own App
| Store - and as a B2B SaaS app, Apple would never promote us
| or do marketing for us.
|
| > App review
|
| I also accept this - but ostensibly this is what your $99/yr
| developer fee pays for.
|
| > Security efforts to keep malware off the store
|
| This is the same thing as App review; if we look more
| broadly, then it's better to compare this to Microsoft's
| Windows Defender which is free, and is funded independently
| of the Microsoft App Store.
|
| > Making App Store optimisation tools for developers
|
| Again, this is Apple's responsibility to pay for, not ours -
| and even-then consider that efficient update/patch
| distribution systems have been around for decades so it's
| hardly cutting-edge development (e.g. those ~KB-sized binary
| diff patches for CD-installed games in the late-1990s when we
| were on dial-up, like EA had for SimCity 3000 or C&C Red
| Alert 2)
|
| For a B2B SaaS client app for BYOD users the iOS App Store is
| perfectly fine as a distribution system, and morally I'm fine
| with paying Apple some kind of fee for the benefits of their
| distribution system, but Apple has no legitimate claim to any
| percentage of the subscription fees we get from our users -
| so what this means is that we can make our app available for
| free to our users (which is fine, honestly) but (as per my
| understanding of the rules) we cannot offer any kind of
| account-management or billing-management for their SaaS
| subscriptions from within the app which isn't ideal.
|
| I think Apple's main mistake here was deciding that having a
| single set of rules and fee-schedules/commission/etc for
| everyone, because the revenue models for exploitative mobile
| games (especially their gold/gems IAPs) differs massively
| from my company's unimaginatively dry B2B SaaS client.
| lxgr wrote:
| > I think Apple's main mistake here was deciding that
| having a single set of rules and fee-
| schedules/commission/etc for everyone
|
| On the other hand, non-equal fees ironically seem to be
| exactly what's made US courts decide in favor of Apple but
| against Google in two superficially quite similar cases
| regarding app store fees:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/23994174/epic-google-trial-jury-
| ver...
|
| I think the main mistake isn't the fixed percentage fee,
| but rather holding on to the golden goose that is an app
| store monopoly for too long.
|
| Google has been providing sideloading since day one for
| example, and except for a few high-profile exceptions,
| people do genuinely seem to prefer the platform's native
| app store.
|
| Apple always aims for total control and authority over
| everything: Their supply chain, the apps running on their
| systems, the devices allowed to interface with them - and
| while that obsession with keeping it as *their own platform
| arguably is part of what makes their devices attractive, I
| think it won't keep working forever in this case.
| kevingadd wrote:
| All of that can easily be funded by the margins Apple makes
| off device sales alone combined with the fees you pay to
| become a developer.
|
| Even if for some reason you believe that's not true, there's
| no way they need 27% of all purchase revenue on the store to
| fund that stuff. The numbers simply don't check out. 30% was
| an arbitrary cut and that's why they can easily drop it to
| 27% or (for small devs as of recently) 15%.
|
| In the situations we're discussing, _both_ the app developer
| and every customer have _already_ given apple hundreds if not
| thousands of dollars worth of revenue. Out of that, Apple has
| a healthy margin.
|
| Now we're talking about Apple sticking their fingers into
| developers' pockets for every single transaction even if
| Apple's participation in that transaction is limited to
| updating a couple database rows to indicate that Customer
| XXXXX bought DLC Package YYYY in App ZZZZZ. There is simply
| no way that is worth 30%. They're not doing that much work.
| MBCook wrote:
| The DMA has surprisingly little effect on the US.
|
| In the EU has the 30% (or now 27%) been found illegal? I know
| they're being forced to allow other app stores or side loading
| or something. But what about the fee?
| lxgr wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure about that.
|
| For obvious reasons, the US government and justice system is
| probably not interested in being the beta tester for such a
| regulation - they have relatively little to gain and much to
| lose. Even "green bubbles" seem to be a much bigger point of
| contention in US public discourse than sideloading/the 30%
| tax.
|
| But if the DMA it ends up working well well and consumers
| like it, and app store customers manage to sell that fact to
| the US voting population, the wind could change for Apple
| too.
| MBCook wrote:
| What does the US have to lose?
|
| I don't think that really matters at all. No one (in the
| legislative branches) cares enough to pass something about
| this. Is basically impossible to get things past anyway
| recently, even far more important things than this.
| lxgr wrote:
| Hurting one of its biggest companies for something that
| turns out to not be in the interest of the voting public
| after all would be kind of a big deal!
|
| Even an ineffective regulation that neither hurts nor
| harms consumers but ends up hurting Apple would probably
| be seen very negatively.
|
| > Is basically impossible to get things past anyway
| recently, even far more important things than this.
|
| Very true, and another point in favor of inertia. The
| only thing that could possibly break that is seeing a
| similar regulation be a slam dunk in a comparable market,
| but even then it's a big if, I agree.
| MBCook wrote:
| Yeah, I think the only way it is going to happen at this
| point is that if it proves successful in the EU then it's
| quite possible we could get a law here in the US that
| basically says "we want that too or else".
|
| I just don't see us leading (or going in parallel) due to
| lack of interest/will.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Well if they try any shady business here (e.g. forcing a fee,
| limiting competitors contractually, lot's of big scary
| warnings for everything) the EU is standing by for rounds
| two, three etc.
|
| The regulatory rules passed in the DMA are written to allow
| action without the need to go through the whole legislative
| process.
|
| I predict it will come to that. Apple is gonna fight this
| tooth and nail to the very end. And unless they change their
| attitude and business practices, Europe has very little too
| lose by piling more and more rules on them.
|
| The 27% is not really a problem if there were a competitive
| market. If one emerges we'll see if not...see above.
| MBCook wrote:
| 27% only applies to the US.
|
| I'm curious to see what happens in the EU. Apple could do a
| couple of things to make their life easy but I know they're
| gonna go down kicking and screaming and make things worse
| for themselves. It's what they always do.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| DMA: I had to look it up. For others:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act
|
| << The DMA covers eight different sectors, which it refers to
| as Core Platforms Services (CPS). Due to the presence of
| gatekeepers who, to a certain degree, affect the market
| contestability, the CPS are considered problematic by the
| European Commission:
|
| online search engines (e.g. Google Search);
|
| online intermediation services (e.g. Google Play Store, Apple's
| App Store);
|
| social networks (e.g. Facebook);
|
| video sharing platforms (e.g. YouTube);
|
| communication platforms (e.g. WhatsApp, Gmail);
|
| advertising services (e.g. Google Ads);
|
| operating systems (e.g. Android, iOS);
|
| cloud services (e.g. Amazon Web Services).[4] >>
| sprite wrote:
| https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...
|
| They are taking 27%, between that and processing fees you might
| as well use In App Purchases.
|
| "Apple's commission will be 27% on proceeds you earn from sales
| ("transactions") to the user for digital goods or services on
| your website after a link out (i.e., they tap "Continue" on the
| system disclosure sheet), provided that the sale was initiated
| within seven days and the digital goods or services can be used
| in an app. This includes (a) any applicable taxes and (b) any
| adjustments for refunds, reversals and chargebacks. For auto-
| renewing subscriptions, (i) a sale initiated, including with a
| free trial or offer, within seven days after a link out is a
| transaction; and (ii) each subsequent auto-renewal after the
| subscription is initiated is also a transaction.] If you're a
| participant in the Small Business Program, or if the transaction
| is an auto-renewal in the second year or later of an auto-
| renewing subscription, the commission will be 12%. These
| commission rates apply to all amounts paid by each user net of
| transaction taxes charged by you. You will be responsible for the
| collection and remittance of any applicable taxes for sales
| processed by a third-party payment provider. If you adopt this
| entitlement, you will be required to provide transaction reports
| within 15 calendar days following the end of each calendar month.
| Even if there were no transactions, you're required to provide a
| report stating that is the case. If the cadence changes, we will
| update this page. To learn about the details that will need to be
| included in the report, view example reports. In the future, if
| Apple develops an API to facilitate reporting, you will be
| required to adopt such API within 30 days with an update of your
| app and follow the timing and requirements provided."
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| This is in response to them losing that part of the Epic lawsuit
| and exhausting all appeals (SCOTUS denied cert yesterday). It's
| not a voluntary decision.
| lxgr wrote:
| It's also not a concession in any way.
|
| Depending on the payment method used, they might just make a
| profit on this (e.g. some cards charge more than 3% of
| interchange alone, and there's other fees on top).
| steve_taylor wrote:
| There's also chargeback risk, which I imagine is quite high
| for digital purchases.
| lxgr wrote:
| True, although I'm not sure if Apple doesn't pass that
| through to developers anyway (at least in terms of losing
| the purchase, if not the fees as well).
| newprint wrote:
| My feeling is that this is a half measure and any half measure
| allow for the "freedom of interpretations". AAPL will put a lot
| of road blocks around external purchase links (result of recent
| ruling). I expect apps that will use external purchase links to
| be scrutinize a lot more, unexpectedly take off from the AAPL app
| store for made-up reasons and myriad of other road blocks around
| the ruling. You know, AAPL needs it's 30% cut.
| MBCook wrote:
| They'll try. That's who Apple is.
|
| But court has also found their required to do this. So if there
| are roadblocks are onerous you know someone's going to go
| running to the court to try and get that fixed.
|
| They could end up in big trouble if they try and fight it too
| hard. But they're also not gonna roll over.
|
| Expect the same exact thing with the DMA changes in the EU.
| danpalmer wrote:
| This is not new. The 27% fee has been around for over a year now
| I think, may have been announced in 2021 even, for markets
| outside the US that already mandate this. I've seen these screens
| already in apps.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| It seems like according to Sweeny the 27% rate itself is not
| new but it only went into effect today.[0]
|
| [0]
| https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/174728054136210228...
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think this is still just a US announcement.
|
| This was announced for dating apps in the Netherlands in Feb
| 2022, I think Korea also has had similar changes.
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/3649111/apple-
| begins-t...
| MBCook wrote:
| In the US.
|
| As GP mentioned it has been in effect for a while in Holland
| and maybe Korea or a few other places for at least certain
| kinds of apps due to local laws.
|
| Interesting note: this only applies to the US. I know the EU
| is forcing changes as well, but those are EU only.
|
| So South America, Asia, Australia, Africa, Canada, Mexico,
| and others haven't changed one bit and likely still require
| 30%.
| lxgr wrote:
| It's been mandated for dating apps in the Netherlands, to my
| knowledge. It being allowed for all apps in the US is arguably
| still news.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > mandated for dating apps in the Netherlands
|
| In this scenario, is there something specific that we should
| know/understand about (a) dating apps or (b) the Netherlands?
| danpalmer wrote:
| IIRC it was based on a court case from a group of dating
| app providers there. Dating apps have somewhat tricky unit
| economics, so I wouldn't be surprised if they made a case
| for their businesses specifically, and perhaps the court's
| finding was therefore not that widely applicable.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| Demanding a 27% commission for transactions taking place entirely
| outside of Apple infrastructure is obviously a finger in the eye,
| but I'm not entirely sure whose eye yet. Epic? The court? The
| FTC? The developer community? All of the above?
| cyral wrote:
| I love how apple has provided suggested language, such as "To
| get [X%] off, go to [X]", knowing damn well that a discount
| would only be offered if they weren't collecting a commission.
|
| Add to that that the link can only be displayed on a single
| page (not a modal or popup) and cannot be part of a purchase
| flow (where else would it go?). Certainly a huge slap in the
| face to all developers and the court's intent.
|
| They also say that using parameters in the URL is a privacy
| concern, when the real reason is they don't want you to use
| some kind of one-time-link to log the user in. They want the
| user to have to log in again, making it as painful (and least
| likely to convert) as possible.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| All of the above for sure.
| themerone wrote:
| A 27% cut will make a 3rd party payment service a non starter for
| all but the biggest app.
|
| For small players a 3% savings isn't worth the administrative
| overhead of paying apple separately.
|
| Apple is begging for another lawsuit over this.
| yakz wrote:
| Is there a 3% savings there or is that just covering the
| typical fee from the payment processor?
| dns_snek wrote:
| The latter, Stripe charges a 2.9% + 30c fee in the US for
| example.
| sircastor wrote:
| Remember that Apple charges 15% for everyone making less than
| 1M in revenue. And the range applied for external processing is
| going largely correlate with Apples offerings.
|
| Apple doesn't see their cut as "payment processing and
| hosting". They see it as the cost of selling for their
| platform.
| tommymachine wrote:
| This appears to be a huge boon, due to the fact that developers
| can now send their external marketing directly to their own
| online landing/checkout pages. Apple appears to be only charging
| commission for traffic sent there and that checks out within 7
| days of clicking the in app link.
|
| In other words, a developer can have a Facebook ad or similar go
| directly to the checkout page and buy the app there, bypassing
| the app store commission for traffic the developer is bringing to
| the app store themselves. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on
| this.
|
| This being the case, any recommendations for carts / processing
| services / etc that would be ideally positioned for this kind of
| use are MASSIVELY welcome!!!
| radley wrote:
| There's a strong chance this will be shot down as "bad-faith"
| compliance. Rumor is Epic will quickly contest it [Update:
| confirmed]
|
| https://twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/174740814726057173...
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Depends.
|
| If we're talking about the details of the implementation,
| maybe.
|
| If it's about the commission that still needs to be paid, then
| no. That's directly mentioned in the original ruling by the
| district court, a commission is due regardless.
| radley wrote:
| I think the real problem is unlimited access to accounting
| books for any business that has an iOS app. This will affect
| free apps too, since they now have the potential to offer
| purchases outside the app store. (Obviously, strategic
| partners and FAANG are exempt.)
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| I don't think so. This entitlement is something devs have
| to explicitly opt in for.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| In theory, perhaps, in practice Apple will only audit the
| developers that use the special entitlement.
|
| Ironically, this is something that is bothering the
| appellate court as well if you read between the lines of
| their judgment[0].
|
| They gently criticize the district court for both saying
| that developers should be able to link and sell outside the
| app while simultaneously saying that it's undesirable for
| Apple to audit developers because it's too cumbersome.
|
| But the appellate court isn't meant for do overs, just for
| when courts have erred in a significant way, so they only
| gently lament this, instead of doing something about it.
|
| 0: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/04/
| 24/2...
| jonhohle wrote:
| The difference between the Apple and Google lawsuits (from
| what I can tell), is that Apple didn't exempt FANG and held
| them to the same terms as everyone else while Google made
| private deals with special terms for individual businesses
| (Spotify was one, IIRC) that were not available to all
| customers.
| nodamage wrote:
| This is not particularly unusual for royalty licensing
| scenarios. As a matter of fact Epic's Unreal Engine EULA
| has a similar clause:
|
| _You agree to keep accurate books and records related to
| your development, manufacture, Distribution, and sale of
| Royalty Products and related revenue. Epic may conduct
| reasonable audits of those books and records. Audits will
| be conducted during business hours on reasonable prior
| notice to you. Epic will bear the costs of audits unless
| the results show a shortfall in payments in excess of 5%
| during the period audited, in which case you will be
| responsible for the cost of the audit._
| rideontime wrote:
| My eyes glazed over while scrolling the OP's list of
| restrictions. I'd probably want to sue rather than try to
| implement all that too.
| stevage wrote:
| They weren't all restrictions, some were things you can do.
| scythe wrote:
| If you don't want to read a lot of boring swill, you
| definitely don't want to participate in a lawsuit.
| judge2020 wrote:
| It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the
| developer agreement. Via user lolinder (
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020745 ):
|
| > Apple is already pretty clear in its developer agreement [0]
| that the 30% commission is for "its services as Your agent
| and/or commissionaire" (Schedule 2 3.4), not for its services
| as a payment processor. They are contractually allowed to take
| the 30% fee out of payments collected, but merely using a
| different payment processor doesn't remove the obligation to
| pay them for their other "services as Your agent and/or
| commissionaire".
|
| 0: https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/apple-developer-
| pr...
|
| In addition, from the original ruling:
|
| > Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the
| trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's
| justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not
| tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did not
| order Apple to do so.
| justinclift wrote:
| > It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the
| developer agreement.
|
| Mind you, you can be blocked from doing needed Apple dev
| stuff (eg sign binaries, etc) until you've manually logged
| into your Apple account and clicked on the "I accept" button
| whenever they change terms.
|
| This happened to us (sqlitebrowser.org) in recent weeks, as
| our CI just stopped working one day.
|
| It turns out there was a new developer agreement that needed
| signing, and until I'd logged in and done that then Apples
| servers would no longer sign binaries.
|
| There's literally no choice but to sign the things -
| regardless of terms - if you want your users to have software
| that runs.
| foooorsyth wrote:
| >There's literally no choice but to sign the things -
| regardless of terms - if you want your users to have
| software that runs.
|
| This gets to be a real nightmare in large organizations
| with multiple Apple Dev Portal admins, some of which may
| not even be authorized to sign legal documents on behalf of
| the company.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| It's a pain even in small orgs. There are some things
| only the account owner can do. You can make someone else
| an admin with every possible authorization, and if the
| person who set up the account is tied up or out of
| office, a whole dev team and testing can be stopped.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > There's literally no choice but to sign the things -
| regardless of terms - if you want your users to have
| software that runs.
|
| I suspect the EU will at some point, they have haven't
| already, make terms that must be accepted to continue void.
| threeseed wrote:
| Will be interesting to see Epic file a lawsuit questioning
| the legality of per-sale licensing models for SDKs.
|
| You know given they charge exactly the same way for Unreal
| Engine.
| kelnos wrote:
| Doesn't sound interesting at all, as the two matters are
| unrelated.
|
| Apple isn't charging for use of the iOS platform SDKs; the
| developer agreement is much more vague and weasely about
| what they're charging for, being the developer's "agent
| and/or commisionaire".
|
| Per-sale licensing for a copyrighted (or patented) work is
| pretty normal and done in many industries. Apple's
| agreement doesn't specify any fees for licensing at all.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The case has been about whether preventing others from
| competing on pricing is anticompetitive not whether having
| pricing should be illegal in itself. Whether that's about
| the App Store or the SDK it would be extremely odd to
| suddenly expect Epic to instead try to argue it's the
| payment model that's the problem not the anti-
| competitiveness of only allowing 1 option.
| judge2020 wrote:
| To add, I'm not sure what legal basis there is for "you're
| charging too much". My only guess is filing against Apple and
| Google jointly for being a duopoly, but Epic has made it
| extremely hard to do something like this because of their
| existing jury trial against Google which gives a lot of
| concessions to third-party app stores in terms of
| functionality.
| zamadatix wrote:
| "You're charging too much" seems unlikely to be the actual
| argument presented though. Something along the lines of the
| scare message, still not actually allowing it to be handled
| via in app flow like a first party payment, and
| intentionally making a 3rd party choice potentially
| impossible to compete vs a 1st party choice by arguably
| hiding part of the processing fee margin in the overall fee
| would be the kinds of arguments I'd expect.
|
| I.e. Epic's goal here isn't about whether Apple charges 99%
| or 1% rather it's about allowing other payment methods
| (theirs in their case of course) to compete with equal
| footing regardless what Apple wants to charge to do it
| through them instead.
| Gabrys1 wrote:
| I think the percentage charged is very relevant though.
|
| And the fact the developer is to hide the fee and not
| list it on the receipt (subscription: $10, Apple tax: $3)
|
| And the fact you cannot charge less for the same service
| if you sold it outside the platform (as you'd like to do
| as you didn't need to collect the Apple tax).
| eastbound wrote:
| Honestly Apple does not act as an agent for companies
| that are known outside of the Appstore.
|
| Netflix has an app, Netflix "is not" an app. Google
| Chrome, Airbnb, Epic, anyone who has spent marketing
| bucks promoting their service and providing a supporting
| app, was rather acting as a marketing agent for Apple
| than the opposite.
|
| Apple's new stance has no merit. We all understand it's
| fair to participate in the funding of the Appstore, but
| it is a very bad defense.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > And the fact you cannot charge less for the same
| service if you sold it outside the platform (as you'd
| like to do as you didn't need to collect the Apple tax).
|
| I thought that was expressly permitted - just that Apple
| Tax still must be collected:
|
| > The link can mention the specific price of content on a
| website, or that content is discounted on the website
| from the App Store price. Comparisons are allowed.
| politician wrote:
| And the fact that you have to implement in-app purchases
| if you want to do out-of-app purchases!
| randunel wrote:
| The fact that your example has a lower apple tax than
| actual ($3.9 apple tax for $13.0 subscription, not $3.0
| as you've stated in the example where a developer would
| itemize the price or tariff) and none of the people who
| replied to you noticed is very relevant, too, in the same
| context as your comment.
| bubblethink wrote:
| The legal basis is that Apple is not privy to the
| transaction that happens outside. Purely on a data privacy
| basis, Apple cannot force a vendor to tell Apple what it
| does outside of Apple property. So any link tax that Apple
| wants to impose would have to be a fixed cost, and not a
| percentage of what happens in a different universe.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > To add, I'm not sure what legal basis there is for
| "you're charging too much"
|
| Anti-price-gauging laws have already been ruled as
| constitutional, so there is case law for "You're charging
| too much"
| sholladay wrote:
| But overpriced goods and services are fairly common and
| accepted in the marketplace. Gucci handbags, houses,
| TurboTax, any product or service at a car dealership...
|
| The 30% App Store tax does suck but I've never understood
| why it's singled out. My best guess is that people hate
| platforms because it's a 3-way transaction, which makes
| everything harder, including price negotiation. And also
| the service isn't particularly unique, unlike the house,
| or a status symbol, unlike the Gucci handbag.
|
| Ironically, if Apple made App Store publication more
| expensive but invite-only, like a high end Bugatti sports
| car, I don't think it would've ended up in court.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| >Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the
| trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's
| justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not
| tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did
| not order Apple to do so.
|
| We really do live in clown world
| lolinder wrote:
| She basically signaled that she wished she could do
| something about it but that Epic didn't challenge the 30%,
| they challenged the existence of a commission at all. Epic
| overreached and she can't just make up a judgement about
| things that haven't actually been brought before her.
| volleygman180 wrote:
| Apple's justification seems counterintuitive, given that the
| commission _only_ applies to app sales or in-app purchases.
| Since free apps don 't pay anything, what is the commission
| for if _not_ for "services as a payment provider"?
| lolinder wrote:
| It's very normal for companies to charge some customers
| more than others based on their ability and/or willingness
| to pay. See: student, senior, and military discounts, SaaS
| with organization pricing vs individual pricing, etc.
| folmar wrote:
| I don't know for the US but in many countries that's just
| illegal if you have a monopoly.
| lolinder wrote:
| The judge in this ruling found that Apple does not have a
| monopoly, so it wouldn't matter either way.
| SllX wrote:
| I'm not sure Epic actually has standing anymore.
|
| They did back when they were part of the developer program. If
| they can make their case that it is bad faith compliance as
| part of their original case before the Court goes "c'ya, we're
| done here", they might have something, but Apple revoked Epic's
| membership for violating their terms in the developer program
| worldwide and at the conclusion of this lawsuit, Apple has not
| been ordered to reinstate it. So Epic can't really argue that
| they have or will have suffered a harm under these new terms
| since they're still in a position where Apple isn't doing
| business with them and their lawsuit under which they did have
| standing is basically at its conclusion.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I agree. As much as I disagree with the ruling the courts
| made, they definitely decided Apple was allowed to ban Epic
| for their store permanently, and so Apple's fees no longer
| are Epic's problem, legally speaking. Someone else would have
| to be willing to invest the funding on the legal battle, with
| pockets as deep as Tim's and the same willingness to go up
| against a Goliath... one that already won against Epic, and
| won't be bought out a special deal. Tim Sweeney was uniquely
| concerned with getting fair treatment for everyone here and
| that is shockingly rare in billionaire CEOs.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| IANAL, but at face value, that seems like it would be, well,
| quite insane? To emphasize, I've seen plenty of insane stuff
| in the legal system, but if the argument is basically that
| Epic doesn't have standing because _Apple won 't let them be
| in a position where they could have standing_, yet they
| generally offer that position (dev program membership) to the
| public at large, that seems like some sort of Catch-22-ish
| nightmare.
|
| Again, little surprises me in the legal system these days,
| but I have to think courts would be very skeptical of an
| argument where a potential defendant controls the gates that
| decide whether a potential plaintiff has standing.
| EGreg wrote:
| Why can't developers bring a class action lawsuit or
| someone else just open a case?
|
| They did so in Cameron vs Apple and Google ... and settled
| I believe !
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| They can. They have little interest to. Very miniscule
| reward (the only ones winning in a class action are the
| lawyers... I am due for a solid $20 from Google though!)
| for a huge risk.
|
| I'm repeating the words of another commenter, but most
| app devs aren't competing against Apple but other devs.
| They aren't billion dollar businesses that stand to
| benefit by trying to get a lower rev share.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| But you've just described the dynamics of every single
| class action lawsuit. It doesn't matter that the
| individual devs have little interest, the lawyers have
| huge interest because winning a sizable class action for
| a lawyer is equivalent to a having a startup that hits.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Class actions benefit a lot from certain amount of devs
| cooperating with the lawyers. I'm unsure how many would
| in fear of retaliation.
| kelnos wrote:
| The purpose of this class action would be to force Apple
| to change policies going forward (which would presumably
| give choices to developers that would allow them to save
| money and increase their profits). Any cash distributed
| in the settlement would be a bonus.
|
| But I do agree that most developers probably wouldn't be
| interested. They don't want to stand up their own payment
| processor, or don't care to do integrations with a bunch
| of third parties, and tolerate the fees to use Apple's
| payments platform. And for many of these developers,
| their entire business is built on their relationship with
| Apple. Getting their developer accounts terminated would
| mean shutting down entirely.
| dwaite wrote:
| What would the suit entail? That Apple is giving a new
| option where they charge less than the previously agreed
| upon percentage?
| SllX wrote:
| It's not that difficult to follow. As I recall, and feel
| free to correct me on the chronology if I get something out
| of order, it went something like this:
|
| - Epic pushed an update to Fortnite at some point to the
| App Store that would allow them to issue an update from the
| server side to enable a flag to offer Epic's own payment
| processor where you could buy in-game currency from them
| instead of IAP. They then issued a server update toggling
| this flag and began advertising it to Fortnite players
| immediately.
|
| - Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store for violating
| their policies.
|
| - Epic files suit almost immediately and begins a PR and
| advertising blitz they had clearly prepped far in advance.
| In other words, picked a fight. Epic has standing for this
| suit because they have suffered a harm (Apple removed their
| app).
|
| - After a grace period in which Apple explicitly laid out
| to Epic that they were risking their developer account,
| offered them time to get back into compliance and resubmit
| Fortnite to the App Store, they terminated Epic's developer
| program account. This ended Apple's business relationship
| with Epic.
|
| - That lawsuit has now concluded. Apple took it on the
| cheek for the anti-steering provisions and has come up with
| a plan to comply which they are now implementing, all
| appeals have been exhausted, and Apple and Epic no longer
| have a business relationship.
|
| (I'm missing some details, and the language is vague
| because I honestly can't remember the full timeline of
| events and would rather be vague than wrong here, but that
| should the gist of it.)
|
| Put another way, when you choose to be in a business
| relationship with Apple, Apple is also agreeing to be in a
| business relationship with you. Apple has not chosen to re-
| enter a business relationship with Epic, and has rejected
| Epic's offers to do business with them. It's a simple as
| that. So how can Epic now argue that they have standing for
| harm caused by Apple's plan for compliance that affect the
| way they do business with developers _in their developer
| program_ when they are _no longer in Apple's developer
| program_?
|
| Once the judge decides they're done and there's no more
| avenues of appeal or additional grounds for appeal, they'll
| have no more standing than some random guy off the street
| who has never signed a single agreement with Apple, not
| even an iTunes ToS agreement. From what I gather, the Judge
| wants to be done here too, Epic has had their days in court
| with the full due process of law but there are other cases
| to be heard and Epic doesn't get to hold up the courts any
| longer because they didn't get the W they were looking for.
|
| Somebody else, if they think they can do it, can try to
| have a go at Apple next, but even with the one L they took
| on anti-steering, I think without some new laws being
| written their entire business model just got a lot more
| legally resilient.
|
| Now why is standing important? Put simply, in theory, you
| can basically file suit against anyone for anything, but if
| you didn't actually suffer a harm, and you can't convince a
| Judge in the jurisdiction in which you allegedly suffered
| the harm that you did, then they're going to throw out your
| case. It's a waste of the courts time if there's no case to
| be made, you filed suit in the wrong jurisdiction, or you
| filed suit under the wrong provisions of the law under
| which you are arguing you suffered a harm.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think where this could work with Epic is if they can
| convincingly argue that the reason they no longer have a
| business relationship with Apple is because of the issues
| still under dispute in front of the court. No idea if
| they'd win that argument, but if standing ends up being a
| question, that's probably where they'd have to go.
| SllX wrote:
| Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers already knows Epic no longer
| has a working business relationship with Apple--the
| developer account termination happened under her watch
| after all--and from the court's perspective, that's
| really more Epic's problem. The trial is over. The
| appeals are exhausted. Stick a fork in this lawsuit, it's
| done. The best Epic can do going out the door is try to
| spite Apple and piss in their cheerios a little more.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Apple has not chosen to re-enter a business
| relationship with Epic, and has rejected Epic's offers to
| do business with them. It's a simple as that.
|
| Apple's public comments to the point have been that Epic
| is free to resume publishing under the developer program
| if they abide by the developer agreement, and Epic's CEO
| has stated they have no intention to do so.
|
| Agreeing to the program terms would seem to put them in a
| position where they can either argue they have standing
| or that they have been caused harm, but not both.
| SllX wrote:
| Really? How recent is this? I was pretty much under the
| impression that Apple was done with Epic, but I would be
| happy to be wrong here. If they can't come to terms, they
| can't come to terms, but it would be nice if they could.
|
| > Agreeing to the program terms would seem to put them in
| a position where they can either argue they have standing
| or that they have been caused harm, but not both.
|
| Agreed.
| dwaite wrote:
| Google got slapped in their case with Epic because they
| offered inconsistent terms, and promoted the idea of
| alternative app stores while taking business measures on
| the back-end to prevent them.
|
| Apple gives much more consistent terms.
|
| The speculation is that the 15%-after-first-year
| subscription change was something they had actually
| negotiated with Netflix in an attempt to keep in-app
| subscriptions, which they then rolled out to everyone
| rather than keep as a Netflix-only deal.
|
| I'm sure Apple is not sad Epic is off their platform,
| because they are a bad partner. But they would still let
| them back under the same terms as everyone else, if they
| agreed to actually abide them this time.
| SllX wrote:
| Okay, but in your prior comment you made it sound like
| Apple had made public comments that they would allow Epic
| back on the App Store if they agreed to abide by their
| terms.
|
| The issue is the last time I recall them saying that was
| before they terminated Epic's developer accounts. That
| was a couple of years ago at this point.
|
| So my question was not about any of that, none of it is
| new to me, my question was the following: how recently,
| to your knowledge, did Apple say they would let Epic back
| in the program? I tried searching around but I didn't
| turn up anything recent, or anything from after 2021, but
| I don't think Apple's statements from before they
| terminated the relationship are applicable at this time,
| so I was hoping you could provide some additional
| information that I am lacking.
| jiqiren wrote:
| You missed where Epic was ordered to pay the 30% cut they
| "saved" when using their own payment processor. It was
| ruled this cut is completely legal. Now that Epic lost
| appeal with Supreme Court that ruling sticks.
|
| Apple is likely asking for 27% cut for non-IAP w/Apple
| because they are saving 3% by not processing credit cards
| directly. They don't need devs complaining it's MORE
| expensive to use their own payment processor.
| w10-1 wrote:
| A "bad faith" claim essentially admits Apple is in fact in
| compliance.
|
| It's the weakest objection you can have, and typically would
| only be sufficient to get relief in very, very specific
| circumstances where the unfairness could be proven (as
| intended). But this case involves broad policies for millions
| of developers, and it's perfectly compliant with permitting
| other payment processors.
|
| So: there's almost no chance it would be "shot down" on those
| grounds.
| dns_snek wrote:
| How are they possibly in compliance? The judgement was about
| Apple's "steering practices", not just allowing 3rd party
| payment processing.
|
| They're clearly making Apple's in-app purchases the
| preferential choice by prohibiting developers from using
| anything but a single plain text link, and scaring users with
| strongly worded warnings.
| lolinder wrote:
| What exactly is bad faith about this compliance? The original
| ruling specifically called out that Apple would still be
| entitled to a commission even if people used alternative
| payment processors.
|
| The main thing that feels icky to me is the hurdles to getting
| approved to link to alternative payment methods, but even if
| those are walked back that doesn't solve the main issue, which
| is that alternative payment providers were never a sensible
| solution to Apple's tax.
|
| Apple has always argued that the commission is for the App
| Store, not for payment processing, and it is only collected
| through their payment processor as a matter of convenience. The
| policy announced here is essentially the same that they
| announced two years ago in the Netherlands in response to a
| similar ruling [0]. I'm surprised that anyone here is surprised
| that they're doing the same thing in the US.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30204604
| jonhohle wrote:
| Yeah, as much as I defend Apple against the "they have a
| monopoly on the iPhone" crowd, this seems worse than the
| original restrictions. People have been buying stuff online for
| decades. There's no new security issue at play here. Taking a
| commission from a company that's already paying for payment
| processing can't possibly be seen as reasonable.
|
| How are they even going to attempt to enforce compliance. Is
| every store required to integrate with their payments API?
|
| If they're taking payments from the platform and it does turn
| out to be a scam, now their hands are dirty as well.
| dwaite wrote:
| > ... this seems worse than the original restrictions.
|
| This is worse from the original restrictions _specifically_
| because the original restrictions were chosen to simplify
| from this sort of scenario.
|
| If Apple says all app purchases and purchases of digital
| goods/services within the app are subject to the 15/30%, and
| those payments are always made through Apple, then Apple can
| check for non-compliance with the contract terms up-front
| (via App Store review) and then there are no separate books
| to audit, there is no commingling of revenue from in-app
| purchases vs independent web purchases or purchases made on
| other platforms, and so on. No need to audit the company's
| books, because they are using Apple's books.
|
| It is hard to take Apple to task for charging too much,
| because the 30% ceiling and who pays it has effectively been
| the same since day 1 of the App Store. They have only created
| special cases to reduce that percentage (small business
| program, multi-year subscriptions).
|
| Regulators can say that you can't block other companies from
| the "iPhone in-app payment for digital goods" market without
| being anti-competitive, but it is much more onerous to force
| a company to continue to provide a set of services
| (maintaining developer tools and SDKs, reviewing and signing
| binaries, providing backward compatibility in new OS
| versions) but for a fee schedule determined by regulators.
|
| > Taking a commission from a company that's already paying
| for payment processing can't possibly be seen as reasonable.
|
| Why not?
|
| There's a decades-running assumption by some that Apple was a
| ridiculously expensive payment processor, only existing
| because they gave you no other choice than to use them for
| certain things (and outright forbade you from using them for
| others).
|
| But Apple provides other services and access to developers
| per a financial agreement, and was doing payment processing
| to meter the revenue split.
|
| The regulator argument is that Apple is blocking other
| companies from taking in-app revenue for digital services.
| Apple has now split that out in a few markets for companies
| willing to take on such complexity.
|
| IMHO the only apps I think actually have benefited from the
| split are dating apps in the Netherlands - because quite
| frankly the way many dating services charge people is user
| hostile and/or discriminatory.
| lacker wrote:
| These conditions are onerous enough that the Kindle app probably
| still cannot handle in-app purchases. It's really pretty annoying
| that I have to leave the Kindle iOS app and go to the Kindle web
| app to make a purchase. Obviously it wouldn't cost either Apple
| or Amazon anything to allow this, it wouldn't be insecure or
| unsafe in any way, and it would be nice for consumers. So the
| fact that Apple and Amazon haven't made a deal to allow this
| indicates to me that Apple is putting its competitive interests
| ahead of its users interests.
|
| Hopefully they all figure something out eventually to allow
| Kindle purchases from the app.
| karmasimida wrote:
| I found myself actually able to use browser to purchase Kindle
| books on iPhone now, is it because of this lawsuit?
| lxgr wrote:
| Do you mean an in-app browser in the Kindle app, or just
| amazon.com in Safari?
|
| I don't see how Apple would prohibit me from visiting a
| website, and they've allowed use of content/subscriptions
| purchased elsewhere in iOS apps for a while now.
|
| What has not been allowed (at least until today) is to
| directly link to that external website.
| radley wrote:
| Apple can't control browser content, only capabilities, so
| you could always make purchases via Safari, Chrome, etc.
| ncallaway wrote:
| No, in a regular browser you can make purchases on Amazon
| like normal.
|
| If you attempt to purchase a kindle book from within the
| kindle app, you will not be able to. Nor will there be any
| messaging explaining how to make a purchase (because apple
| does not allow such messaging). You'll just be mysteriously
| confused about why you can't buy a book.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Why can I buy an Audible audiobook directly in the app on
| iOS (and for cheaper than listed on Amazon), but not a
| Kindle book?
| halostatue wrote:
| You can't.
|
| You can use your _credits_ from your subscription, but
| you cannot pay for a new audiobook in the app.
| hildebrand_rare wrote:
| They changed this recently, and do allow direct in-app
| purchases now. In some random podcast interview with an
| exec at Amazon, I remember them saying that each team
| gets to make their own independent decision on this, and
| Audible as a unit decided to allow in-app purchases and
| pay Apple their cut.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Yes you can. I just did. And it was cheaper than the
| listed price on web.
|
| It's a relatively recent feature (past year), but it's
| possible.
| kelnos wrote:
| Because the Audible unit at Amazon set their own policy
| on this, and decided it was better for them and their
| users to pay Apple's 30% cut.
|
| No idea why the price through the app was better than the
| price on the website. Maybe some kind of promotion?
| Weird.
| rapind wrote:
| > Apple is putting its competitive interests ahead of its users
| interests
|
| I kind of figured this already when there's no way to filter
| apps by "doesn't have in-app purchases".
| interpol_p wrote:
| Hah! Actually, they have kind of done this with Apple Arcade,
| and charge you a $10 subscription for the service
| tempodox wrote:
| Arcade is for games only. Also, any discontinued games on
| Arcade immediately stop working on any device where you
| have downloaded them. Apps from the regular App Store stay
| functional, even when discontinued. If you thought you
| couldn't have less ownership than with the stuff from the
| App Store, Arcade shows you how. You're merely a tenant,
| and even if you keep paying the rent, stuff just
| disappears.
| interpol_p wrote:
| Yeah I was just trying to make a cynical point that when
| they allow you to filter by no-in-app-purchases, they
| charge you for the privilege
| bradgessler wrote:
| Am I getting this right? Say I use Stripe as my payment
| processor. Stripe takes 2.9% + $0.30, then Apple takes 27% so I'm
| at 29.9% + $0.30 being taken out of however much I charge for my
| app? For a $10 app, $0.30 is 3% putting the fee at 32.9%.
|
| For the privilege of paying 2.9% more, my users get to see a
| scary privacy message and when I bill the customer a year later
| for a subscription, there's a 20-30% chance that their credit
| card will have expired.
|
| If this isn't a monopoly abusing its dominate market position,
| then what is?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Oh absolutely it is. But _all_ app store developers are
| complicit in enabling that monopoly. What should happen is that
| all app store developers withdraw their apps until Apple sees
| the light. But that won 't happen because every app store
| developer will be pitted against their competition in a race to
| the bottom who will accept the highest fees that Apple is going
| to impose and sooner or later you'll be back at that 30% or
| you'll go without income. Solidarity is what drives change,
| without solidarity you're without a chance.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Victim blaming and expects a mass market behavior change is
| not good, or realistic.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Victims don't normally collaborate with their abuser.
|
| edit: here's one of the 'victims':
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39022303
| mindwok wrote:
| Actually yes, they do. That's what makes it abusive - the
| victim doesn't have the power, control, or will, to
| simply walk away.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I think this does a disservice to actual victims of
| actual crimes. This is at most a business dispute over
| fees. The app store developers were cautioned that
| throwing their lot in with Apple (and let's not forget
| Google) would eventually lead to a situation where Apple
| controlled their business and could charge whatever they
| wanted. But the money was good and so the walled garden
| App stores became entrenched. But in principle they were
| always broken.
|
| This is why unions are a thing. They create collective
| bargaining power. If all of the app store vendors would
| unite they'd have a formidable position vis-a-vis Apple,
| Google etc. And there is no reason why app store
| developers could not form such a collective to increase
| their bargaining power.
|
| You must have seen it mentioned on HN before: don't build
| your house in someone else's garden or something to that
| effect, in other words: if you make all of your income in
| someone else's eco system you are giving them a lot of
| power over your business. That's a bad move, but if you
| have to do it make sure you have a lot of friends, just
| in case.
| SllX wrote:
| To be fair, Apple doesn't actually charge more than they
| did on Day 1. In some cases they charge less.
|
| > And there is no reason why app store developers could
| not form such a collective to increase their bargaining
| power.
|
| This is also where you lose me entirely. You're basically
| talking about unionizing independent businesses. Just
| call it a cartel. That's the word you're looking for.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Just call it a cartel. That's the word you're looking
| for.
|
| No, a cartel is something different entirely. A cartel is
| a bunch of businesses that set the price for a market,
| not a collective that serves to increase the bargaining
| position of individual entities that are too weak to do
| so on their own power. Cartels are all about price fixing
| while keeping the competition out.
| SllX wrote:
| That's a nice spin and I see why you're determined to use
| nicer terminology, but in this case it's a cartel, so own
| it since it's your idea here. The aim is to fix a price,
| and the price you are trying to set is the price at which
| another business buys units of your software or services
| for resell. The price is 30% of purchase, 30% of in-app
| purchases, 30% of in-app subscriptions for the first year
| of an individual unit's subscription term and then 15%
| for subsequent terms[1]. If you use a separate payment
| processor, you can reduce these figures by 3 percentage
| points. That's the price, and their right to charge it
| has been upheld, but your proposal is to band together
| the small, medium and large businesses that virtually
| fill the App Store and have them War Doctor around going
| "No more!" or dictate a lower price. That's collusion,
| that's price fixing, that's a cartel.
|
| [1]: through some silly chicanery requiring an
| application process, and only if your business earns $1M
| or less a year. Apple may be within their rights but damn
| do they make themselves look bad when it comes to this
| shit.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > That's a nice spin and I see why you're determined to
| use nicer terminology, but in this case it's a cartel, so
| own it since it's your idea here.
|
| No, the aim is not to 'fix price'. A cartel sells a
| resource at an artificially inflated price to a group of
| consumers who have no idea that this is happening (unless
| the cartel owners happen to advertise the fact).
| Typically cartels are illegal.
|
| > The aim is to fix a price, and the price you are trying
| to set is the price at which another business buys units
| of your software or services for resell.
|
| No, it is not about setting a price. It is about setting
| a (reasonable) cap on a margin on your own price. That's
| an entirely different thing.
|
| > That's the price, and their right to charge it has been
| upheld, but your proposal is to band together the small,
| medium and large businesses that virtually fill the App
| Store and have them War Doctor around going "No more!" or
| dictate a lower price. That's collusion, that's price
| fixing, that's a cartel.
|
| No, that's much closer to a union than a cartel.
| SllX wrote:
| > No, it is not about setting a price. It is about
| setting a (reasonable) cap on a margin on your own price.
| That's an entirely different thing.
|
| Okay, so what if Apple decided a reasonable price for
| doing business with them was between 12% and 30% of the
| price you set per unit, and that you can take it or go
| into a different business writing software for other
| platforms instead, for which a non-exhaustive list in
| 2024 includes the following: Windows, Android,
| PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Linux, servers, the Web,
| embedded systems, supercomputers, mainframes (no really),
| webOS televisions, and custom systems? Pretty soon,
| depending on how this DMA stuff shakes out and how Apple
| ends up complying, you might even be able to develop for
| iPhones on less onerous terms, but only in the EU, so add
| EU iPhones to the list above as a "maybe" after March
| 7th.
|
| Some people might take that deal, and others might choose
| to do their work somewhere working on something else. How
| do you plan to deal with the businesses that are just
| going to take the deal? Like they have been, every single
| time they've voluntarily signed the developer agreement
| without a gun to their heads and invested more money into
| building on Apple's platforms?
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's precisely why I don't see the app store developers
| as victims but as collaborators.
| mcphage wrote:
| Who do you see as the victims in this situation, then?
| jacquesm wrote:
| I don't think there are victims per-se, just people that
| have willingly enabled a mechanism to come into being
| that they profit from at the expense of general freedom
| in computing. That Apple and Google would throw their
| weight around was a foregone conclusion and if MS manages
| to make it so that installing software on PCs can only
| happen through their app store (which is a fair chance,
| all the indicators are pointing towards them shooting for
| this at some point) they definitely will not shrink away
| from that.
|
| Also note that through their control of GitHub they could
| shut down 90%+ of of the FOSS movement out there with the
| click of a mouse.
| SllX wrote:
| Fair enough.
|
| I still disagree with the form of your rhetoric as I do
| see cartel as a more accurate description, but out of
| respect for the internal consistency of your argument,
| I'll drop it. People can see the case you made and make
| up their own minds. :)
| miah_ wrote:
| It doesn't need to be _all_ app store developers. Just a
| large enough group that can push a unified message.
|
| It could even be several groups, so long as they are
| pushing a similar agenda.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's true, any sizeable fraction will probably work.
| There could even be multiple such collectives which may
| or may not collaborate on particular efforts.
| nativeit wrote:
| > I think this does a disservice to actual victims of
| actual crimes.
|
| Your original comment used the term "abuser", which
| refers to a very specific kind of crime that not only
| frequently does involve a victim's acquiescence to their
| abuser, but that is often the ultimate purpose for the
| abuse. I understand what you're trying to say, but I
| think it's probably for the best to simply avoid using
| domestic violence to make such analogies altogether.
|
| It not only risks being taken to be in poor taste, but I
| think it's also unnecessary in this context. It's not
| especially difficult to understand why Apple's market
| position gives it the kind of outsized leverage to force
| other stakeholders into engaging with unfair, even
| illegal, practices that are frequently contrary to their
| own interests. In negotiations, and within free markets
| more broadly, there's a level to which this kind of
| uneven power dynamic can be productive, but it's very
| clearly gone too far here, and is rightly seen as
| suppressing competition, stifling innovation, and
| sabotaging the potential for entrepreneurs and small
| businesses to thrive.
|
| It's precisely the kind of thing that the federal
| government should be on top of, but until congress
| resumes its regularly mandated duties (it's my
| understanding that the United States Congress has been
| starring in some sort of reality TV program for the last
| several years, and must continue until they have voted
| all but the last remaining legislator off of Joe
| Manchin's houseboat) it's probably a good idea to explore
| other options, like labor unions or maybe crowdfunded
| federal class action lawsuits.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Your original comment used the term "abuser", which
| refers to a very specific kind of crime that not only
| frequently does involve a victim's acquiescence to their
| abuser, but that is often the ultimate purpose for the
| abuse. I understand what you're trying to say, but I
| think it's probably for the best to simply avoid using
| domestic violence to make such analogies altogether.
|
| Abuser has much wider connotations than just domestic
| violence and I'm not so focused on sex crimes/domestic
| crimes that I see the term as inexorably connected but
| for those that do feel free to substitute another term
| that indicates a power relationship between two parties
| in which one takes advantage of the other even if the
| other willingly entered into the relationship.
|
| Note that class action suits are not powerful enough for
| this: they simply allow Apple to partition the world into
| many small fiefdoms each of which will have to fight
| individually for their rights. Much better to tackle this
| as all developers versus Apple, that way you stand a
| chance of making it stick.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > Victims don't normally collaborate with their abuser.
|
| Lmao, except, they literally do.
|
| This is why leaving an abusive relationship is so fucking
| hard.
|
| Android and iOS have an abusive relationship with
| developers.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| If you can legitimately blame the middle of a pyramid
| scheme for tolerating the top, you can blame app developers
| for tolerating apple. Both do so at the expense of those at
| the bottom.
| nicoburns wrote:
| What should happen is that governments regulate these
| policies out of existence (or into sensibility). We already
| do this for things like credit card processing fees (in
| Europe) and it works well.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, that would be good. This goes for all predatory
| businessmodels, especially the ones where bait-and-switch
| is used to gain market share and then to change the model
| (looking at you, Youtube).
| jamil7 wrote:
| This is a weird take. It's similar to saying workers pre
| unionisation and labour movements were complicit in enabling
| poor working conditions.
| jacquesm wrote:
| App store developers are suppliers, they don't work for
| Apple nor do they have to work for Apple. Technically Apple
| re-sells their product. But they could and should unite in
| order to increase their bargaining power. You see the same
| with every supermarket chain.
|
| But what I think would happen is that there would be enough
| hold-outs from such an effort that Apple would come out on
| top because the players in the eco -system are more in
| competition with each other than that they really mind
| Apple. They want to pay Apple less but they want to put
| their competition out of business even more...
| threeseed wrote:
| There are tens of millions [1] of App Store developers
| you will need to coordinate.
|
| Where you think of organising a rally or just an email
| campaign ?
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/19/23730302/apple-
| app-store-...
| jacquesm wrote:
| In the age of the internet I think reaching tens of
| millions of individuals is not as hard as it used to be.
| A Reddit post announcing a boycott of the App store by a
| few hundred or a few thousand initial App developers with
| enough lead time for the message to spread would be a
| fine starting point. I'm sure it would be all over the
| globe by morning.
|
| I just posited the idea here in NL at 2:30 in the morning
| and you, somewhere else entirely have already heard of
| it. That mechanism could be vastly improved upon but I
| think the principle is sound as your average cat meme has
| proven thousands of times by now.
| BadHumans wrote:
| You should get started on organizing it and let us know
| how it goes.
| jacquesm wrote:
| My solution is much simpler: I've opted out of all App
| eco systems entirely because I think Google and Apple
| already have enough power as it is. My software is free,
| free to download and free to run.
| ericmay wrote:
| I'm not convinced that this would result in lower prices
| for me as a customer. The current prices that work for a
| company to stay in business and make a nice profit (think
| anyone from Netflix, to whoever makes Clash of Clans)
| show that there is a willingness to pay those prices.
|
| If a developer union of sorts succeeds in negotiating
| down Apple's charge, there is absolutely _0_ chance that
| this cost savings will make its way on the whole to
| consumers precisely because developers have already
| proven that customers are willing to take a higher price.
|
| As an end customer I think it's a good thing if an indie
| developers get more money in the abstract. I don't think
| I care if it means that Netflix gets to keep more of
| their money instead of Apple.
|
| I'm much more sympathetic toward lower fees for smaller
| companies. Once you are the size of Meta, Google, Apple,
| Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, etc. it's just jostling between
| multi-billion (trillion) companies and I'm not really
| concerned one way or the other, especially if these
| actions result in more annoying behavior that I have to
| deal with, like multiple app stores, increase in spam and
| ads and spying, and the dissolution of the power of
| features like Sign in with Apple that allow me to
| generate fake email addresses.
| k8svet wrote:
| Ah yes, this again. "We can only have nice things because
| of the golden handcuffs Apple has blessed us with!".
| Except that there's plenty of counter examples. And you
| might not care, but thousands of independent app
| developers getting bent over the barrel by Apple
| certainly care. In my view, it's not even really about
| the end consumer price.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I'm not convinced that this would result in lower
| prices for me as a customer.
|
| That's perfectly ok because that's not the intended
| effect, the intended effect is to stop Apple/Google from
| exacting a 30% toll on their platforms, not to improve
| consumer prices.
|
| > I'm much more sympathetic toward lower fees for smaller
| companies.
|
| This already exists.
| ericmay wrote:
| It's ok - so it's neutral... but then I have to deal with
| annoying things like multiple app stores and so now it's
| just a net negative...
| nirvdrum wrote:
| I don't think you'd be required to use alternative app
| stores. You could keep using the Apple one if you wanted.
| Market forces should allow the best store to win.
|
| Having another "store" doesn't necessarily mean having to
| get apps elsewhere. E.g., the one platform app store has
| severely degraded my ability to enjoy audiobooks. I used
| to be able to buy books directly in Audible (on Android
| anyway). It was convenient and Audible offered daily
| deals. I'd get books on a whim and discover new authors
| that way. Once Audible had to start paying a 30% tax,
| that feature went away. Now I have to browse & purchase
| in a web browser, which is far less convenient.
|
| Incidentally, both Apple and Google sell audiobooks.
| Presumably they aren't paying a 30% tax themselves and
| can use that as a builtin price advantage. But, then I'm
| tied to that platform.
|
| In this case, you'd be making an "in-app purchase" with
| your Amazon account. There's no new annoyance in payment
| management and there's no new store to browse. You just
| get a more convenient way to buy content.
| ericmay wrote:
| > I don't think you're required to use alternative App
| Store.
|
| You're also not required to use an iPhone. Grab an
| Android phone with the features you want (multiple app
| stores) and you're good to go!
|
| Anyway.
|
| The best store isn't necessarily the best store for me,
| and apps (think TikTok, etc.) have more pull than an App
| Store does so what will happen is they will launch their
| product only on non-Apple app stores that have less
| strict requirements and review processes and people will
| go download from there. Customers will have to download
| multiple app stores, manage subscriptions in multiple
| places, have to manage user profiles and credit card
| information across multiple app stores, etc. It's kind of
| like today with the competing streaming services. Not
| great.
|
| While this presents a few problems, my chief concern is
| that it unwinds some of the great features that Apple
| essentially lobbied for on behalf of customers. Features
| such as Sign in with Apple, and other privacy oriented
| features.
|
| With multiple app stores customers have no bargaining
| power or anyone bargaining on their behalf. It's a
| marriage of corporate interests united against customers.
|
| I'm struggling to see the benefit to customers. It seems
| like we're trying to screw normal people so a few big
| companies like Meta can make an extra buck and grab up
| more of your data.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sandler companies already pay 15%. That includes payment
| processing. So effectively 12%.
|
| For this you get nice things like you don't need to deal
| with taxes in all the different countries.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Sandler -> smaller.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Yeah sorry. Typing on a phone got worse with every update
| k8svet wrote:
| Ah yes, better that we throw our hands up in the air,
| declare it unsolvable and acquiesce to big tech.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's much worse than that, they're actively enabling all
| of this.
| threeseed wrote:
| That's a great approach to convince developers to get on
| board with your strike.
|
| This is all _their_ fault.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is. I'm not an App store developer for a reason. There
| is no way that you can get me to carry water for Apple or
| Google by putting them in between the users of my work
| and me. Ditto Microsoft.
|
| And I'm perfectly ok with App store developers doing what
| they are doing and making lots of money. But there is a
| price tag and they either must be ok with that or like me
| they'd opt-out.
|
| So I've been 'striking' for as long as I've had App ideas
| and things that I could have fielded as an App but ended
| up just putting on the web. I don't need to convince
| anybody.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Do you think that the King.com and the other large
| companies that make all of their money by selling coins
| for pay to win games are going to join the boycott?
|
| It came out in the Epic trial that's where 90% of the
| revenue comes from. It's not from small indy developers
| jacquesm wrote:
| Probably not.
| colechristensen wrote:
| They were. You teach people how to treat you. If you
| congratulate people for working to improve their conditions
| you have to say they had a hand in the bad conditions
| before.
| Levitz wrote:
| Unknowingly so maybe, but they must have been, no?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| That is a pretty common accusation during labor campaigns,
| that's why they sing "Which side are you on?"
| threeseed wrote:
| I suspect that after 15 years of the App Store existing most
| developers know the score.
|
| And so by all means withdraw your app but the rest of us will
| simply continue to pay the 15/30% as we have always done.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, this is exactly what enables Apple to do what they do
| and proves my suspicion: that there are enough developers
| that do not see this as a problem that things would likely
| remain as they are. Let's be happy that dockworkers had
| more spine than that.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| There was side-loading on Symbian and Windows Mobile
| phones before iPhone and the App Store existed.
|
| You know what the experience was in one word?
|
| Shit.
|
| For both developers and consumers.
|
| Then comes Apple with amazing hardware, software and APIs
| with focus on developer experience.
|
| Developers decide to ditch side-loading & stuff like xda-
| developers in favor of 30% fees to develop for iOS (and
| then Android) because it's so amazing for them and the
| consumers.
|
| It got to the stage where developers were so happy with
| the 30% fee and Apple/Google duopoly, many even didn't
| even try to develop anything for other mobile OS's
| including the Windows Phone store.
|
| Microsoft tried to fund app developers and spent
| millions, without much luck.
|
| No modern apps, no consumers, no sales.
|
| Microsoft then had no other option than to admit defeat,
| write off billions and shut down the era of Windows on
| mobile phone devices.
|
| Even Epic never released Unreal Engine on Windows Phone,
| and cries the loudest today about the duopoly they helped
| to build.
|
| So now you're saying after abandoning side-loading,
| agreeing to 30% fees for an access to a worldwide billion
| people marketplace, suddenly after 15 years it's terrible
| and we should go back to side-loading again, because
| greedy Apple?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, RMS warned about that. Convenience comes at a price.
| The question is whether or not it is worth it. Apple
| seems to have convinced enough developers and enough
| consumers that it is. I disagree which is why all of my
| stuff is 100% web based (and it even works off-line), but
| I don't begrudge others their income. At the same time I
| do think that Apple is abusing its position, but since it
| was obvious they were gearing up to do just that from day
| #1 you can only blame them for about half of it with the
| remainder divided between the devs and the consumers.
| lxgr wrote:
| Who says we can have only one or the other?
|
| macOS has both an app store and sideloading. It works
| great!
|
| I personally use the app store for apps I don't
| know/trust the developer of, because I trust Apple's
| diligent vetting regarding data collection etc., and I
| sideload everything that I do trust, or that Apple "wants
| to protect me from" for non-security/privacy reasons.
| lapcat wrote:
| There are so many problems with this take. Here are a few:
|
| 1) Many App Store apps are completely free, paying nothing to
| Apple except the $99 per year fee, so they have no stake in
| this issue.
|
| 2) My understanding is that more than 90% of developers in
| the App Store make less than $1 million per year and thus are
| covered by the Small Business Program, which charges only 15%
| rather than 30%. Revenue in the App Store is extremely top-
| heavy, with most going to a relatively small number of the
| top developers (such as Epic, previously). How much are
| developers willing to risk just to lower the 15% cut
| somewhat?
|
| 3) Let's be clear, you're talking about a _strike_. Many
| developers derive their _entire_ income from the App Store,
| so withdrawing their apps means no income. A wealthy
| corporation such as Epic can survive, but what about little
| indie developers?
|
| 4) An individual developer uniterally striking would be
| futile and self-destructive. Developers would need to be
| _organized_ and all strike simultaneously.
|
| 5) Strikes are very difficult to organize. Forming a union
| almost always has to come first. And union members typically
| work together in the same building, which greatly facilitates
| organization. Whereas there are a huge number of App Store
| developers scattered all around the world, and they speak
| different languages. How would you even communicate with all
| of them to organize? (EDIT: I see in another comment that you
| think it's easy as spreading cat memes. That's not a serious
| suggestion.)
| jacquesm wrote:
| > 1) Many App Store apps are completely free, paying
| nothing to Apple except the $99 per year fee, so they have
| no stake in this issue.
|
| I don't see that as a problem.
|
| > 2) My understanding is that more than 90% of developers
| in the App Store make less than $1 million per year and
| thus are covered by the Small Business Program, which
| charges only 15% rather than 30%. Revenue in the App Store
| is extremely top-heavy, with most going to a relatively
| small number of the top developers (such as Epic,
| previously). How much are developers willing to risk just
| to lower the 15% cut somewhat?
|
| I can't answer that question for any particular developer.
| But if my PSP charged me 15% I'd be looking for another one
| and if my PSP arranged for things in such a way that I'd
| owe them _anyway_ by virtue of developing for a particular
| piece of hardware that they already sold and made their
| profits on I 'd go and do something else with my time.
| Which is why pianojacq.com is on the web and free instead
| of an App in the App store because that way Apple/Google
| don't get to increase their grip on the market regardless
| of whether or not it is free. I disagree with their
| business model to the point that I'm not partaking in it at
| all.
|
| > 3) Let's be clear, you're talking about a strike. Many
| developers derive their entire income from the App Store,
| so withdrawing their apps means no income. A wealthy
| corporation such as Epic can survive, but what about little
| indie developers?
|
| What about those poor dockworkers? Any kind of battle with
| the likes of Apple (or your merchant marine overlord) comes
| at a price. In some cases people died to fight for their
| rights. 'little indie developers' are still business owners
| who will either stand up for their rights _or_ they will
| have to live with the consequences of not doing so. More
| likely: those that do stand up for their rights will find
| themselves kicked out of the App store (monopoly power
| abuse...) and their competition will thrive.
|
| > 4) An individual developer uniterally striking would be
| futile and self-destructive. Developers would need to be
| organized and all strike simultaneously.
|
| Yes, you got it. That's exactly what they should do.
|
| > 5) Strikes are very difficult to organize. Forming a
| union almost always has to come first. And union members
| typically work together in the same building, which greatly
| facilitates organization. Whereas there are a huge number
| of App Store developers scattered all around the world, and
| they speak different languages. How would you even
| communicate with all of them to organize?
|
| I would start with looking for places where App developers
| congregate and start spreading the message (SO / HN /
| Reddit / whatever remains of /. / any other forum), write a
| bunch of press releases and build a movement, then, when
| the numbers are there for the GADA (the Global Appstore
| Developer Association) I'd announce the first collective
| action and take it from there.
|
| It will be work, but so what, if you think it is worth it
| then it's worth doing well.
|
| As for language barriers and such: there's an app for
| that...
| lapcat wrote:
| > I can't answer that question for any particular
| developer.
|
| I can answer for this particular developer. No, it's not
| worth it for me. There are many huge problems with the
| App Store, but I personally don't consider the 15% cut to
| be among the top problems. I could write a long screed
| about those problems (and I have before), but that would
| be a bit off topic. I will mention one thing though: I
| think the "race to the bottom" is a much bigger problem
| than the cut. I would happily pay a much higher cut if I
| could charge higher prices for my apps. Just look at the
| simple math: 85% of $1N = $0.85N < 50% of $2N = $1N.
| Thus, a 50% cut would be worth it if I could charge twice
| as much.
|
| Incidentally, I think even for Epic, the 30% cut is not
| the entirety of the problem. Epic is a cross-platform
| company, and App Store payments, locked in and controlled
| by Apple, make it difficult for Epic to do anything
| cross-platform that includes iOS.
|
| > What about those poor dockworkers?
|
| Well, I'm not poor. I don't _need_ a higher income to
| survive. Also, going back to the points I already made,
| it 's realistic for dockworkers to organize and all
| strike simultaneously, because of their much smaller
| number, geographic congregation, and shared interests.
|
| > In some cases people died to fight for their rights.
|
| You want me to die to slightly improve the App Store? Um,
| no thanks.
|
| > write a bunch of press releases and build a movement
|
| Oh, is that all?? Write the press releases, and they will
| come, amirite!
|
| > It will be work, but so what, if you think it is worth
| it then it's worth doing well.
|
| I've actually tried to organize a boycott of Apple's
| Feedback Assistant, but it doesn't seem to have been very
| effective. Organizing is extremely hard, especially a
| _global_ movement! No, it 's nothing like cat memes or
| Hacker News comments, especially when the stakes are so
| high.
|
| > As for language barriers and such: there's an app for
| that...
|
| Give me a break... I wouldn't even trust the apps for
| doing customer support, much less union organizing.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > No, it's not worth it for me.
|
| I suspected as much.
|
| > There are many huge problems with the App Store, but I
| personally don't consider the 15% cut to be among the top
| problems.
|
| You and many others like you. Hence the need for
| solidarity and that's why I don't think it would work.
| It's hilarious how in the same thread devs like you are
| being called 'victims' and here you are expounding on how
| you are going to continue in the relationship unchanged
| because it suits you just fine.
|
| > I could write a long screed about those problems (and I
| have before), but that would be a bit off topic.
|
| Fine.
|
| > I will mention one thing though: I think the "race to
| the bottom" is a much bigger problem than the cut.
|
| Yes, that's why you need to organize. That stops the race
| to the bottom. This is exactly why strike breakers are
| looked down upon and why companies used to bring in
| 'scabs' to break strikes. To push that race to the bottom
| that much further.
|
| > I would happily pay a much higher cut if I could charge
| higher prices for my apps.
|
| Of course you would. Because that means more money in
| your pocket.
|
| > Just look at the simple math: 85% of $1N = $0.85N < 50%
| of $2N = $1N. Thus, a 50% cut would be worth it if I
| could charge twice as much.
|
| I think most people on HN have a fairly good intuition
| about such things.
|
| >> What about those poor dockworkers?
|
| > Well, I'm not poor. I don't need a higher income to
| survive. Also, going back to the points I already made,
| it's realistic for dockworkers to organize and all strike
| simultaneously, because of their much smaller number,
| geographic congregation, and shared interests.
|
| And because they're not going to stab each other in the
| back at the first opportunity.
|
| >> In some cases people died to fight for their rights. >
| You want me to die to slightly improve the App Store? Um,
| no thanks.
|
| No, definitely not. I don't even want you to be
| inconvenienced. But you've definitely illustrated why
| Apple is firmly in the seat of power here and given ample
| evidence for my thesis that the App store developers are
| doing it to themselves.
|
| >> write a bunch of press releases and build a movement
| >Oh, is that all?? Write the press releases, and they
| will come, amirite!
|
| So, you want it to be easy? I personally don't care
| enough to do your work for you, and if you don't care
| either then the work won't get done. But then we can stop
| sympathizing with App store developers.
|
| > > It will be work, but so what, if you think it is
| worth it then it's worth doing well. > I've actually
| tried to organize a boycott of Apple's Feedback
| Assistant, but it doesn't seem to have been very
| effective. Organizing is extremely hard, especially a
| global movement! No, it's nothing like cat memes or
| Hacker News comments, especially when the stakes are so
| high.
|
| The stakes are so high because people who should care
| don't and that includes yourself. Your boycott failed
| because many people look at that problem just like you
| look at the fees issue. Without organization you can not
| solve these issues at all.
|
| > > As for language barriers and such: there's an app for
| that...
|
| > Give me a break... I wouldn't even trust the apps for
| doing customer support, much less union organizing.
|
| Forgive me for my failed attempt to injecting some humor
| into the discussion.
| lapcat wrote:
| Please consult the HN guidelines. Your comment violates
| them badly. I'm not interested in conversing with you
| further.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm quite familiar with the guidelines, I don't see how
| my comment violates any of them, especially not 'badly'.
| Could you please point out which part you think violates
| which of the guidelines, I'd be more than happy to edit
| my comment to accommodate you.
| lapcat wrote:
| The comment consisted of personal swipes or straw men. It
| was completely disparaging, not a serious response. Some
| examples:
|
| > here you are expounding on how you are going to
| continue in the relationship unchanged because it suits
| you just fine.
|
| > Of course you would. Because that means more money in
| your pocket.
|
| > And because they're not going to stab each other in the
| back at the first opportunity.
|
| > I don't even want you to be inconvenienced.
|
| > So, you want it to be easy? I personally don't care
| enough to do your work for you, and if you don't care
| either then the work won't get done.
|
| > people who should care don't and that includes
| yourself.
|
| That's how you talk if, as an outsider, you don't want
| the perspective of an App Store developer. If your desire
| is just to rip on me for doing it to myself, then you
| don't need me here to do that; you can accomplish such
| denigration on your own, in the self-congratulatory,
| know-it-all fashion that you've been exhibiting.
|
| Organizing masses of individual people around a shared
| goal against a powerful opponent is one of the hardest
| tasks in the world. For example, the majority of people
| in the United States hate both of the two major political
| parties, and lots of people say, "We should have a third
| party!", and there are indeed many minor party
| alternatives, but turning one of those minor parties into
| a viable alternative to the existing major parties is
| obviously extremely difficult. It's not that people don't
| want to, but the barriers to organization are massive and
| multifarious. Though everyone may have the same _vague_
| goal, the devil is in the details. And the costs of
| defection from the status quo can be significant; as
| small as they are now, third parties are still blamed as
| "spoilers" of elections.
| jppittma wrote:
| > Yes, that's why you need to organize. That stops the
| race to the bottom. This is exactly why strike breakers
| are looked down upon and why companies used to bring in
| 'scabs' to break strikes. To push that race to the bottom
| that much further.
|
| Funnily enough, what he's describing is called "price
| fixing" and is illegal. The "race to the bottom" is
| competition keeping prices low for consumers and is a
| feature, not a bug.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, indeed. But that's precisely why I don't have that
| much sympathy for any of the players in the App eco
| systems (consumers, Apple/Google, developers) they are
| all accepting each others transgressions each for reasons
| all their own. I never thought that computing would come
| to this but here we are.
| musictubes wrote:
| Isn't race to the bottom caused by competition? What
| policies could Apple implement to keep the price of apps
| higher? Why would consumers want that? Surely price
| pressure will happen in any large market.
|
| I think the difficulty of pirating apps on iOS does help
| developers. At least I've heard that piracy is a big
| problem on Android.
| stevage wrote:
| I don't think organising a strike online is that hard.
| Remember the protests against FOSTA etc? Or against Reddit
| management?
|
| The main bit is getting people to care.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Users outnumber developers 1,000:1 and users will never
| really care about this.
| nulbyte wrote:
| Not if you don't talk to them about it. I don't have an
| Apple device; are developers talking to their users about
| this?
| lapcat wrote:
| > Or against Reddit management?
|
| Reddit management won in the end.
| CountHackulus wrote:
| Did they? All the subs I used to frequent are ghost
| houses now. They bit off their nose to spite their face.
| lapcat wrote:
| Which ones are those? The ones I follow, mostly tech such
| as r/apple, r/iphone, and r/mac, seem to be back to
| normal.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| All the subs I followed are a shadow of their former
| selves.. there's still some half-assed content posted,
| but it's not worth bothering to try and keep up any more
|
| I was on a bunch of small niche subs with 10k users or
| fewer each
|
| Seems like the giant subs like you're talking about are
| still running, although they're a lot lower quality now
| that it's effectively impossible to use Reddit on a phone
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| Right. RIP Reddit. Can you remind me what that
| accomplished?
| stevage wrote:
| I'm not commenting on whether the protests worked. Just
| on whether they were hard to organise.
| lapcat wrote:
| Reddit moderators are unpaid volunteers. They lose
| exactly $0 if they "strike". The stakes are extremely low
| in comparison to pulling apps from the App Store.
|
| And there are only 75,000 Reddit moderators in total.
| That's vastly smaller than the number of App Store
| developers.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > Let's be clear, you're talking about a strike.
|
| You're certainly not talking about a strike. A strike is
| when employees refuse to work. What you're suggesting is
| that the app developers form a _cartel_, and perform a
| boycott.
| dylan604 wrote:
| How is this any different from brick&mortar big box retailers
| beating on their suppliers to lower their wholesale prices to
| the point they can only make a profit with large volume in
| sales? I guarantee you that 70% of your MSRP is way more than
| selling in a store.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is no different, which is why suppliers to such stores
| routinely collaborate if they feel that they are being
| squeezed too much.
|
| It is also why house brands are a thing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| and yet this has been happening long before Apple and App
| Stores were a thing, and nobody has been sued to stop it.
|
| Also, as some other comment has pointed out, the % Apple
| takes is from their role as one manager. Ask an actor or
| sports ball player what happens if they don't pay their
| manager the % owed.
|
| I just haven't figured out why software devs think they
| are so special that they don't have to pay to play. I
| have seen no honest answers to this other than Apple ===
| BAD. Devs are pretty much "all monies are belong to us"
| jacquesm wrote:
| Whether it is fair or not is for the App store developers
| to work out, I'm not one of them and as long as these are
| walled gardens I never will be.
| ralmidani wrote:
| One difference: physical goods suppliers can theoretically
| choose to sell and deliver direct any of their goods to any
| consumer willing to pay for them. With the app store, at
| least in the US, the captive audience can't side-load, and
| now Apple is introducing even more absurdity with its bad
| faith "revision" to the policy.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's true to an extent, and your "theoretically" is
| doing some heavy lifting. The big box retailers have
| pretty much limited your options there. So while it's not
| a single choice of stores, you might get 3 or 4. If you
| want to sell physical items, you want to be sold in
| Walmart. That's where the shoppers are. When you come out
| of the meeting where they tell you what your wholesale
| price will be, you won't even look like the same person.
| Depending on your product, you might have some other
| options, but those sales will be well under anything a
| big box can offer. You just won't be making much money
| per item.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Indeed. You can see this clearly in how even at places
| like 'Makro' ('Metro' in some other countries) prices ex
| vat can still be higher than in the big chain
| supermarkets.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Walmart is the thousand pound Gorilla, yes. But countless
| clothing brands exist outside of Walmart & probably
| wouldn't want to be in Walmart anyways.
|
| It's some weak sauce weasle wording to say, "you might
| have some other options". This position seems slanted as
| heck: working overtime to convince everyone that Walmart
| puts people through the ringer (true) & is the
| overwhelming desirable option (false), as if that
| justifies Apple being an awful squeezer too. As though
| Patagonia, North Face, Colombia, Gap, Saks 5th Avenue &
| every other brand only dream getting in the big store, as
| if they live horrible worthless lives now.
|
| No, there's a ton of ways to sell clothing. Volume is one
| way to do it, but there's a free market here with lots of
| possibilities and no one is railroading brands and makers
| into awful decisions. There are also online only folks
| who just have their own e-storefronts and/or others.
| There's so many channels. Apple's App store has a unique
| in the world today, of dominating a massive sales channel
| it's customers cannot escape, on one of the most general
| purpose soft devices on the planet. For basically
| happening to do their job of building a consumer OS and
| not a lot more.
|
| (Steam I think is a more interesting case, where they
| compete freely & without anti-competitive hacks, but
| still basically are the de-facto middleman.)
| dylan604 wrote:
| > It's some weak sauce weasle wording
|
| If you think a chain that can afford to open its own
| stores is the same thing as a company making a single
| thing or even a couple of things, then you're well beyond
| weasel words and are in a delusional state. Most people
| make something and need to have it sold at other stores.
| You've made hell of a leap here to try and call me a
| weasel
|
| We're talking app makers. The equivalent would be pre-
| internet days of selling software at computer stores or
| again big box retailers. Again, your options are limited.
| If you're an app farm that just shits out clones of other
| software, you can burn in a fire and I don't care what
| happens to you.
| newsclues wrote:
| "Solidarity is what drives change" Sounds like commie
| bullshit.
| nirvdrum wrote:
| Organized labor has effected plenty of change, both
| directly and indirectly. Safer working conditions, 40 hour
| work weeks, sick time, pay raises, etc.. Companies without
| unionized employees are incentivized to offer reasonable
| work conditions and benefits to stave off unionization.
| This has all happened under capitalism.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| That is a ridiculous statement.
|
| Just because developers have fallen victim does not mean they
| should all pull their apps. How would you suggest that all
| impacted developers go about coordinating such a strike?
|
| Solidarity is very difficult to achieve in a large enough
| consensus to a point where people would pull their apps.
| xuki wrote:
| Apple need the 30% to keep the services revenue up to keep the
| stock price up. I have no doubt many people at Apple know this
| is wrong, including the people at the very top, but stock must
| not go down.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| What is the right amount of profit margin? Would this apply
| to households too?
| stefan_ wrote:
| It's obviously not 30%, because on top of this you better
| pay for ads on your app name or have your competitor show
| up on searches for _your app_.
|
| I always had a mild smile for the tales of the "secure
| refined Apple store" but seeing the reality has been a
| bigger shock than I expected. It's a scam haven.
| lxgr wrote:
| Whatever the market is willing to pay.
|
| We don't know what that is, since there currently is no
| market.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The market obviously exists. Apple is the seller,
| numerous other businesses are buyers, and they are
| buying, hence the current amount is an amount "the
| market" is willing to pay.
| lxgr wrote:
| And how do we call a market with only one seller and no
| chance of competitors entering the market?
|
| Sure, technically it's still a market, but I wouldn't
| consider it a remotely efficient one to do price
| discovery.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I would say there isn't such a thing as "the right amount
| of profit margin" as much as there is "the right way to
| secure a profit margin". The more your margin is able to
| exist because competition isn't allowed the less right it
| is, be it 1% or 99% in absolute terms.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Is profit margin not partly a function of competition? A
| retail business is easily replicated, hence retail
| businesses have minuscule profit margin.
|
| Insurance companies have lots of competition, also low
| profit margins.
|
| Making a top of the line smartphone does not have a lot
| of competition, hence higher profit margins.
|
| Medicine is patented and hence does not have a lot of
| competition, also higher profit margins.
| onethought wrote:
| How can the "second most popular phone" have a monopoly?
| earthling8118 wrote:
| You don't have to be the most popular to be a monopoly. Not
| even close.
| onethought wrote:
| I think I misunderstand what mono implies in monopoly then.
|
| If there is another - more popular provider. Isn't it at
| the very least a duopoly? Or are we redefining words now?
| lxgr wrote:
| Can I use the Google Play store on my iPhone? If not,
| there is no other provider competing with Apple in the
| market that is "selling apps to iPhone users".
|
| Whether that's a market considered relevant from an
| antitrust point of view is the big question.
| old_hat wrote:
| I can't use another company's GPS system in my car, so in
| the market of, "Using GPS navigation / menus / etc in my
| 10 year old Mini's dashboard" there's no meaningful
| competitor. They charge for map updates and everything.
|
| At some point a company is just building a feature, and
| they're not required to make every single feature
| accomodate every other manufacturer's competing version
| of the feature. I knew I was buying the Mini system when
| I bought the car, and I accepted it. Same is true for
| iPhone users.
| lxgr wrote:
| > I knew I was buying the Mini system when I bought the
| car, and I accepted it.
|
| "Knowing that you're buying into a monopoly" is generally
| not a valid defense for a monopolist. The idea is that
| there can be a disadvantage/harmful impact to market
| participants even despite their full knowledge of the
| market structure (which isn't even a given for retail
| consumers).
|
| But generally, I agree: There are definitely many closed
| ecosystems/non-competitive "markets" like the ones you
| describe, and more often than not, regulators don't step
| in. Who knows, maybe regulators will address that market
| at some point! The EU DMA doesn't seem to obviously not
| apply in this scenario, for example.
|
| Several factors for why I'd consider that case to be a
| bit different though:
|
| - Many car entertainment systems now offer you to connect
| an iPhone or Android phone and use CarPlay or Android
| Auto for navigation. You can reasonably use the car's
| navigation functionality (GPS antenna, voice output,
| built-in screen that won't hit your head in an accident)
| without paying the car manufacturer!
|
| - If your car doesn't allow that, or you don't want to
| use Apple's or Google's solutions, you can stick a
| physical aftermarket navigation system to your
| windshield/ventilation grill.
|
| - There isn't a single car maker that controls roughly
| half of the US market.
| hnfong wrote:
| All you can argue for is that Apple is the most popular
| iOS vendor by a large margin and hence a monopoly in the
| iOS market.
|
| You still can't say Apple is a monopoly by being the
| second most popular in the smartphone OS market...
| lxgr wrote:
| That's exactly what I'm arguing for. Two competing
| (commercial) smartphone OSes are probably just fine! Much
| more than that would probably make it uneconomical for
| developers to provide native apps for all of them, unless
| they're API compatible.
| onethought wrote:
| By this definition everything is a monopoly in an
| arbitrary constrained environment.
|
| Toyota is a monopoly for RAV4 manufacture. Can you get a
| RAV4 from Mercedes? Monopoly!
| etchalon wrote:
| You absolutely have to be the most popular to be a
| monopoly.
|
| You can be the most popular and not be a monopoly, but the
| reverse is definitionally impossible.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Read the ruling. It's not a monopoly.
| https://casetext.com/case/epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2
|
| > Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately
| conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or
| state antitrust laws. While the Court finds that Apple enjoys
| considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinarily
| high profit margins, these factors alone do not show
| antitrust conduct. Success is not illegal. The final trial
| record did not include evidence of other critical factors,
| such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or
| decreasing innovation in the relevant market. The Court does
| not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed
| in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > It's not a monopoly.
|
| > The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that
| Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an
| illegal monopolist.
| onethought wrote:
| Think you should be responding to the GP - not me. I agree
| it's not a monopoly. Hence why I pointed it out.
|
| GP made the monopoly comment.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| You've already skipped over the most important aspect of
| determining if someone is a monopoly, which is defining the
| relevant market. A key piece of the Epic v. Apple case was
| determining the relevant market, where "phones" was never
| even considered as a possibility.
|
| https://ei.com/economists-ink/fall-2021/market-definition-
| in...
| lolinder wrote:
| This was always what the outcome was going to look like. People
| have been talking ever since the ruling as though dodging Apple
| as a payment processor was going to magically exempt developers
| from the full 30% fee, but that was _never_ going to happen and
| it was _never_ the intention of the ruling.
|
| Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its fee
| for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and storing and
| delivering the app bundles. The in-app payment system was a
| convenient way for Apple to collect its commission and a way
| for Apple to create a unified payment experience for its
| customers, but it was never the Achilles heel for Apple's
| business model.
|
| The best case scenario here is that Apple is forced to walk
| back some of the more onerous requirements they've imposed for
| whether and how links may be shown. Them putting a price on the
| payment processor portion of the fee and discounting developers
| for that portion was inevitable and isn't even malicious
| compliance, the judge explicitly called this out as a likely
| outcome in the original ruling:
|
| > First, and most significant, as discussed in the findings of
| facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing
| fee from developers for the use of Apple's intellectual
| property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge
| a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult
| for Apple to collect that commission.
|
| > In such a hypothetical world, developers could potentially
| avoid the commission while benefitting from Apple's innovation
| and intellectual property free of charge. The Court presumes
| that in such circumstances that Apple may rely on imposing and
| utilizing a contractual right to audit developers annual
| accounting to ensure compliance with its commissions, among
| other methods. Of course, any alternatives to IAP (including
| the foregoing) would seemingly impose both increased monetary
| and time costs to both Apple and the developers.
|
| https://casetext.com/case/epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its
| fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and
| storing and delivering the app bundles. The in-app payment
| system was a convenient way for Apple to collect its
| commission and a way for Apple to create a unified payment
| experience for its customers, but it was never the Achilles
| heel for Apple's business model.
|
| Is it just me or does this argument seem insanely flimsy? If
| Apple were serious about it then why aren't they charging
| free apps for downloads and approvals? Why doesn't the
| developer policy require Netflix to pay 30% of subscriptions
| for anyone who signs in on an Apple device? Why are the
| prices lower for "reader" apps who presumably cause Apple to
| incur similar costs?
|
| Its like a toll road arguing "no, driving on the road is free
| of course, we just charge at the entrance and exit for the
| privilege of looking at the toll road".
|
| What does it take for the legal system to be able to call BS
| on a claim like that?
| lolinder wrote:
| I agree that it's an oddly-applied pricing system, but it's
| not unique. Apple's differential pricing functions
| similarly to student and senior discounts--it's an
| acknowledgment that some customers are harder to get than
| others and it's worth it to the company to meet those
| customers where they are.
|
| Some apps don't make any money at all, and Apple wants to
| let those exist and so they get a free pass. For others,
| Apple is only providing a tiny portion of the value of the
| app, most of it comes from the content that the app
| licenses from other companies. Apple recognizes that they
| can't take 30% from those apps without them giving up on an
| app entirely, so they get a discount in order for them to
| stay on the platform.
|
| Is it fair? Probably not. But I see no reason to believe
| it's illegal.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Is it fair? Probably not. But I see no reason to believe
| it's illegal.
|
| If they take it too far, that's how you get into
| antitrust territory. That's why Epic's court case against
| Google ruled in Epic's favor, as it was giving paying off
| devs to not make their own app stores and blocked OEMs
| from making deals with other studios.
|
| So I'd say this puts apple on thin ground. I'm sure this
| won't be the last high profile lawsuit over the app store
| this decade.
| lolinder wrote:
| This (a policy of charging some devs more/less than
| others) isn't Apple bribing devs to not compete with
| them, and it isn't a series of shady backroom deals. It's
| a relatively straightforward and transparent price
| discrimination scheme, and I have a hard time imagining
| why _this_ would put Apple at risk of an unfavorable
| antitrust ruling if the complete lack of any alternate
| app stores didn 't.
|
| Where I imagine Apple could get into trouble is if they
| systematically turned a blind eye to commission-dodging
| by specific entities as part of a trade to ensure their
| market dominance. Unlike Google, though, I'm not even
| sure which entities Apple could bribe that would risk
| looking like a trust.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >'s a relatively straightforward and transparent price
| discrimination scheme, and I have a hard time imagining
| why this would put Apple at risk of an unfavorable
| antitrust ruling if the complete lack of any alternate
| app stores didn't.
|
| Like any discrimination case, it depends on the subject
| of discrimination and potential victims. So I would say
| that discriminating with the largest streaming service
| can be a way to lock out the rest of that market from
| competing properly.
|
| >Where I imagine Apple could get into trouble is if they
| systematically turned a blind eye to commission-dodging
| by specific entities as part of a trade to ensure their
| market dominance
|
| Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. There's no hard
| evidence but that's what would be subpoena'd in court.
|
| Ironically enough, Google is the biggest smoke signal
| here. Since court cases reveal they have some sort of
| deal with Apple to power search. That deal + potential
| discrimination with Google submitted apps can lead to
| those exact issues Google is under fire for.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| The case against Google had a completely different fact
| pattern. One that resembles the US v MS more.
|
| Google essentially pressured and bullied OEMs and other
| third parties into doing stuff that was beneficial to
| Google in exchange for licenses and special deals.
|
| At that point, you're throwing your weight around,
| something that Google "had" to do because they started
| with a relatively open platform.
|
| Apple, on the other hand, preempted needing such tactics
| by making their ecosystem closed and heavily regulated
| from the onset when they were still nobodies within the
| market. That makes it extremely difficult to prove
| antitrust issues.
|
| Had Apple, say, increased the commission from 30% to 33%,
| then it would've been pretty close to an open and shut
| case because then it's easy to argue that Apple threw its
| weight around once everyone was inside the ecosystem. But
| the opposite happened.
|
| This is also one of the reasons why everything Apple does
| is restricted and limited from the onset. It's always
| easy to loosen the reigns later, but at their size, you
| can never go the other way without risking antitrust
| liability.
|
| FWIW, even MS, with their egregious behavior, got a lot
| thrown out on appeals and prevented being split up. The
| DOJ ended up settling instead.
| gruez wrote:
| >Its like a toll road arguing "no, driving on the road is
| free of course, we just charge at the entrance and exit for
| the privilege of looking at the toll road".
|
| I mean, there's actually many toll roads/bridges that only
| charge for travel in one direction. The other is free, with
| the expectation that you'll need to make a return trip
| anyways.
| dboreham wrote:
| I learned decades ago the trick to always go around the
| bay clockwise.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| Does Google Maps still assume that the toll applies in
| both directions? I used to live near a bridge like this
| and it was really annoying, because I had Google Maps set
| to avoid toll roads, but because of this it would refuse
| to plot a route over the bridge, even though there was no
| toll in that direction.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Is it just me or does this argument seem insanely flimsy?
|
| Apple being entitled to a commission regardless of who you
| use as a payment processor is literally part of the court
| ruling.
|
| The court did not find that the size of the commission was
| necessarily justified, but they definitely ruled that a
| commission was justified.
| pulisse wrote:
| You want to outlaw price discrimination?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| No, I'm really just asking what level of scrutiny can be
| applied to their claimed justification for the fees. I
| feel those examples are illustrative of how Apple's
| decisions aren't really aligned with their claimed
| justification. One could absolutely come up with a
| rational explanation (as some commenters have) even if
| it's not the actual explanation, I'm interested if that's
| all Apple needs to do to fend off claims of them
| exploiting their market power.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm not sure the percentage matters.
|
| Obviously if they tried to charge 85% no one would
| actually be a developer and the App Store would crater.
| So they have a very strong incentive not to.
|
| But from a legal point of view is there a reason why one
| number would be legal but another wouldn't?
|
| The only thing I can think of is a contract being
| determined to be unconscionable. Until they hit whatever
| threshold that is it seems like it's completely up to
| them to set the terms at whatever they think enough
| developers will accept.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| >Obviously if they tried to charge 85% no one would
| actually be a developer and the App Store would crater.
| So they have a very strong incentive not to.
|
| That's not really true. If the iPhone became a real
| monopoly in the US, for instance, with perhaps 98%
| marketshare (similar to Windows before Macs started
| seriously challenging them), then Apple really could
| charge 85%. What is anyone going to do about it? They'd
| have a choice of paying 85% to Apple so they can sell
| apps to 98% smartphone users (basically everyone), or not
| selling smartphone apps altogether and finding a new
| business strategy that probably doesn't involve making
| software for consumers at all (which admittedly, many
| developers would probably choose).
| nemothekid wrote:
| What I can gather is that if Apple, from day one, had an
| 85% split, grew to 98% marketshare, then that would be
| ok. If apple started with 30%, then grew to 98%
| marketshare, then jacked up the price to 85% then they
| would have a problem.
|
| I think the missing piece that most people miss is that
| it is not illegal to have a monopoly. It's illegal to use
| your monopoly to bully others. Apple did no such thing.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| Perhaps, but I disagree about your supposition that "they
| would have a problem". I don't think they would. It may
| be technically illegal to use your monopoly to bully
| others, but enforcement in America these days is rare.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| > Is it just me or does this argument seem insanely flimsy?
|
| I'm not sure if it is just you, but both the district court
| and appellate court are on board with it. And honestly, I
| can see why.
|
| Apple argued that they provide a bunch of services and
| access to their IP in exchange for $99/year and a
| commission over the sales.
|
| The courts have deemed that an acceptable business model.
|
| The district court was hemming and hawing a bit over the
| actual commission rate being set at 30% (15% for small
| devs) and at the fact that some developers essentially
| subsidize others but ultimately didn't make a ruling on any
| of that in part because Epic didn't bring it up as an
| argument.
|
| The appellate court, however, went a step further and
| stated in no uncertain terms that it was kosher.
|
| If you think about it, it makes sense. We see similar
| business models with differential pricing all over in
| commerce for various reasons.
|
| Sometimes, it's for goodwill, sometimes, to reach customers
| that would otherwise be harder to convert into a sale,
| sometimes, it's based on usage and who puts the most strain
| on a system and sometimes, it's for more egalitarian
| reasons.
|
| Military discounts, student discounts or even free usage,
| senior discounts, teacher discounts, first responders, etc.
| These are all examples of differential pricing.
|
| In particular, the student stuff is interesting because the
| philosophy there seems to be that as long as you don't make
| revenue from it (commercial use), "we" don't need to make a
| profit from you.
|
| > It's like a toll road arguing "no, driving on the road is
| free of course, we just charge at the entrance and exit for
| the privilege of looking at the toll road".
|
| I don't think the analogy is apt, but we see similar stuff
| on toll bridges. I've got a bridge near me where toll rates
| are based on vehicle type and axles.
|
| While the pricing is slightly higher for commercial
| vehicles (e.g., trucks), it's not proportional to the
| increased cost of upkeep those vehicles cause.
|
| Edit: Also realized that only one direction is burdened
| with tolls. The other way isn't.
|
| > What does it take for the legal system to be able to call
| BS on a claim like that?
|
| A very carefully crafted legislative change, I suppose, if
| possible at all.
|
| Currently, with SCOTUS' refusal to take up the case, this
| is standing law, and it's challenging to craft legislation
| that wouldn't have reverberating effects across all of
| commerce while simultaneously only hitting Apple.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Thanks for your reply, I definitely see what you mean
| with other pricing schemes and how there is pretty wide
| latitude for what type of price discrimination is
| justifiable.
|
| I mostly just find it silly that at no point does anyone
| seem to address the elephant in the room that the only
| way to access some hundreds of millions of users is
| through Apple, and that almost certainly influences the
| fee in a way that can't be really be explained by the
| value of the IP.
|
| Does the argument require us to believe the fee would
| still be 30% if iPhone had practically zero users? Or is
| that legally irrelevant assuming that they aren't found a
| monopoly?
| theresistor wrote:
| > Does the argument require us to believe the fee would
| still be 30% if iPhone had practically zero users? Or is
| that legally irrelevant assuming that they aren't found a
| monopoly?
|
| While not _zero_ users, the default fee has been set at
| 30% since the beginning of the App Store, long before
| Apple had the level of market dominance it has today.
|
| This argues in favor of it being acceptable: developers
| were willing to accept that fee without monopoly pressure
| being applied, since nobody has successfully argued that
| Apple held a monopoly in 2008.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > What does it take for the legal system to be able to call
| BS on a claim like that?
|
| A class of digital native judges.
|
| The App Store sucks. That's its problem. 30% fees rub salt
| in that wound.
|
| Name an Apple application you aren't forced to use that you
| like. Notes? Final Cut? That's all I can think of.
|
| The whole paradigm of iOS is predicated on a 65yo+ consumer
| who doesn't know any better, and happens to be also the
| demographics of the government.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| If all the developers I assume you care about left the App
| Store, Apple wouldn't care. The apps that make the majority
| of the money on the App Store are slimy pay to win games
| where "whales" buy coins and loot boxes.
|
| The other popular apps are front end for services where Apple
| doesn't collect a dime like Facebook, Instagram, Netflix,
| etc.
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm on Android and get most of my apps through F-Droid. I
| don't have any stake in this fight at all, I'm just an
| observer who's been a bit baffled by the conclusions that
| people have jumped to.
| callalex wrote:
| If iPhones didn't run Instagram and TikTok they would sell
| very few phones.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| And it's exactly why Netflix gets special treatment and
| Apple isn't auditing them yearly. They care about money
| but even more about marketshare
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Every streaming app has the option to have outside
| subscriptions or not allow in app purchases at all.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Sure, in the same way every website has the option to
| make it's own social media website. The website is the
| "easy" part but not necessarily the most profitable point
| to pitch to companies like Apple.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Every "reader app" has that option. It's an explicit
| carve out in the App Store rules.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| What do you think is more likely? People wouldn't buy
| iPhones or people would find an alternative to Instagram?
|
| Especially in the US, how likely is it do you really
| think iPhone users are going to sully themselves and buy
| Android phones when many people think that "only poor
| people buy Android phones". (Note sarcasm)
| omeid2 wrote:
| > What do you think is more likely? People wouldn't buy
| iPhones or people would find an alternative to Instagram?
|
| It is an interesting question that I would love an answer
| beyond a hunch.
|
| I would think a larger percentage would stay on iPhone
| and look for an insta alternative, compared to the
| percentage who might move on to a different phone for
| insta.
|
| But what would those numbers look like? Any case studies
| or similar changes? Maybe in game consoles?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| The two classes of people who broadly buy Android phones
| are techies ("I want to root my phone") / politicos
| ("software freedom! walled gardens! it's _GNU_ /Linux
| actually") and committed cheapskates ("close enough to an
| iPhone for no bucks!"). There's nothing wrong with that.
| But the actual working poor don't have time for it, so
| they buy iPhones and just keep them as long as possible.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| Android has 40% of the US market - you have no clue what
| you're talking about.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| https://explodingtopics.com/blog/iphone-android-users
|
| https://gitnux.org/android-vs-iphone-
| statistics/#:~:text=In%....
|
| > In Q2 2021, the average selling price of an Android
| smartphone was $269, while the average selling price of
| an iPhone was $729.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Yeah, the amazement amongst people here on HN amazes me.
|
| The district court was crystal clear about this in their
| judgment, which at the time caused quite some consternation.
|
| The appellate court then affirmed the same and even clarified
| more clearly that it's completely fine because it primarily
| is the mechanic Apple gets payment for the use of their IP
| and, secondly, their services that encompass more than just
| payment processing.
|
| In fact, if you read the appellate judgment, the annoyance
| towards the district court is palpable.
|
| The annoyance stems from the fact that the district court
| states in their judgment that alternative ways of collecting
| the commission aren't worth considering and expanding on
| because of how onerous they are (retroactive audit,
| collection efforts, etc.) while at the same time causing
| exactly that by striking the anti-steering provision and
| opening the door to third-party payment providers.
|
| The appellate court doesn't go further than expressing
| annoyance between the lines because, ultimately, the district
| court didn't err substantially enough for the appellate court
| to step in, which is ultimately the bar that needs to be met.
| Appellate courts aren't meant to relitigate cases, after all.
| MBCook wrote:
| Now that the Supreme Court has put this issue to rest by
| refusing to weigh in, will the appellate court now take
| that until the district court to figure out those kind of
| details?
|
| Or will everything stand as it is at the moment with
| figuring out specific details that Apple must abide by that
| haven't already been listed up to future lawsuits to
| determine?
| turquoisevar wrote:
| The appellate court affirmed the judgment by the district
| court, albeit while making some comments here and there.
|
| So as it stands, the appellate court's decision is the
| law of the land.
|
| Technically, from a legal perspective, there is a small
| chance this changes if a case makes it way to an
| appellate court in a different circuit and they're in the
| mood to come to a different conclusion, at which time
| SCOTUS might be inclined to take up that case to resolve
| the contradictory outcomes, but those are pretty slim for
| a couple of reasons.
|
| One, it's not likely a new case would play out outside of
| California, by virtue of Apple being located there.
|
| Two, a court of appeals of a different circuit would need
| to be in the mood to completely disregard the 9th
| circuits conclusion. While technically an option, most
| appellate courts don't want to contradict their sister
| circuit, but there are some "activist" courts out there.
|
| Three, the outcome needs to be sufficiently different for
| it to cause a significant contradiction.
|
| And lastly, the fact pattern of the new case would need
| to be extremely similar to the Epic v Apple case.
| bmitc wrote:
| > The appellate court then affirmed the same and even
| clarified more clearly that it's completely fine because it
| primarily is the mechanic Apple gets payment for the use of
| their IP and, secondly, their services that encompass more
| than just payment processing.
|
| This completely ignores Apple's market power though.
| Because what stops Apple from making this 40% or 50%? 30%
| is a fair price? Look what they did to Spotify with Apple
| Music. They absolutely abused their ownership of the
| platform to stifle a competitor.
|
| Also, things change when you effectively become a utility.
| Apple shouldn't be able to hide behind their "aww shucks,
| we need the 30% to keep the lights on" routine.
| graeme wrote:
| > Because what stops Apple from making this 40% or 50%?
| 30% is a fair price?
|
| Competitive pressure. 30% is pretty in line with what
| other platforms charge.
|
| Apple has had the same 30% ever since it launched the App
| Store, back when it was much less dominant. They
| presumably picked it as a level that would make revenue
| but also not deter developers.
|
| The App Store hasn't got a monopoly on computing.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Collusion is the ugly cousin of monopoly. If you can't
| get a monopoly, work with your few competitors to set an
| industry standard fee in which you all make a killing and
| can claim the plausible deniability of "fair market
| value".
| graeme wrote:
| I was referring to video games consoles as well as
| android. They're estimated to take around 30%.
|
| There's no world in which Nintendo and apple are
| colluding to set rates.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > There's no world in which Nintendo and apple are
| colluding to set rates.
|
| What makes you say that? And short of direct collusion,
| is it fair game if Apple sets the precedent and Nintendo
| follows suit without direct coordination? If the
| agreement is only alluded to without being directly
| stated, are we okay with the ethical precedent regardless
| of legal standing?
| desert_rue wrote:
| Compete with what? What options do iPhone users have but
| the Apple Store?
| tomrod wrote:
| Buying an alternative device at a fraction of the cost
| and using open source apps?
| bmitc wrote:
| Did that work with Microsoft and Internet Explorer?
| dwaite wrote:
| The internet?
| lapcat wrote:
| > Apple has had the same 30% ever since it launched the
| App Store, back when it was much less dominant. They
| presumably picked it as a level that would make revenue
| but also not deter developers.
|
| They picked 30% because that was the iTunes Music Store
| cut. The iOS App Store was a direct clone of the iTunes
| Music Store in almost every way. It even existed inside
| iTunes for years. As a developer, I can still see "iTunes
| Connect" in some obscure areas of App Store Connect.
|
| The documents from the Epic trial showed that the App
| Store was thrown together _very_ quickly. Initially,
| Steve Jobs didn 't even want third-party apps on iPhone
| and had to be convinced to add them.
| graeme wrote:
| That doesn't seem relevant to the question of whether
| Apple's fees are in line with fees on other platforms
| such as on video game consoles.
|
| Plausibly iTunes 30% was chosen because it met the same
| goal: high enough to earn a good amount, low enough music
| companies found it compelling.
| lapcat wrote:
| > That doesn't seem relevant to the question of whether
| Apple's fees are in line with fees on other platforms
| such as on video game consoles.
|
| I've never understood why video game consoles are the
| relevant platform. iOS is a general-purpose computing
| platform more akin to Mac and Windows. Indeed, iOS was
| based on Mac OS X. As an Apple user, I don't even play
| video games, on either iPhone or Mac. And as an Apple
| developer, I don't write video games either. Games are
| 100% irrelevant to my computing life.
|
| > Plausibly iTunes 30% was chosen because it met the same
| goal: high enough to earn a good amount, low enough music
| companies found it compelling.
|
| The problem is that the iTunes Music Store was based on
| selling 99 cent songs. 30% of that is just 30 cents.
| Before the App Store, computer software was almost never
| in the 99 cent price range.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| > I've never understood why video game consoles are the
| relevant platform.
|
| From the courts' perspective, it isn't. The relevant
| market definition, as established by the courts, is
| digital mobile gaming transactions.
|
| I've called into the District Court's hearings almost
| every day, and many days were spent on determining the
| relevant market, but the long and short of it is that
| this definition was chosen because:
|
| - The impetus of the case was Fortnite - Epic was
| unconvincing in establishing their EGS was more than just
| a gaming storefront, which limited the scope of the case
| to gaming - the court established that free-to-play games
| generated the vast majority of the App Store revenue
|
| You also have to remember that the court can't just hand
| out judgments that affect things beyond the case in front
| of it. This case was Epic v Apple and not, say, a class
| action by multiple app developers, so the court's
| conclusions will be limited to the facts that pertain to
| those two parties.
|
| In other words, other markets might exist, but they might
| not be relevant to the case at hand.
|
| Additionally, civil courts prefer to split the baby; in
| this case, this seems to be a middle ground between
| Apple's proposed relevant market (games in general) and
| Epic's (Apple's App Store).
|
| An interesting tidbit is that Nintendo's Switch made a
| minor cameo of sorts because you can make transactions on
| it on the go (i.e., it's mobile). Still, the main
| competitor, according to the court, was Google, leading
| the court to conclude that Apple is primarily in a
| duopoly with Google.
|
| Personally, I think video game consoles would be part of
| the relevant market because of the similarities in market
| dynamics. The way the payment for IP is structured
| (commission), the way entry to the market is managed
| (certifications, similar to app review), the way there's
| a single brand market (i.e., monopoly by manufacturers),
| etc.
|
| While the purpose of the devices might be different, the
| underlying products are the same (software), and the
| market mechanics are nearly identical. Even the platform
| limitations are artificially created by the platform
| holder (i.e., what you can and can't do on iOS is
| artificially limited, just like what you can and can't do
| on consoles is artificially limited by Sony and
| Microsoft).
|
| Drilling it down further, you'll find that on Xbox, you
| have access to non-gaming apps, and plenty of people use
| their iPads as a game device for their kids. Further
| blurring these lines of purpose.
|
| > As an Apple user, I don't even play video games, on
| either iPhone or Mac
|
| You might not, but it wouldn't come as a surprise to you
| that others might. I, for example, play games on my Apple
| devices, as do others in my household.
|
| > And as an Apple developer, I don't write video games
| either.
|
| Same here. I mainly write apps, but I dabble in games and
| know plenty of other devs who make games.
|
| > Games are 100% irrelevant to my computing life.
|
| What I'm trying to say is that anecdotal arguments aren't
| solid. This is not a dig at you; mine aren't either.
|
| > The problem is that the iTunes Music Store was based on
| selling 99 cent songs. 30% of that is just 30 cents.
|
| I don't follow this logic.
|
| Does it matter if $300,000 is extracted via a million $1
| transactions or 10,000 $100 transactions?
|
| Ultimately, you end up paying $300,000 in commissions.
|
| > Before the App Store, computer software was almost
| never in the 99 cent price range.
|
| There's a lot to unpack with this simple statement.
|
| First is, of course, that the race to the bottom is a
| pro-competitive symptom.
|
| If we, as devs, didn't have to compete so hard, we
| wouldn't have to sell our software at low prices.
| Ironically, this is good for consumers, but the
| devaluation of software isn't so great for us developers.
|
| Secondly, this, of course, undermines your iTunes $0.99
| argument. Whatever it used to be, it's now the same as
| with songs via iTunes. Does this mean you're ok with the
| 30% commission or 15%, whichever applies to you?
|
| This is why I'm saying I have a hard time following your
| logic because I guess I don't know exactly what you're
| trying to say.
|
| Lastly, before the App Store, the revenue cut developers
| got was abysmal. I don't know if you're old enough to
| recall any of this. I barely am, but it wasn't pretty.
|
| In brick-and-mortar times, you would have a good deal if
| 40% made its way to you, but more often than not, it was
| a 70/30 split, with only 30% making it to you, with
| outliers as low as 10%.
|
| Specifically for "smartphone" software, this continued
| for a while, with carriers being cutthroat regarding
| revenue split.
|
| In the years before the App Store, things got better with
| Nokia and BlackBerry, who adopted a revenue split closer
| to 50/50, and Qualcomm's BREW actually was "good" at
| times with an 80/20 split in favor of developers. The
| problem with those, however, was that the barrier to
| entry was relatively high and costly.
|
| Then Apple came along with their 70/30 split, which, as
| you said, was a copy-paste from the iTunes Store. Still,
| because both an all-encompassing commission (payment
| processing wasn't a separate charge as was typical before
| then) and because of the abysmal revenue splits in the
| decades before while also having a comparatively low
| barrier of entry, it was received with literal cheers.
|
| Although I think people were also happy not to have to
| deal with carriers anymore, that was a huge pain.
|
| Sure, App Review can be a pain for some, but it's a
| utopian publishing pipeline compared to the hoops one had
| to jump through and the negations you'd have to go
| through every time before the App Store came along.
|
| Does that mean that Apple is perfect?
|
| By no means, there's plenty they can improve on, but
| within the historical context of the time, it was like
| offering someone a glass of ice water to someone who was
| stuck in hell (to paraphrase a quote from Jobs on iTunes
| on Windows that didn't age well).
|
| I couldn't care less about the commission. I was content
| with 30%, and I knew what I eagerly signed up for. The
| 15% discount was a nice bonus, and I think I got, and
| still get, my money's worth and then some.
|
| While my experience is overwhelmingly positive, I think
| there are other, more pressing matters for me as a
| developer that Apple can improve on.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Does this mean you're ok with the 30% commission or
| 15%, whichever applies to you? This is why I'm saying I
| have a hard time following your logic because I guess I
| don't know exactly what you're trying to say.
|
| Let me start with this, because it may clarify a lot. I
| qualify for the Small Business Program 15%, and while I
| think that Apple's developer services are totally crappy
| and not even worth 15%, from my perspective the cut is
| not among the App Store's biggest problems, and I would
| happily pay an even larger cut if I actually got a good
| return for the investment.
|
| My goal was merely to highlight the historical origin of
| the App Store, which is important in understanding how we
| got to this point today.
|
| > The relevant market definition, as established by the
| courts, is digital mobile gaming transactions.
|
| As _invented_ out of thin air by Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
| But I 'm not really interested in arguing the legalisms.
| I think the decision was bad, but that's par for the
| course in our legal system. I'm more interested in the
| public debate over the issue, here on Hacker News, on
| social media, in the news media, etc. Regardless of what
| the judge decided, the people in the public who defend
| Apple often point to gaming consoles and consider them to
| be the relevant platform.
|
| > What I'm trying to say is that anecdotal arguments
| aren't solid. This is not a dig at you; mine aren't
| either.
|
| I'm not sure what you think I was arguing, but it was
| simply that iPhone is a general-purpose computing device.
| Of course gaming is _one_ of those purposes but
| definitely not the _only_ purpose. Indeed I would argue
| that gaming is not even the _main_ purpose, because after
| all, iPhone shipped in 2007 with zero games, and while
| Apple has created a lot of apps for iPhone, Apple has
| created almost no games for iPhone. (I think they had a
| Texas Hold 'em game way back in the day, and they also
| made Warren Buffett's Paper Wizard.) I wasn't trying to
| deny that people use iPhone for gaming; that would be a
| silly argument.
|
| You can argue that gaming consoles have some additional
| capabilities besides games, but does anyone ever buy a
| gaming console who _doesn 't_ play games at all? That
| would be silly and pointless. Yet huge numbers of people
| buy iPhones and iPads and Macs with no desire to game on
| them. Thus, I argue that those are general-purpose
| computing devices, unlike gaming consoles.
|
| > Does it matter if $300,000 is extracted via a million
| $1 transactions or 10,000 $100 transactions?
|
| Yes. 30 cents is actually a very good deal for a 99 cent
| transaction. I don't think you'll find a better one, and
| many payment processors would charge 30 cents _plus_ a
| percentage. At least as far as payment processing is
| concerned, though, 30% is a crappy deal for a $100
| transaction. So the question is, how much does the App
| Store add to the value above and beyond payment
| processing? I would argue, not much in most cases.
|
| > Ironically, this is good for consumers, but the
| devaluation of software isn't so great for us developers.
|
| I dispute that it's good for consumers. You get a
| different type of software in a race-to-the-bottom
| market. When the platform makes it difficult for
| developers to produce quality, well-crafted, sustainable
| software, you get exploitative crap instead, and I think
| the epithet "crap store" is richly deserved.
|
| You can really see the difference in the Mac App Store,
| because on the Mac, developers don't have to be in the
| App Store, and quite a few important apps are missing
| entirely.
|
| It didn't have to be that way. The iTunes Music Store
| model was a very poor fit for software. For example, the
| "top charts", based on unit sales, was one of the main
| ways to get noticed in the App Store and was a big reason
| for the race to the bottom. The top charts are tolerable
| for music, where every song and album is more or less the
| same price, but it doesn't work well for software, the
| price of which varies greatly, so unit sales are not a
| good representation of the quality of the software.
|
| > In brick-and-mortar times, you would have a good deal
| if 40% made its way to you, but more often than not, it
| was a 70/30 split, with only 30% making it to you, with
| outliers as low as 10%.
|
| 30% of $100 is $30. 70% of $0.99 is $0.69. I'll happily
| take the 30% cut of the much higher price.
|
| > Sure, App Review can be a pain for some, but it's a
| utopian publishing pipeline compared to the hoops one had
| to jump through and the negations you'd have to go
| through every time before the App Store came along.
|
| This was not my experience. Before the iPhone came along,
| I was a Mac developer. We sold our software on the web
| directly to customers, bypassing all middlemen except for
| payment processors. Apple got a 0% cut. What happened in
| your comment was the same as I've heard in most arguments
| defending the App Store: the "history" goes directly from
| brick-and-mortar times to the App Store, completely
| ignoring the golden age of indie developers selling
| software on the web.
|
| iOS was based on Mac OS X, UIKit was based on AppKit, and
| of course they both used Objective-C as the programming
| language at the time. The App Store was practically an
| invitation for Mac developers to jump in right away, and
| many did. But the business model of the App Store was
| atrocious compared to the Mac. (The Mac App Store, a
| clone of the iOS App Store, didn't open until 2011). From
| my perspective, the App Store experience was nearly
| infinitely worse than the Mac developer experience. It
| was not like "offering someone a glass of ice water to
| someone who was stuck in hell". Rather, it was more like
| kidnapping someone already in heaven and sending them
| down to hell.
|
| This is why I make so much of iOS being a general-purpose
| computing platform. It's very much like the Mac, except
| for the form factor, and it could have been much more
| like the Mac in terms of third-party software. And at
| least in Europe, perhaps it will be soon.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| > Because what stops Apple from making this 40% or 50%?
| 30% is a fair price?
|
| Market. It's capitalism, you know.
|
| They provide users to devs (e.g. in case of Epic most
| people played Fortnite from iOS) and they provide apps to
| users. If they jack up the price and devs quit, the deal
| stops being attractive to users because there's not
| enough apps so Apple risks losing users unless they make
| selling apps appealing to devs again.
|
| > Look what they did to Spotify with Apple Music. They
| absolutely abused their ownership of the platform to
| stifle a competitor.
|
| Everyone I know on iPhone is using Spotify except me so
| for me it is hard to see who is stifled exactly...
| LocalH wrote:
| >most people play Fortnite from iOS
|
| There is no current iOS version of Fortnite. The only way
| to do it is with Amazon Luna or Xbox Cloud Gaming, which
| is only "playing Fortnite from iOS" on the very surface.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| > There is no current iOS version of Fortnite. The only
| way to do it is with Amazon Luna or Xbox Cloud Gaming,
| which is only "playing Fortnite from iOS" on the very
| surface.
|
| It's not there anymore but it was there originally. (It'd
| be amazing if it still were. If you were allowing me to
| sell my game in your store for a fee, and I stopped
| paying the fee AND sued you, you'd remove me from the
| store first thing. First to avoid funding my legal
| expenses and second because I agreed to your ToS that
| allow you to do it literally for any reason you like.)
|
| After it was removed, Epic found out that people who were
| casually playing Fortnite on iOS were not about to start
| buying PCs and gaming consoles. After all there are other
| games in the store, including tons of buy-once-play-
| forever games which don't leech money off you or your
| kids like Fortnite does.
|
| > More than 116 million registered users have accessed
| Fortnite through iOS -- more than through any other
| platform, Epic said in the filing
|
| https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/fortnite-users-flee-after-
| gettin...
| fragmede wrote:
| Thats playing Fortnite! In what ways isn't that playing
| Fortnite? The GPU is in the cloud, but other than that,
| it's the full game, not some knock-off lite fake version.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| > This completely ignores Apple's market power though.
|
| Market power has little to do with the legality of a
| business model at first blush. Only in very narrow
| circumstances might it be a relevant factor.
|
| In this case, market power doesn't matter at all, no
| matter which angle you approach it with.
|
| For starters, fundamentally, market power doesn't
| preclude a company from extracting payment in exchange
| for their services and IP. This is what both courts
| explicitly (re)affirmed.
|
| And that makes sense, of course; just because you're big
| doesn't mean you can be forced to give your stuff away
| for free.
|
| From an antitrust angle, market power mainly starts to
| matter once you abuse that market power. Here, all signs
| on the commission point the opposite way.
|
| Apple introduced the 30% commission and the strict App
| Store rules around the same time the App Store was
| launched, at which point they had no relevant market
| power to speak of, so that was not an antitrust issue.
|
| The parties quibbled a bit about at which point Apple
| gained market dominance because that's a relevant
| measuring point to establish antitrust issues. Still,
| regardless of wherever you place that starting point, it
| is clear that Apple didn't use that market power to turn
| on the screws.
|
| They didn't, say, increase the commission or impose more
| onerous restrictions. The opposite happened.
|
| They first introduced a commission discount of 15% for
| subscriptions after the first year, and later on, they
| introduced the small business program that provides a 15%
| reduction to developers with less than $1M in revenue,
| which, as I understand it to be, covers about 90% of the
| developers.
|
| These moves, whether for altruistic reasons, goodwill
| reasons, or fear of regulatory action, are the opposite
| of abusing one's market power.
|
| I think that Apple is quite aware of this risk, which is
| why they always introduce things minimally and strictly,
| because that gives them the option to assess and decide
| to loosen up things, whereas the opposite isn't possible;
| they can't impose more restrictions due to the potential
| antitrust issues at their current size.
|
| Moreover, courts aren't eager to retroactively punish
| just based on success.
|
| The way the courts see it, it's almost self-evident that
| Apple wasn't acting in an anti-competitive way with their
| commission.
|
| From their perspective, if Apple was able to enter a
| market as a nobody (or create it even, if that's how you
| want to look at it) with such restrictive rules and with
| a commission rate that is now considered high (even
| though it was a significantly lower commission than what
| was standard at the time) _and_ still managed to capture
| a good chunk of the market as they did, then there must
| be pro-competitive forces at play, even when it's hard to
| quantify them.
|
| Again, the way they see it, if it all were so terrible,
| then nobody would've signed up for it in the first place.
| So, there had to be a pro-competitive benefit that
| outweighed all of those negatives.
|
| > Because what stops Apple from making this 40% or 50%?
| 30% is a fair price?
|
| Competition in the relevant markets as defined by the
| court? Antitrust violations? Pick your poison.
|
| Courts generally don't care much for hypotheticals
| because hypotheticals can't be remedied, and it doesn't
| feel good to dole out punishments for things that could
| be.
|
| Courts tend to limit themselves to what _has_ happened
| instead of what _could_ happen.
|
| That's not to say they don't look at it at all. In this
| specific case, they've looked at the competitive effects
| and what would stop Apple from doing X, Y, and Z in their
| test to establish how much competitive pressure Apple is
| under to understand the motivations behind some of
| Apple's actions.
|
| But ultimately, unless Apple does the thing you fear,
| they can't punish it.
|
| > Look what they did to Spotify with Apple Music. They
| absolutely abused their ownership of the platform to
| stifle a competitor.
|
| I'm looking, but I don't see much. Of course, this is in
| part because Spotify wasn't a party in this case, and so
| their arguments weren't a part of the considerations, and
| the Spotify matter hasn't been adjudicated.
|
| Ultimately, what I see is that Apple has some benefits
| that Spotify doesn't have.
|
| Apple doesn't have to pay itself a commission (although
| it might have some internal bookkeeping that accounts for
| its left hand paying its right hand, like how the Apple
| entities pay the Irish entity licensing fees for selling
| Apple products and IP).
|
| Apple also has easier access to customers under their
| vertical integration.
|
| Other than that, Spotify has near feature parity (or at
| least the option to offer feature parity) by the
| frameworks Apple offers third parties.
|
| At face value, this isn't enough for an antitrust case.
| Businesses can expand and offer customers services that
| compete with third-party services and leverage their
| existing customer relationships to try and sell those
| services.
|
| There is no positive obligation to facilitate competition
| or even help competition.
|
| There is, however, a prohibition to leverage your power
| to stifle your competition actively; an excellent example
| of this would be Apple banning Spotify from the App Store
| once they started Apple Music. But again, the opposite is
| true; they created frameworks that can offer feature
| parity with Apple Music.
|
| > Also, things change when you effectively become a
| utility. Apple shouldn't be able to hide behind their
| "aww shucks, we need the 30% to keep the lights on"
| routine.
|
| Perhaps for you, but not necessarily for the courts.
| Especially when they haven't designated your service as a
| utility.
|
| Again, just because you are successful (i.e., widely
| used, successful at selling your stuff) doesn't mean you
| suddenly lose your rights.
|
| What's surprising to me is that everyone always goes,
| "Oooh, just wait until Apple gets sued and the court gets
| involved." Then, when the courts decide differently than
| the desired outcome, people try to relitigate the matter.
|
| Either people have a poor understanding of what matters
| legally, or people have expectations that don't match the
| legal reality of standing law.
|
| And it's not like the 9th Circuit or the District Court
| for the Northern District of California are known to be
| "activist courts" or known to be corporate friendly. If
| anything, they're known to be pretty strict on SV
| corporations.
|
| You can read plenty of admonishments in the District
| Court's judgment, but ultimately, they have to stick to
| the laws and case law at hand.
| winter_blue wrote:
| > Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its
| fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and
| storing and delivering the app bundles.
|
| The cost of operating an App Store and providing distribution
| is relatively negligible. Several Linux distros have app
| stores, and package management and distribution systems that
| are as good or superior than Apple's.
|
| The annual fee that Apple charges developers alone should
| more than cover the cost of App Store. It is not something
| that costs tens of billions of dollars.
| voisin wrote:
| It's not about cost. It's about using their IP, which is
| all of iOS.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| It's not about the cost of the App Store, it's about
| maximizing profits and generating shareholder value. How is
| Apple supposed to have the most valuable stock in the world
| without raking independent developers over the coals?
| roenxi wrote:
| The cost of a human working all day is negligible; they
| need a little bit of food. And yet they still expect to be
| paid - sometimes quite a lot.
|
| Just based on your quote and without having much interest
| in the case... the fee isn't about covering costs. They
| have an app store, people want to be in the app store, and
| Apple is going to charge them a fee to be in the app store.
| Similar logic to drawing a wage.
| winter_blue wrote:
| > cost of a human working all day is negligible
|
| This is bad analogy. A person who works provides services
| or labor worth a certain amount of value in exchange.
| Often that value exceeds the wage. For example, a
| software engineer $3000 "worth" of work in a day, but
| only gets paid around $1000 for that day. I understand
| the worth/value is a difficult thing to measure.
|
| In Apple's, they provide almost nothing of value in
| exchange, _other than the threat to kick your app out of
| the App Store_ :
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21366438/apple-
| fortnite-i...
|
| So Apple is more like the Mafia. The threaten
| negative/adverse action, if you don't pay them.
|
| Also, historically, software could be installed on
| computers without the permission of an overlord. I'm
| aware iOS & game consoles are glaring exceptions.
| rossjudson wrote:
| That's odd. I would have presumed that there are non-
| negligible costs involved with hosting and pushing binaries
| and updates of hundreds of apps per phone, times 1.5
| billion active iPhones.
| fragmede wrote:
| Apple is sitting on a $150 billion warchest of cash. I'm
| guessing that some of that comes from what they're
| charging above these non-negligible costs. They don't
| have to run a charity, but they're making fucktons of
| money between all their products so it's hard to see
| their 30% cut as anything other than extortion.
| winter_blue wrote:
| That cost is negligible relative to the tens of billions
| they rake in via fees charged to iOS app developers. You
| could do the math, but I'd guess it most likely wouldn't
| even exceed $10 million a year.
| jimkoen wrote:
| EDIT: I just realized:
|
| > running the App Store, marketing the apps
|
| What marketing specifically? Last time I checked, I had to
| integrate third party ad experiences in order to market my
| app in their ecosystem.
|
| > In such a hypothetical world, developers could potentially
| avoid the commission while benefitting from Apple's
| innovation and intellectual property free of charge.
|
| > Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its
| fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and
| storing and delivering the app bundles
|
| With hindsight of the antitrust case in the EU this argument
| itself seems like it is in bad faith. Apples argument in the
| EU against antitrust was that there isn't one but five
| different app stores, conveniently for each device family.
|
| So they are indeed aware that a commercial app developer
| would likely not be "benefitting from Apple's innovation and
| intellectual property free of charge", because they are
| likely not taking advantage of their entire catalogue of
| intellectual property (if there is five different app stores,
| for five different markets, as per Apples argument, surely
| there is different IP between those markets to run the app
| store in an effective manner).
|
| In other words, as others have mentioned, Apple charges a 30%
| flat fee for "intellectual property" that developers may or
| may not take advantage of, as per their own argument
| overseas. I don't see how it's not antitrust when a company
| forces me to pay for services that I am not taking advantage
| off or ever had the intent of using, or can't use, due to
| technical limitations.
|
| As a developer, to me it rather feels like Apple is trying to
| artificially bind me to invest into the app store as a
| platform due to this high fee, for example by developing an
| accompanying watch applet or a tablet version of my app,
| because the act of simply offering these on their devices
| seems to be part of their precious App Store IP. And you
| can't argue that pricing these add-on apps differently would
| make a difference for Apple, since they collect the 30% cut
| across income in their entire ecosystem either way.
|
| It also doesn't make sense for Apple to tell me to go
| elsewhere (Android) to mitigate this, as I can't replicate
| the UX of their ecosystem on my own even if I tried (prime
| example would be the peripheral integration imo. You'll find
| creating a device that integrates as seamlessly as the Apple
| Watch fairly hard, not because Apple has some special
| proprietary integration IP secret sauce, but because they
| artificially lock down ways to interface with peripherals to
| secure market dominance).
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > The Court presumes that in such circumstances that Apple
| may rely on imposing and utilizing a contractual right to
| audit developers annual accounting to ensure compliance with
| its commissions,
|
| To this day it remains absolutely unbelievable to me that
| anyone would ever agree to this. I always have and always
| will tell Apple to shove their app store up their ass. Plenty
| of other ways to make a living in software.
| brettp wrote:
| One thing I haven't seen anyone mention which I think is the
| most obvious reason for commission on outside purchases: if
| Apple did not charge a commission on purchases made outside
| the app, it would leave a huge loophole - developers could
| just list their apps free on the App Store with limited
| functionality, with a link to an outside purchase to fully
| activate them.
| babypuncher wrote:
| As a user, if I go to buy something in an app and it asks me to
| punch in my credit card number or sign in to some payment
| processor instead of just the usual "double click to apple
| pay", there is a very high chance i will just change my mind.
| wraptile wrote:
| What if you got 30% discount? 2 minutes of work. If that
| didn't work Apple wouldn't spend so much effort fighting
| this.
| babypuncher wrote:
| A 30% discount changes things, though for most developers
| it would be closer to a 10% discount, since they normally
| only pay Apple 15% and still need to cover the 2-5% their
| alternative payment processor charges. If it's a recurring
| payment (i.e. subscription), I would still be inclined to
| pay the full Apple price simply because they make
| subscription management much easier than anybody else.
| hyuuu wrote:
| apple just has really good marketing and massive support from
| its fanboys, compared to the olden days of Microsoft
| monopolistic behavior, Microsoft is less shiny with less loyal
| foot soldiers.
| epistasis wrote:
| Just wait until you see what you have to do to get your food
| product onto super market shelves...
|
| And grocery stores are not even considered a monopoly!
|
| Edit: which is not say that there should be an "is" vs. "ought"
| conflation. Just that it's unlikely that this situation is
| going to be changed through courts. Other routes: legislation
| and regulation to establish a new social norm, or as Jacquesm
| has been advocating here, collective bargaining. But as an App
| Store consumer, and a developer of other sorts of tools, I
| don't really care at all about the developer-Apple split and am
| not the least bit excited by whatever might happen should that
| switch to, say, 99% going to the developer. Even if developers
| dropped prices 30%, I would have a hard time caring!
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| But imagine buying your food directly from a farm and having
| to pay a 27% cut to the grocery store anyway.
| epistasis wrote:
| My experience at farmers markets tells me that I would be
| paying more than 100% more for the privilege of interacting
| with somebody that gets employed by the farmer instead of
| somebody employed by the store.
|
| The analogy would work better if the grocery store sold me
| some sort of platform for cooking food, that only worked
| with certain types of food... I don't know, it's hard to
| find the analogy compelling at all.
|
| People develop for the App Store because they get access to
| a particular customer base. I could definitely support some
| sort of customer protection that forces side loading
| options (but they must be options and easy to disable and
| hard to enable, otherwise it destroys one of the best
| aspects of the phone.) But as far as caring for slight
| changes in percentages for app developers, well, I don't
| care about that one bit at all, anymore than I care about
| Apple getting a "fair" deal from the other businesses it
| interacts with.
| chii wrote:
| > a monopoly abusing its dominate market position
|
| this is what happens when the company controls their platform.
| In the technical sense, it's not monopoly, but surely if you
| squint a bit, it looks like it.
|
| This is why i am only ever going to produce web based apps. I
| will not buy into a platform - even android has the same issue,
| albeit less severe (only because google does not completely
| control the android ecosystem).
| awinter-py wrote:
| baller move for stripe would be to discount the 30%, get all
| IAP traffic, and then stop paying
| alephnan wrote:
| If you don't like making $6.71, the alternative is to make $0
| by not selling it on the Apple app store.
| saintfire wrote:
| Isn't that a defining trait of a monopoly position?
|
| "If you don't like it then alternative is your target market
| is cut by over 50%"
|
| Not a great argument. When you essentially have the say as to
| whether a company can afford to exist then you have serious
| control over a "free" market.
| alephnan wrote:
| What is the target market? IPhone users? What's preventing
| the developer from shipping their app as a web app? The
| developer can still reach their target market.
| MobileVet wrote:
| I am curious if any businesses operating with the 'pay Apple
| their cut' on outside sales actually do?
|
| Does Apple have the manpower to chase every developer for that
| fee? Do they really expect to collect it or is it more of a
| threat?
|
| Any HN people with first hand knowledge of a business paying that
| fee?
| pests wrote:
| If Apple can track your outside sales they can just deduct it
| from any Apple Store payments. So maybe not exactly a chase for
| that portion of it.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Apple likely has a pretty good idea of how many downloads you
| have, and if users enable "Share with Apple Developers" in
| settings -> privacy -> analytics, their App Store Connect
| database definitely has usage and open analytics. Mobile app
| games likely won't be able to claim "we only made $30k this
| month on iOS" if they have >1M downloads a month or 100k app
| opens a day, for example.
| MobileVet wrote:
| Good point. Forgot that they have all the data...
| clarle wrote:
| It is more for the other bigger corporations that will have
| more to lose, and will be flagged via outside auditors, that
| will pay it accurately.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Given the zeal Apple has for their 30%, they absolutely will be
| demanding fully open books and tracking for that outbound link.
|
| There's no firsthand knowledge because this is the first time
| Apple's actually had to chase companies for the fee. In fact,
| their whole argument against Epic was that banning steering
| made it easier on both parties to attribute revenue.
| ing33k wrote:
| Privacy can take backseat ?
| madeofpalk wrote:
| People are focusing on the 27% cut, but a page worth of
| restrictions on how you're allowed to link to your own website is
| just complete bullshit.
|
| > _In accordance with the entitlement agreement, the link may
| inform users about where and how to purchase those in-app
| purchase items, and the fact that such items may be available for
| a comparatively lower price_
|
| The fact that you must apply for permission to tell your users
| that you even have off-app purchase items is bullshit.
|
| Apple's welcome to make the rules of their own platform (within
| reason), but it's garbage that developers aren't even able to say
| the rules exist. If Apple believes they're so right and just, why
| must they leave users uninformed?
|
| What's the good faith argument for any of this? I want to see
| Craig Federighi on stage at WWDC announcing and this
| revolutionary new "link" API, demoing how great the scary warning
| screens are.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| This feels like a straw that breaks the camel's back kind of
| moment. Apple has gotten away with a tremendous amount (being an
| _astonishingly_ greedy company. All companies are de facto
| greedy, but Apple is just next level in its egregious
| entitlement), but there is simply zero way this stands.
|
| And FWIW, I'm an Apple fan and find Tim S a completely
| unsympathetic character. But seeing the hilariously absurd
| lengths that people will go to justify Apple's outrageous greed
| grows old.
| stevage wrote:
| Zero way? This will totally stand for a few years at least.
| lolinder wrote:
| The details of the process of getting approval for links may be
| out of line, but the idea that simply using a different payment
| processor would remove the entirety of the 30% commission was
| always a pipe dream. Apple has always been adamant that the fee
| is for the service of using the App Store, not the payment
| processor, and that you owe them for sales made regardless of
| whether they're able to take the money directly out of your
| revenue stream.
|
| That part of this outcome was inevitable, and I don't think any
| court will rule against it. It was even anticipated in the
| original ruling:
|
| > First, and most significant, as discussed in the findings of
| facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing
| fee from developers for the use of Apple's intellectual
| property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge
| a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult
| for Apple to collect that commission.
| aCoreyJ wrote:
| That's precisely what gets them in trouble though. Every
| bank, credit card, giant corporation has an app and has to
| pay Apple nothing but indie game developers subsidize them
| Spivak wrote:
| Because the fee is only charged for digital goods yada yada
| Apple legalese. It's not 30% of every time money moves when
| an iPhone is involved. Indie devs are still processing
| credit card payments so I don't think this argument
| follows.
| jussaying2 wrote:
| > Apple has always been adamant that the fee is for the
| service of using the App Store, not the payment processor
|
| So charge developers for the service of using the App Store,
| perhaps with a per-download cost. To "give away" the service
| of the App Store only to recuperate your costs (and then
| some) via payment processing is just daylight robbery.
| aikinai wrote:
| In the US, highways are almost all free but "payment" is
| roughed charged through gasoline taxes. You also pay for
| sewage service based on how much water you use, not how
| much sewage you produce, based on the assumption that most
| of your water goes into the sewer.
|
| Charging customers by some other correlated proxy is not
| robbery; it's just practical. Which is exactly why the
| court had no issues with the arrangement.
| lxgr wrote:
| The issue isn't how Apple bills for their services, but
| rather whether they should be allowed to force every app
| developer to even consume them, at least to the extent
| they currently do.
|
| Given that this is the US legal/political system, that
| question is being fought out in various proxy fights, but
| by looking at the largely equivalent situation in the EU
| and the DMA, you can see what's really at stake here.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > the idea that simply using a different payment processor
| would remove the entirety of the 30% commission was always a
| pipe dream
|
| The idea wasn't to use third party processors as an argument
| to evade the fee, it was the other way round. Front and
| center Epic wanted to get rid of or strongly lower the fee,
| and as a consequence developers would probably have had to
| use other processors.
|
| The judge shut this down by legitimizing Apple's 30%, which
| as a consequent allows Apple to collect that money however
| the dev processes their customers, third party PSP or not.
| lolinder wrote:
| Right, it wasn't Epic's pipe dream, but somehow that's the
| idea that got popularized on HN and elsewhere. For example,
| just a few hours ago the comments on the thread about the
| Supreme Court's declining to hear the case [0] were mostly
| operating on the assumption that developers would now be
| able to offer a substantial discount for people selling off
| the App Store.
|
| That only works if developers actually _could_ save
| significant money by selling through alternate storefronts,
| which was never going to be possible because Apple was
| _always_ going to pick something approximately market rate
| as their valuation for the payment processor portion of the
| fee.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014642
|
| For example:
|
| > It seems easy to kind of shrug at this, but this does
| seem quite significant because of many mobile apps are
| 'free to play.' Apple pocketing 30% of all of these
| transactions, and forcing users/devs to go through Apple,
| is a major part of its revenue. And all of those apps now
| have the option to direct users to alternative payment
| methods, where they can both charge users substantially
| less and make more profit doing so.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| > But seeing the hilariously absurd lengths that people will go
| to justify Apple's outrageous greed grows old.
|
| Define greed. Seriously, I'm asking for an objective
| definition, not just ipse dixit.
|
| They're charging what the market will bear for a _vastly_
| better product (iOS vs. Android).
| lxgr wrote:
| Assuming iOS is really vastly better than Android: Isn't it
| curious that Google is charging exactly the same rate then?
|
| It's just not an apples to oranges comparison: One vendor is
| forcing use of their distribution services; the other just
| strongly nudges their customers to stay within their walled
| garden and not enable sideloading.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You're in the "greed" range when you're sued internationaly
| over how you deal with money and lose in at least one court,
| at least once.
|
| Apple is in good company in this category.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > They're charging what the market will bear for a _vastly_
| better product (iOS vs. Android).
|
| I wonder how you see Qualcomm, being the crushing leader of
| mobile modem chips.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Does a gas station "get away" with charging for gas? They are
| selling a service and can charge anything they want for it. You
| are free not to use it, as is anyone else.
| lxgr wrote:
| That would be true in a completely unregulated market only.
|
| In many countries, antitrust regulators set some limits to
| how far companies can take their "take it or leave it"
| approach and in many cases require companies to provide a
| certain service, sometimes even at a certain rate.
|
| Forcing companies to unbundle products or services is another
| common measure.
| 3jjj3jjj3 wrote:
| "being an astonishingly greedy company" and then writing "I'm
| an Apple fan" ... sound like a Stockholm syndrome or a
| cognitive dissonance
| lxgr wrote:
| Why? I can a company's stock, use their products, and still
| strongly disagree with some of their business practices.
| ralmidani wrote:
| It's called "nuance". Also, Stockholm Syndrome is the
| opposite of what you're objecting to; someone is taken
| hostage and sympathizes with the hostage takers.
| newsclues wrote:
| Was the situation for phone software developers better before
| the iPhone?
| ralmidani wrote:
| > And FWIW, I'm an Apple fan and find Tim S a completely
| unsympathetic character. But seeing the hilariously absurd
| lengths that people will go to justify Apple's outrageous greed
| grows old.
|
| Heh, there are still folks who actually grasp nuance... I have
| an iPhone, despise Apple in general, but consider their
| business disputes on a case-by-case basis. So for example,
| Apple is right to ignore Facebook's plea to be allowed to track
| users, and simultaneously wrong in its App Store monopolistic
| money-grabbing.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Generally for Apple, I like their hardware, not their
| software. It's why I have a MacBook but also an Android
| phone, because I like their battery life but also because I
| can install whatever software I want, on either.
| ralmidani wrote:
| Same... Apple software has, for a while, been going
| steadily from "just garbage" to "dumpster fire floating
| through a river of sewage".
| gepardi wrote:
| Is it enough to make you stop using Apple products? I'm
| considering it.
| babypuncher wrote:
| It's not like Google or Samsung are even remotely better.
|
| Given the scary things Samsung gets away with in South Korea,
| I almost want to say they're _worse_ than Apple.
| app_boi92 wrote:
| Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this. Consider the
| following scenario:
|
| Developer puts out ads on Facebook (or some other way of getting
| traffic). Traffic flows to the developer's checkout page, where
| they buy access to in app content on an external website. Then
| they are linked to the app store where they can download the app
| and access the content.
|
| Apple is paid _no commission_ on this transaction. They only
| require commissions paid when the customer is sent to the website
| FROM the app store and checks out within 7 days.
|
| If this is in fact true, then payment / support service
| recommendations would be great to hear right now!!
| az226 wrote:
| I think 30% commissions for Apple are fair if the customer
| found the app through the app store. If they clicked a deep
| link that took them to the app directly, the commission should
| be much lower like 10%. And in categories where Apple has
| competing digital services it should always be 3% to not be
| anti-competitive.
| ksec wrote:
| What a bloody pile of mess. In order to guard their interest, and
| everyone wants a pieces of it, now we have an Apple ecosystem
| that is... just ugly. And it is only gong to get worse.
|
| I often wonder had Apple lowered their In-App purchase to 10%
| would we still have the same problem.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| If you are are ok with this you should also be ok with Apple
| taking a cut on anything you buy with their browser, why not also
| take a fee for any data going in and out of your phone.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Don't threaten Apple with a profitable idea.
| klabb3 wrote:
| I've said this before and I'll say it again. If the web was
| invented today browsers would _never_ be allowed on the App
| Store. Not even a dumbed down version without advanced
| scripting capabilities.
|
| The fact that they have a browser and allow "3p browsers" is
| only because the web was already established and customers
| wouldn't have bought in without it.
|
| iPhones and iPads are not general purpose computing devices.
| Not by tech, but by policy.
| radley wrote:
| Technically, third-party browsers are NOT allowed. The only
| browsers allowed are built using Apple's "open-source"
| WebKit.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| TIL chrome on ios uses webkit...
| xcdzvyn wrote:
| Firefox too.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Don't many apps use their own in app browser and not
| Safari?
|
| https://krausefx.com/blog/announcing-inappbrowsercom-see-
| wha...
|
| I always thought that a company should make an app those
| does something trivially, but also has its own in app
| browser as the true functionality.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Any single application on iOS(/iPadOS) that allows you to
| browse the Internet is in some way based on Safari. The
| in-app browsers are just using one of the webview UI
| elements based on Safari/WebKit instead of opening up
| Safari.
| Etheryte wrote:
| All of those are iOS's own Webkit, just with extra
| tracking scripts.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I feel like a lot of people have forgotten that we had
| proprietary services before the web became a thing. E.g.
| Compuserve, Prodigy.
| smoldesu wrote:
| A lot of people never paid for or used those services even
| when they were in their hayday.
| kelnos wrote:
| I used CompuServe in the 90s (user ID 76760,1543 here; why
| do I remember useless things like that...), and it was
| fantastic to be able to ditch it for a generic,
| competitive, local ISP, where I could get on the internet
| using open, standardized protocols.
|
| Making things proprietary when they should be commodities
| is a step backward, and we should fight that, tooth and
| nail.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Those services died relatively quickly in the face of what
| GP is describing.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Indeed they did. Why do we now think it's possible to go
| back to that?
| int_19h wrote:
| OP's point is that it's not, which is why Apple is
| begrudgingly allowing it. But if they _could_ make you
| use apps for everything instead of a browser, they would.
| And they 'd use all the same arguments they do today wrt
| not allowing sideloading etc to justify it.
| cubefox wrote:
| Meanwhile: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/15/app-store-to-be-
| split-i...
| matt3210 wrote:
| I'm not leaving the app to pay...
| kevingadd wrote:
| Apple already forces you to sometimes, for example if you want
| to buy a Kindle e-book.
| riscy wrote:
| Amazon forces their users to leave the app, not Apple.
| pompino wrote:
| It's understandable they don't want to pay the mafia.
| riscy wrote:
| The trillion-dollar Amazon is also the mafia of online
| shopping. No reason to give them any sympathy.
| pompino wrote:
| touche!
| GeekyBear wrote:
| At this point, it's worth remembering that one of the points on
| which Epic lost was Apple's right to take a cut of transactions.
|
| I found this discussion of the Apple v. Epic ruling to be
| informative:
|
| > as discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by
| which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the
| use of Apple's intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP,
| Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would
| simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.
|
| Indeed, while the Court finds no basis for the specific rate
| chosen by Apple (i.e., the 30% rate) based on the record, the
| Court still concludes that Apple is entitled to some compensation
| for use of its intellectual property.
|
| https://stratechery.com/2021/the-apple-v-epic-decision/
|
| The judge hinted here and there that Epic should have sued over
| the size of Apple's cut, not it's right to take a cut.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Epic should have sued over the size of Apple's cut, not it's
| right to take a cut
|
| Epic charges 5% for Unreal Engine.
|
| Apple offers developers significantly more than just a games
| engine.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| The most famous Epic game is (or was until this legal battle)
| played on iOS more than on any other platform, that's in
| Epic's own complaint. So who built iOS? Why so many people
| use it? How come they are willing to pay for games instead of
| pirating them?
|
| Looks like whoever developed iOS and all the hardware it runs
| on and the ecosystem that makes it appealing for rich users
| is actually providing Epic a ton of value and profit, but
| Epic doesn't want to pay for it. I wonder who's greedy here
|
| (Also it's insane how we just accept that Epic with its
| massive profits and margins is the one who wants to get a
| discount from Apple, if anything they should be charged
| _double_ what small business single person devs pay.)
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I've seen you make this claim twice in this comment
| section. Fortnite is not on iOS.
| eightyfive wrote:
| Fortnite was previously on iOS, at least until the events
| and lawsuit referenced in the main link. It's kinda
| literally the entire point of the legal battle.
| m000 wrote:
| What you describe is the epitome of gatekeeping.
|
| Epic developed a cross-platform game that runs on half a
| dozen platforms. The appeal of the game is exactly because
| of that. And you claim that Epic should pay 30% to Apple,
| because "we are friends with rich people".
|
| Not to mention that the "is actually providing Epic a ton
| of value and profit" claim is completely bollocks. Can you
| point to _any_ iOS-exclusive games that matter out there?
| Ah, right. They don 't exist. Because there's
| (comparatively) very little money in iOS gaming.
| ric2b wrote:
| I don't get where the equivalence of "iPhone user" and
| "rich person" comes from.
|
| It's $1000, most people have acess to that kind of money,
| even if they need to finance it and even if it is a
| terrible financial decision for them to buy one, many still
| do.
| choppaface wrote:
| But use of said IP is required because Apple forbids side-
| loading. Therefore Apple App store is a monopoly. So hopefully
| the court result will in the end help get the Apple App store
| shut down / opened up.
| sircastor wrote:
| Some people think of the App Store as a bazaar that Apple
| runs on its property, and it's a 15-30% charge to setup a
| tent and sell your wares. Others think of it as Apple's
| general store where they carry your app as a product, and you
| pay 15-30% for a place on the shelf.
|
| The concept that Kroger (for instance) has a monopoly of
| customers in its own store is ridiculous. There are other
| stores, and other bazaars.
|
| What analogy would you use to describe this situation that
| clarifies your position?
| knubie wrote:
| I think a better analogy would be something like installing
| aftermarket parts for for your vehicle.
| buffington wrote:
| Could you actually describe this? How would that be a
| better analogy?
| knubie wrote:
| The iPhone is like a vehicle (car, motorcycle, John Deere
| tractor, etc). iPhone apps are like after market vehicle
| parts.
|
| As a vehicle owner I'd like to be able to have a choice
| whether I want to install OEM parts or after market
| parts. The after market parts might be cheaper, or have
| features that the OEM parts lack. I would like to be able
| to purchase these parts without a 30% markup that goes to
| the car manufacturer.
|
| As an iPhone user, I'd like to be able to install apps on
| my iPhone without having to pay the iPhone manufacturer a
| 30% markup.
|
| I realize that this analogy doesn't directly address the
| issue of whether Apple has a monopoly on the market of
| iPhone apps, but it's how I think about it as a consumer.
| infotainment wrote:
| Not OP, but sticking with your store analogies, I would use
| the following:
|
| Apple represents the town government, and the App Store is
| the only general store in the entire town; other stores
| have been banned. Don't like it? You're free to pack up and
| move to another city!
|
| The reason I'd characterize it this way is that changing
| phone platforms is nontrivial. It's not as simple as just
| going to another store that day.
| riscy wrote:
| > The reason I'd characterize it this way is that
| changing phone platforms is nontrivial.
|
| I'm sorry, but how is it "nontrivial" to change phone
| platforms? Google says it's easy and all you need is a
| cable to get the best experience:
| https://www.android.com/switch-to-android/
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Do you believe them?
|
| You shouldn't. It's a marketing page.
| riscy wrote:
| No it's not. Did you even read it? There's a big button
| that says "Read the guide" that keeps you on the page and
| tells you what to do. The FAQ even links to this: https:/
| /support.google.com/android/answer/6193424?visit_id=6...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| _Do you believe them?_
|
| This argument doesn't work if you don't believe the part
| about getting all the same apps, which is objectively not
| true.
|
| It's a fun way to mock google, but it has nothing to do
| with the merits of this issue with apple.
| kelnos wrote:
| Maybe it's "easy", but it's a lossy process. You lose all
| your purchased iOS apps, and have to manually buy the
| same apps (assuming they're available) on Android. If you
| watch the "See the steps" video, the fine print notes
| that Google can only "transfer" free apps that have
| direct equivalents (that is, released by the same
| developer) on the Play Store.
|
| Your iMessage history disappears; Google can't transfer
| that to your Android phone. They claim to be able to
| transfer SMS/MMS history, which surprises me: I'm not
| sure how they accomplish that. I'm sure there's a ton of
| other user data that they also can't transfer. (Speaking
| of iMessage, any group chats you were in are now broken.)
|
| Google of course has an interest in telling people that
| switching is easy and painless. It's not, though.
| riscy wrote:
| I agree it's lossy in some way. Most of the popular apps
| with purchases are tied to a login, so there's a step of
| logging in again but the app is free to download.
|
| Everything else you mention is part of the nature of
| changing operating systems: software incompatibility /
| unavailability. That never has and unfortunately never
| will be solved. It's hard enough to keep old software
| working on new releases of the same OS.
| int_19h wrote:
| But that's the point - it's not like, say, switching to a
| different car make. It is, indeed, non-trivial to switch
| phone platforms. So why shouldn't we recognize this fact
| and hold the companies in the market to a different
| standard?
| riscy wrote:
| It's "non-trivial" to switch to driving a 18-wheeler
| truck, or stick-shift transmission, or that funky wheel
| thing in Teslas, which don't support the same software
| that other car infotainment systems do.
|
| You can't force everything to be uniform and support all
| of the same features to make switching between
| manufacturers of a product-class easy. How's that part of
| a healthy free market? Requirements to that effect kills
| all creativity and specialization of products for
| different purposes. Android and iOS are different and
| that's a good thing!
| blasphemers wrote:
| Don't forget that getting Apple to stop intercepting your
| text messages is always a problem. I know a bunch of
| people who decided to try and switch to android, but they
| weren't getting their text messages and just went back to
| an iphone inside of a week.
| paholg wrote:
| How about if you go to purchase a house, but one of the HoA
| agreements is that you only shop at Kroger.
| pathartl wrote:
| And the only roads in and out of your neighborhood leads
| directly to a Kroger. And there's barbed wire fencing
| surrounding your neighborhood. Meanwhile, deliveries
| being made to Kroger from distributors may only use
| Kroger-branded trucks, which cost at least 20% more. Oh,
| and that truck may only be serviced by Kroger-approved
| mechanics. Those mechanics can only buy parts from
| Kroger. Any totaled truck can't be parted out by
| mechanics and MUST be recertified by Kroger.
| Sargos wrote:
| Apple's App Store is more akin to a Company Store[1] where
| you live in a town owned by the company you are utilizing
| for your lifestyle and their store is the only place you
| have available to shop. It was a scandal in the past as
| it's unfair to consumers while also being unfair to
| producers. The argument of "well you can just move/buy a
| different phone" did not hold up very well with society.
|
| This unethical model is not any better in our modern world.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
| basch wrote:
| Or that Apple APIs and SDKs are Apple writing at least half
| of everyone's apps for them. They manufacture all the
| pieces, and people can arrange them differently. Playing
| Apple 30% is recognizing that a good chunk of the code
| running in any app is developed and maintained by Apple.
| guax wrote:
| By imposition of the platform. If people could choose to
| use apples SDK for 30% or react native 3000 revenge of
| the javascript for free, they would not bat an eye and go
| for the latter.
| dwaite wrote:
| React Native is a (sophisticated) Javascript wrapper
| around Apple's platform.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| So I guess you support browser makers taking a 30% cut,
| too?
| int_19h wrote:
| That's what the cost of the dev license is supposed to be
| paying for.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > The concept that Kroger (for instance) has a monopoly of
| customers in its own store is ridiculous. There are other
| stores, and other bazaars.
|
| I'm not making the argument from a legal perspective, but
| from a reality perspective, I think that's a very poor
| analogy to the way operating systems (and "platforms"
| generally) work.
|
| The very nature of operating systems is that they have
| _much_ more control than a simple store. For example, if
| you want to switch from Kroger to Safeway, just go to
| Safeway. There are almost zero switching costs. I actually
| was strongly considering switching from Android to iPhone
| solely to get iMessage access (that 's a whole different
| ball of Apple anti-competitiveness, but I digress...) But
| in the end, even after buying the iPhone, I decided to give
| it away as a Christmas gift because I just couldn't stomach
| how painful switching would be after a decade-plus history
| on Android: I'd lose all my Android apps, I'd lose all the
| easiest access to things that live in Google's ecosystem,
| I'd lose my day-to-day familiarity with my phone, etc. To
| be clear, I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's just a
| much higher burden that deciding to go to a different
| grocery store.
|
| Note the government _has_ often developed special laws for
| "platform businesses", for example railroads, telecoms,
| etc., understanding the unique positions these companies
| are in when it comes to controlling the larger economy. I
| wish they would regulate operating system platforms in a
| similar manner.
| Mutjake wrote:
| I like to think this via car analogy: you have similar
| ecosystem with car infotainment system platforms, but
| there the cost of switching is often minimum tenfold.
| Game consoles are an analogous platform to phones with
| similar pricepoint in switching costs. Of course phones
| are much more present in our daily lives for the most
| part of the population. But I suppose the similar burden
| would easily hit those platforms if legislation would be
| imposed, and it would come with both upsides and
| downsides depending on one's viewpoint.
| kelnos wrote:
| That analogy doesn't work, unless Kroger is the only
| grocery store that's permitted to exist.
|
| There are no other stores, or other bazaars. If you want to
| sell an iOS app, your only option is the Apple App Store.
|
| Apparently the courts don't believe this is a monopoly,
| presumably because you can also choose to toss your iPhone
| and buy an Android phone instead. I disagree with that
| reasoning; to me that's like if Whole Foods also exists in
| addition to Kroger, but if you want to switch to Whole
| Foods, you have to get an expensive operation to swap out
| your stomach, because the groceries at Whole Foods don't
| work with the stomach that works with the groceries at
| Kroger.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Apparently the courts don't believe this is a monopoly,
| presumably because you can also choose to toss your
| iPhone and buy an Android phone instead.
|
| You also have the entire internet, no tossing required.
| politician wrote:
| Using Kroger as an example is interesting because, there
| is, in fact, a currently ongoing review of M&A activity in
| the grocery store business to prevent situations that harm
| customers.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/15/1224401179/kroger-
| albertsons-...
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Even if you're side-loading, you're still using Apple IP.
|
| Every single framework and the OS itself up to the Mach OSS
| Kernel is Apple IP.
|
| It would be entirely unfeasible to run anything on an iPhone
| without some Apple IP. You'd be looking at an Asahi Linux for
| iPhone.
| basch wrote:
| Their IP is baked into the hardware and circuits.
| account-5 wrote:
| Therefore a monopoly, by design at every level.
| freetanga wrote:
| An OS without any apps is a barren asteroid. Cool for a few
| minutes but not a place to stay.
|
| Apple is also benefiting from developers IP, as they enrich
| their value proposition.
|
| Should Intel or AMD get a cut from any app (including Open
| Source) on Windows and Linux? Should MS get a cut of every
| app you run on Windows?
|
| You buying the device compensates Apple IP. Commonly their
| marketing showcases heavily third party apps.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| Somehow it's not unreasonable for third parties to "use"
| another company's IP when designing aftermarket accessories
| for physical products, even when those base products
| themselves are patented.
|
| What makes the iOS situation different? Aren't apps
| essentially "digital accessories"?
| 015a wrote:
| How have they leveraged this argument against the idea that
| the user who purchased the device has some level of right
| to use the IP on the phone they purchase? Phrase this
| question another way: if I were to write and sell some
| application for the iPhone through my personal website,
| which requires users phones to be jailbroken, would my
| application and business be in violation of, specifically,
| US intellectual property law? Assuming I perfectly side-
| step other more obvious illegalities like trademark law.
|
| Here's another caveat: assume the bundle I distribute is
| dynamically linked into the underlying operating system,
| such that I'm definitely distributing nothing except my own
| code that I wrote. Or, similarly: I ship nothing but my own
| code, plus a script I wrote the purchaser has to run to
| statically link the package with iOS libraries present on
| their Mac.
| zaroth wrote:
| You can publish your iOS source code and let your end-
| users compile and load the app onto their own devices,
| and do so without paying any commissions to Apple.
|
| If you were to compile it yourself such that the end-user
| device would need to be jailbroken because it lacks the
| necessary digital signatures, IANAL but I think this
| would be totally fine on your part, and the end-user
| would be protected by the jail-breaking exception to the
| DMCA;
|
| _> Jailbreaking and Unlocking Smartphones and Tablets
|
| Since 2010, the DMCA has allowed users to jailbreak their
| smartphones in order to execute lawfully obtained
| applications unauthorized by the phone manufacturer. Last
| week's announcement reaffirmed the rationale that using
| unapproved applications on smartphones is fair use and
| limiting users' ability to execute such applications
| hinders choice and impairs innovation._
|
| https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/latest-dmca-
| exemptions-r...
| politician wrote:
| Your customers can't actually do this without downloading
| XCode and agreeing to its license agreements. Just
| downloading XCode is an impossible ask, to say nothing of
| compiling and deploying to a phone.
|
| This is a non-solution.
| kelnos wrote:
| SCOTUS has ruled[0] that use (including implementation) of
| APIs is fair use, and does not constitute copyright
| infringement if the author of those APIs wishes to place
| restrictions on them.
|
| A developer writing an app for iOS can use the APIs
| provided by Apple without agreeing to license them.
|
| (Granted, you can't get your app into the App Store and
| onto iPhones/iPads without agreeing to whatever Apple wants
| you to agree to. Which... is part of the problem.)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_Amer
| ica,_....
| shuckles wrote:
| This was about the interface not the implementation.
| What's the cost of rewriting the entire iOS framework
| stack?
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| Probably not that much considering the past, present and
| future totals of a 30% cut across all developers lmao.
| We're talking about a LOT of money here. There's a reason
| Apple is a "trillion dollar company" and it's not because
| they're putting in anything even close to as much as they
| take out.
|
| If it were possible to run unsigned code on the average
| iDevice (and Apple's framework/drivers disabled for
| unsigned code) then this would have already been done, a
| long time ago.
| shuckles wrote:
| "Not that much" as in a billion dollars? Ten billion
| dollars? 100 billion dollars?
|
| Nobody has been able to build a new browser engine in 25
| years. So what would be the dollar estimate of a
| similarly complex UI framework along with high quality
| device drivers, development tools, services frameworks
| like iCloud, etc.?
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| You're assuming someone is going to do it once?
|
| If that one person does it and lets everyone use it, will
| they do it for free or should they charge for it, perhaps
| as a percentage of revenue of the developers and
| applications who use the code?
| kpao wrote:
| > Even if you're side-loading, you're still using Apple IP.
|
| Many free apps on the store who can get away with charging
| outside do it. Uber, Banks, etc...
|
| Why can they use Apple's IP for a flat $99/yr and others
| don't? It's not a fair system. Paid apps are essentially
| subsidizing the free ones.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| Who's paying for this IP, then?
|
| The consumer, who bought the device? Surely the cost of
| development of said IP is in total recouped from device
| sales? The device doesn't work without said framework.
|
| The developers who provide a reason to buy the device? Why
| should they be forced to use a monopolistic platform only
| because Apple's marketing has successfully clouded
| consumers' heads?
|
| Humans are terrible at actually boycotting, but I'd love to
| see what would happen if 90% of app store devs pulled their
| apps from app stores. Would people buy as many iPhones?
| Ooooh, now we realise the value proposition that devs are
| _offering_ Apple, not taking from them.
| shuckles wrote:
| My guess is users would only notice if a few dozen
| developers were gone, and the rest of them make apps that
| are only a little bit better than web apps if that.
|
| Watch and Mac are more or less failed developer platforms
| (how many native 3rd party apps exist for them?) yet are
| also both huge businesses just with Apple apps.
| nodamage wrote:
| > Therefore Apple App store is a monopoly.
|
| Not under US law according to the very court case being
| discussed.
|
| Why are people still making this claim when the judge
| literally concluded otherwise and then a panel of appeals
| court judges confirmed her ruling?
| kelnos wrote:
| Because it's not unreasonable to disagree with the law. The
| judges may be applying it correctly, and correctly
| following the process for determining that the market is
| all mobile apps, and not just iOS mobile apps, but it's
| reasonable for people to disagree with that on first
| principles.
| staplers wrote:
| Judges can be wrong. The justice system has many checks and
| balances but ultimate rule over certain court cases isn't
| one of them.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Because the case shows that the law needs to be updated,
| not that the app store isnt a monopoly.
| tristan957 wrote:
| Why do people still think that OJ is a murderer?
|
| Courts get rulings wrong all the time. How many times has
| someone on death row been exonerated for a crime?
|
| The App Store is a monopoly by definition. It is the only
| form of app distribution to 100% of iPhone users. Going
| further, it is the only form of app distribution to greater
| than 50% of the US market. Vertical integration is a very
| valid argument to make here, same as it was with Standard
| Oil, and other companies of the early 20th century.
| mmcnl wrote:
| Then Epic might've won the battle but lost the war. I don't
| think this is the end.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| This is absolutely outrageous. I simply cannot believe people
| still support this awful company.
| kemayo wrote:
| This is the same strategy that Apple pursued for dating apps in
| the Netherlands, after a court there forced them to allow third-
| party payments a year or two ago. Their argument is that the
| 15/30% is a general fee for use of their infrastructure (App
| Store, etc), and so they'll subtract the approximate cost of
| payment processing if you're handling it yourself but you'll
| still have to pay the rest of the fee to them.
|
| Although I think this sounds _extremely_ petty-bullshit of them,
| in part because that flat 3% is basically calculated to make this
| cost _more_ for developers who do this overall, the court in the
| Netherland did go along with it. So we 'll have to see how it'll
| work out under US courts now.
|
| (I feel that them charging _some_ sort of fee for the App Store
| isn 't entirely unreasonable, though this seems too high -- we
| can debate the actual amount that'd be acceptable. It's the lack
| of an alternative via sideloading that makes this egregious.)
| onethought wrote:
| What's the egregious bit? Because Apple were so successful with
| their product they should have a cap on how much they
| capitalise?
|
| Do you get upset at business class in airlines? Or cinema food
| being so expensive? Isn't this the point of capitalism?
| kemayo wrote:
| Leaving aside the potential for a critique of capitalism as a
| whole... it depends on what you compare it to, right? (Or, I
| don't get upset at the existence of business class, but I do
| get upset at excessive nickel-and-diming with fees in coach.)
|
| I'd tend to think of the Mac as the most-direct comparison
| point, where there's the App Store but _also_ where a
| developer who wants to handle everything themselves can.
| onethought wrote:
| That's why I took it to another industry that is clearly
| charging a fee that is unrelated to its costs.
|
| Capitalism says: the market will figure it out.
|
| Given Apple does not have a monopoly. I don't see how any
| of this is a problem. If they want you to sacrifice your
| first born child in order to publish an app on their App
| Store. That's okay. Just don't publish your app to their
| phone.
| Lazonedo wrote:
| > that is unrelated to its costs.
|
| Are you serious? airline companies is not a good place to
| be when it comes to margins and making a profit. Business
| class subsidizes air travel "for the rest of us". Even
| then, they still often depend on government subsidies to
| make ends meet. You say business class is a fee not
| related to their costs? you really don't understand how
| unprofitable airlines would be and how cheap air travel
| currently is. In France it's cheaper to take a plane from
| Montpellier to Paris than it is to take the train!
|
| Meanwhile Apple is one of the highest margin company in
| the entire world. To put things into perspective, Apple
| has a /cash reserve/ of 162 billions USD. They have far
| more money than they even know how to spend. The 30% on
| in app purchases is definitely not because they need to
| recoup their costs in any way, shape, or form.
| onethought wrote:
| You are proving my point. So what they charge in business
| is unrelated to their cost. They are paying for a lot
| more than they are getting. Exactly my point.
|
| So "having a good business model" is punishable?
| int_19h wrote:
| If it results in a less competitive (= less free) market,
| then yeah, it should be.
| pmontra wrote:
| The first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia article [1] are
| enough to hint that capitalism is not necessarily about
| free markets. Many capitalists would like to have a
| monopoly on the market they are in or make the rules of
| the market. Only a few succeed. Apple mostly succeeded
| especially if we think that one of markets they are in is
| selling iOS apps developed by third parties.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
| threeseed wrote:
| > Their argument is that the 15/30% is a general fee for use of
| their infrastructure
|
| No Apple's argument is that this is a fee for everything e.g.
| SDKs.
|
| As well as being a highly lucrative distribution channel.
| kemayo wrote:
| I felt a lot could be covered under "etc", I'll admit. :D
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| It's the same thing here in Korea. I'm implementing a 3rd party
| payment processor for a client right now - same 27% fee.
| However, the revenue is "self reported". Allegedly, most
| companies lie.
| htrp wrote:
| You lie until you get big enough that it warrants an audit.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| It really feels like Apple keeps making these unforced errors.
| While they're working to hype up their new product launch coming
| up, giving prominent tech journalists early access / hands-on
| demos to stir up some good press, they pull shit like this
| completely destroying any good feelings people may have about the
| brand.
|
| I don't get it. Absolutely greedy and (seemingly?) short-sighted.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| I hope the US copies EU regulation and puts a stop to this BS.
| Imagine a world where the companies hoarding capital and talent
| have to actually compete rather than sit back and collect rent.
| jsyang00 wrote:
| Why not just force apps to collect payment through a money order
| sent on the 2nd Thursday of each month between 1 and 2pm. Sounds
| about as compelling.
| rkagerer wrote:
| What we need is a third-party appstore, for BOTH platforms (iOS
| and Android), that offers curated titles and filtering options
| users actually want (e.g. like by "ad-free" and "no in-app
| purchases").
|
| If something like that had been in incubation and available for
| lawyers to draw on for their arguments I wonder if it would have
| impacted the case (especially when judge says things like "failed
| to prove the existence of substantially less restrictive
| alternatives").
| poundofshrimp wrote:
| To see why Apple's mandatory commissions are absurd, compare
| phones to desktop computers. There is no fundamental difference
| between the two. So, why is it okay to install whatever you want
| and pay for it directly on desktops, but on phones it is not?
|
| The "better security" argument just doesn't make sense in this
| context.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >So, why is it okay to install whatever you want and pay for it
| directly on desktops, but on phones it is not?
|
| On desktop you have similar stores like Steam. The store takes
| a 30% cut from all sales on the platform and they require apps
| on the platform to use their payment processing so that they
| can take that cut.
|
| The difference between Windows and iOS here is that third party
| stores can be installed without being limited to PWAs or
| requiring hacky workarounds like AltStore.
|
| Why does Apple have the sole app store on the device? Well it's
| because it ensures they have a closed platform that they fully
| control. They made this app platform so it's up to them to
| decide how open it should be from a range of first party only
| to fully open to any app from the internet. It's up to Apple to
| decide what kind of openness will allow them to provide the
| most value to users. Apple designs their app platform from the
| hardware all the way up to the operating system and libraries
| for developers to use. Apple has created a great app platform
| that brings value to a lot of users.
| sundvor wrote:
| PC platform: Steam doesn't care if (case in point) Eagle
| Dynamics allows direct downloads from their website of DCS
| World - in fact they embrace it, by offering account linking
| APIs.
|
| So on PCs, unlike on iOS, users can buy their content as they
| choose.
|
| And it's not as if Microsoft forces everyone to use their
| (exceptionally crappy) store either.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| Indeed there are many free-to-play games on Steam with
| micro-transactions that are not required to give Valve a
| cut.
| sundvor wrote:
| Just to be clear, in the DCS World example you do have to
| make a choice between using Steam for the game download
| and purchases, or to use the Eagle Dynamics
| website/downloader directly. External modules purchases
| do not import to the Steam account, IIRC.
|
| My point was probably that Steam doesn't force users to
| only use their platform.
|
| To further illustrate the non lock in culture, you can do
| a transfer of content from Steam into your Eagle Dynamics
| account if you want to change the account type.
|
| I'm guessing that seasoned DCS players like the direct
| account method (more frequent sales, for one), whereas
| beginners are more likely to discover it through Steam.
|
| (iRacing also has a similar relationship with Steam,
| although in that case Steam only managed the subscription
| - not the car/track purchases.)
| charcircuit wrote:
| They are required to for in game purchases, but they are
| likely too small for Valve to care else have a custom
| agreement with Valve.
| fenomas wrote:
| I believe the rule you're talking about only applies to
| literal _in-game_ transactions - i.e. the binary you put
| on steam cannot itself implement a non-steam wallet. But
| there 's no business rule against selling in-game content
| elsewhere, like apple is doing.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I claimed Steam was similar. I did not claim that they
| share all of the same policies.
| fenomas wrote:
| TFA is about Apple's policy on purchases that happen
| outside the app. It used to ban even linking to them; now
| it allows that but it wants a cut. Steam doesn't do
| _anything similar_ - it has no rules about purchases
| outside the app.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Steam is not comparable because it is not a first-party
| platform.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| Steam has a literal button on your library's page to add any
| game you have already installed and the definitely don't
| charge you 27% to do that.
| charcircuit wrote:
| That button does not give that game a store page, a
| discussion form, etc. That is not what I am talking about.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding this whole post, but isn't it
| about having to pay 27% even when you don't use the
| store?
| fenomas wrote:
| > Steam. ... they require apps on the platform to use their
| payment processing
|
| That's not true at all. Steam literally lets you sell _steam
| keys_ for your game from other stores, and takes no cut from
| those sales.
|
| https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
| charcircuit wrote:
| It is true. Other stores are not your app.
| fenomas wrote:
| You might have meant something else, but what you wrote
| is:
|
| > they require apps on the platform to use their payment
| processing so that they can take that cut.
|
| Which is not true. Both steam apps and in-game content
| for steam apps can be sold in other stores with steam's
| blessing, and steam _expressly_ supports developers to
| bypass their payment processing (by offering steam keys
| and account integration).
| charcircuit wrote:
| My statement was specifically referring to the app
| itself. The app is what has to use steam wallet and not
| something else. Selling a steam key on a website is not
| selling it in the app. The requirement applies to the app
| and not the website for the app.
| fenomas wrote:
| Set app selling aside - I only mentioned that because
| it's a counterexample to your original post as stated.
|
| What TFA is about is selling _in-app content_ from
| external stores. Apple used to ban that entirely, and now
| wants a revenue share for it. Steam has never done either
| - they explicitly support it (via account integration).
| The two are not similar.
| zerohp wrote:
| Compare phones to game consoles.
| stouset wrote:
| Apple is hosting, distributing, and directly marketing apps in
| the app store. They are reviewing submitted apps for compliance
| with their policies and security requirements.
|
| If you want to compare it to desktop computers, great! Compare
| it to the macOS App Store which... takes a 30% commission.
|
| Whether or not you personally agree that 30% is a reasonable
| fee, you can't simply deny that operating the app store costs
| money and resources. Further, it isn't unreasonable for them to
| try to recoup those costs or even to make some profit off of
| providing the service.
| eblanshey wrote:
| But they don't allow alternate app stores.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Apple is hosting, distributing, and directly marketing apps
| in the app store.
|
| Isn't that a forced situation though, unlike with macOS?
|
| With macOS anyone can throw an application on a website
| (GitHub, etc) and the users can download the application and
| run it.
|
| To get rid of the scary warnings, there's even a $99 dev
| membership that can be used to sign the macOS binaries.
|
| iOS developers don't have any choices to host their binaries
| elsewhere though.
|
| The EU "allow side loading" thing _might_ allow for some
| improvement there (hopefully), but I 'm not sure.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| It's been a while but I'm pretty sure signing and
| notarizing is required on macOS now, without disabiling
| SIP. At least for things downloaded from a browser. My
| interpretation is that $99/year is required if you want to
| avoid your users needing to use the terminal.
| lxgr wrote:
| If they'd simply allow the same on iOS, I'm willing to
| bet that essentially all of their lawsuits and regulatory
| scrutiny would disappear overnight.
| justinclift wrote:
| Ahhh. I _thought_ that there was still a button in
| "System Settings" -> "Security" (or similar) that let
| users launch an unsigned app anyway.
|
| But it could indeed have been removed in some macOS
| version without my noticing. :)
| abhinavk wrote:
| You can still run an unsigned binary using _right-click
| menu > Open_.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-
| help/mh40616/mac
| grishka wrote:
| It's not required. I made a macOS app recently and no way
| in hell am I paying that $99/year. People are still able
| to run it. But there is a scary warning.
|
| On my own Mac I keep gatekeeper disabled.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Right-clicking an app bundle and clicking open gives you
| the option to run the app even if it's not signed and
| notarized by Apple.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| This doesn't work if the app is quarantined.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| > Apple is hosting, distributing, and directly marketing apps
| in the app store. They are reviewing submitted apps for
| compliance with their policies and security requirements.
|
| They CHOOSE to do this. If there were a free and open market
| for app stores, competitors would pop up, who would similarly
| host, distribute, market, and "review" apps. And they would
| do it for a whole lot less than 30% and 99USD/year.
|
| They charge 30% and restrict other installation methods
| because they can, but you cannot justify it based on those
| costs.
|
| I firmly believe this model isn't going to last. If it didn't
| hurt Apple's bottom line so much, PWAs would be far more
| prevalent already than they are, and that's right now. In
| 10-20 years, this thinking will be gone. They just have to
| milk it as a long as they can for the shareholders.
|
| It's their hardware, for now they can do what they want. Most
| consumers didn't even know about the 30%, and probably still
| don't. Guess who it benefits to keep that under wraps? Or
| convince the world they need an expensive app store to vet
| their apps before downloading them?
|
| (And don't say "there's nothing like a native app
| experience". It's completely irrelevant. If there was a will
| to build it, the UX would be identical)
| selectodude wrote:
| >They CHOOSE to do this. If there were a free and open
| market for app stores, competitors would pop up, who would
| similarly host, distribute, market, and "review" apps. And
| they would do it for a whole lot less than 30% and
| 99USD/year.
|
| Would they? There are plenty of storefronts that sell games
| on Windows, yet Steam is the dominant one and charges, you
| guessed it, $100 and 30% of gross revenue. Epic charges 12
| percent and loses money on every transaction. It might
| _actually_ cost somewhere between 12 and 30 percent to make
| it a profitable and sustainable venture.
| TillE wrote:
| > you guessed it, $100 and 30% of gross revenue
|
| There is one interesting difference, which is that Steam
| charges a one-time $100 per game, rather than annually.
| It's very slightly cheaper in the long run, which is nice
| if you just want to distribute a completely free game on
| Steam, or if you're a part-time game dev with low sales.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| if that were true then
|
| 1. they wouldn't have to fight so hard to keep their not-
| monopoly
|
| 2. the app store would be operating at-cost, with no
| margin
|
| i think everyone agrees they have a margin, the question
| is how much. right now i think apple could make a profit
| with a 10% of revenue, and most likely at 5%. now they've
| done the hard work of creating an entire market, and
| invested huge sums to get there, so maybe they deserve a
| markup on that
|
| but that's the beauty of startups and capitalism. a new
| product can skip steps, learn from your mistakes, work
| without your tech debt and bloated organisational
| dysfunctions, and disrupt your industry. it happens in
| every industry, and no company is immune. apple will
| fight to keep things as-is with everything they've got,
| but capitalism will win.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| If there is no fundamental difference, then did you just define
| the market as all phones, tablets, and pcs? If so the the
| iPhone is a small minority and can't possibly be forced to
| change anything, right? You can just replace your iPhone with a
| pc if you want to install things?
| poundofshrimp wrote:
| Both phone and desktop consumers can install third-party apps
| on their devices. From this point of view, there is no
| fundamental difference. Yet, on desktops, people are free to
| install freely, but on the iPhone, Apple controls all third-
| party installations.
| etchalon wrote:
| It's OK because that's just how it worked out.
|
| One platforms norms developed before the internet and one
| developed after.
| sircastor wrote:
| > There is no fundamental difference between the two.
|
| Are the input devices the same? The screens sizes? The
| situations you use them? The means of network connectivity? The
| social conventions around them?
|
| There are tremendous differences between phones and desktop
| computers. Really the only way that they're not different is
| that they're both Von Neumann machines. But that describes so
| many things around us these days that it's a distinction
| without a difference. By the same virtue a modern television is
| no different.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Exactly what I thought. Makes total sense.. 3% for payments. I'm
| surprised anyone is surprised as this is what was discussed many
| times
| nsagent wrote:
| I've got to say, Apple definitely lost me on this one. This feels
| bad enough that despite having an iPhone since the iPhone 3G,
| I'll likely jump ship when I need to upgrade unless they make a
| U-turn on this move.
|
| EDIT: Wow, getting downvoted for saying Apple is losing me as a
| customer with this move is surprising. I don't understand how
| people on Hacker News of all places want conformity of thought. I
| switched from using Microsoft products to Apple when Vista came
| out. Microsoft lost my trust by that point and Macs were a viable
| alternative. Despite having a Macbook, iPhone, and an Apple Watch
| it seems like Apple is starting to lose me with this move.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| You haven't daily driven Android since at least the iPhone 3GS,
| according to your comment. There's a reason they're able to
| charge 30%, have a dominant market position in the US, and
| people continue to release apps for iOS (and prioritize
| launching there over Android).
|
| You're also not the customer in this situation -- you're
| talking not as a developer but as an end-user without any
| mention of a subscription service that you pay more for because
| you're on iOS, or mention of an app you want to side load.
|
| And, you might switch back to iOS after experiencing Android.
| Your comment says basically nothing, except that you got
| rattled by reading the news. It doesn't have to do with
| "conformity of thought".
|
| Also, editing to complain about downvoting is just asking to
| get more downvotes.
| _gabe_ wrote:
| > There's a reason they're able to charge 30%, have a
| dominant market position in the US, and people continue to
| release apps for iOS (and prioritize launching there over
| Android).
|
| I keep seeing this line of thinking in the comments (some may
| say these comments are conforming to a specific line of
| thought). When is the last time you used a modern android
| (Galaxy, Pixel, etc)? And really used it, not just tried to
| use your friend's Android for a few minutes and then gave up?
|
| I kept reading all these comments about how superior iPhones
| are on Hacker News. So after having used a MacBook (and being
| very happy with it over the past year) I bought an iPhone 14
| to see if the iPhone also lived up to the hype. It doesn't.
| It's literally the same as an Android. There are no
| significant differences.
|
| The gestures are a difference, but I kind of hate that about
| iPhones. You're just supposed to somehow know these from
| tribal knowledge or reading something from some random thread
| (just violently shake the phone to undo typing, very
| intuitive!). After a couple months of use, I'm finally almost
| as good at using an iPhone as I was at using my Android. And
| once again, there are no significant differences. Of course,
| there's a learning curve when you switch. But that should be
| expected. Give it 2 months, and then the devices will feel
| identical. They're different, but in the end, they're pretty
| much the same.
|
| Edit: and btw, the same exact line of thinking can be used
| for Android. There's a reason Google sets their App Store fee
| at 30%, and Android leads the market globally, and people
| continue to launch apps on Android.
| WWLink wrote:
| The tribal war thing over android vs iOS makes me laugh. It
| really is ridiculous.
|
| I have an iPhone XS and a Galaxy Fold 4, and have bounced
| around between android phone and iPhones over the years. I
| won't deny that there are some things Apple does better,
| but it's far from a night-and-day difference.
|
| The most shocking thing to me was playing around with a
| budget phone once, it was a like $150 motorola I bought for
| a family member. After setting things up on it, I seriously
| felt like I was missing almost nothing compared to my
| iPhone XS.... that i paid $1000 for...
|
| At this point the only reason I keep an iPhone is I really
| like my Apple Watch.
| ephemeral-life wrote:
| > At this point the only reason I keep an iPhone is I
| really like my Apple Watch
|
| With LTE smart watches starting to get good, the dream
| for me is to just lose the phone. Hopefully whatsapp
| makes a client for the watches someday and I will have
| everything I need without all the distractions.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| GP here. If you're talking about the Moto G Play, it gets
| pretty slow after a few days of usage in my testing. I
| used it for 6 months last year. There's several apps for
| Android that I would avoid using when possible because
| they were unbearable. A voice call with some video stream
| in Discord is probably the worst example.
|
| It's a far better option to buy a refurbished iPhone 8
| for the same price, or get an Android phone at a higher
| price point.
|
| It may be old now, but compared to the Moto G Play it's
| probably similarly spec'd (minus RAM, which you need less
| of on iOS).
| samtheprogram wrote:
| I used a Galaxy S8 for 3 years, I did like it, but
| switching back to a budget iPhone was marginally better for
| a fraction of the price.
|
| I daily drove some budget phones last year on Android,
| which was not an enjoyable experience.
|
| My original comment was more about why the other commenter
| got downvoted (it was irrelevant pile-on), not trying to
| take a strong stance here, but I can see how it came across
| now. I obviously have my opinions, though (a bit more so
| now after the budget phone experiments of 2023...)
| rustcleaner wrote:
| GrapheneOS on Pixel makes 98% of Android problems go away.
| Just side-load F-Droid from the initially secure and barren
| state, install Aurora and Syncthing from F-Droid, configure
| Syncthing to pair with a PC partner (gives you that cloud
| feeling), and you have the absolute basics for a feature-
| equivalent Android device without all the rentier-model
| enforcement which comes on Soisung devices. If you need
| Google-stuff, GSF is available fully sandboxed and you can
| use Android profiles to highly isolate if so desired.
|
| There is no good reason which comes to my mind to go with
| anything else if a sane, secure, privacy- and sovereignty-
| respecting mobile device is what you are after. 98% of
| devices are just beautiful overpriced subscription and
| microtransaction cash-traps. Just like setting a snare in the
| wild to catch a rabbit, Apple (and competitors) have
| constructed a beautifully seductive snare for you!
| issung wrote:
| Forgive the unrelated reply, but can you actually downvote on
| this site? I only have an up arrow next to everything.
| nsagent wrote:
| See https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-
| undocumented#downvo...
| nickloewen wrote:
| You can downvote comments after accruing a certain amount of
| karma (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
| turquoisevar wrote:
| People seem to be very poorly informed and are up in arms over
| the 27%.
|
| This is directly part of the underlying court decisions.
|
| While the courts haven't explicitly stated a percentage, and the
| initial judge questioned the percentage, it was made clear by
| both the district court as well as the appeals court that Apple
| can still charge a commission even when payment takes place
| outside of Apple's IAP system.
|
| The courts consider it payment for Apple's IP that's directly
| tied to the sales, not IAP:
|
| "In essence, Apple uses the DPLA to license its IP to developers
| in exchange for a $99 fee and an ongoing 30% commission on
| developers' iOS revenue."
|
| The district court even went as far as to outright state Apple's
| entitlement to a commission, despite hemming and hawing about the
| exact rate (and ultimately not making a decision on it):
|
| "Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a
| commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for
| Apple to collect that commission"
|
| "Indeed, while the Court finds no basis for the specific rate
| chosen by Apple (i.e., the 30% rate) based on the record, the
| Court still concludes that Apple is entitled to some compensation
| for use of its intellectual property."
|
| "Apple is entitled to license its intellectual property for a
| fee, and to further guard against the uncompensated use of its
| intellectual property. The requirement of usage of IAP
| accomplishes this goal in the easiest and most direct manner,
| whereas Epic Games' only proposed alternative would severely
| undermine it. Indeed, to the extent Epic Games suggests that
| Apple receive nothing from in-app purchases made on its platform,
| such a remedy is inconsistent with prevailing intellectual
| property law."
|
| "Suffice it to say, IAP is not merely a payment processing
| system, as Epic Games suggests, but a comprehensive system to
| collect commission and manage in-app payments."
|
| The appellate court echoed these sentiments, if not outright
| making stronger statements about this, while at the same time
| complaining between the lines that the district court wanted its
| cake and eat it too by insisting that the anti-steering
| provisions are not kosher while simultaneously stating that it
| would be too cumbersome for Apple to retroactively audit sales to
| collect their commission.
|
| Either way, the long and short of it is that Apple collecting a
| commission from developers using third party payment processors
| has the blessing of the courts.
|
| Even when the district court in particular isn't entirely happy
| with the rate of the commission while simultaneously not willing
| to make an official determination on the rate because Epic never
| fought the rate, rather the existence of the commission itself.
|
| Now that SCOTUS has declined to look at it, this situation,
| including the blessing to collect a commission even when using
| third party payment processors, is the law of the land.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| The only real recourse seems to be shaming Apple customers in
| to no longer wanting to be associated with the brand. My
| personal flavor of this memetic warfare is to equate such
| customers to high time preference, shallow beauty-seeking rubes
| with too much money. Probably doesn't work too well, but it's
| what I got until I think up something better!
| jjcm wrote:
| So I'm about to embark on a submission process for an iOS app
| that has a subscription currently, and I'm wondering if any app
| store pros can give advice, especially in light of this.
|
| The app is a reddit-like site where you subscribe for an amount
| you choose (say $10/mo), the site takes a $1 cut, and the
| remaining $9 gets distributed between everything you upvote that
| month (creators get sent this money into their stripe connect
| account).
|
| How much does Apple take as part of this? Do they take 27% of the
| $1/mo server fee, or 27% of the $10/mo total (thus taking away
| from money users would be sending from each other)?
|
| It's a weird situation because it ends up being a subscription-
| based digital wallet, and I'm unsure how these are treated or
| what the right approach is when submitting the app.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Until you hit $1million in revenue, it's 15%. And it's 15% on
| all the money you collect. Because these are digital services
| and not physical products, Apple takes their cut. You will need
| to factor that into your business model.
|
| It doesn't matter how you distribute the money on your end.
| While you can definitely reflect the exact amounts involved to
| your customers, it might be wise to convert incoming money to
| something else, perhaps simply "credits."
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| For me, the glaring issue here is not whether 27% is fair or not.
| Rather, it's the absence of an alternative method to do so
| without relying on Apple's "services."
|
| Naturally, there can be endless debates about whether this is
| acceptable or not. However, the reality is that there is a
| striking disparity between the iOS's model and that of Android,
| PC, or even Mac.
| ijhuygft776 wrote:
| The main problem is censorship by apple on the "app" store...
| everything else is smoke and mirrors, including money.
| bearjaws wrote:
| Its far worse than that. Apple clearly abuses its market place
| "railroads" to control shipments of apps "oil" from its
| competitors, mainly Kindle and Spotify. Of course while
| offering the same apps at a much higher margin for themselves.
|
| It's literally the same problem that led to antitrust in 1890.
| jongjong wrote:
| I always hated native apps and found them to be very high
| friction, both as a user and as a developer. I have no idea
| what's wrong with people. Why are people so keen to install
| untrusted, intrusive software onto their devices when they can
| access them in the safety of their browser without downloading
| anything. When I was younger, people were very careful about what
| software they installed on their machines, you'd have to be
| insane to opt to install some software if you could just run it
| directly from a browser. Aside from a few niche use cases where
| the app needs access to device sensors, it really doesn't make
| sense.
|
| With Apple, I feel like people are under some kind of spell. I
| cannot relate to their behavior. It's ironic that they've become
| exactly what they were claiming to be working against in their
| 1984 advert. It's has become some kind of big brother mind
| control operation.
| brandon272 wrote:
| App makers (and often users!) want dedicated buttons for
| services or apps they use on their phone home screens or menus.
| Apple has put considerable effort into having a standardized
| workflow that most users understand when it comes to installing
| a mobile app on their device: you access it through their App
| Store.
|
| I would love for Progressive Web Apps to be normalized, and
| PWAs can do a lot, and you can also get a button for a PWA on
| your home screen, but the process to do so is odd/cumbersome,
| requires explanation for inexperienced users, which is not
| something that most companies that want a well-positioned
| mobile app are willing to tolerate.
|
| And while PWAs on iOS can access some sensors, the API support
| is limited[0] and in some cases not supported at all. Not being
| able to capture links to properly direct users into installed
| PWAs, not being able to provide install prompts, background
| sync, etc. are considered serious limitations to people who are
| used to those luxuries available to actual iOS apps.
|
| [0] https://firt.dev/notes/pwa-ios/
| isurujn wrote:
| iOS user and a developer here. I actually feel the opposite.
| With native apps, there are OS level restrictions to accessing
| certain resources and sensors on the device so I feel safer in
| a native app than a browser.
| kazinator wrote:
| How is it non-app store purchasing if Apple still gets the
| commission?
|
| If Apple gets commission, the sale took place on Apple's
| cyberturf, all of which can be identified as being their app
| store.
|
| The user's Apple device where they made this purchase is
| effectively a branch location of the that store.
| az226 wrote:
| It's malicious compliance. It's non-app store purchase but
| Apple still gets to keep a 27% net cut. Had Apple made no
| commissions on those sales it would have still been super
| onerous but at least then people can "buy" the degraded
| experience if there is a savings to be had for the customer.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _malicious compliance_
|
| Nice term; it is fortuitously applicable in another ongoing
| HN thread.
| apple4ever wrote:
| Utterly ridiculous for Apple to do this. It's so consumer
| unfriendly.
| chubs wrote:
| One interesting thing to me is that apple has now put a price tag
| on their payments processing: 3% (being the discount of this 27%
| vs the normal 30%). Their payments are pretty convenient, i'm
| surprised they don't consider it worth eg 4-5%.
|
| So they're basically saying that their SDKs (+ distribution) are
| worth 27% of sales.
|
| I wonder if one could make the argument in court that if you
| don't use their SDK, eg you use react native or flutter, you
| shouldn't pay 27%. Yes, i know those frameworks still use apple's
| SDKs, but they commoditise them such that you might make the
| argument these SDKs aren't worth any more than any other sdk such
| as android.
|
| (I'm skipping distribution in my argument too, for simplicity's
| sake)
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _US Supreme Court declines to hear appeals in Apple-Epic Games
| legal battle_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014642 -
| Jan 2024 (162 comments)
| belter wrote:
| "Supreme Court rebuffs Apple's appeal on app payments" -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39021897
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Some perspective: we sell on Amazon as a 3rd party seller. Amazon
| takes about 9% of the sale price of our products as their
| commission (it's actually 12%, but includes credit card
| processing). To which you might be inclined to reply, "Ah, but 9%
| is a reasonable commission, so that's okay." But we sell physical
| goods, which cost money to produce. It's typical for our products
| to have 20-25% gross margins. So as a share of what's left after
| accounting for the cost to produce and transport our products,
| Amazon's commission is similar to Apple's App Store fee.
|
| Just something to think about if you want to argue that a 30%
| commission is too much for facilitating a high trust purchasing
| environment with customers who are ready to spend money.
|
| Oh yeah, and you'll never guess what Amazon's policy is about
| steering customers off of Amazon.
| mikercampbell wrote:
| Are they toasters? Because I hear there might be some
| competition.
|
| But genuinely, your comments enrich this sort of thing. I love
| your input.
| janalsncm wrote:
| That's just the commission on the sale itself. It doesn't count
| FBA or advertising fees which in practical terms are often
| necessary. After all is said and done, Amazon is usually taking
| much more than 9%.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Yeah, exactly, but I wanted to compare like for like: just
| the commission on the sale. You can also pay for ads on the
| App Store, which would be in addition to Apple's 30% take.
| malshe wrote:
| I know a few vendors who sell on Amazon. With advertising, they
| end up paying close to 60% of the selling price to Amazon.
| stefandesu wrote:
| How can Amazon pricing be so competitive if the cut is so
| large for third-party vendors?
| Almondsetat wrote:
| 1. Because you don't know how much vendors actually pay for
| the products
|
| 2. Because some products might be sold at breakeven price
| to attract and retain customers
|
| 3. Because some products might be loss leaders to attract
| and retain customers
| newaccount74 wrote:
| a) Amazon pricing in general isn't competitive. I regularly
| use geizhals.at, a price comparison website, and Amazon
| rarely is the cheapest option.
|
| b) I don't know if parent poster was talking about FBA
| (fulfillment by amazon) sales or not. If they are, then
| Amazons cut includes shipping and storage costs, which for
| low value items are often more than the stuff costs itself.
| ric2b wrote:
| "third-party vendors" on Amazon includes a galaxy of drop
| shippers that do little more than create product pages and
| let Amazon and the actual manufacturer sort out everything
| else between them, such as logistics, delivery, returns,
| etc.
| malshe wrote:
| It's a myth that Amazon's prices are competitive. One
| vendor I know sells his product through Shopify at a steep
| discount compared to Amazon and yet most of his revenue
| comes from Amazon. Amazon benefits from multiple things
| including their brand image as a competitively priced
| store, consumer trust, brand awareness, Amazon Prime
| members who get shipping "free", massive user data, etc.
| jy1 wrote:
| There's plenty of digital goods with low margins that apple
| forces a 30% cut.
|
| e.g. Spotify, Twitch, Patreon etc. Most of the funds go to the
| creator. Completely breaks the model when Apple forces a 30%
| cut of gross.
|
| That being said, i'd also argue Apple's app store is a complete
| monopoly on iPhones. Iphones and app stores are such an
| essential part of life, they deserve to be neutral a la
| internet neutrality. Not sure how we all become pro internet
| neutrality but somehow suffer Apple's 30% tax.
| interpol_p wrote:
| I don't think you can sign up for Spotify using in-app-
| purchase. Once you're in the app it says:
|
| "You can't upgrade to premium in the app. We know, it's not
| ideal"
|
| You have to go to their site to upgrade your account. Apple
| gets a 0% cut of Spotify's subscription revenue
| iamcasen wrote:
| I believe that is a special deal that apple made them which
| does not apply across the board.
| politician wrote:
| Apple will approve apps that prevent sign-up in the app.
| The problem is that they will deny you the ability to
| even tell the customers where to go to sign up. Notice
| that the message displayed in the Spotify app doesn't
| have a link, doesn't even mention that you _can_ sign up
| on their website. The customer has to infer that that is
| what 's going on -- good on Spotify for using "premium"
| as a trigger word because Apple rejects apps that contain
| the words "purchase" and "subscription" _anywhere_ in
| your app if you're not using IAP. We were rejected once
| because those words appeared in an error message sent
| from the server.
| guax wrote:
| I think the difference is that amazon is not a platform. You
| sell on Amazon because it is where everyone is and they did
| that by burning lots and lots of cash to ensure everyone
| margins cannot be larger than a paper atom.
|
| Now that they're trying to capitalize on it they're becoming
| worse as a store and I can't remember last time I used them (in
| NL).
|
| If you buy an iphone there is no one to compete, Apple does not
| have to play the low margins game because there is no other
| game in town. Amazon does not take 9% if you sell somewhere
| else and does not care if you sell cheaper elsewhere, Apple
| does.
| shaan7 wrote:
| > If you buy an iphone there is no one to compete
|
| This. The problem is not the 30%, the problem is that iPhones
| do not have an option to buy apps from, lets say a Amazon
| Store or Epic Store.
| dwaite wrote:
| That has been the style of argument made to regulators so
| far.
|
| However then people get shocked that Apple says ok, we've
| rolled out the ability for third party app stores, we still
| review all the apps before signing, and the store owes us a
| 20% commission.
| ric2b wrote:
| They haven't rolled out the ability for third party
| stores.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yes, people are shocked. Apple's provisional approach to
| legislative compliance isn't working, their indifference
| towards public opinion is what brought antitrust
| regulators onto the scene in the first place.
|
| Their App Store monopoly is the most literal definition
| of anticompetitive bundling in the 21st century; they're
| tying the primary product (Apple hardware, software,
| APIs, etc.) to a secondary product (the App Store) that
| can be offered from multiple competitors.
| dwaite wrote:
| Again, this is what I think people get wrong when they
| talk about anticompetitive bundling.
|
| Apple will continue to take a cut to make apps for the
| phone. The App Store and in-app purchases are how they
| take their cut today.
|
| The bundling is anticompetitive against the potential
| market for third party payment providers and third party
| app marketplaces, sure. However, decoupling it is
| independent of reducing Apple's high fees. Apple will
| continue to charge a substantial fee for their part, even
| if due to regulatory compliance they offer less services
| to developers.
|
| Someone would need to make a legal case directly against
| the fees Apple charges. I suspect that is a very
| challenging thing to do - least of which because they
| have never raised rates. The fees Apple collects have
| been the same since the first app was sold for iPhone,
| and the success has grown under that framework.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I don't expect the fees to go down. If you decouple Apple
| from the iPhone app distribution network, they can charge
| 100% fees for all I care. That is an entirely separate
| charge from the $99 developer registration fee, which
| they can also change to reflect their "SDK cost" or
| whatever. That's why ultimately, I don't care if Apple
| charges outrageous fees for their ecosystem. As long as
| competitors have equal access, there's no captive market
| to exploit.
|
| What I expect is that, for the first time, Apple and
| their App Store partners will be forced to reckon with
| user choice. Their business will have to change if their
| success is predicated on a neverending source of R&D
| funding from payment processing revenue.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Which is, in this context, like Amazon taking 9% if you
| buy something from Ebay.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| > Amazon does not take 9% if you sell somewhere else
|
| So we do sell on other e-commerce platforms and you're never
| gonna guess what their fee structures are.
|
| (Basically the same as Amazon's)
| int_19h wrote:
| But there's actual competition underlying this fee
| structure, since the users can easily move from Amazon to
| e.g. eBay or really anywhere else in search of some item
| that they want. The only lock-in that Amazon might have on
| them is Prime membership, which the users have to actively
| opt into.
|
| Whereas Apple could start charging 50% tomorrow and still
| have all the major apps in the store because of their
| market dominance position combined with ecosystem lock-in
| and walled garden.
| lozenge wrote:
| Amazon customers are still available on other platforms. They
| use credit cards and they can put their details into any site,
| and I imagine most of them frequently do. Their shipping
| address is also accepted by every company.
|
| iPhone users don't carry a second Android phone, and their
| purchasing decision has committed them to only buying on the
| App Store for at least a few years at a time. And the crazy
| part is they are paying the Apple Tax even for services like
| Spotify that they might primarily consume on other devices. You
| can't make a store that ships to Apple users - only Apple can.
| dwaite wrote:
| I'm not quite getting your point.
|
| The parent seems to be saying that when you take the
| difference between physical and digital goods into account,
| that Amazon is leaving him with a similar slice of the
| revenue.
|
| You seem to be arguing that he has alternatives to Amazon.
|
| However, you also seem to be making the point indirectly that
| the motivation for selling on Amazon, and why businesses sell
| in the App Stores, is that they want the additional sales
| that come from targeting those marketplaces.
|
| Isn't then there little real distinction from selling
| products on Amazon (where you could sell elsewhere, but
| dramatically fewer would see and purchase your product) or
| the App Store (where you could make a web app and sell
| elsewhere, but dramatically fewer would see and purchase your
| product)?
| lozenge wrote:
| Companies like Amazon and Apple are free to set prices, but
| there are rules about being a monopoly and what that
| entails. Amazon is not a monopoly, it just has a dominant
| position. Apple has used technological means to make itself
| a monopoly.
|
| Web apps are not a real alternative. Firstly, an app you
| can only use on a desktop is a non starter for almost every
| use case. So you need a mobile layout. Now, some features
| like background audio and video are not available as a web
| app. Some are less reliable like user sessions, timers,
| push notifications and offline behaviour. Technical
| innovation is not possible due to the standards based
| approach - for video calls you have to use WebRTC for
| example, for games you have to use WebGL. Some features
| like notifications, vibration, were delayed by Apple until
| users were trained to only accept native apps. There's
| others like battery status, Apple Watch, Settings pane that
| I don't know the exact status, but I'm sure App Store gets
| an advantage there too.
| interpol_p wrote:
| Just a note that for my business (and many others) Apple takes
| a 15% cut
|
| Apple will lower their cut to 15% if you earn less than $1
| million USD/year across your app businesses, or if you sell
| subscriptions and your subscribers persist for longer than 1
| year (so 2nd - Nth year of subscriptions are split at 85/15)
|
| Not defending the size of their commission, but in practice it
| does vary from the 30% that is commonly quoted
| jijji wrote:
| And Apple wonders why Android has 70% market share (and growing)
| backtoyoujim wrote:
| Does apple still charge people annually to develop apps for apple
| ?
|
| Because charging people to charge them again to make Apple useful
| seems abusive.
| xyst wrote:
| Once side loading finalizes (couple of years?) the predatory
| 27-30% fee will come down really fast. F Apple for this monopoly
| bs. From the anti-repair shenanigans to their locked down
| ecosystem. It's all designed to pump as much money from the
| consumer AND developers inside the wall.
| etchalon wrote:
| I am willing to make a bet that even when side-loading becomes
| available, it does change much.
|
| You can side-load on Android, and the Play Store's commissions
| are on par with Apple's.
|
| The mistake here is believing that either Store is competing
| for developers. They are not. The stores compete for users, and
| they charge developers a fee for access to those users. Most
| users prefer the safety and convience of Play, or Steam, or
| Apple's iOS store.
|
| So long as user's are primarily using Apple's store, either
| through defaults, habits or choice, Apple won't have to change
| much.
| modeless wrote:
| There's no way Apple will capitulate on sideloading in the US.
| It's clear they are going to go every inch as far as the law
| allows to guarantee their 30%. They will strictly geofence
| sideloading to the EU, and they may even try to resist even
| more strongly by challenging DMA enforcement in court as long
| as they can before complying. And they'll probably pull more
| shenanigans like this to try to impose the 30% even on third
| party app stores.
| kelnos wrote:
| Why would they? Most iPhone users still won't install third-
| party stores, so, in practice, if you want to exist, you need
| to sell through the App Store.
|
| Google allows third-party stores and side-loading, but they're
| still able to charge a 30% cut on the Play Store.
|
| I personally make use of third-party stores and side-loading on
| Android, but I don't personally know anyone else who does.
| bmitc wrote:
| I don't understand this at all. How is this an improvement? This
| is effectively an in-app purchase just done through the browser
| instead. There seems to be no difference.
| janalsncm wrote:
| As an end user this isn't great. One of the great things about
| Apple subscriptions is how easy it is to see them all in one
| place and to cancel them.
| throw03172019 wrote:
| Are there any details of how Apple actually collects that money?
| Self reporting? Only Apple Pay? What's the process like?
| 6510 wrote:
| I'm kinda confused so I asked bing
|
| >The difference between self employed and employed is that123:
|
| > Self-employed workers work for themselves as sole proprietors
| or independent contractors, while employees work for an
| organization under a contract of service.
|
| > Self-employed workers have more control over their work, but
| also more risks and responsibilities, while employees have more
| stability and benefits, but also more restrictions and
| obligations.
|
| > Self-employed workers pay their own taxes and expenses, while
| employees have their taxes withheld and their benefits provided
| by their employer.
|
| Apple also withholds VAT for the "employee".
|
| Don't get me wrong, legally they are not employees. The
| interesting thing is how much it is like employment. You work for
| a single company, you have to do as told, they can fire you at
| any moment. When that happens you wont be able to sell to your
| customers because they are not your customers.
| encoderer wrote:
| Apple does provide a lot of value with the App Store. But when I
| compare it to my business (saas), adding stripe + aws is about
| 12% of sales. I feel for my App Store brethren. It would be hard
| to accept 30%
| w10-1 wrote:
| Unless you make over $1M/year, the commission for small
| business is 15%.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| What is your business?
| David_FF wrote:
| Maybe I missed it
|
| But how will they actually know how much money developers are
| making via external web purchasing? Audits?
|
| In my opinion working with both Apple and Google's billing
| libraries is pretty painful. Many developers use third parties to
| make it easier like Qonversion or RevenueCat. These all have to
| go through Apple and Google respectively
|
| If you can just have a web page to do it, that seems easier
| actually. You can just save if the user is paid or not directly
| in your backend after they make a purchase
| semiquaver wrote:
| > Developers are required to provide a periodic accounting of
| qualifying out-of-app purchases, and Apple has a right to audit
| developers' accounting to ensure compliance with their
| commission obligations and to charge interest and offset
| payments.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Can someone give me the TLDR of this questions answer..
|
| If I have a web based saas currently where I charge customers
| $300 a month.. if I were to make an iOS app for them to use,
| would apple want a % of that?
| tebbers wrote:
| If you allow them to subscribe in the iOS app, then yes. Just
| don't offer that option.
| ISO-morphism wrote:
| As I couldn't find the nice page about the IAP policy that I
| read and found quite clear ~4 years ago (you should verify,
| don't trust people on the Internet): the old rules prior to the
| Epic and other court cases would say "Only for those users that
| set up payment while using the app." From what I gather, the
| current rules would be more lax, but the old can then serve as
| an upper bound.
|
| The main rules were:
|
| 1) A user making a payment that has any effect on app
| functionality (this is very broad) from inside your app must go
| through Apple IAP (paying 30% commission). There were some
| exceptions, but mainly think buying physical goods - Apple
| isn't forcing the use of IAP for EBay or Amazon retail.
|
| 2) You may not link to, or even mention other payment methods.
|
| Really it comes down to: if there is any difference in what the
| app will do for a user before and after they pay money then
| that money paying must go through Apple and then Apple will
| give it to you (minus 30%). So what a lot of apps did is just
| open to a login screen. No sign up button, no link to your
| homepage, heck, no links anywhere. The downside is that users
| have to know about your app from at least one more channel than
| searching on the App Store, but that's not a very high bar.
| Probably less common if you're B2B, but for B2C a _lot_ of them
| would pay their subscription through Apple if possible, the
| experience is great: one central place in system settings
| showing all your subscriptions with easy cancellation buttons
| and enforced standard refund /proration semantics.
| dns_snek wrote:
| In my limited experience, payments for such services are
| handled outside the iOS app. Simultaneously you're prohibited
| from directing users to make a purchase on your website and
| it's up to you to fit this square peg in a round hole, usually
| through cryptic messages which vaguely remind your users that
| they have to buy the subscription elsewhere, wink wink.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| Amazon sells its Kindle books outside the Apple App Store. Once
| purchased, the book is available to view in your Kindle app. My
| guess is that Amazon doesn't pay Apple any $ for books sold
| there.
|
| How is this current practice of Amazon consistent with the (new?)
| rules in which all sales taking place even outside the store will
| attract commision from Apple ?
|
| It is because Kindle does not offer ANY sales at all through its
| own Apple app ? Some other reason ?
| furyofantares wrote:
| To me it reads that you can place a link in-app to the out-of-
| app purchase, and purchases made through that route are subject
| to the fee.
| gene91 wrote:
| Based on my reading, Apple's cut of non-IAP purchase only
| applies if you sign up for the new StoreKit External Purchase
| Link Entitlement, and the cut only applies for purchases
| through the Entitlement link.
| riscy wrote:
| The Play Store takes exactly same 15%/30% commission from their
| developers as the App Store that everyone here is venting about.
| The key thing is how their payment processing discounts work.
|
| The Play Store offers a 4% discount on the commission for
| alternate payment processing only in India or South Korea [1]. In
| comparison, Apple is doing a 3% discount, but only in the US.
| Perhaps this will expand further to compete for discounts between
| the two stores?
|
| [1] https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
| developer/answ...
| andersa wrote:
| It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread
| arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion
| dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about
| you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from
| society that could be used for more productive purposes than make
| a few people who already have everything even richer.
| remus wrote:
| I also think apple's 30% cut is excessive, but I don't think
| this line of argument helps. We should discuss the points on
| their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money
| they have.
| pompino wrote:
| > We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on
| who's making them and how much money they have.
|
| Its not based on how much money they have. Its how they've
| managed to accumulate the money - by gouging devs.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| To be fair, roughly half of Apple's money is made from
| hardware. The app store is extremely lucrative and
| apparently 70%+ of their revenue from the App store is just
| leeching off of mobile games, but Apple can definitely
| survive without the app store if push came to shove.
|
| BUT, I will also mention that part of its market capture
| comes from all the charges on devs even before the rev
| share. You need apple equipment to develop, and they
| (apparently) don't sell server racks anymore for businesses
| to scale off of, nor any legitimate form of emulation. You
| have a small cost per year to have a developer account, and
| a cost to submit your app for review. Then if you care
| about visibilty they have their own ad discovery program
| you can pay into.
|
| So I did disagree with a brief judge statement about how
| "It's possible to skirt around Apple's innnovation for
| free...". Apple controls and charges for the entire
| pipeline, even before you launch the app.
| jb1991 wrote:
| > a cost to submit your app for review
|
| They charge you to submit an app? Is this new? When I
| worked as an iOS developer this was not a thing but that
| was many years ago.
| __m wrote:
| No they don't
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| You pay 99 per year. But this definitely doesn't cover
| their cost. The review process is very labor intensive on
| their side
| munk-a wrote:
| As someone who has developed a commercial app and spent
| time on the app store - their review process is a joke...
| there are non-compliances all over the store and I
| suspect a lot of their review process is highly
| automated.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Yeah just because it's labor intensive doesn't mean it's
| good.
|
| Im sure both App stores have lot of automated tests. But
| I've submitted a lot of apps and the feedback from Apple
| is much more specific and from humans.
|
| I agree it's very annoying, often complaining about
| things that are explained in submission notes.
|
| But if I submit and do around 5-10 updates per year that
| seems highly unlikely it covers their salary cost.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| Most of their review is for their own interests so they
| should foot the bill.
|
| Their priority is to ensure every dollar gets taxed and
| to block features they want to monopolise. The idea that
| it is a service to developers that they should pay for is
| insulting.
| la_oveja wrote:
| you are trippin
| jacquesm wrote:
| The review process is only there to give Apple a fig-leaf
| to remove apps at will without recourse.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| However it's so inconsistent and arbitrary that it hardly
| ever mattered.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Not really, I put in a feature to record the screen and
| all they did was launch the app, click a button and then
| auto approve
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| Would you pay a drunk rich person $99/year, so that you
| can publish a community newsletter to your local town or
| sell custom decals to your state's car enthusiasts club?
| Who then randomly decrees your newsletter is not allowed,
| forgets why, then slurs THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER and
| bans you yelling "I'm everybody safe, keeping!"
|
| In this case, who exactly are they protecting, the
| townsfolk or car enthusiasts that you have an independent
| relationship with?
|
| Would this scenario seem like a good idea to agree to? If
| no, why is the app store/walled garden model an
| appropriate use case at all/how is it substantially
| different?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It depends how often you submit. Also they do it mostly
| in cheap labour countries.
|
| And it doesn't have to conver the cost really. It's not a
| service to developers like developer support would be.
| It's more an impediment due to its randomness.
| camillomiller wrote:
| This is a biased view that disregards basic available
| metrics. Apple is a hardware company. Developers are
| instrumental to its devices success and a point can be made
| that 30% might be too high of a fee. On the other hand many
| of those developers wouldn't have a job in the first place
| if it wasn't for Apple creating the App Store.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how
| Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's
| become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of
| giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be
| far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the
| argument shifts back to "well they got paid already".
|
| So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their
| old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should
| such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics
| back to being "a public commons"?
| pompino wrote:
| Agreed, While there may be people who think they're
| defending Apple "on principle", I hope those folks also
| realize that there is no "principle" that is ingrained in
| nature. We're all just making up rules, laws, taxes, as
| we go along. Just because a law or article of
| constitution is old, doesn't make it any more 'natural'
| than others.
|
| There is no "right" of any student for their debt to be
| forgiven, but we want to do it anyway. Apple has taken
| advantage (as have others) of a ridiculously broken tax
| code, availed of the strong US legal system, property
| rights, etc. How about we shift the balance back?
| kergonath wrote:
| > I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how
| Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's
| become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of
| giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be
| far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the
| argument shifts back to "well they got paid already".
|
| Do you account for the fact that it might not be the same
| people making both arguments? Most websites' readerships
| are not monoliths and even on HN there are plenty of
| people with different perspectives, and who are not
| necessarily vocal in the same threads.
|
| > So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of
| their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long
| should such works be benefited from before we shift the
| dynamics back to being "a public commons"?
|
| That's an interesting argument, but it's usually not
| discussed with any nuance. Basically there are several
| layers:
|
| - are we entitled to Apple opening their platforms?
| (AFAICT the opposite would be a first though the EU seems
| to be going that way)
|
| - is Apple entitled to profit from the App Store in
| principle? (Some people are arguing that they are not,
| but they are a fringe; Epic lost their argument about
| that)
|
| - is 30% too much? (But then, where is the line? It's
| more or less the standard for closed platforms
|
| Where would you put your "public commons"? Did this ever
| happen?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Do you account for the fact that it might not be the
| same people making both arguments?
|
| I don't. It's possible to (dis)prove this with comments
| but that would be a bit invasive (ironically enough)
| without doing a lot of work to anonymize the dataset I
| gather and prove sufficient random sampling. It's
| possible for admins to (dis)prove this through voting
| habits, but not for me to bring about such evidence.
|
| All I can say from here is that so far, there's a local
| sample of one reply to me that seems to indeed think this
| way.
|
| >Where would you put your "public commons"? Did this ever
| happen?
|
| The "commons" in this case would be the OS. I don't think
| we've ever historically had another OS as locked down as
| hard IOS. Game consoles come the closest to this, but are
| ultimately ephemeral; no gaming OS store has lasted (i.e.
| been officially supported. I cannot submit a PS3 game
| today even if I wanted to) as long as IOS, and I don't
| see IOS closing anytime soon.
|
| On top of that, there is the argument on IOS being a
| general OS compared to games being specialized; no one de
| facto seems to desire doing much more than consuming
| media on consoles (consoles don't even have proper web
| browsers these days). So that's another factor to
| consider when determining what is a "major OS" and
| if/when it should be opened up if closed down.
|
| These seem to be questions that are slowly being asked in
| formal channels. So I suppose these are all TBD. But if
| you want my sample of 1 answers:
|
| - At some point I do think a "major OS" should become a
| commons for those who seek to publish through it.
| Microsoft was dinged 30 years ago for much less and Apple
| has way more control and restrictions now than MS ever
| did.
|
| - Apple is entitled to profit from the App Store, but
| isn't entitled to be the only store able to distribute
| apps on its platform. Again, MS was considering this with
| Windows 8 and 10 and it was an absolute disaster. Another
| aspect of an "existing commons" trying to close up in a
| way that MS in theory feels entitled to but in a way that
| would hurt consumers and developers.
|
| - the 30% is definitely a question to ask and not one I
| have a particularly strong answer on. I feel this is
| where the invisible hand should take charge, so it comes
| down more to "would the audience take a lower cut if they
| were able to find an alternative (which may or may not
| include themselves)?". So my concern here is with
| providing alternative options and seeing if the market
| shifts rather than throttling existing rates.
| pompino wrote:
| What someone is "entitled" to is an opinion. AFAIK,
| Courts do not adjudicate opinions, they decide if a law
| was broken in the context of the existing legal
| framework. These are arbitrary systems we set up to help
| us flourish as a society. If it is no longer doing that,
| we should change it.
|
| 50,60,80% cut would still be legal, but there is no way
| Apple can get away with that. What Apple is entitled to
| is going to be based on peoples feelings and opinions,
| and the amount of pushback generated. Its good to
| generate push-back on things you don't agree with.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how
| Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's
| become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of
| giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be
| far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the
| argument shifts back to "well they got paid already".
|
| There are multiple people on here, who say different
| things.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Those artists learned the same way generative AI did, by
| ingesting copyrighted art. I couldn't care less about
| that unless the AI companies are somehow preventing
| people from purchasing from those artists or taking a cut
| out of their sales like Apple does with the app store.
| camillomiller wrote:
| I definitely do not hold that belief, and you are saying
| that about the only company that values and pays artists
| decently among the FAAMG
| pompino wrote:
| That may be, but IMHO its impossible to be completely
| neutral on this issue. All analysis is somewhat
| compromised and biased based on subjective weightage to
| historical facts, etc.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| They are a hardware company. By the same token, can you
| imagine a car company controlling the fuel you put in
| your car, the tires you buy, the repair shops you use,
| _the radio stations you can listen to_?
| culturestate wrote:
| _> can you imagine a car company controlling the fuel you
| put in your car, the tires you buy, the repair shops you
| use_
|
| Assuming a slightly generous definition of "the fuel you
| put in your car," you've just described a lease.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > you've just described a lease.
|
| Or the purchase of a German car.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Or a printer company controlling the ink you put in your
| printer? Unthinkable! Oh, wait...
| plagiarist wrote:
| Yes, and that's why printers are nearly universally
| reviled as exploitative. Even people who aren't keyed in
| on why open source is important all understand the ink
| costs more than it should.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Oh no, those devs would have certainly passed the
| difference on to the consumer.
| pratnala wrote:
| I agree that Apple should take _some_ cut but 30% is
| predatory and excessive.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| They can get 99% provided they allow the users the freedom
| to download and install apps from wherever they want.
| merlindru wrote:
| This
|
| I don't care about the fee for using their services, I
| care about the fact that I'm forced to use their services
| JimDabell wrote:
| Apple charges 15%. The only developers who pay 30% are the
| ones earning over a million dollars a year through the App
| Store. Even then, they get charged 15% if it's a long-term
| subscription.
| nevir wrote:
| Here's a little story / timeline from 2009-2010 (from my
| perspective as a dev on Kindle for iOS):
|
| * we submit the Kindle app ...including an in-app
| bookstore... to Apple for initial app review
|
| (Note: multiple ebook readers with in-app bookstores are
| already on the app store at this point)
|
| * several weeks pass with no response
|
| * Apple announces in-app purchasing (to be released several
| months later)
|
| * Apple rejects our app: we have to give them a 30% cut of
| all sales through the app, or remove the store and all
| references / external links to it. We chose option 2.
|
| * Apple forces the other ereader apps to remove their stores
| or go with IAP. Several (most?) just gave up and pulled their
| apps entirely
|
| * Apple negotiates agreements with most of the major book
| publishers that if they want to sell books on iBooks, ebooks
| must be listed at the same price on ALL stores, and have a
| 30% margin
|
| * Apple launches in-app purchasing and the iBooks store (with
| the iPad announcement, IIRC)
|
| ...aka even if we (or any other ereader app) wanted to sell
| books via our app, the terms Apple set forth effectively
| meant that ALL profit from those sales must go to them (and
| we would have to eat the bandwidth / service costs on top of
| that)
| issafram wrote:
| I did my first iOS development about a couple of years ago.
| Question, how in the world do you tolerate the storyboard
| XML files? One small change in XCode results in so many
| line changes. PRs are impossible to review with any
| confidence.
| 0x0 wrote:
| Answer: Don't use storyboards.
| ben_w wrote:
| That's a big argument for SwiftUI, which replaces
| storyboards.
|
| But if you must use them, keep each storyboard small
| enough it's only going to be used by one dev at a time to
| avoid conflicts, and then combine trusting the GUI won't
| make stupid XML plus some automated UI tests to make sure
| functionality isn't damaged by e.g. a button being
| deleted.
| roopepal wrote:
| SwiftUI does not replace storyboards. It replaces
| UIKit(/AppKit).
|
| You can build UIs without storyboards/Interface Builder
| in UIKit just fine. And writing your UI in code indeed
| easily solves the whole versioning conflicts issue that
| storyboards have.
|
| So no, not a big argument for SwiftUI, but instead for
| writing UIs in code.
|
| SwiftUI vs. UIKit and IB vs. code are two entirely
| separate discussions.
|
| But yes, I totally agree, if you must use storyboards,
| keep them as small as possible.
| ben_w wrote:
| > SwiftUI does not replace storyboards. It replaces
| UIKit(/AppKit).
|
| Unless I've missed something, by doing the latter it
| automatically also does the former?
|
| > You can build UIs without storyboards/Interface Builder
| in UIKit just fine.
|
| Eh, perhaps the examples I've worked with of that were
| especially egregious (it's certainly possible given some
| of the other things very very wrong with that code), but
| my experience of such a codebase was very much _not_
| fine.
| watchblob wrote:
| I have worked with lots of codebases using UIKit
| constraints in code. These were non-trivial apps (200k
| lines of code). You can create wrappers of your own to
| simplify things or use libraries like Snapkit. It works
| and there's no need to use Storyboards.
| ben_w wrote:
| The bad codebase I'm thinking of was 120 kloc. But I'll
| take your word for it being possible to do better than
| that example, one example is merely an anecdote.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I think they want to make the distinction that SwiftUI is
| not necessarily to replace Storyboards, although it will
| replace them.
|
| UIKit works okay in code. But unless you have experienced
| people actively laying groundwork, it's IMO more likely
| to be a mess than SwiftUI. Even the explicitly
| declarative part, Autolayout, will only be understood by
| like 10% of the team and the rest are kinda winging it.
| Using Autolayout outside of Storyboards makes it less
| declarative, so it is then more conducive to programmer
| error (like non-idempotent updates).
| plagiarist wrote:
| Do everything programmatically. Especially because the
| XML is not (last I checked) compile-time validated
| against the symbols it is using.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Sorry but I can't find much sympathy for anything Amazon
| related when comparing with Apple. In my book they're both
| predatory.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| Well all the same things would apply to any independent
| ebook store, it would just hurt them massively more than
| it does Amazon..
| elcomet wrote:
| This doesn't affect only Amazon, it affects also all
| smaller online book stores
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Perhaps the stance to take is that it was bad for
| consumers in the long-term, because monopolies aren't a
| good thing.
| jimbokun wrote:
| They are not sports teams.
|
| We should be rooting for better outcomes for consumers.
| Not picking between which megacorp is less bad.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >We should be rooting for better outcomes for consumers.
| Not picking between which megacorp is less bad.
|
| I will argue that pointing out the hypocrisy of a
| megacorp complaining about the anti-competitive behaviour
| of another magacorp, when it engages in the same type of
| behaviour but at a much bigger scale, is a pro-consumer
| move.
| bsjaux628 wrote:
| That sounds a lot like price fixing and the same thing that
| Amazon is being grilled on with FBA
| torginus wrote:
| Weird, this sounds super illegal, and anti-competitive,
| considering Apple has its own competing bookstore that's
| not subject to these fees.
| nevir wrote:
| The US courts thought so, too.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technolo
| gy/...
| lostlogin wrote:
| So Amazon won (and consumers lost), where we could have
| had Apple win (and consumers lose).
|
| There was little to cheer about whatever happened.
| fallingknife wrote:
| That fine of 0.016% of their market cap will really show
| them!
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| In retrospect, yes, the consequences of what happened are
| now very obvious, but at the time, whilst there were a
| fair number of people sounding the alarm across the
| blogosphere, most people didn't care because the iPad was
| a hit, and the Apple reality distortion field was at its
| peak of effectiveness.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The situation is farcical and feeling sad for Apple or
| Amazon shouldn't happen. Consumers lost whatever the
| outcome.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Completely agreed.
| ruddct wrote:
| Don't forget the kicker, that IAP at the time was unable to
| support more than a few thousand SKUs! And (iirc) that
| pricing, naming, etc for everything would've needed to be
| done through their atrocious web app.
|
| Not exactly doable for the 'everything store'.
| nevir wrote:
| Oh, lol, I totally forgot about those technical
| limitations! We couldn't even have done it if we wanted
| to.
|
| Also hi :) long time!
| slimsag wrote:
| This may be the funniest and saddest thing I've read all
| year.
|
| So $MEGACORP abuses their absolute monopolistic position in
| the market to underhandedly negotiate with book publishers
| and force their hand into working the way $MEGACORP wants:
| in order to gain access to $MEGACORPs completely dominated
| (but technically not a monopoly*) audience who wishes to
| buy books in a convenient way online, book publishers must
| bow down to $MEGACORP and pay the tax. Meanwhile, everyone
| else who sells books through alternative avenues is
| decimated because the audience only wants to buy books
| through $MEGACORP.
|
| And you can replace $MEGACORP with both 'Apple' and
| 'Amazon', and it is 100% factually accurate. Beautiful.
| It's fucking turtles eating turtles all the way down.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > This may be the funniest and saddest thing I've read
| all year.
|
| 'Funniest thing in a fortnight' sounds less impressive.
|
| You're comment is actually funny, the OPs just makes one
| sad and frustrated.
| dsign wrote:
| This must be f*cking really hard with our culture. I for
| once can say that I have been reading less because
| Amazon's recommendation algorithm keeps throwing at me
| books with trendy covers that make me cringe. And same
| with the blurbs. Sometimes, if I manage to go over my
| cringe reaction to those two things, the book under it is
| actually good. Therefore, I get a feeling authors and
| publishers feel they need to imitate the crowd and make
| the book look childish from the outside, in order to
| mollify The Algorithm.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Have you tried storygraph?
| fallingknife wrote:
| It's not really comparable because Amazon never did
| anything to try to stop anyone from buying books through
| any other channel. The platform they do own, AWS, unlike
| the iphone, is perfectly open to competitors to Amazon's
| retail business.
| stetrain wrote:
| Unless you count selling books at a loss to hurt their
| competition.
|
| It's a less direct form of market manipulation and one
| that doesn't usually meet the US's legal standards for
| antitrust, but it's a strategy Amazon loves to use.
| fallingknife wrote:
| A quick google search doesn't turn up many good sources
| on that allegation. The best I could find says that they
| do make a small profit but at a much lower margin than
| bookstores, which makes sense given Amazon's business
| model. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
| switch/wp/2015/07/13...
| stetrain wrote:
| That article lists one example which "likely still turns
| a small profit", and contains allegations from other
| groups that Amazon is selling some books below cost.
|
| That small margin above wholesale in the article's
| example is probably still effectively selling at a loss
| when you account for overhead of running the store,
| shipping, etc. It certainly would be for a smaller
| competitor.
|
| Either of those represents a price that a competitor
| whose only business is selling books cannot compete with.
| Amazon can offer these prices as a loss leader because of
| their position in other markets, not because it has found
| a more optimal way to run the business of selling books.
| fallingknife wrote:
| News articles are for clicks. If they could find an
| example of selling at a loss, they would have used that
| because it would get more clicks. The fact that they
| couldn't find one tells me that the allegations are
| likely to be false. The fact that googling "Amazon
| selling books at a loss" didn't turn up massive amounts
| of articles from anti-tech media companies also tells me
| that. The fact that selling books at a loss to drive out
| competition (which is, in fact, illegal) is not even
| mentioned in the anti-trust complaint against Amazon
| tells me that the allegations are false.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| It's mentioned in the lawsuit which described how Apple
| orchestrated the publishing industry to raise its prices
| for Apple to have room to mandate a 30% share [1]
|
| Amazon was selling eBooks at $9.99, for Apple it was an
| issue because they couldn't ask a 30% share from
| publishers AND compete at $9.99 because Amazon achieved
| that price due to wholesale volume-deals, and likely not
| with a 30%+ margin.
|
| Publishers wanted Amazon to increase sales-prices from
| $9.99, but due to their wholesale model they couldn't
| dictate that. Even when they increased wholesale prices,
| Amazon kept their sales-price of many NYT bestsellers at
| $9.99 making a loss (probably to drive eReader growth).
|
| Quote: "Amazon continued to sell books at $9.99, losing
| money, even when publishers increased the wholesale price
| of books they were giving the online giant."
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-steve-jobs-and-
| apple-fix...
| macspoofing wrote:
| >It's not really comparable because Amazon never did
| anything to try to stop anyone from buying books through
| any other channel.
|
| Neither does Apple. Amazon prevents all of their sellers
| from selling their goods at any sort of discount anywhere
| else (including through direct-to-consumer channels).
|
| >The platform they do own, AWS, unlike the iphone, is
| perfectly open to competitors to Amazon's retail
| business.
|
| It's not apples-to-apples comparison. Here's a better one
| ... Amazon will gather competitive metrics from sellers
| on their marketplace (i.e. their 'partners' and
| 'costumers') and then launch a competing product,
| undercut them on price, rig their search (to prioritize
| their product) and ultimately drive them out of business.
|
| Apple is bad, but their terribleness is limited to the
| Mac-iOS ecosystem ... Amazon is way worse.
| toyg wrote:
| Nobody in the digital-marketplace business is a Good Guy.
| Unfortunately, sometimes we need two sets of scumbags to
| fight it out to find some decent compromise for society
| as a whole. See also: Miranda rights, VHS vs Betamax,
| etc.
| fallingknife wrote:
| > Amazon will gather competitive metrics from sellers on
| their marketplace (i.e. their 'partners' and 'costumers')
| and then launch a competing product, undercut them on
| price, and rig their search
|
| Brick and mortar retailers do the exact same thing and
| make generics that are exactly the same as best selling
| brand names, put them in favorable shelf position, and
| even put "compare to <brand>!" on their labels. This
| practice has probably saved me multiple thousands of
| dollars over my lifetime, so it is definitely to the
| benefit of the consumer and I am 100% in favor of it
| continuing. If you, as a company, add nothing that can't
| be replicated to your product other than a brand label,
| then you deserve to be replicated and undercut. That is a
| perfect example of the market working towards the public
| good.
| macspoofing wrote:
| Indeed - the irony was not lost on me of someone from
| Amazon complaining about Apple's anti-competitive
| behaviour. The difference is that what Amazon does is not
| limited to the book publishing space and a particular
| device. Amazon forces ALL of their sellers to normalize
| prices for all customers an all platforms.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| And the losers at the end of the day, are the consumers.
| Amazon & Apple are still making money hand over fist.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Piracy: it's the only sure way out!
| rickdeckard wrote:
| The missing part is that Apple's maneuver was to
| effectively destroy the wholesale model in favor of an
| agency-model, and orchestrate all major publishers to
| charge more for ebooks just so they can earn their 30%
| commission from it.
|
| Apple actively engaged as facilitator to help publishers
| raise prices on the whole market, for a 30% cut.
|
| The result was that books previously available for $9.99
| were suddenly sold for $12.99
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-steve-jobs-and-
| apple-fix...
| Fluorescence wrote:
| To highlight the untold level of harm Apple caused, I now
| realise this event stopped me reading for years.
|
| I loved ebooks and my reading went way up. They were
| cheaper than paperbacks and cheap enough that I was
| making curiosity and impulse purchases. The problem with
| digital sales is that unlike a bookshop, I could not
| browse and take a book from the shelf and start reading
| and get hooked.
|
| Once ebooks suddenly jumped in price and absurdly became
| more expensive than paperbacks, I was done, and didn't
| buy a book for years. You might try and argue this was
| irrational, but when I feel I am being scammed, my wallet
| stays in my pocket. I will indeed cut off my nose to
| spite an asshole.
| clankyclanker wrote:
| Agreed, I only picked up reading again after finding
| Libby.
|
| (A short story about how cheating the user with
| exorbitant prices results in the exit of your audience.)
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Jobs was deeply cynical about ebooks, claiming early on
| that Kindle would fail because "people don't read
| anymore"[0].
|
| There's some level of irony in the fact that the most
| successful product from the guy who wanted to build a
| "bicycle of the mind"[1] ended up being something more
| like the floating chairs in Wall E.
|
| 0 - https://www.wired.com/2008/01/steve-jobs-peop/
|
| 1 - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8
| tekkk wrote:
| I just looked and the last Song of Ice and Fire audiobook
| is 41EUR in Apple Books. That is hilariously insane. I
| could perhaps pay that for all of them but for 1 -- the
| others are basically the same price. That's 200EUR for
| the set.
|
| There are weirdly other audiobook versions that cost only
| 29EUR so I wonder what's the story here.
| cheschire wrote:
| And many other folks will keep wondering what the story
| is for 41EUR!
|
| My bad puns aside, thank god for libraries. Otherwise
| these stories would be truly lost to the rich.
| yourusername wrote:
| Audiobooks are just expensive in general. A song of Ice
| and Fire is $39 in Audible on android (well it's on sale
| now for $27). Sadly $20-40 is a fairly normal price for a
| audiobook.
| tekkk wrote:
| Yeah I think they are though artificially inflated by
| Amazon and co since why on earth can Audible sell them 8$
| every month. Luckily there are a lot of old public domain
| books that you can listen to. Reading what Brandon
| Sanderson has to say about Audible to me was really
| revealing.
| troupo wrote:
| What do you think it would cost?
|
| It's a professional reading/acting out a full book in a
| professional studio, with at least an editor, a
| production team, a corrector. And the market for
| audiobooks is still very minuscule.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| If a band of professional musicians can put out an album
| with original music and multi-track mixing for $10, a
| pre-written book with a single voice performer and
| minimal production crew shouldn't cost multiples of that.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| > If a band of professional musicians can put out an
| album with original music and multi-track mixing for $10,
| a pre-written book with a single voice performer and
| minimal production crew shouldn't cost multiples of that.
|
| Not saying this is fair, but musicians often do
| economically sub-optimal things for the love of creation
| and because it is a passion. Hopefully, the musician also
| gets added revenue from concerts.
|
| The voice performance doesnt get the fame nor after-
| performance revenue -- so naturally they are charging
| market rates for their time reading. Further, most of the
| credit/glory goes to the author, not the voice performer.
| I doubt most people know who the voice performer is on
| audiobooks.
| lsaferite wrote:
| > the market for audiobooks is still very minuscule
|
| > A song of Ice and Fire is $39 in Audible
|
| Is this really surprising? Production costs for a single
| audiobook are _significantly_ less than something like a
| movie, but the audiobook is more than double the cost of
| seeing a movie?!? I straight up refuse to buy audiobooks
| based on the price alone. Ebook prices are bad enough,
| but audiobook prices are ludicrous.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Movies amortize their cost over a much, much larger
| audience than books do. A book that sells a 100,000
| copies is a fairly successful book. A movie that sold
| 100,000 tickets is a complete flop.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Then add on top that Audiobook sales-volume in total is
| still smaller than book-sales, that Audible controls the
| majority of the US Audiobook sales, while the majority of
| consumption is actually their monthly subscription tier
| (which probably doesn't pay much at all). Then Audible
| takes a revenue-share of 30~50% depending on content,
| publisher and author also want to earn money,...
|
| Then the audiobook of "A song of fire and ice" is
| apparently 33 hours and 46 minutes, which is more than 3
| times the average length [1], so just the narration
| production-cost is 3 times higher than the average
| audiobook.
|
| So overall there's not so much left to make a profit,
| leave alone break-even.
|
| [1] https://wordsrated.com/audiobook-statistics/
| lsaferite wrote:
| The statistics on that page are interesting.
|
| > Younger people are more likely to consume audio format,
| as 57% of Americans younger than 50 listened to
| audiobooks in 2021.
|
| I know I only have anecdata (I'm in that cohort), but
| that seems off based on my personal experiences and the
| people I know. Perhaps 2021 was an outlier?
|
| > Over 23% of Americans listened to at least one
| audiobook in 2021, 15% more than in 2020.
|
| This also seems off. Almost 1 in 4 Americans listened to
| an audiobook in 2021? That seems... high.
|
| I couldn't find a link to the source data used to
| generate those statistics.
|
| Based on your link, you'd be looking at something in the
| range of $24,000 for ASOIAF. Even if you double that
| you're looking at $48,000. If we factor in 50% (WTF?) rev
| share with Audible, that's ~2400 units to break even. And
| then they are clearing ~$20/unit after that. Yeah, I know
| I hand-waved a bunch of minutia, but my point is that the
| volume of sales needed to start making a profit, even
| considering a large rev share, isn't _that_ high.
|
| I can't stack that against sales numbers, but I'll say
| this, even if it's a legit price based on costs and
| volume that it doesn't _feel_ legit to _me_. As a result,
| I won't buy audiobooks. I don't think I'm totally alone.
| I can't say much past that.
| troupo wrote:
| > Almost 1 in 4 Americans listened to an audiobook in
| 2021? That seems... high.
|
| Yes. _A_ book. That 's _one single book_. As with
| anything, the majority will listen to a few popular
| titles like self-help books and Harry Potter.
|
| No idea how you arrived at $24000 for ASOIAF and then
| decided to randomly double it
| lsaferite wrote:
| Given the lack of source data I can't tell if they
| talking X listens across Y population, or are they saying
| that Z individuals listened to at least one audiobook. Do
| you have some insight from another data source? If not, I
| stand by my claim that 1 in 4 Americans listening to an
| audiobook is hard to believe.
|
| From the article in the post I was replying to[1]:
| Audiobook production is a multi-step process that
| requires equipment, software, a studio, and a narrator.
| Depending on the cost and availability of each of these
| aspects, the price of producing an audiobook can vary.
| * Generally, around 9,300 words of text equate to one
| hour of audiobook length. * The average audiobook
| is around 10 hours long, containing close to 100,000
| words. * The average narrator charges around $200
| per finished hour, meaning that the expenses on the
| narrator will amount to $2,000 for recording an
| audiobook. * On top of that, it is necessary to
| either rent a studio where the recording will take place
| or invest in the equipment and sound production yourself.
| * In either case, producing an audiobook will take
| between $4,000 and $8,000. * Some companies offer
| a complete production service for a fixed price, usually
| at the $6,000 range.
|
| They are saying it's something on the order of $8,000 to
| produce a 10 hour audiobook. I tripled that to get to
| $24k since ASOIAF is a little over 33 hours, then doubled
| it just to account for things like more expensive voice
| actors or more expensive production. Keep in mind this
| was just napkin math to get a general range for what it
| would cost and I'd rather inflate it a bit just to be
| safe.
|
| [1] https://wordsrated.com/audiobook-statistics/
| endemic wrote:
| I can watch the whole (insanely expensive to produce) TV
| series for $16/month.
| troupo wrote:
| No, you can't. What you _can_ is have a million or so
| people pay $16 /month which pays for these insanely
| expensive series.
|
| So, let's assume Netflix. It has 247 million subscribers.
| You do the math.
|
| An audiobook (and audiobooks in general) don't have that.
| amelius wrote:
| Again, if you're against government regulation, then you
| haven't seen a company regulate a market.
| fenomas wrote:
| Another random app store anecdote: way back when (2010?)
| Adobe made a feature where you could publish flash content
| as an iOS app. Like you build a flash game, hit publish,
| and an .ipa file comes out. So the feature goes into open
| beta, and a bunch of flash devs make iPhone apps, they work
| fine, they get accepted into the app store, users are using
| them, everybody's happy.
|
| Then a few _days_ before the feature was scheduled to leave
| beta and be formally supported, Apple changed the app store
| terms to disallow it, by requiring that apps be
| "originally written" in certain languages like objective-C
| or C++. Nothing to do with what the app did or how it
| worked, and no definition for what "originally written"
| specifically meant. And there were lots of other
| technologies for building apps by then, so of course they
| all freaked (though AFAIK Apple never actually enforced the
| new terms for anything besides flash).
|
| Anyway shortly afterward Adobe reverted the app-publishing
| feature, and then a few months later Apple quietly reverted
| the terms to what they were before.
| toyg wrote:
| Apple is very much a subscriber to the Darth Vader School
| of Business: "I'm altering the deal; pray that I don't
| alter it any further."
| mdhb wrote:
| You would think that as the web platform is starting to
| pick up things like WASM and many new capabilities that
| there are an extremely large set of apps all of a sudden
| where you would be insane to think about
|
| - writing it in a different language that only really
| runs on one operating system
|
| - pay $99/yr for the privilege
|
| - at any point and for any reason you can be cut off from
| reaching your audience
|
| - you have to pay them 30% of your revenue (not profit)
| for any money your application makes
|
| - you can't make updates in a timely manner
|
| - you have close to zero avenues of recourse if you
| disagree with any of this
|
| - the deal can change at any time and you don't get a say
| in it.
|
| Why the fuck would anyone choose that option in 2024 if
| they didn't have to? It's no wonder Apple went out of
| their way to try and cripple the web for over a decade
| now, it was only legal action from the EU that forced
| them to staff Safari properly about two years ago.
|
| And even now, they still take any opportunity they can to
| make it look unattractive such as hiding the ability to
| install a PWA deep in a series of unrelated menus.
|
| That's a hostage taking business. Get out of that
| ecosystem if you can
| JimDabell wrote:
| > And even now, they still take any opportunity they can
| to make it look unattractive such as hiding the ability
| to install a PWA deep in a series of unrelated menus.
|
| That isn't true. It takes two taps. You tap the share
| button, then you tap _Add to Home Screen_. That's it.
| That's not "hidden deep in a series of unrelated menus".
| It's a top-level option.
|
| And don't complain about the "share" button - that's just
| a bad name for what iOS users understand as the
| "Send/Put/Open this somewhere else" button. It makes
| total sense if you are an iOS user, don't be misled by
| what people call it. People tap it when they want to "do
| something" with what they are looking at. It's exactly
| the button you'd tap if you wanted to add a PWA to your
| home screen.
| mdhb wrote:
| Go and find a random person on the street and ask them to
| install a website on an iOS device and watch what
| happens.
|
| It is absolutely set up in such a way that normal people
| not only can not do it but don't even know it's possible.
|
| I should be able to trigger an install prompt as a
| developer at a minimum.
| troupo wrote:
| > Go and find a random person on the street and ask them
| to install a website on an iOS device and watch what
| happens.
|
| Go and ask a random person to install a website on any
| OS, and watch what happens
| mdhb wrote:
| You do understand that the main thrust of my argument
| here is that it doesn't have to be like that correct?
|
| I should be able to prompt the user to install and it
| would just work.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I'm not receptive to allowing websites to prompt me for
| any reason whatever after observing everyone's behavior
| for the last two decades.
| mdhb wrote:
| That's very interesting but we aren't designing the web
| around your personal set of preferences so I don't know
| if it's particularly relevant to the conversation.
|
| I'm sure when it arrives like other APIs that require
| certain permissions you will be able to disable it and
| live in peace.
| troupo wrote:
| > That's very interesting but we aren't designing the web
| around your personal set of preferences
|
| Indeed. The (collective) you are designing the web around
| maximum profit to stakeholders. People's interests and
| preferences don't come in to it.
| mdhb wrote:
| Respectfully what are you even talking about...
|
| How did we get from "I think app install prompts should
| be a thing so the web is on a level playing field with
| operating systems" to me somehow being responsible for
| the ills of capitalism?
|
| I literally said you should have an option to opt out and
| your response was an impassioned speech about "the will
| of the people".
| troupo wrote:
| I think this answers all the questions:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39029042
| plagiarist wrote:
| It's not just my preference. People would want a nice and
| easy button to install a webapp to their homescreen.
| People would not want alert boxes from every website they
| visit. The latter will happen along with the former.
|
| I cannot disable these things when Apple has a profit
| incentive. I haven't been able to make the dumb Game
| Center thing permanently quit appearing. I guess they
| don't have a profit incentive, here, huh? So the result
| is that people who understand how to turn it off, will
| turn it off. Most everyone else will be trained to hit no
| instantly. A few people will have hundreds of webapps on
| their home screens like the browser bars of yore.
|
| For the record; I completely agree that side loading
| should be possible with minimal barrier and it would be
| nice if web apps were more discoverable and integrated.
| But preventing websites from nagging people with a
| system-level iOS prompt is a feature.
| troupo wrote:
| > You do understand that the main thrust of my argument
| here is that it doesn't have to be like that correct?
|
| No, I don't
|
| > I should be able to prompt the user to install and it
| would just work.
|
| No, you shouldn't. Not until you prove that you can
| actually make proper prompts and not turn the web into
| what it is today: a collection of in your face modals,
| calls to action, popups etc.
| mdhb wrote:
| I don't even understand the "no I don't understand the
| thing that you just said" response here.
|
| I'm not sure where to go here if I'm supposed to be
| responsible for your sense of reading comprehension.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > It is absolutely set up in such a way that normal
| people not only can not do it but don't even know it's
| possible.
|
| Would you say that Apple are deliberately hiding how to
| bookmark a website and that people are unable to do that?
| Because you do that the same way too.
|
| How about printing? Does Apple have a secret motive to
| stop people from printing? Because you do that the same
| way too.
|
| The share button is the "Send/Put/Open this somewhere
| else" button. That's just how iOS works. It's not a
| devious plan. It's a standard platform convention.
|
| > I should be able to trigger an install prompt as a
| developer at a minimum.
|
| This is not currently part of any web standard. It was
| implemented unilaterally by Chromium and hasn't been
| accepted by any other rendering engine yet. It's
| explicitly _not_ on a web standards track:
|
| > Status of This Document
|
| > This specification was published by the Web Platform
| Incubator Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor
| is it on the W3C Standards Track.
|
| https://wicg.github.io/manifest-incubations/
| mdhb wrote:
| I don't understand why you're acting purposely obtuse
| here.
|
| They have a multi billion dollar incentive here along
| with a long history of actions all clearly focused on
| protecting that revenue stream at the expense of the web
| platform.
|
| I'm making an argument that like any other application
| delivery platform I should have a clear and standard way
| for my users to install my software.
|
| The reason we don't currently have that is largely tied
| up in Apple yet again with the exact same incentive
| structure as every other time they pulled shit like this.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > I don't understand why you're acting purposely obtuse
| here.
|
| Do you want to try that reply again in a less insulting
| way? Perhaps consider the possibility that people can
| have a legitimate difference of opinion with you without
| it being a stupid act?
| mdhb wrote:
| Im not trying to be insulting but this also isn't a
| legitimate difference of opinion scenario.
|
| You tried to do a weird gotcha by claiming that the
| ability to install a web app is no different to print a
| webpage and implied that I was seeing conspiracies where
| there were none to be found.
|
| I'm saying that the thing I'm talking about has a very
| clear difference when it comes to incentive structures
| and I know you're aware of it because we are in the
| middle of a discussion about it.
|
| So I don't know what other conclusion to draw here other
| than you're pretending to not understand the difference.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Im not trying to be insulting but this also isn't a
| legitimate difference of opinion scenario.
|
| You are claiming that it's _literally impossible to
| honestly disagree with you_ ; that the only possibility
| is that I'm deliberately acting the fool? Do you really
| believe that?
| mdhb wrote:
| I feel like you're getting more worked up here than the
| situation requires.
|
| If you took offence at the original comment where I said
| you appeared to be playing games by ignoring something
| I'm sorry.
|
| I am however asking that you present some kind of
| rebuttal rather than trying to make this a thing about
| polite discourse on the internet.
|
| I made specific points, you came in talking about
| unrelated points, I pointed out that your reasoning had a
| major hole in it and now we are in a conversation nobody
| wants to be a part of.
|
| Let's just say we both understand why an install prompt
| and printing a web page aren't the same thing because I
| think we covered that ground already.
|
| To get it back on track, I'm saying that they don't
| belong together and that when you listed all that other
| random set of actions people could do that appear in the
| same screen that this illustrates the point I've been
| trying to make from the start.
|
| If the argument is "oh that's just iOS, it's totally
| innocent and how could you ever seen anything nefarious
| there" then make that argument but as discussed, it has
| major holes.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > I feel like you're getting more worked up here than the
| situation requires.
|
| I'm not getting worked up, I'm refusing to accept direct
| insults. It's possible to do that without getting worked
| up. This place is supposed to be better than this and
| you're falling short. If people don't push back on
| behaviour like yours this place will be dragged down into
| the muck. Insults should not be tolerated here.
|
| And telling people they are getting worked up when they
| complain about you insulting them, in itself,
| additionally insulting and inflammatory. Don't do that.
|
| > If you took offence at the original comment where I
| said you appeared to be playing games by ignoring
| something I'm sorry.
|
| You didn't accuse me of playing games, you accused me of
| "acting purposely obtuse". You're saying that I'm
| pretending to be a moron because my argument is far too
| stupid for anybody to _really_ believe. You don't get to
| put me in the catch-22 of either taking your insults
| without complaint or getting accused of being worked up.
| It's entirely reasonable to reject your replies calmly
| until you stop being insulting.
|
| > I am however asking that you present some kind of
| rebuttal
|
| I already did that. You called it a "weird gotcha" and
| ignored it. I suspect you missed the point because you
| were so sure I was pretending to be an idiot. You are
| free to go back and read it again. If you still don't
| understand it a second time, ask for clarification
| instead of throwing insults around.
| mdhb wrote:
| Just to be clear... your argument is or isn't "That's
| just iOS and there's clearly nothing nefarious about it"?
|
| That's my good faith understanding of the point you're
| making at the moment so I will try one final time...
|
| Do you care to address the incredibly specific point I've
| made repeatedly that that line of reasoning has a huge
| hole in it which you seem to be ignoring no matter how
| often I ask you to acknowledge it.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > which you seem to be ignoring no matter how often I ask
| you to acknowledge it.
|
| I wasn't ignoring it. I was refusing to respond to
| replies with insults. I have been very clear about that.
|
| > Just to be clear... your argument is or isn't "That's
| just iOS and there's clearly nothing nefarious about it"?
|
| No.
|
| Your argument is:
|
| > they still take any opportunity they can to make it
| look unattractive such as hiding the ability to install a
| PWA deep in a series of unrelated menus.
|
| Let's deconstruct that to three assertions:
|
| - It's _deep in a series_ of menus
|
| - It's in an _unrelated_ menu
|
| - It's being purposefully hidden by Apple.
|
| I have pointed out several things:
|
| - It's a top-level item in a very commonly used menu.
|
| - It belongs in that menu.
|
| - Other items in that menu are also there for the same
| purpose.
|
| - Apple has no incentive to hide those other items.
|
| So right away, we can get rid of the first assertion.
| It's not deep in a series of menus. That's just plainly
| false, as anybody who has an iPhone near them can verify.
| It's a top-level item in a primary menu. It's a single
| tap away.
|
| Next we move on to whether it belongs there or not. As I
| repeatedly point out, the "share" button actually exposes
| a whole lot more than just sharing. I'm not even certain
| "share button" is its official name, I think it might be
| called "action button" or something. You can consider it
| the "put this somewhere else button" because that's what
| it actually means, even if the name doesn't roll off the
| tongue. That's the platform convention. That's _how iOS
| users perceive it_.
|
| Want to send it to somebody? Tap the button. Want to open
| it in a different app? Tap the button. Want to save it
| somewhere? Tap the button. That's what the button is for.
| You are looking at something and you want to put it
| somewhere.
|
| What else is in that menu? You can save a document to
| files. You can print it. You can bookmark it. You get a
| list of other apps you can open it with. You can add it
| to a note. You can copy it to the pasteboard. These all
| fit the same theme. You are looking at something and you
| want to put it somewhere.
|
| Does "I want to put this PWA on my Home Screen" fit
| there? It absolutely does. That's exactly where I'd
| locate the feature. You are looking at a PWA, and you
| want to put it somewhere. So tap the put it somewhere
| button.
|
| So no, it's not in an _unrelated_ menu. So the second
| assertion goes.
|
| Finally, is Apple _purposefully hiding it_ there? Well,
| showing that it belongs there should be enough to
| disprove that, but there's also more. What else is in
| that menu? Let's skip over sharing to eliminate quibbling
| over "but those belong there".
|
| Saving a file isn't sharing. Printing isn't sharing.
| Bookmarking isn't sharing. Opening in another app isn't
| sharing. Adding it to a note isn't sharing. Copying it to
| the pasteboard isn't sharing.
|
| Are all of those purposefully being hidden by Apple where
| users won't look for them? How does hiding "Add to
| bookmarks" have a "multi billion dollar incentive" behind
| it? How does hiding "Copy to pasteboard" "protect Apple's
| revenue stream"? Why would Apple even implement these
| features in the first place only to hide them?
|
| They aren't being purposefully hidden. They are all there
| because they all do the same sort of thing - the same
| thing that Add to Home Screen does. They take what the
| user is looking at and put it somewhere.
|
| And users use this menu _all the time_. It's not some
| obscure part of Safari you've got to dig to find. The
| average user has probably scrolled past Add to Home
| Screen thousands and thousands of times.
|
| If Apple were trying to hide this functionality, this is
| the very last place they'd put it. They've put it
| somewhere that a) is accessible with a single tap, b)
| makes sense conceptually, and c) will be seen by users
| all the time. So the final assertion is no good either.
|
| And like cpuguy83 pointed out elsewhere in the thread -
| this has been how you add a site to your home screen
| since day one, when Steve Jobs was telling everybody that
| web apps were the only way to build apps for the iPhone.
| At that point PWAs didn't even exist. And that's the spot
| they chose for it back then - before native apps were
| even allowed by Apple, when Apple wanted everybody to
| build web apps and add them to their home screens. It
| completely contradicts the idea that this is a hiding
| place where they don't want people to see it. That's
| where they chose to put it when it's incontrovertible
| fact that they wanted people to use it.
| mdhb wrote:
| So why is it that after this existing for so many years
| that nobody seems to even know it's an option or how to
| do it.
|
| Just to give a bit of context on my own background
| because it's relevant here but I spent most of the last
| ten years running A/B tests for companies and then
| analysing the results.
|
| One of the core truths in my particular line of work is
| that default options matter a lot more than people tend
| to realise.
|
| So when you take an idea such as "I would like to install
| this app" and you then:
|
| 1. Don't provide a way to ask users if they would like to
| do that.
|
| 2. Put it in a menu that's cluttered with many other
| unrelated things.
|
| 3. Call it something entirely different "add to home".
|
| It's not a mystery what is going to happen here. We are
| talking the overwhelming MAJORITY of people will have no
| idea and it won't get used.
|
| I'm just a random person on the internet so I'm not
| asking you to take my word for it.
|
| It's specifically why I mentioned the test before of go
| and talk to any person with an iPhone and ask them how
| they can install an app without the App Store. You can
| prove this to yourself tomorrow by asking ten people.
|
| You can even incentivise them with money. They absolutely
| can not do it and will look at you like you have two
| heads.
|
| They have no idea it's even possible.
|
| So the next logical question that comes to mind is why do
| you suppose that is?
|
| There's a few potential options:
|
| 1. They somehow have no idea that this is a problem their
| users struggle with.
|
| 2. They are bad a UI design
|
| 3. It's an intentional choice to try and keep people in
| the dark while still avoiding any legal action for anti
| competitive behaviour.
|
| I can only find evidence for one of those options but I
| have a LOT of it. It's not a coincidence that it happens
| to align perfectly consistently with all of their other
| actions towards treating the web as a competitive
| application platform.
|
| That's just who they are and how they do business.
| TimPC wrote:
| I think they gave you a clear answer to the difference:
|
| The Web Standards Committee has decided the correct way
| for the web to work is that there is an expectation that
| a user understands how to bookmark something and can
| elect to do so if they choose. They don't make a part of
| any web standard a developer being able to ask a user to
| add a bookmark. So not just Apple, but on the standard
| web, developers don't have the install rights you are
| saying they should have. It's hard to argue it's a
| conspiracy by Apple when a standards body outside Apple
| has defined how it works.
|
| Maybe enough users don't know how to bookmark on iOS.
| Could Apple do more to make sure they know how? Yes. But
| I don't think we should change the web to allow websites
| to ask to create bookmarks because Google Chrome thinks
| its a good idea.
| mdhb wrote:
| Based on your comment I think there might be some
| misunderstandings here.
|
| That committee you are talking about isn't actually
| independent of Apple. They are a part of it.
|
| Historically Apple have repeatedly used those exact
| committee bodies as a way to shut down a whole range of
| things that would bring the web platform closer to iOS in
| terms of capabilities.
|
| The point about the bookmarking is also a bit hard to
| follow. I don't know if this is getting a bit abstract or
| something so I'll just restate my main argument.
|
| Apple have repeatedly tried to make sure the web wasn't
| able to compete with iOS and actively worked to get as
| much lock in on their platforms as possible. They have a
| terrible track record in terms of interoperability and as
| I stated numerous times in this thread they have an
| obvious reason for doing so.
|
| The only point I saw them concede any ground towards a
| more consumer friendly and away from an overtly anti-
| competitive approach was specifically when serious talk
| of antitrust litigation emerged from the EU.
|
| At that point they had a miraculously coincidental change
| of heart and began a hiring spree for Safari so they
| could try and close some of the more nefarious gaps with
| interoperability so they could point to it as evidence
| that they shouldn't be fined billons of dollars and have
| new restrictions placed on them.
|
| I am claiming that that looks like the text book
| definition of a conspiracy and you need to understand the
| arguments about installability in that wider context and
| the point you're making about bookmarks is in no way
| relevant to what I'm talking about.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > That committee you are talking about isn't actually
| independent of Apple. They are a part of it.
|
| > Historically Apple have repeatedly used those exact
| committee bodies as a way to shut down a whole range of
| things that would bring the web platform closer to iOS in
| terms of capabilities.
|
| That's not what's happening, neither for this specific
| case nor in general.
|
| There are three major rendering engines: Blink by Google,
| WebKit by Apple, and Gecko by Mozilla.
|
| It's an ongoing theme that Google will write a spec. and
| implement it in Blink, then Apple _and_ Mozilla will
| either reject it outright or not express interest, and
| then people come along and accuse Apple of "holding back
| the web". This has happened with Web Bluetooth, with Web
| USB, and more.
|
| In this particular case, the ability to trigger
| installation prompts from a PWA was originally part of
| the manifest spec. But it got removed because nobody was
| keen on implementing it as-is except for Google. That's
| how it ended up in the non-standard manifest-incubations
| instead.
|
| Now there's a chance that further work will be done on it
| in manifest-incubations to the point where Mozilla and
| Apple think it's worth implementing. If consensus is
| reached it could become a web standard in future. But
| just because Google implemented something by themselves
| does not mean that "Apple are holding back the web".
| Google are not the sole arbiter of what constitutes the
| web platform and Apple and Mozilla aren't obligated to
| implement whatever Google wants. This is a case of Google
| promoting something by themselves, not Apple holding
| something back. Mozilla and Apple are in agreement;
| Google are the ones acting unilaterally.
|
| > Apple have repeatedly tried to make sure the web wasn't
| able to compete with iOS and actively worked to get as
| much lock in on their platforms as possible.
|
| There is no single organisation that has done more to
| push the mobile web forward than Apple.
| mdhb wrote:
| That last sentence is truly one of the most deranged
| things I've heard all year.
|
| You're literally talking to an audience of largely web
| developers and trying to claim with a straight face
| something that they all know full well not to be true
| because they spent the last decade having to deal with
| Safari's bullshit and lack of interoperability.
| philistine wrote:
| Any web developer seriously asking for yet another web
| prompt is delusional. The web in general has suffered
| because prompts enrage and discourage users. We,
| collectively, need to rein in the ability of websites to
| bother us. It's what's needed to protect our privacy, and
| save our sanity.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| iOS has "app clips" which websites can (and absolutely
| do) prompt you to use.
|
| As for how to save a webpage to your Home Screen, that
| literally hasn't changed except maybe to have it together
| with other on-device interactions. It has been there
| since before there was even an App Store. It's not hidden
| in any way and never has been. It was demoed on stage by
| Steve Jobs.
|
| The App Store is a scam, for sure. But Apple has not been
| crippling the web... at least not in the way you claim
| here (only one browser on the platform is sucky, but
| that's a different discussion).
| mdhb wrote:
| You're replying to me here suggesting that they don't
| cripple the web by providing an example of another
| proprietary thing that they control and has zero
| interoperability with any other devices.
|
| I don't know what to do with that argument other than to
| use that exact same set of facts to support my own point.
|
| Also, that's a nice historical fact that Steve Jobs once
| did a demo on stage years ago but my point was that
| nobody knows how to do it in real life or that it's
| possible.
|
| I'm explicitly making the argument that this isn't a
| coincidence but is very much on purpose.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| So you are saying they are crippling the web because they
| don't allow websites to add themselves to your home
| screen through a button on the page. OK. I'll cede this
| is to drive people to the App Store where they can get
| their cut.
| mdhb wrote:
| I just want to be clear here that when I made that claim
| it was in no way just because of that but was a decade of
| actions (or largely inaction) where they made sure that
| the web platform would be missing lots of functionality
| that app developers would require to consider the web as
| a viable option for their software business.
| toyg wrote:
| _> But Apple has not been crippling the web_
|
| Well, they definitely drag their feet on keeping Safari
| up to date, not unlike what Microsoft did with Internet
| Explorer 20 years ago.
|
| IIRC, there are also some limitations in what web apps
| launched from the home screen can actually do, which are
| not in regular Safari - but I've not looked at this in a
| long time so I could be wrong.
|
| What I do remember very clearly is that the common
| consensus, as reflected in data from app developers, is
| that people just don't know (or don't want to use) the
| "pin to home screen" feature. One could argue that Apple
| should, maybe, sprinkle on that feature a bit of the
| effort they lavishly pour on emojis, so that more people
| could be enticed to use PWAs. That would go some way
| towards reassuring developers that they are not slaves to
| the AppStore.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Well, they definitely drag their feet on keeping Safari
| up to date, not unlike what Microsoft did with Internet
| Explorer 20 years ago.
|
| It's _entirely_ different. After Microsoft killed the
| competition and gained >90% market share, they disbanded
| the Internet Explorer developer team for five entire
| years.
|
| Apple releases a new major version of Safari every year
| like clockwork and pushes people hard to update.
|
| > What I do remember very clearly is that the common
| consensus, as reflected in data from app developers, is
| that people just don't know (or don't want to use) the
| "pin to home screen" feature.
|
| What data? The internal data I've seen across ~500
| community apps is that when given a choice, two thirds of
| people use the iOS app, a quarter of people use the
| Android app, and about 10% use the PWA. And that's across
| _all_ users, including desktop.
|
| "Don't know" and "don't want to use" are two entirely
| different things.
|
| If people preferred PWAs and it was just down to Apple
| holding them back, there wouldn't be any such thing as an
| Android app; people would just use PWAs on that platform
| instead. People don't install PWAs because _they don't
| want to_.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Apple releases a new major version of Safari every
| year like clockwork and pushes people hard to update._
|
| That's largely a byproduct of their attempt to keep
| support costs low by forcing yearly upgrades of the
| entire OS. Other browser makers release 10 times more
| often (literally!). When you're 10 times slower than
| everyone else (while being 10 times wealthier...), I
| think it's legitimate to say you're dragging your feet.
| The fact that they're not as atrociously bad as Microsoft
| was at its worst, doesn't mean they are not bad.
|
| _> "Don't know" and "don't want to use" are two entirely
| different things._
|
| Come on now - discoverability and education are things.
| If Apple wanted to, they would make that feature so easy
| and promote it so heavily, that everyone would do it or
| at least know how to do it.
|
| _> If people preferred PWAs and it was just down to
| Apple holding them back_
|
| Don't strawman me, I never said that. I said that Apple
| is not making any effort to change a status quo where
| consumers are not keen on the feature, which tallies with
| your experience. There is nothing stopping them from
| aiming their reality distortion field at the feature, as
| a service to developers.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Other browser makers release 10 times more often
| (literally!). When you're 10 times slower than everyone
| else
|
| They aren't ten times slower than everybody else. You
| can't measure progress by counting releases.
|
| > I think it's legitimate to say you're dragging your
| feet.
|
| They aren't though. Take a look at the Interop 2023
| dashboard:
|
| https://wpt.fyi/interop-2023?stable
|
| Or just read through the WebKit blog:
|
| https://webkit.org/blog/
|
| They are getting loads done.
|
| > The fact that they're not as atrociously bad as
| Microsoft was at its worst, doesn't mean they are not
| bad.
|
| Your exact words were: "they definitely drag their feet
| on keeping Safari up to date, not unlike what Microsoft
| did with Internet Explorer 20 years ago" and my point is
| that it's _very_ unlike that.
| toyg wrote:
| They picked up the slack only after they were shamed
| multiple times, including by websites like
| https://issafarithenewie.com/ (which now reflects their
| progress, very honestly). A brief look at items from the
| last several years will return lots of pretty bad press.
|
| _> They aren't ten times slower than everybody else._
|
| Just to mention one, WebRTC took 7 years to go from the
| first Firefox implementation to Safari. Chrome had it
| less than 2 years after FF, so I guess not 10x but 3x-4x
| - still a very significant lag, which is definitely not
| explainable by lack of resources.
| JimDabell wrote:
| But that's just it - you are just mentioning one. No
| mention of the many, many improvements that _were_ made.
| Safari has been advancing steadily every single year
| since it was first released. Which makes it an _entirely_
| different situation to Internet Explorer, which held the
| web at an absolute standstill for five straight years.
|
| Sorry, no, not an _absolute_ standstill. Windows XP
| Service Pack 2 tweaked how an HTTP header was handled.
| That was the most significant movement in the front-end
| development world in a five year period. Because of
| Internet Explorer.
|
| Compare Safari 12 to Safari 17. Now imagine we were still
| stuck with Safari 12. That's what it would be like if
| Safari "dragged their feet" like Microsoft did with
| Internet Explorer. They aren't the same thing, not even
| remotely close. Anybody saying that "Safari is the new
| IE" clearly does not remember what Internet Explorer did
| to the industry, especially if they are saying it because
| of things like _Safari won't let websites vibrate your
| phone_.
| kemotep wrote:
| Honestly, the average person probably couldn't find an
| app in app store without direction.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > So the feature goes into open beta, and a bunch of
| flash devs make iPhone apps, they work fine
|
| We tried this at work at the time. They absolutely did
| _not_ work fine. The best I can say about them is that
| they ran, mostly.
| rchaud wrote:
| This was the topic of Steve Jobs' infamous "Thoughts on
| Flash" memo, which was essentially a blueorint for the
| coming iOS App Store walled garden strategy.
| d4rti wrote:
| KDP from Amazon will always take a 30% or greater cut.
|
| https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200644210
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| Honestly this is the only thread of comments that really
| get to the meat and potatoes of why Apple can be evil
| although while making good product. Their evil must be
| curbed as they go out of their way with certain actions to
| completely punish their customers and partners.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Apple negotiates agreements with most of the major book
| publishers that if they want to sell books on iBooks,
| ebooks must be listed at the same price on ALL stores, and
| have a 30% margin
|
| That's also what Amazon does, except with everything.
|
| It's terrible what Apple is doing, but is peanuts compared
| to what Amazon does.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Apples behaviour vis a vis the App Store is the textbook
| definition of monopolistic practices. It's beyond the pale
| these stories. The only reason I can think it continues is
| because there are a lot of AAPL holders in Congress.
| yMEyUyNE1 wrote:
| I view such companies as Trolls under the Bridge (i.e.
| appstores) that connect the app developers and the users.
| psychoslave wrote:
| If merit was a highly pondering factor of income, coal miners
| would be extremely rich and no annuitant would exist out
| there.
| gigatexal wrote:
| People also need to remember how it was before in the CompUSA
| or telco provided phones. The retailer or marketplace would
| take > 30% margins closer to 50% and to get on a pseudo-smart
| phone before the current smart phone era one had to ask the
| AT&T's and Verizon's very nicely. But now one can build apps
| now and publish and just pay the 30% comission or 15% on
| subscriptions after the second year and look at the explosion
| in the app marketplace.
| muro wrote:
| We don't need to remember that, good riddance and great
| that they were disrupted. How do you disrupt this market
| though?
| gigatexal wrote:
| I honestly think Apple will need to be compelled by law
| verdict or congress to open up the appstore or allow
| other appstores and have some sort of cap on fees charged
| -- I dunno.
|
| The ideal would probably be what Steve envisioned before
| the AppStore was a thing and that's basically PWAs. But I
| think it's been alleged that Apple is arbitrarily nerfing
| Safari to prevent PWAs on iOS running as well as native
| applications -- though I've no source.
|
| How to effectively "disrupt" the appstore model is a
| billion dollar question I'm not sure of. What I do know
| is that the Tim Sweeny's et al of the world are
| hypocrites in that they just want to create their own
| rent-seeking AppStores and charge their own commissions
| and skirt around paying the platform anything for being
| on the platform. This is akin to wanting to be in a
| supermarket and put your kiosk inside and sell your
| product to the supermarket's customers without some sort
| of financial agreement between you and the supermarket.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It's just imessage. If imessage falls, so will the
| iPhone.
|
| The courts don't take stuff like "social compliance" into
| account when evaluating something like the iPhone, so it
| all looks rosy. In reality, it's incredibly difficult to
| be a social young person in the US without an iPhone.
| Which naturally spreads to families becoming "iPhone
| families".
|
| All of it just comes down to messaging though.
| nkrisc wrote:
| No, we can factor in who's making them and how much money
| they have.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| The merits are centered around the outcomes, which in this
| case are the consolidation of wealth by a few who don't need
| it from the many who do. What other merits are more
| meaningful than the observable outcomes of the practice?
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Here's a very simple example. Search ChatGPT in the App
| Store. The top result is an ad that's not ChatGPT but looks
| extremely similar. The top 10 results are basically intended
| to look as much like the ChatGPT in name and logo as
| possible.
|
| Ostensibly this 30% cut is supposed to prevent things like
| this from happening, as Apple argues it uses that money to
| keep the App Store clean from fraudulent or misrepresenting
| apps, among other things. There is a much touted "review"
| process that is supposed to be partially funded by the 30%
| cut.
|
| So if that isn't really happening, what, pray tell, is that
| 30% going towards? It isn't making the App Store a better
| experience
| taylorius wrote:
| Why shouldn't who's making a claim and their money be
| relevant? Monopolies (and near monopolies) are a bad thing
| for free markets.
| sharemywin wrote:
| I think it's kind of the same argument. if you can justify an
| excessive marketplace tax for a company that "wins" in a wins
| a winner take all market dynamic then you get a $Trillion
| company. not sure how you get one without the other.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| That's often true, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule, because
| we also have to look at the capabilities of the two
| combatants. It's why you would probably/hopefully assist the
| underdog who was being bullied.
|
| We're talking about the wealthiest company in the world who
| can obviously afford to run out the clock on the court system
| and bury an opponent with legal fees. There's a monster
| difference of offensive capabilities, even if we realize that
| Epic is a sizeable company; in this case, Epic is really
| standing in for every other tiny company or one-man shop in
| the App Store, and we should thank them for doing that.
| riscy wrote:
| I've yet to see an HN hate thread about the trillion dollar
| company Google and its Play Store, with the same fees, stealing
| 30% from an even broader part of society.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Au contraire I believe Google is the most hated company on HN
| by a mile and half. We see this play out IRL even with their
| anticompetitive lawsuit outcomes
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Both Apple and Google do nasty things. Other companies,
| too.
|
| This thread is dedicated to Apple's own wrongdoings. If
| Google does nasty things, that doesn't mean Apple should
| get a pass.
|
| Most people here care about consumers, not about companies,
| especially about monopolistic companies.
| riscy wrote:
| Apple allowing alternate payment methods with a fee
| discount in the US, as Google does in other countries, is
| a wrongdoing?
|
| Consumers don't care about the fees developers pay.
| jsnell wrote:
| It's not a fee that the developers pay. It's a fee that
| the customers pay.
| account-5 wrote:
| You clearly not been looking hard enough; Google, rightly,
| gets hated on way more than Apple. My experience tends to be
| that on HN apple can do no wrong.
| paulddraper wrote:
| The iOS vs Android flamewar has a clear winner on hn
| riscy wrote:
| Google gets mild-mannered, disappointed commenters sighing
| about how they've messed up search, the web, and has no
| product/customer support. When Apple comes up, people get
| on their soap boxes with expletives about how society and
| the world is fundamentally being ruined. The tone just
| isn't comparable at all.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| you must have missed the soapboxes on how google cannot
| properly support products anymore (The "google
| graveyard") and especially any topic touching on Youtube.
|
| But sure, for Android topics they get off lighter because
| devs do technically have F-Droid as an option, or simply
| hosting an APK on version control for user s to find.
| There are ways to get around Google's barriers even if
| they have a steep financial penalty. Apple gives no
| official way without voiding your warranty (I don't even
| think rooting your Android these days void you).
| DeathArrow wrote:
| You can install only some types of apps from third party
| stores or sideload them. Many apps like banking apps
| require using Google Play Services and if you use a third
| party ROM like LuneageOS or Huawei HarmonyOS, good luck
| with installing certain apps.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| well yes. That's more on the dev than google though. No
| one is forcing Chase to stay on Google Play and go so far
| to not work if you sideload it. Or maybe Google is and
| that will be rounded into all the other stuff happening
| in courts.
|
| They are important apps, but they are relatively few that
| go that far.
| account-5 wrote:
| You're definitely not looking in the right places then.
| I've seen Microsoft, Google, twitter, Mozilla, you name
| the company; coming under fire and everyone piling on.
| When apple gets criticised in the same way (few and far
| between that it is), you get an army of apologists out in
| force ready to die to defend all that apple does.
|
| I've never come across a company that instills that sort
| of blind faith in its users.
|
| My personal stance is I don't trust any of these
| companies and will come to threads to be informed about
| whatever privacy/security/monopoly practices these
| companies are trying to bypass/do this week for their own
| profit. I have no allegiance, they're all as bad as each
| other. In my experience apple is able to do more and gets
| criticised less.
|
| A recent example was Google implementing something in
| chrome apple had implemented ages ago in safari. You
| actually had people saying is was ok for Apple to do it
| but not Google.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >you get an army of apologists out in force ready to die
| to defend all that apple does.
|
| They defend their choices. But do that in an almost
| religious way.
|
| And is not something that is particular to Apple. Try to
| criticize Under Armour or New Balance in front of someone
| wearing it.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I don't think so.
|
| The main difference is that most people use one of the
| google products directly or indirectly, regardless of
| their attitude towards the company.
|
| In comparison it is easier to not use Apple products if
| you don't like the company.
|
| And thus people like you who own an Apple device feel
| targeted for their choice of using Apple and thus see it
| as more aggressive and powerful. It is as simple as that.
| You can find this pattern in every kind of domain, I see
| people replying with anger and/or passion to any
| criticism on their car, motorbike or bicycle brands. They
| naturally feel compelled to defend their brand of choice
| because they actually feel targeted as owner of it,
| because it feels like their own discernment is targeted
| indirectly.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >They naturally feel compelled to defend their brand of
| choice because they actually feel targeted as owner of
| it, because it feels like their own discernment is
| targeted indirectly.
|
| True. But regardless if the commenter is right or wrong,
| anger is not the proper answer. If the commenter is
| right, you have some thinking to do. If he's not, you
| shouldn't care.
| kelnos wrote:
| Well I guess we need some people at the other extreme to
| balance out all the Apple-is-the-messiah types.
|
| I'm being glib, here, but I think that's a fairly normal
| effect. If people's opinions about something are
| generally pretty boring, average, and uncontroversial,
| few people will feel the need to stir the pot and adopt
| extreme views.
|
| But seeing others unquestioningly, unapologetically
| drooling over something, without allowing any sort of
| criticism, just eats at some people so much that they
| need to adopt the completely opposite position and find
| any reason to brutally criticize.
|
| Human nature is weird.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Why do we need to balance that? If people do believe
| Apple is Messiah, they do that at their own loss. Why
| should I care?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| There are threads pretty much daily about how evil Google is.
| throwaway20222 wrote:
| First visit? Welcome!
| conradfr wrote:
| The only difference is that you don't need to own an
| expensive Google device and pay $100 per year to develop for
| the Play Store, the 30% criticism applies as well though.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| Google doesn't force you to use Google Play and Google
| doesn't force devs to pay them. (Also they are still hated as
| well)
| kelnos wrote:
| While most people do install apps through the Play Store,
| Google doesn't lock down their platform to make it the only
| option. I have one alternative store (F-Droid) installed, and
| also have a couple apps side-loaded.
|
| Google's 30% isn't the only option on Android. Apple's 30%
| _is_ the only option on iOS.
|
| Regardless, Google gets plenty of flak here for a variety of
| things, including how they run the Play Store.
| riscy wrote:
| I really don't think it's about side-loading, principles of
| freedom, the spirit of hacking, etc. HN's full of indie app
| developers trying to make money. They know iOS users more
| often pay for things so it's their target audience.
|
| I doubt existence of F-Droid is even a drop in the bucket
| of fee savings for those developers on Android. Otherwise,
| Google would do something about it to get their cut.
| tonoto wrote:
| Also, Google doesn't have a developer fee. How's that Apple
| both have 30% commission and a "membership" fee -
| https://developer.apple.com/support/enrollment/
|
| Unfortunately, many corporations only leave the choice of
| Windows or Macos. Open source operating systems are treated
| like 3rd class passengers..
| JimDabell wrote:
| Google does have a developer fee. It's a one-off fee
| rather than a yearly fee, but they do have it.
|
| https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
| developer/answ...
| tonoto wrote:
| Developer fee for the Play Store yes, but no developer
| fee for using the open stores (although I'm well aware
| that in certain environments it is disallowed to use
| other than the Play Store) or developing local apps.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for
| more productive purposes
|
| This is how all businesses work. If there was no way to make
| profit then businesses would not exist. Apple spent billions of
| dollars creating an app platform with a clear monetization
| model that did not get in the way of them accumulating a lot of
| valuable apps and users. Developers are not forced to make apps
| for the platform nor are users forced to use the app platform.
| Other app platforms can impose lower fees and developers are
| free to release exclusively on those platforms if they wish.
| Apple hopes that the developers willing to tolerate the 15/30%
| fee for what the developer gets in return will be good enough
| to make their app platform competitive to users compared to
| others.
|
| It's not just defending a trillion dollar company, it is
| defending the right to set your own prices.
| totaa wrote:
| > nor are users forced to use the app platform is side
| loading or alternative stores like f droid available on IOS?
| charcircuit wrote:
| Yes, but it is for supporting developers and enterprises.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Something is not moral just because it makes a profit or
| because it is legal, and revenue is also not profit. And I
| think if a company operates outside societal norms, which I
| think Apple with regards to European societal norms, it
| should expect to get regulated to fit those norms again.
| Maybe the US is too dysfunctional to do this any more, but
| the purpose of government should be to align the laws and
| regulations with the morals of the people being governed.
|
| My bank generates revenue by offering me a service in return
| for my money, not by monopolizing access to my money and then
| charging people who want to sell to me for the honour of
| allowing me to buy their goods and services.
|
| Very few companies that I deal with as a consumer have
| similar business practices, and the ones that do, like Visa
| and Mastercard, is also something I think should be cracked
| down upon.
|
| There are many things the EU messes up in my opinion, but
| cracking down on this clearly immoral business practices is
| not one of those as it aligns 100% with my morals even though
| I'm incredibly pro "free" market (i.e. pro minimally
| regulated market, as every person who has ever been pro "free
| market" is).
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >My bank generates revenue by offering me a service in
| return for my money, not by monopolizing access to my money
| and then charging people who want to sell to me for the
| honour of allowing me to buy their goods and services.
|
| Well, maybe Apple should open a bank. You just gave them
| ideas. :)
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| If that is the only way they can make profits while
| aligning with the norms of the societies they operate in
| then sure, more power to them.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| They already operate as a bank, they just offload the
| legal/annoying part of it to others and focus on selling
| the sum of its customers' purchasing power
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Apple spent billions of dollars creating an app platform
| with a clear monetization model
|
| I don't want their platform forced down my throat. On my PC I
| can download and install software from wherever I see fit.
| Had I not being a MacBook Pro user for the time being, I
| would have a chance to upgrade RAM and SSD without paying
| twice on the damn device.
|
| If anything, I consider Apple being an anti consumer company.
| What is good for them, is not good for the end user.
|
| That being said, their devices do have some advantages.
| lijok wrote:
| Why did you buy a Mac then? You clearly knew the drawbacks,
| so I'm interested to hear, in this competitive market where
| both Windows and even Linux machines are now available,
| what made you decide to buy a Mac?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >what made you decide to buy a Mac
|
| Battery life.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| > I don't want their platform forced down my throat.
|
| > I would have a chance to upgrade RAM and SSD without
| paying twice on the damn device.
|
| >> what made you decide to buy a Mac
|
| > Battery life.
|
| When you made the choice to buy your MacBook because of
| the better battery life were you at any point lied to
| about the disadvantages?
|
| Additionally, if you're not aware the RAM on SOC is a
| fundamental tradeoff because of physics. Hardwiring it
| into the SOC is a BIG part of the battery life
| improvements that you have stated you prefer.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >I don't want their platform forced down my throat.
|
| As a consumer the whole point of buying a computer is to
| get access to its app platform. It's not forced down your
| throat it just inherently is a part of the device's
| identity.
| dimask wrote:
| Ummm no? This is a weird take. I want a device to run
| software, I do not care about their app platforms per se.
| I have a macbook and barely use the apple store. If they
| prevent me from running any software apart from through
| their platform, that is a problem for me.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >I want a device to run software
|
| Without an app platform there would exist no software.
|
| >I have a macbook and barely use the apple store.
|
| The app platform is more than just the store. If you can
| install an app without the apple store, that app has to
| be able to run and actually do stuff somehow. The way it
| is able to run is the app platform.
|
| >If they prevent me from running any software apart from
| through their platform
|
| If you do not want to run software using Apple's hardware
| and Apple's software then Apple is effectively out of the
| picture. Apple won't prevent you from running apps on a
| different app platform like Android.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple should charge separately for their App Platform
| then, instead of bundling it with arbitrary features. The
| US government threatened to break up Microsoft as a
| result of the IE case, Apple would be wise to skate to
| away from where the laser-breathing regulatory dragon is
| headed.
| gonzon wrote:
| the ironic thing is that the way you describe apple is the way
| 99% of people outside of hackernews would describe the people
| of hackernews (or tech ppl in general).
| jve wrote:
| Stealing? I see it as fee for an exchange to access to a huge
| market of wealthy people (one that can afford an iPhone
| probably can afford your app). Where entry barrier is extremely
| low. If you make 100 sales, you don't have to pay much, if you
| make huge profits off the platform you make huge payments to
| the platform owner.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| They shouldn't have the right to be the gatekeeper in that
| relationship.
|
| The wealthy people own the hardware, the devs own the app.
| Why does apple get the legal right to demand money in that
| transaction when it would be better for everyone if they
| weren't involved
| LoganDark wrote:
| When you buy an Apple device you don't control the hardware
| or the software on it. Apple does.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| That should be illegal.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I agree.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| So what about people like me? I buy an iPhone because Apple
| gatekeeps the apps.
|
| I grew up in the age of torrents and Kazzaa and am tired of
| spam, malware, bloat, anti virus, etc. I want my phone to
| be an unbreakable toy, not a computing device.
| ric2b wrote:
| So you use exclusively the Apple store, problem solves?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >one that can afford an iPhone probably can afford your app
|
| If I afford something doesn't mean I should buy. I grew up
| being poor and I earn my living working hard. Throwing money
| is not a good option for me.
|
| Also, in what world affording a damn phone does make you
| rich?
| ric2b wrote:
| iPhones are not expensive enough to signal you are rich, most
| people are able to buy one, the question is if it makes
| financial sense to do so.
| Zetobal wrote:
| This guy also hates taxes.
| atoav wrote:
| So where can I vote out apple if I am unhappy with the 30%?
|
| Not everything you pay money for is comparable to taxes.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| You vote with your wallet.
| danieldk wrote:
| I agree when it's a healthy market. But when the choice
| is between _relinquish most control over your own device_
| or _relinquish most of your privacy_ , maybe it's time to
| regulate the market?
|
| In the EU this is happening on both fronts:
|
| - The GDPR has Android phone manufacturers to ask consent
| for different ways of using your data and being able to
| remove data. This is starting to work, on a Samsung phone
| Samsung/Google will ask you separate consent for using
| your data for diagnostics, ad targeting, etc. It's not
| perfect yet, but regulatory pressure is giving people
| privacy back.
|
| - The DMA will force Apple to allow side-loading and
| alternative payment methods without taking a cut.
|
| Once this has all played out, we'll still have a duopoly,
| but at least users and third-party developers are better
| protected.
| azemetre wrote:
| Voting with your wallet just means that those who have
| the most money are "most correct."
|
| Sorry but that's not a society I want to continue living
| in.
|
| There needs to be strict regulations and maybe apple
| needs to be broken up. Owning the hardware and App Store
| has already shown have abusive they can be. They need to
| divest or spin off one of them into a new company or we
| can pressure politicians to do this for us.
| riscy wrote:
| Don't develop for iOS.
| atoav wrote:
| That is not voting.
|
| That is the equivalent of telling someone who doesn't
| like the current dictator to "go live in the desert".
|
| Remember: I did not bring up the bad analogy. Someone
| abusing their quasi-monopolistic position to charge high
| fees is not the same as a tax. This was the point of my
| post. And sure we can pretend it is the same and bend
| reality till it fits, but that seems to me more like an
| idological expedition, than an insightful exploration.
| riscy wrote:
| That is voting in a modern democracy. You put your eggs
| into Android, iOS, and/or one of the less popular
| candidates. Or you don't get into the mobile space at
| all.
|
| Just because you don't like the options doesn't mean it's
| not voting.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| It's not democratic voting because in a democracy a vote
| is made to decide the direction for the entire voting-
| audience. The path the majority considers to be for the
| greater good, in which everyone will participate then.
|
| Here the voting audience will be split in different paths
| which will all continue to exist, and a person changing
| his mind will have to leave behind things HE/SHE
| accumulated and contributed on this path.
|
| If that would be like democratic voting, it would mean
| that if you decide to change your vote from one election
| to the other, you have to return your entire income and
| acquisitions you made during the ruling of this party, to
| start building your life again on the other path (--> "if
| you don't like it, go live in the desert")
| vdaea wrote:
| >Someone abusing their quasi-monopolistic position to
| charge high fees is not the same as a tax.
|
| Actually it is. How do I stop paying taxes, if not by
| living in the desert?
| smoldesu wrote:
| You think you're funny until the IRS back-charges you for
| 15 years of Arizona property tax.
| sekai wrote:
| That 30% doesn't fund the schools or the roads, it's just a
| fee. Completely different.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >They are not your friend, they do not care about you
|
| Of course they care about you. They hope you are healthy and in
| a good shape so you can work more to earn more money and give
| them their share.
| Halvedat wrote:
| It's very likely that people posting on Hacker News may hold
| equity in a company like Apple, may have their primary form of
| income derived from that company or may be able to attribute
| their sizeable wealth to its growth.
|
| It is no surprise that people will come to the defense of this
| giant when you stop to consider this. Apple doesn't have to
| care about them, it already has.
|
| I am of the opinion that there should be some sort of
| disclosure of financial interest.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Pretty much everyone that invests in the public equity
| markets holds equity in Apple. In fact, Apple would be most
| public market investor's biggest holding (or 2nd biggest due
| to Microsoft's recent increases) via index funds.
|
| Even if you are not invested in public equity markets, you
| can be exposed to them via local and state government's
| pension fund investments, because if those do not perform as
| projected, then your taxes have to make up for it.
| darkwater wrote:
| With the caveat that if you just invest in indexed funds,
| if Apple does worse than before, probably some competitor
| does better than before, and it might compensate. If you
| just own AAPL stocks on the other hand...
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Maybe so, but I never found this line of argument
| particularly convincing.
|
| The investments people have in Apple are often insignificant
| compared to the rest of their income or wealth.
|
| Also, buying shares in the public market is like a bet.
| Instead of changing your opinion to agree with the bet you
| could simply bet the other way. Or you could bet that your
| own political activism will fail. Betting on an outcome
| doesn't mean you prefer that outcome. It can also be hedging.
|
| The people who really do have something riding on Apple's
| success are employees getting stock options. And yes, I would
| also like to know whether someone is an Apple employee when
| they are commenting on these subjects.
|
| Developers are affected by Apple's policies and success in
| very complex ways and can legitimately take either side on
| these questions.
|
| Disclosure: I have an app in the App Store that made me
| ~PS100 in the previous fiscal year. I also have PS3000 in a
| NASDAQ 100 ETF. Apple's share of that is ~PS270.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Not everybody who has a different opinion than you is a paid
| corporate shill or spy from Russia or China. If you seriously
| harbour these thoughts, you should be careful with where they
| can lead you. Group schizophrenia has become the most common
| issue among the population in industrialised countries, it
| seems everybody is suspecting everybody nowadays. And not
| only suspecting, but outright accusing, just on a hunch and
| without any evidence.
|
| Please note that I was not paid by Apple to write the comment
| above.
| todd3834 wrote:
| They probably do care a lot about developers staying on their
| platform. The 30% is only from companies making more than $1
| million. Otherwise you can qualify for 15% small business
| program.
|
| I don't need them to be my friend or to care about me but as a
| share holder I want them to succeed. So far their R&D has
| proven valuable to me as both a consumer and share holder.
|
| I don't care if a few people who already have everything get
| richer. Since I believe the company is doing great things and I
| think it still has a bright future ahead I get to share in that
| upside too. And so can you if you want to.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Do they care though? As a developer, I either play by the
| rules and get access to their massive, lucrative market or I
| just don't. Its not like the investment developers and Dev
| companies make into their ecosystem can be just moved
| elsewhere - its all a sunken cost.
| todd3834 wrote:
| Do you really think they wouldn't care if developers left
| their platform? They care because it's beneficial to them.
| I don't expect anything else from any corporation including
| the ones who've employed me.
| eptcyka wrote:
| They don't need to care about developers - they cannot
| leave.
| puszczyk wrote:
| I don't care about trillion dollar company. I care about my
| experience. App Store purchases and subscriptions are a good
| experience for a user. I've never had problems canceling
| subscriptions, or getting refunds.
| ric2b wrote:
| Ok, but the argument is that people should have options, not
| that you should stop using the Apple store.
| thealistra wrote:
| I am afraid that some developers will drop Apple payments
| all together and I will have to type my credit card info
| inside of low-quality apps. Currently I just press ok after
| a Face ID.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Why do you install low quality apps?
| ribit wrote:
| I have difficulty following this argument, especially the
| "stealing" part. App Store does not just randomly take money
| from the devs. App Store also provides a service. They do
| world-wide payment and VAT processing, refund processing,
| discovery, distribution, user login management, APIs,
| distributed cloud storage, etc. It costs money to run these
| things. As a small-time developer, I think this is a great deal
| for 15%. At the price levels of most small apps it would cost
| more to use a payment processor + hiring an accountant, not to
| mention the extra work involved in setting up and maintaining
| these things. For behemoth like Epic -- sure, the "Apple tax"
| hurts, they'd rather gouge their customers without Apple's
| involvement. But frankly, I don't see any reason to punish one
| multi-billion corporation just so other multi-billion
| corporation can make more money. I care primarily about the
| interest of the small-time developers.
|
| And this is the point that should be made more often IMO -- App
| Stores (and Apple bing one of the first ones) have democratized
| software development by making the barrier of entry extremely
| low. Anyone with some talent or idea can go and write an app,
| without any additional financial risk. App Store is based
| around sharing your success. The relatively few successful devs
| carry the costs to keep that barrier of entry low to everyone.
| And I really don't want that to change.
|
| On a serious notes, what are the alternatives? What exactly is
| your argument? That Apple should be charging nothing? Ok, then
| they also shouldn't be providing any services. You want to do
| distribution or payment processing? Take care of it yourself.
| Epic would love this of course, Joe the indie developer instead
| is dead in the water. Or are you arguing that Apple is charging
| too much? Well, there are solutions to that as well. They could
| charge for services individually for example, but that again
| hurts the small developer, because trying out things starts
| costing them money.
|
| Frankly, my idea would be to split the App Store into a
| separate commercial entity and make it nonprofit. I am
| sympathetic to the argument that the Store itself is not a
| product but is used to support and create value for Apple's
| ecosystem. I do think that the devs should pay for running the
| store, and I like the current success-based model and it's low
| barrier of entry for new devs, so basing the fees on actual
| operating costs seems like a good compromise. Of course,
| similar considerations should apply to other stores as well.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Well written. It can be argued that Apple also develops the
| OS and UI libraries which the apps run on/with, which is also
| providing something.
| jdkoeck wrote:
| Again, it's crazy people defend Apple on this. Apple is not
| just providing a payment platform, it's forcing you to use
| it. As a developer, you should be free to use any payment
| platform you want in your app, like on the web. Let the user
| decide. End of story.
| maccard wrote:
| > Let the user decide. End of story.
|
| The value proposition of iOS is that the app store is _the_
| place to go, and that my experience will be seamless. I
| _want_ a centralised place to manage my subscriptions. Here
| 's an example:
|
| I subscribed to NYT Cooking in the web a few years back. I
| went to cancel only to find out that I have to _phone_
| them. If I subscribed on an app store it would have been
| one click and done. I 'm actually still subscribed to it.
|
| Why is your choice more important than my choice?
| nprateem wrote:
| Yeah that's perfectly reasonable. Of course it makes
| everything easier. It's also practically impossible to
| compete against which is what gives apple this unfair
| advantage, making their 30% cut obscene. They're making
| it due to being first, technical issues aside.
| ric2b wrote:
| Right, so you'd use the app store by choice, so why
| should Apple force you to?
| maccard wrote:
| The first move that will come out of this will be a Meta
| store for "all your meta products". You won't have the
| choice of Instagram on the App store or Instagram on the
| Meta store, you'll have Instagram on the Meta store.
|
| This won't be a choice for users, this will be a choice
| for large developers.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| So just follow your own supposed ethos and don't use Meta
| products?
| jdkoeck wrote:
| Your point is moot because Apple forces you to use its
| own app store, where using their payment platform is
| mandatory. If there were alternative app stores, I would
| have no qualm with this restriction. Let Apple's store
| compete with others, it will come out on top if it's
| really the best.
|
| The larger point is this: in a free market, if you have a
| bad experience with a product (like NYT Cooking in your
| example), you can bring your business elsewhere. That's
| how it works, and that's what Apple is interfering with.
| maccard wrote:
| Why does the free market arugment apply on apple's
| ecosystem but not the mobile ecosystem? There are
| alternative app stores with alternative ecosystems - if
| you have a bad experience with your iPhone, replace it
| with an Android and use the open ecosystem there.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Because the entire mobile market is a duopoly and asking
| someone to switch platforms that they might have invested
| 15 years of their life into isn't reasonable. Think of
| all the data, hardware (smart watches, tablets, trackers,
| speakers, smart home gadgets), app & in-app purchases
| that one would have to forfeit to switch platforms.
|
| They explicitly carved out their own market by making it
| a tightly integrated walled garden that's closed to
| outside integration, it seems hypocritical to now claim
| that users are free to leave at any time. They're not and
| that's by design.
| maccard wrote:
| How come it's reasonable to force someone who _doesnt_
| want the app store to be opened to competition to change?
|
| I don't want the Meta store where Meta decide what level
| of API access their apps get). I explicitly choose the
| iOS ecosystem _because_ of this. If you want the
| alternative, you have a choice right now with Android. If
| this changes, then I _dont_ get a choice. Your choice
| removes my only option of a curated app marketplace in
| favour of a marketplace that will allow for billion
| dollar companies to set their own rules on how I interact
| with their apps, rather than me delegating that to one
| trusted gatekeeper.
| dns_snek wrote:
| > How come it's reasonable to force someone who _doesnt_
| want the app store to be opened to competition to change?
|
| Are you asking why we have antitrust laws?
|
| > I don't want the Meta store where Meta decide what
| level of API access their apps get
|
| And they shouldn't! Users should have full control over
| what data their apps can access, how often, with optional
| spoofing where it makes sense to stop apps from gating
| functionality behind invasive data collection. This
| should be an OS-level feature, not (poorly) enforced by
| the app store.
|
| Apple's superficial review process isn't going to spot
| malicious abuses of your data unless it's plainly
| obvious.
|
| > Your choice removes my only option of a curated app
| marketplace in favour of a marketplace that will allow
| for billion dollar companies to set their own rules on
| how I interact with their apps, rather than me delegating
| that to one trusted gatekeeper.
|
| How so? You can continue using whichever marketplace you
| trust. Meanwhile your privacy and security should be
| technological, OS-level guarantees. You don't need
| Apple's app store to stop apps from stealing your banking
| information. You need a secure operating system (which
| iOS advertises itself to be) which employs sandboxing and
| that offers fine-grained permissions which users can
| freely grant, deny, or spoof.
| maccard wrote:
| > Are you asking why we have antitrust laws?
|
| you're putting words in my mouth here.
|
| > How so? You can continue using whichever marketplace
| you trust.
|
| No. I get to use whichever marketplace the publisher
| decides to use. Epic aren't going to publish on the App
| Store (see Fortnite on PC), Meta are going to publish on
| their own store. 37signals are going to use their own
| store. I currently can use a marketplace I trust. If iOS
| opens to allow other stores, then those stores either
| need to be curated by Apple or the store apps are
| sideloaded and have wider permissions. I don't want
| Meta's store with those permissions, I'm fine with using
| WhatsApp and not giving them my location.
| jdkoeck wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head. The market of mobile
| platforms is in a state of "market failure": no real
| competition, because mobile platforms are not
| "homogeneous" (that is, it's hard for a buyer to change
| platforms). The market of mobile platforms being thus
| "monopolised", you need regulation to enforce proper
| competition.
| riscy wrote:
| Apple provides the OS and SDKs developers need to make
| their app function at all.
|
| Users do not care how much it costs a developer. They want
| it to be easy to see and cancel subscriptions all in one
| place. The web's myriad of payment systems is the opposite
| of a good user experience, meant to only fatten the pockets
| of developers by making it difficult to cancel.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > Users do not care how much it costs a developer.
|
| This is a ludicrous statement. The users are the ones
| paying for it.
| riscy wrote:
| That 15-30% going to Apple isn't going to go back to app
| users. Don't pretend this is all about developers wanting
| to give users a discount.
| jdkoeck wrote:
| It actually is, there are plenty of services where you
| can pay 30% less if you go through their site instead of
| Apple's app store.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Do you believe businesses don't take their margins into
| account when pricing their products?
| ribit wrote:
| I'm all for letting the user decide. But what you are
| proposing is not letting the user decide.
|
| If Melinda wants to use the Facebook app, but the Facebook
| app is only available on the Meta store, then Melina is
| forced to use the Meta store. This is not giving users
| choice. This is replacing one corp-backed store by multiple
| corp-backed stores. The user loses.
|
| The only way how this would be a choice is if the same app,
| with the same basic functionality was available on all
| stores. Then the user would really have the choice which
| store to use. Or if there were alternative apps on
| different stores. Good luck with that given the current
| monopoly markets.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| Melinda should be able to choose to have a business
| relationship with Meta. The Meta store, aka a trivial
| hosting/payment service, would be part of that Meta
| offering. She should not however only be allowed to have
| an Apple(Meta) relationship where Apple gets to tax and
| restrict Meta for it's own commercial benefit.
|
| An "App Store", when it is not used as a rent-seeking
| choke-point, is a nothing-burger, it's a simple website
| to buy and download an app, yet you are trying to claim
| some great horror if this website was run by Meta not
| Apple. Please. It's nonsensical.
| ribit wrote:
| Right. So you are saying that Meta has the right to
| implement their services and platforms in any way they
| see fit, and the user has the right to choose between
| using those services under Meta's conditions or not using
| them at all. But Apple has no similar right to their own
| services, platforms, or SDKs, and is forced to let Meta
| harness their platform and user base while expecting no
| compensation? And this apparently makes sense to you?
| What you are proposing is the dictatorship of the
| developer. This completely throws the idea of proprietary
| platforms and SDKs out of the window.
|
| By the way, I couldn't care less if Meta has their own
| shop or not, and I don't see any horror in that, they
| decide how to best run their business, not me. But I take
| an issue with claims that Meta running their own
| exclusive show somehow creates more user choice (which is
| the direction the commenter I was replying to was heading
| towards)
| Fluorescence wrote:
| I can barely parse what you say it's so unhinged.
|
| It's such a bizarre belief that a product sold by Apple
| remains "their platform" once in the hands of a consumer.
| The only thing they still "own" is copyright IP. They
| sold a product. They don't get to legislate user actions.
| Their power over the device post sale, that they use to
| extract rent, is entirely artificial.
| ribit wrote:
| This is quite funny, because I feel the same about what
| you are saying. The way I understand you is that a seller
| of the product should grant any third party extensive
| access to that product, so that the third party can
| modify and implement their own services in any way they
| see fit. Frankly, this is completely shattering the idea
| of business relations as we know it. By your logic no
| proprietary store or platform SDK should ever exist (e.g.
| console SDKs should be free for all developers). What's
| more, extending this argument software itself should be
| moldable at will (I bought the app, I have the right for
| it to be modified in any way I please).
|
| I mean, it's not that I would oppose this ideology in
| particular, it just sounds a bit radical. We'd have to
| change quit a lot of things for it to be feasible.
| pcnix wrote:
| The problem is that we place a responsibility on competition
| in the market to favor consumers by reducing prices and
| preventing companies from having excessive margins. Allowing
| a single marketplace means there's no competition, and we're
| not sure if 15% is a fair rate at all.
|
| I could make the assertion that I'd be able to provide
| everything that Apple does, but with a much lower cut, but
| this can't be put to the test because there's no way for me
| to start another app store that iPhone users can access. I
| suspect a lot of the arguments for the 15% cut will change
| once we have alternate app stores offering the same things
| Apple does, but with a much lower cut. You'll then see app
| developers with skin in the game, and we'll know if everyone
| actually really thinks Apple does this better or if they'd
| rather have the extra money from other app stores.
| ribit wrote:
| Do you really think that there will be more competition? I
| fear what will happen is that the big corps will set their
| own stores to distribute their own apps, and that's pretty
| much it. The user won't see any difference in pricing. The
| small dev will be hurt because each store will make less
| money and will likely implement price increases to
| compensate.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| We don't have to speculate - the desktop OS world has
| exactly this structure - an open ecosystem with a first
| party app store that ships with the OS, but the ability
| for other app stores to exist or even for developers to
| ship their products independently.
|
| In practice you still see a decent amount of activity on
| the official app store, along with some other major app
| stores, and a relatively small amount of independent
| distribution. There's still a good amount of small
| independent developers shipping apps (both on the stores
| and independently), and there's not a ton of evidence of
| price increases - in fact there's a very large amount of
| free software being distributed.
| ribit wrote:
| Desktop marker and smartphone software markets are very
| different. There are many more small utility apps for the
| smartphones for example, while desktop is more open.
| Discoverability in particular is a huge issue for a small
| desktop app developer. I don't think comparing to desktop
| is a good example. On the other hand, desktop app market
| does illustrate the point I am making -- big corporations
| running their own "stores" to the user disadvantage. And
| don't let me start about horrible installers that
| companies like Adobe or Microsoft ship which will change
| your system configuration and litter your filesystem with
| random crap.
| commandersaki wrote:
| The alternative is Apple allows side loading so that you can
| buy software independently of the App Store , and sellers can
| distribute independently of the App Store.
| ribit wrote:
| I am ok with side loading. Of course, side loaded apps
| would need to be sandboxes for security reasons and should
| not be allowed to access basic services like calendar,
| contacts or iCloud.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > On a serious notes, what are the alternatives? What exactly
| is your argument? That Apple should be charging nothing?
|
| The alternative is "competition".
|
| In any case, I don't see how any of this affects you since
| you're happy paying Apple the fees. You can keep doing so as
| others pursue other options once they're available.
| dns_snek wrote:
| > You want to do distribution or payment processing? Take
| care of it yourself.
|
| Yes! That's exactly what everyone wants.
|
| > Joe the indie developer instead is dead in the water.
|
| No, Joe the indie developer will happily use one of the most
| popular alternative app stores that fits their needs and
| doesn't rip them off with fees.
| ribit wrote:
| > No, Joe the indie developer will happily use one of the
| most popular alternative app stores that fits their needs
| and doesn't rip them off with fees.
|
| What would these be? Last time I checked, the "champion of
| the people" Epyc charges 12% and pushes the charges for
| some payment methods onto the buyer. And it seems like they
| still haven't turned profitable, even with their bare-bones
| store model.
|
| Stripe (one of the most popular payment processors) will
| take 9% from a 5$ purchase just for payment processing.
| This doesn't include tax processing or any other stuff, all
| that you have to pay extra. A customer wants a refund? You
| are eating the cost.
|
| I just don't understand how any of this stuff people are
| talking about is realistic. I am not aware of a single
| commercial payment processing solution that will end up
| under 12-15% for small charges, while offering much less
| value to both the developer and the user compared to App
| Store. And I don't understand why people expect that this
| solution will suddenly magically pop up if Apple allows
| alternative stores.
| dns_snek wrote:
| The lack of competition and alternative options is the
| core issue here. Free market competition will figure it
| out, that's the simple answer.
|
| One developer might be operating on effectively infinite
| margins and opt to stay in the Apple app store for
| visibility and most familiar experience.
|
| Another might participate in an alternative app store
| that charges a review fee, a distribution fee but doesn't
| charge anything for in-app purchases except baseline
| payment processing fees.
|
| Yet another might be operating on razor-thin margins
| and/or doesn't need to participate in an app store for
| visibility, they might sell their app directly through
| their website and roll their own payments and
| distribution.
|
| > Stripe (one of the most popular payment processors)
| will take 9% from a 5$ purchase just for payment
| processing.
|
| We might as well treat this as 0 when discussing
| alternative options since it's an inescapable fact of
| selling things _anywhere_ (cash and crypto aside)
| ribit wrote:
| > The lack of competition and alternative options is the
| core issue here. Free market competition will figure it
| out, that's the simple answer.
|
| You know what? I actually agree with this! If alternative
| stores would really offer competition, then it's indeed
| something worth investigating. The problem is that I
| doubt that we will see alternative stores much. We will
| have a Meta store that sells FB-relevant services, an
| Epic store that sells Fortnite, an MS store that sells MS
| Office experience, an Adobe store that sells Adobe
| subscriptions, etc. Basically big corps making their own
| bubbles to improve margins.
|
| If all these stores are regulated instead (transparent
| rules for all, no corp-only stores, strict privacy
| regulations), sure, I'm all for it! But that's not where
| the suggestions are going, so far most of the comments
| are along the lines "Apple should not be allowed to do
| this, everyone else should be allowed to do everything".
| Unfortunately, many "fairness initiatives" end up with
| some other big corp creating a soft monopoly (just look
| at google who de facto control the web standards just
| because their engine has 90% of the market share)
| seec wrote:
| Where do you get this number for Stripe ?
|
| Right now, in the EU, the standard fee (before
| negotiation and volume consideration) is 0.25ct + 1.5%
| which will work out to about 26.5% cut for a 1-euro
| payment that is the worst-case scenario currently
| possible in the App Store as far as I am concerned.
|
| They sell added services but there is no obligation for
| them and I figure most developers wouldn't care for them.
| The most expensive it can get is for international
| payment with currency conversion: 0.25ct + 3.25% + 2%. I
| don't know exactly how they do the fee calculation, but
| for a payment of 1, you would get a cut of about 30% max.
| Apple definitely does NOT provide the same service, since
| they do not allow international payment in their
| different localized app stores and they don't do currency
| conversion (they will let the bank charge you for that,
| which will get MUCH more expensive).
|
| And the stripe number becomes much better with bigger
| price because of the fixed transaction fee. If you sell
| an app for 5$, the minimum you would have to give Apple
| would be 75 cents (the 15% they will allow under certain
| conditions) when the maximum you would pay to stripe
| would be 51 cents, or about 10.25%. Realistically most
| developers that do not have the scale to operate a fully
| custom system will address one or 2 big regional markets
| (with mostly shared language, culture and currency) and
| they would be just fine with the standard offering of
| stripe that would bring the cost to around 6.5%. While
| setting up everything would be a bigger hassle, for most
| developers that make enough money to live off it, that's
| a no brainer. Even if we argue that Apple provides more
| value than the base stripe and push to 10% cost
| everything included, for a dev making 100K in sales, it's
| already "free" 5K coming their way.
|
| Many seem to mistakenly think that Apple allows dev to
| sell their app worldwide with very little hassle. Not
| only this is not true since many apps are actually region
| locked for whatever reason and cannot be purchased in a
| different market (it happens to me all the time,
| especially with apps from the US or from Germany) but
| Apple does not realy simplify the process of
| localisation, marketing, and proper tax declaration in
| each relevant market. Apples gives you pretty sales
| statement with everything you need, but any decent system
| will do that, you still need to do the actual work of
| compliance if you are big enough or care enough to follow
| the laws.
|
| There are some argument to be made about the benefits of
| Apple integrated solution but it is only relevant for
| cheap software that are impulse buys precisely because
| they were cheap enough. The higher the price of the
| software the less relevant Apple solution is. Especially
| considering the inflexibility and dumb "categories" they
| push everything into. And if you have to push
| subscription or in-app purchase nonsense like they
| currently do, the economics are even better for external
| solution.
| dns_snek wrote:
| > Where do you get this number for Stripe ?
|
| That's Stripe's US fee. CC processing fees are much
| higher in the US so that card issuers can run all of
| those "cashback" programs.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| It's actually annoying that the refunds and VAT are handled.
|
| For small international developers, under 500K per year
| spread out over several states & countries, often they don't
| have to pay VAT in most international places, so they lose an
| extra 20-22%. For instance most US states won't require you
| to pay VAT under 100K revenue if you are from another
| country.
|
| Same for refunds & subscription management, often clients
| will ask you, but you have zero control with Apple. Let alone
| 60 days before being paid, where stripe does it in a few
| days.
| ribit wrote:
| This is a great point and I think it illustrates the
| drawbacks of centralized store. I think an argument can be
| made that App Store is an important part of the developer
| experience and as such they are entitled to have a voice in
| what features it should prioritize.
|
| The thing is, I fully agree that the model has to change
| and adapt. There has to be more transparency, more
| accountability, and these stores have to improve in a way
| that best fits the interests of the developers and the
| users. I just don't think that third-party stores or
| unrestricted side loading will do anything like that -- in
| fact, I fear that they will make things considerably worse.
| jim180 wrote:
| The threshold is 10kEUR in the EU. So, way less than 500k
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Yeah EU is stricter, but for lot of my clients US is a
| large market, without they themselves being in the US. If
| you are EU based then it's cheaper to pay EU tax and not
| US tax.
| lijok wrote:
| You need to learn the difference between defending an entity
| and defending an argument.
|
| The line of thinking you're expressing here is what leads to
| questioning free speech and privacy absolutism.
| lynx23 wrote:
| "They are not your friend, they do not care about you"
|
| I beg to differ. As a blind user relying on accessibility,
| Apple was actually the first company that decided that
| accessibility should be an inherent part of the OS, not just an
| expensive add-on. Since the iPhone, blind users can just buy
| the product and turn speech output on, without having to
| install expensive extra software as was the case with Windows,
| for instance.
|
| So keep your generic accusations for yourself, they are far
| from correct.
| cryptonym wrote:
| This is a great result. That being said, I wouldn't bet they
| did that just because they cared about you in a friendly way.
| tuyiown wrote:
| If it's not driven by ROI, it can only be empathy and <<do
| the right thing>>
| cryptonym wrote:
| Who said there is no ROI? Apple is no charity, they
| probably found another way to generate profit out of it
| (brand reputation, more sales, you name it). It might be
| better than previous situation, profit was generated in a
| terrible way. Still doesn't mean you owe them something
| nor they are being particularly "nice" with you.
|
| If cutting it was a way to generate high profit, finance
| and shareholders would probably ask for this to be
| removed quickly. For instance, in the last vote they
| refused assessments on social and environmental issues.
| dingaling wrote:
| "...in 1988, the company added the first accessibility
| support program for Windows by incorporating work developed
| at the TRACE Center, a research and development center on
| accessible technology at the University of Wisconsin.
|
| Known then as Access Utility for Windows 2.0, the program
| improved the accessibility of Windows for people who are
| deaf, hard of hearing, or who have limited dexterity"
|
| https://www.afb.org/aw/1/4/16165
| highwaylights wrote:
| Keeping the tax at more or less the same rate on outbound links
| is incredibly brazen, even by Apple standards.
|
| If the EU DMA does eventually force them to open the platform
| to competing stores it's going to be very hard to defend the
| different policies in different markets, especially as I assume
| Epic will push aggressively to have Fortnite and the Epic Games
| store on iOS in those markets as early as possible to force the
| conversation.
| kriops wrote:
| That's a strawman if I ever saw one. Apple is morally entitled
| to licence their products however they'd like, because property
| rights. If you don't like it, then nobody is forcing you to
| give them your business.
| dragonelite wrote:
| The lords and churches of the past wouldn't even dare to ask as
| much as 30% of revenues in our feudal past.
| riscy wrote:
| It's 15% for the commoners (<$1M) and I'd believe that in
| feudal times.
| qwytw wrote:
| IIRC the standard for serfs was 2-3 days of labor per week
| (in some cases during harvest even up to 5), for a 6 day
| workweek. Add various random fees and rents and that's way
| more than 50-60%.
|
| Of course everything improved massively after the plague. So
| it depends on which part of the middle ages we're talking
| about.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| I can understand some perspectives of the Apple-defending
| crowd. Apple being the popular yet closed-end-to-end platform
| experience does kind of provide a level of balance in the
| industry that wouldn't exist otherwise. I personally think it's
| silly to look at Amazon or Google as an example of openness.
|
| I think it's also kinda weird to label Apple as a monopoly
| unless you mean a monopoly on revenues. They seem to actively
| swerve away from getting over 50% share of anything.
| toyg wrote:
| They realized that getting over 50% marketshare paints a
| target on their back, whereas what you want is 50% of
| _profitable money_ in the market.
|
| If BMW sell 10 cars with $1 margin, Jaguar sell 5 cars with
| $2 margin, and Ferrari sell 2 cars with $40 margin, the
| latter took home 80% of profits with 11% marketshare. Then
| Ferrari just work their hardest to make sure that their
| customers cannot change car without a lot of effort,
| effectively coopting (or rather enslaving) them forever.
|
| That keeps antitrust law at bay in practice, while
| egregiously breaking it in spirit.
| maccard wrote:
| > It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread
| arguing in favor of Apple
|
| It's incredible to me that people arguing against apple here
| don't realise that they're arguing to allow another billion
| dollar company to do what they want, and that their own opinion
| is the only one that could possibly be valid
|
| If you want an open ecosystem with alternative app stores, head
| on over to Android. The value of iOS to me is the app store and
| related ecosystem.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Regardless, it is a phenomenon here that negative words on
| Apple - justified or not alike - attract numerious downvotes
| without comments, just for the sake of it.
| maccard wrote:
| Honestly, I've found nuanced discussion on this topic in
| any direction attracts downvotes, and reddit-tier comments
| like the one I replied to float to the top. It's a pity as
| the quality of the discussion here is usually above this.
| nprateem wrote:
| > head on over to Android
|
| I'll just tell all my potential customers to buy a new phone
| before buying my app. That'll work.
| ben_w wrote:
| > You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They
| are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or
| your life.
|
| True.
|
| > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for
| more productive purposes than make a few people who already
| have everything even richer.
|
| I'm old enough to have developed software before the App Store
| existed, and remember that everyone was very excited both buy
| it finally being introduced to iOS, and by the relatively low
| fees of only 30%.
|
| You're free to argue that 30% is too high, or even that the 15%
| for small developers is too high, that this is rent-seeking by
| Apple and only made sense when they were also a small
| company... but I think this is also true for the businesses
| trying to convince everyone that it matters, and I think they
| would like to charge the same sticker price while collecting
| the difference for themselves.
| sofixa wrote:
| > and by the relatively low fees of only 30%.
|
| 30% is low compared to what? Mafia extortion rates?
| ben_w wrote:
| When the App Store was new, the web hosting for my indie
| shareware games was about 30% of their _net_ revenue
| _after_ the payment processor and marketplace fees.
|
| The payment processor (cheapest PayPal (U.S. Accounts),
| most expensive American Express/Optima International[0])
| and marketplace (Kagi[0]) fees were _on top of that hosting
| fee_ , and cost anywhere from (1.9 to 5.0)% + $0.30
| (payment provider) plus 2.5% + $1 (market place for <=$25),
| which makes those two items combined _also_ more than 30%
| for any item sold for less than $5.08-5.77.
|
| Hosting fees are of course cheaper today, more so when bulk
| bought (I think more than enough to compensate for games
| today getting into the 100GB range when my shareware was
| 10s of MB).
|
| I'd hope that payment providers are also.
|
| But at the time, it looked _amazing_.
|
| [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20090903044400/http://www.k
| agi.c...
| zzbzq wrote:
| I don't understand what hosting fees have to do with
| apps. The app store seemed to be more or less a ripoff of
| Facebook's (now long defunct) app store, back when
| Facebook was a web-based app-of-apps, and AFAIK Facebook
| apps were free plugins.
| ben_w wrote:
| > I don't understand what hosting fees have to do with
| apps.
|
| Apple hosts the apps, doesn't charge devs or customers
| anything for bandwidth used when downloading them. At the
| time the store launched, this was a big part of my
| overall costs, which Apple covered in full from their
| take.
|
| > The app store seemed to be more or less a ripoff of
| Facebook's (now long defunct) app store, back when
| Facebook was a web-based app-of-apps, and AFAIK Facebook
| apps were free plugins.
|
| I forgot that ever existed, so I searched for it. Looks
| like FB's was announced about 4 years _after_ Apple 's
| App Store?
| xigoi wrote:
| > Apple hosts the apps, doesn't charge devs or customers
| anything for bandwidth used when downloading them.
|
| But it doesn't allow developers to host the apps
| themselves, so they are being forced to pay for a service
| they don't need.
| matwood wrote:
| At the time it was low compared to any retail software
| distribution. If (a big if) a developer could get on a
| carrier App Store (they existed) it was much more than 30%.
|
| Go back and watch the keynote. Developers cheered because
| 30% was so much lower than any other stores available at
| the time.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's a small amount compared to retail; it's a large amount
| compared to a download; and it's infinitely larger than the
| 0% platform royalty required by IBM-compatible PCs.
| merrywhether wrote:
| That 0% platform royalty was on top of the $300 flat fee
| for the Windows operating system (or however much, I never
| ran Windows myself), whereas iOS is technically free (no
| fee for major updates). You're paying for the OS/platform
| one way or another.
| seec wrote:
| Very few people bought Windows separately, its price was
| bundled with the hardware sale just like it is with iOS.
| This is a completely moot point.
|
| You could try to argue that Apple give more value by
| supporting longer, but then again you would be completely
| wrong (some hardware manufacturer are not super good at
| supporting their stuff for the very long term, but
| windows in itself has a support timeline way beyond
| anything Apple ever did...)
| nolok wrote:
| The problem is not that 30% is too high or too low, the
| problem is that it shouldn't be a % but a flat fee structure,
| like every other services ever.
|
| If you have an app tomorrow that sells for $10 to 10k people
| you owe Apple $30k, now you manage to up your price to $30,
| same work same size same everything, but suddenly you now owe
| Apple $90k ? That's called a tax, not a fee.
|
| Doing so wouldn't stop apple from having a separate, "pay 30%
| all inclusive" fee, and it wouldn't stop them from "if your
| app is free you have no fee" (beside the xcode sub fee).
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| > like every other services ever
|
| Apple didn't invent a marketplace.
|
| Please have a look how other online and offline
| marketplaces work and how they monetize access.
|
| You can look at anything from Salesforce, Shopify, to
| Microsoft, Epic Store, PlayStation and your local Target
| store.
|
| Hint - it's not a flat fee structure.
| nolok wrote:
| What makes you think I agree any more with any of these ?
|
| But as a user I'm able to buy my pc games, my groceries
| or my music from another store. Apple prohibits me from
| doing that.
| ben_w wrote:
| While true, I think these examples are sufficient to
| dispute calling it a "tax".
|
| "Excessive" or "monopolistic", if you like, but not
| really a tax.
| qwytw wrote:
| Yeah but technically nobody is forcing anyone to use
| Steam. Yet pretty much all the games are published there
| and the market has decided that the 30% fee is "fair"
| (AFAIK they can get away charging even more than Apple on
| average because there is no 15% tier?)
| criley2 wrote:
| There is competition for Steam and stores like Epic offer
| at 12% tier. Developers make substantially more money per
| sale on Epic than Steam.
|
| And the thing is, 30% cut is pointless for Steam. They
| have more money than they could ever spend. There is no
| budget at Valve. They just spend whatever they want and
| do what they want.
|
| They rob hardworking small developers of real money that
| they need to support themselves all so billionaire Gabe N
| can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| And Epic admitted that 12% is unsustainable.
|
| The rest of your comment is baffling to me.
|
| I assume you're neither a shareholder or employee of
| Steam.
|
| But you count their money, you decide for them that their
| own money is pointless to them, you somehow know how much
| money they earn, and based on that make assumption it's
| more than they could ever spend (even though you admit
| yourself there is no budget at Valve).
|
| And how long is "ever" in "than they could ever spend"? 1
| year? 5 years? 20 years? 100 years?
|
| I very much dislike people who count other people's
| money, I don't know if it's their own jealousy or
| greediness. But you on top of that also somehow came to
| the conclusion that their own money is pointless to them,
| and then accuse them of robbing people.
|
| And this is about marketplace for PC games, a wild west
| of side-loading and land of free for all.
|
| But somehow Steam is robbing developers.
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| criley2 wrote:
| Epic has not admitted that 12% is unsustainable, and the
| suggestion that it has is so detached from reality that
| it colors the rest of your comment as being extremely
| unreliable.
|
| You should double check your sources because you fell for
| low-effort low-intelligence fake journalism. What Sweeney
| said was that 12% was not viable in developing countries
| due to high finance costs. https://twitter.com/TimSweeney
| Epic/status/109102593910919987...
|
| You dislike people who count private profit margins?
|
| I dislike low-information consumers who simp for
| corporations based on literal fake news.
|
| Be better, shame on you.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| It's ironic for you to call me "low-information consumer"
| and "shame me" when you don't even look further than the
| first Google result to Tim Sweeney's tweet.
|
| Epic Game Store is unprofitable and losing money. There
| were financial documents released in Epic vs Apple about
| Epic Game Store becoming possibly profitable in a few
| years and accumulating 1 billion loss before the end of
| this decade.
|
| > You dislike people who count private profit margins?
|
| I like how you honestly believe that saying "% cut is
| pointless for Steam", "they have more money than they
| could ever spend", "they just spend whatever they want
| and do what they want", "they rob ... so billionaire Gabe
| N can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace" is
| counting profit margins.
|
| To bring you back to reality, you're not counting profit
| margins, because you have no access to their financials.
| You're making stuff up and talking emotional nonsense
| like you have a personal grudge and accuse other people
| and companies of robbing people.
|
| edit: can't reply to your comment below. wishing you all
| the best with your future trap laying for incompetent
| repliers
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > They rob hardworking small developers of real money
| that they need to support themselves all so billionaire
| Gabe N can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace
|
| Steam's 30% is still a huge improvement on the overhead
| involved in brick and mortar physical sales. But if a
| developer doesn't want to pay the 30% they can always
| sell their game from their own website - and some do[1].
| Most developers seem to think that the 30% is worth it
| though.
|
| [1] https://fractalsoftworks.com/preorder/
|
| Edit: Something I neglected to make explicit is that the
| PC is an open platform. If you don't want to sell through
| Steam you have tons of other options, including self-
| publishing. If you want to get your game on a PS5 or an
| iPhone, you _have_ to go through Sony or Apple and they
| take a similar cut of your revenue.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| It doesn't matter if you personally agree or not how
| marketplaces monetize.
|
| It's up to the people who created these marketplaces to
| charge what they feel is fair and/or financially
| sustainable for the value they provide.
|
| If it wasn't worth it for the sellers, these marketplaces
| wouldn't exist today.
|
| But they do, and they thrive.
|
| If you have a secret sauce how to build a sustainable
| billion people marketplace after spending billions on it
| without charging sellers access to your customers, please
| do it and show the world how it should be done.
|
| > Apple prohibits me from doing that
|
| Yes, because that's their product, their philosophy and
| the experience they want their customers to have.
|
| And they do that for 15 years already.
|
| You knew that and still bought the iPhone. As have
| hundreds of millions of others.
|
| And it still is one of the most popular, highest rated
| consumer devices in the world for over a decade.
|
| So it's not a deal breaker for consumers, is it?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Flat fee services are starting to seriously attack
| percentage based services in the marketplace right now.
| Sirvoy for hotel bookings, Ticket Tailor for event
| ticketing, not to mention buy-and-sell marketplaces
| everywhere. I expect percentage based services to be
| murdered during this economic recession, as businesses do
| what they can to survive - including cutting completely
| useless costs.
| flutas wrote:
| > Shopify
|
| Is a flat fee structure?
|
| Basic: $39/mo
|
| Shopify: $105/mo
|
| Advanced: $399/mo
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| I mean the sellers side of the marketplace, not buyers.
|
| https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/store/revenue-share
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| B-b-but-
|
| We can take them all down. We should. Doesn't matter if
| it's Valve or Steam or Google or whoever. It's only
| better for consumers and clearly we've let it slide to
| the point where even us usually cynical HN peeps are
| apparently willing to defend this predatory and anti-
| consumer behaviour.
| dnissley wrote:
| Apple can do what they want. I want them to be able to do
| what they want because I'm from America dammit and
| companies in non-critical segments of the economy like
| video games and phones should be able to do what works
| for them. Ain't called the land of the free for nothing.
|
| Personally I don't like these practices -- it's all cuz
| of the walled garden, locked down aspect of it all. But
| luckily I'm also free to continue avoiding the heck out
| of Apple devices. They make nice hardware so that sucks
| that I miss out on that, but I'll take the trade off that
| I get to install whatever apps I want on this here
| Android phone of mine.
| amelius wrote:
| > The problem is not that 30% is too high or too low, the
| problem is that it shouldn't be a % but a flat fee
| structure, like every other services ever.
|
| I hate Apple like the next enlightened guy, but then banks
| and credit card companies should also charge a flat fee for
| their services. This isn't the case and probably never will
| be, however. But their fee is much more reasonable than
| Apple's fee.
| klabb3 wrote:
| There is a lot wrong with banks. In many cases people try
| to dip in a % when it should be flat. However, with
| credit the risk is proportional to the loan.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| I haven't done any defending, but I reject the idea that it's a
| ridiculous idea to do so. I choose (almost always) to defend
| people on the basis of whether they are right or wrong (by some
| measure), emphatically _not_ due to some expectation of return
| on investment because they 'care about me'. Also, no one is
| defending Apple because they think 'the trillion dollar company
| needs defending' -- they're doing it, presumably, because they
| just so happen to have an opinion on the matter that aligns
| with Apple's.
| the_other wrote:
| I often defend Apple. I don't want to defend Apple on this
| current topic: I think taking a cut of out-of-app physical
| purchases/subscriptions is ridiculous and should be legally
| challenged.
|
| However...
|
| > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for
| more productive purposes than make a few people who already
| have everything even richer.
|
| If you're gonna argue that, you have to inspect the edges of
| this position. Are you willing to let go of your own shares? Or
| the interest on your pension (or equivalent), which comes via
| the roughly the same route you're arguing against. If you own
| your own company, do you share most/all profits with your staff
| (rather than pay a wage), or your shareholders? This is all
| wrapped up together.
|
| IMO, To make such a claim, you need really to argue against the
| system these "rich people" operate in as much, if not more
| than, the individual cases.
| quonn wrote:
| > If you own your own company, do you share most/all profits
| with your staff
|
| This is not the same, there a degrees of unethical behavior.
| We should collectively try to give more meaning to these
| degrees instead of jumping to first principles.
|
| Taking your example, there is a difference between taking a
| cut or underpaying your staff or severely underpaying them or
| perhaps not paying them at all or perhaps forced labor or
| perhaps outright slavery.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Ikr. That's a big incentive to be evil! Special snowflakes will
| vouch for you no matter what
| norman784 wrote:
| As a user I don't care for the 30% cut, what I care is to have
| a centralised payment method and subscription system, I don't
| have energy/time to keep with different subscriptions in each
| service/app and knowing that there are bad actors, they will do
| whatever possible to make hard to unsubscribe (like a few years
| ago the NYT, where you could only unsubscribe by phone and was
| very hard even so). But if even when using third party payment
| systems they need to integrate with Apple subscription API and
| you can cancel/track in one place then I'm fine with that.
| cryptonym wrote:
| That's a fair statement, you may like Apple payment even if
| it adds 30% to whatever you are buying. What is not fair is
| forcing everyone into this.
|
| If I'm selling content, why couldn't I give customer the
| choice between:
|
| - Paying the 30% Apple cut and benefiting from everything you
| like about this
|
| - Buying directly, cheaper, without Apple cut (or maybe with
| a tiny cut if that make any sense, removing only 3pt is a
| joke)
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Because it's Apple's marketplace and Apple's customers.
|
| They spent billions on hardware, software, R&D, marketing
| and operations.
|
| Why would they give another business a free access to a
| billion of their customers?
|
| You want to earn money of Apple's customers? Then pay Apple
| a revenue share of the money you get from their customers.
|
| That's how pretty much any marketplace works in the world.
|
| From your local Target to
| Salesforce/Shopify/PlayStation/Epic Store/Steam/etc.
| seandoe wrote:
| I don't think that's equivalent. If you buy a Ford car,
| you aren't forced to buy tires from the Ford dealership.
| You're not a "Ford Customer" beholden to the Ford Motor
| Company when it comes to everything related to the car.
| If you buy a Dell desktop you aren't forced to buy all
| software through a Dell marketplace. I'm sure if these
| companies could, they would, and apple can and so they
| do. But is that the world we want? Sure, in a totally
| "free" market apple should be able to do want ever they
| want. But are we more interested in freedom for
| corporations or freedom for people? Would things be
| better for everyone if we used the power of government to
| prevent these anticompetitive practices? Why can't apple
| offer good reason for iPhone users to buy software
| through their marketplace and take the 30%, all the while
| allowing users to choose to download software outside of
| the marketplace?
| robertjpayne wrote:
| This is rapidly changing with Tesla first. Outside the
| tires not much you're going to get after-market except
| from Tesla.
|
| You always have the option to not buy a ford, or not buy
| an iPhone.
| cryptonym wrote:
| That's true and is not something most people are happy
| with. This model is being pushed on us by billionaires.
| smoldesu wrote:
| And you're convinced that this is good for us?
| rustcleaner wrote:
| We have the option to make the laws such that this cute
| little rent-extracting business model you defend gets
| companies who follow it shut down for being criminal
| enterprises.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Apple does not create that kind of value; it hoodwinks
| buyers with a pretty interface and its cultish marketing.
| Like any hazing ritual or circumcision, the new apple
| user feels he put in a heavy cost to join what appears to
| him to be an elite class (but really a marketing trick).
| The new user is now complete and ready to defend his
| newly acquired identity in internet forum posts critical
| of it.
| rezonant wrote:
| The inability to unsubscribe should be fixed in the law, not
| by granting a payments monopoly for all users of a specific
| operating system or phone model.
| merrywhether wrote:
| It should be, but I'm not holding my breathe for the US to
| suddenly start ancting like a functional government (and
| there are probably other countries where a legal fix is
| less likely as well). Until then companies are free to
| offer private alternatives to users who find that to be a
| valuable service.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Until then companies are free to offer private
| alternatives to users who find that to be a valuable
| service.
|
| The question with the App Store is, are customers allowed
| to choose?
| xoa wrote:
| > _The inability to unsubscribe should be fixed in the law_
|
| Even taking your second part as given without addressing
| the actual complexity here: then how about you accomplish
| that FIRST? Because I've heard a lot of _" we'll break this
| hack that makes things work suboptimally but better than
| nothing and then fix it properly in law later"_ over the
| decades and 99% of the time it breaks the hack and then
| surprise surprise never ever gets the "fixed in law" part,
| leaving us worse off without the gain. I'm all in favor of
| passing some laws in this area that'd accomplish stuff more
| efficient with fewer perverse incentives on all sides. I'd
| like to see users have the option by law to control their
| root key stores, to require standard secure APIs for
| subscriptions so that multiple 3rd parties can offer
| central management and users can cancel without any
| interaction with what they're subscribing to, for long
| basic price linked warranties required by law, local use
| and ad free data control options by law, but also for
| manufacturers/devs to be protected by default from
| liability etc. It'd be great to fix a whole lot of stuff.
|
| But until that happy day happens I'm less inclined to just
| mindlessly bash down what we have and a lot of people are
| pretty happy with and seems to have struck an ok if far
| from ideal compromise. I mean, killing upgrades alone makes
| me hate the app store, but still fix first.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Nobody is complaining about that. Apple can freely put
| whatever price they want for their payment/subscription
| services. It's a good product even, albeit with an outrageous
| price.
|
| People are upset that developers are forced to use that
| product, and now with this news: pay an extortion fee on a 3p
| transaction that doesn't concern Apple.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I'm not advocating for PayPal, but PayPal does all the stuff
| that Apple does and they don't charge a 30% cut. I've been
| contributing to a freeDNS Service managed by PayPal for the
| last 10-15 years. I noticed the annual renewal was coming up
| and thought it was time I bump up my contribution, so I went
| into PayPal and did it.
| poszlem wrote:
| What a wild take. Epic doesn't care about me either. What
| difference does it make? Are we supposed to judge if
| something's right or wrong based on who's doing it, rather than
| what they're actually doing?
| remon wrote:
| This is exactly the wrong argument to make and a perfect
| example of why internet discussion is becoming harder.
|
| None of what you said matters. It does not matter how much
| money a company makes or if you personally think they're
| charging too much for a service. They're allowed to. The open
| question is if they're in a position where there's no
| reasonable alternative for developers and/or consumers which
| you can make a strong case for. That line of argument would not
| be affected at all by how much money Apple makes, their cut or
| if they're spending their money in a socially productive way.
|
| The fact that this is the second highest upvoted comment is a
| rather sad datapoint on issues related to internet based
| conversation where opinions consistently trump fact or reason.
| toyg wrote:
| _> It does not matter how much money a company makes or if
| you personally think they 're charging too much for a
| service. They're allowed to._
|
| Ah yes, loan sharks are perfectly legitimate businessmen too,
| then.
|
| _> The fact that this is the second highest upvoted comment
| is a rather sad datapoint _
|
| I personally find sadder that there are people who just
| rationalize away the utter lack of morality in modern
| capitalism. "Why screw others? Because we can! Woot!" is even
| worse than "greed is good".
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Why do companies charge extra to businesses for the same
| product? Should they? See the SSO tax
| toyg wrote:
| Companies should be free to compete on various variables,
| which include price for their services. But there is no
| competition for the Apple AppStore on Apple devices, it's
| a captive market. At that point, it's not competition but
| exploitation; and exploitation surely is a Bad Thing.
|
| We used to be taught that one of the Bad Elements of
| feudal life was that the local lord could impose
| arbitrary taxes to use a road or a bridge, with no
| recourse for people and tradesmen. Now we are at the same
| point in the digital world.
| matwood wrote:
| > But there is no competition for the Apple AppStore on
| Apple devices, it's a captive market
|
| Apples argument, which has legally worked so far, is the
| competition is at the ecosystem level. The iPhone and App
| Store are all parts of the whole. If someone doesn't like
| they can go to a competing ecosystem. Think game console,
| not computer.
| toyg wrote:
| I know very well, and I think that's the sticky point
| that needs untangling to take antitrust legislation into
| the XXI digital century. Ecosystem competition is not
| enough.
|
| Imagine buying a house, and having to ask to the original
| builder for permission to buy wardrobes, or a fridge, a
| table and chairs. The builder can tell you what he does
| or does not allow, and takes a cut of every purchase you
| make. It's a ludicrous proposition, but that's very much
| how our digital life currently is.
| remon wrote:
| There's plenty of good reasons to charge different
| amounts for the same services. There's nothing immoral
| about that. People can simply say no to making the
| purchase for the price offered to them. Again, this is
| completely besides the point of the Apple case.
|
| In Apple's case there are no reasonable alternatives and
| no practical way to say "no" to the service if you want
| any business at all. _That_ and that alone should be the
| issue at hand. What Apple is doing should not be legal on
| that ground. Either they allow third party stores, or
| they adjust their cut to a level that can reasonably
| argued is aligned with the value they 're adding to the
| publisher of that app or service. Now they're in "we can
| charge whatever because we're the only route to getting
| your product on Apple products" land, and that's just not
| where we want to be.
| remon wrote:
| Are you being intentionally obtuse? Those two things are,
| again, completely unrelated. As a person I do feel
| capitalism in its current form results in demonstrably
| unethical practices, and I do think Apple overcharges for
| the value they bring to the table in the specific case of
| their 30% cut. That's a subjective ethical and moral
| assessment of Apple as a company.
|
| But that's not the topic at hand, and strawmanning one
| problem by pulling in another is just lazy. Ruling on this
| will not just affect Apple but any company with a similar
| modus operandi in the future, including smaller more
| ethical companies. Why people have trouble keeping
| legislative challenges (what you can do) and moral
| challenges (what you should do) apart is beyond me. You can
| have more than one opinion in your head at the same time.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Are you being intentionally obtuse?_
|
| For someone lamenting the state of discourse on the
| internet, you seem to have a problem with avoiding ad-
| hominems. You also seem to rabidly post multiple items at
| speed. Please calm down and refrain.
|
| _> Ruling on this will not just affect Apple but any
| company with a similar modus operandi in the future, _
|
| Absolutely - and absolutely, anyone creating a digital
| platform should be forced to follow better rules than
| what we have at the moment. The market alone will produce
| exploitative monopolies, and this is what we're seeing
| with Apple. If the letter of current antitrust laws
| doesn't touch them, the spirit definitely does.
|
| _> Why people have trouble keeping legislative
| challenges (what you can do) and moral challenges (what
| you should do) apart_
|
| Because it's in the cracks between those concepts that
| Bad Things for society tend to happen; which is why we
| have laws to reconcile them where the market fails to do
| so on its own. In this case, we have large companies
| effectively establishing exploitative and feudal
| relationships with smaller businesses and consumers,
| extracting parasitical rents. This is a Bad Thing and
| should be fixed.
|
| Including your other comment:
|
| _> And yes, loan sharks are legitimate businessmen in
| the US._
|
| No, they are not. You need licenses to lend money in the
| US, and to get those you have to follow extensive rules
| and regulations put in place precisely to make it illegal
| to be a loan shark. Some businesses get close to the
| limits of such rules (payday loans etc), and that is a
| political item - precisely because they get very close to
| be something that is Bad for society.
|
| _> if you want to change it vote for people that can
| turn that into law_
|
| Absolutely, and people do. EU representatives are running
| with this, and Apple is slowly being subject to more and
| more scrutiny (together with Google, Amazon, and anyone
| else with a digital marketplace). People understand that
| what these businesses are doing is Bad for society in the
| long run, so if they can't reign themselves in on their
| own, they will have to be reigned in by the law.
| remon wrote:
| And yes, loan sharks are legitimate businessmen in the US.
| Not most other places mind you because *there's legislation
| preventing it*. You're conflating "can" and "should"
| consistently, much like most other people in this thread.
| It's just not a moral business. Much like gambling isn't,
| selling addictive unhealthy products isn't, and so on. It's
| legal though, and if you want to change it vote for people
| that can turn that into law. Welcome to democracy.
| criley2 wrote:
| > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for
| more productive purposes than make a few people who already
| have everything even richer
|
| Apple stock is the most widely held stock by American 401k's
| and forms the basis of retirement investments for middle class
| Americans more than any other stock
| hortense wrote:
| Wouldn't that be Microsoft? It's worth 2.9T, vs Apple's
| 2.84T.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| Apple is a lifestyle brand and some people act pretty
| threatened when that brand is criticized.
| namdnay wrote:
| > make a few people who already have everything even richer.
|
| "a few people" being everyone with a retirement plan, 401k or
| any equivalent around the world, i.e. the vast majority of
| people in developed countries
|
| if anything, taking from smaller companies to give to megacorps
| is a net benefit for "the common man", since the former will
| generally belong to founders/VCs/private equity in which they
| have no stake, and the latter are owned by everyone with
| exposure to the MSCI World :)
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Its completely obvious Apple has some sort of mind control
| going on. Its insane to see society is okay with this.
| Darthy wrote:
| Apple Vision Pro is coming out soon, with the same terrible
| rules for app developers.
|
| We should put out an open letter to Apple that we will
| collectively ignore that product until it contains more
| favourable terms.
| spdif899 wrote:
| Great idea, I was totally planning to spend $3500 on a first
| gen gadget but now you've convinced me not to
| thinkerswell wrote:
| It's amazing to me that people in this thread still don't
| understand free markets. You are free to use Android, or Amazon
| phone. Or Graphene. Or one of the many others.
| webstrand wrote:
| Apple preventing 3rd party software not paying the apple tax
| from running on their phones is not "free market". The only
| reason they can get away with this is because of laws that
| protect their market from 3rd parties.
| systoll wrote:
| ...what laws?
|
| Apple restricts third parties almost entirely through
| technical measures.
|
| Jailbreaking to bypass the technical measures is legal.
| webstrand wrote:
| It may have finally been settled now as legal? I know in
| the past it was considered a violation of DMCA,
| circumventing technical countermeasures.
|
| Looks like the lawsuit was settled not decided, and Apple
| is free to sue it's next victim.
| kasajian wrote:
| I'm going to use this post as a reference for what I believe to
| be one of the least logical arguments I've ever seen on a
| technical forum. Congratulations.
| concordDance wrote:
| People can defend Apple purely for "Someone is wrong on the
| Internet!" reasons. We're mostly not Homo Economicus
| Machiavelli who only do things for considered reasons.
|
| (I agree that the 30% is probably bad for society though)
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of
| view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side
| with the trillion dollar company. This is in the same vein as
| "this cause is supported by teh evil Amerika, hence it must be
| evil" line of thinking, typically espoused by self-declared
| anti-imperialists (who are often mere anti-US-imperialists).
|
| >make a few people who already have everything even richer.
|
| I do wonder what percentage of Apple stock is owned by pension
| funds and the like, i.e. The Regular Person, once you unwind
| the levels of indirection (mutual funds, index funds, ETFs,
| etc). It is surely a double digit percentage, but high, low? No
| idea.
| timtom39 wrote:
| > I do wonder what percentage of Apple stock is owned by
| pension funds and the like, i.e. The Regular Person, once you
| unwind the levels of indirection (mutual funds, etc). It is
| surely a double digit percentage, but high, low? No idea.
|
| Pretty high. The S&P 500 has ~7% apple stock which means many
| peoples retirement accounts have several percentage points of
| apple stock.
| Podgajski wrote:
| So Apple takes 30% of your money from one hand and gives
| you back 3% with the other?
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| "Apple" takes and gives nothing. "Apple" is a collective
| figment of imagination of its shareholders, which people
| typically picture as dastardly moneybags living in
| mansions, but often forget to _also_ picture, like,
| themselves, in retirement.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| So we should let every company charge 10000% what they
| currently do, because some of the shareholders might be
| relying on extra dividends for retirement. Hmmm.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Indeed, we absolutely should "let" them. We should let
| them charge whatever they wish, we should let them sink
| or swim, and we should apply our laws to them fairly and
| equally, including antitrust legislation.
| crazygringo wrote:
| More like the opposite.
|
| If you had $1,000 invested in Apple around ten years ago
| (a reasonable amount in a retirement fund), you'd have
| made around another $8,500 by now.
|
| While if you'd spent $1,000 on apps and subscriptions
| over 10 years, Apple would have taken $300.
|
| So Apple would take $300 of your money from one hand and
| give you back $8500 with the other.
|
| That's a difference almost 3x larger than the difference
| you suggested... but in the opposite direction!
| Me1000 wrote:
| Who said "purely"? The arguments in favor of Apple here are
| invalid for a number of reasons. OP is just saying you don't
| need to bend over backwards to defend them, they're not an
| underdog anymore and haven't been for over a decade.
| docmars wrote:
| Not to mention, Apple has been known to be too controlling
| and take it too far, to levels that are unfair enough to
| garner major public disapproval.
|
| Their anti-developer/consumer moves are worthy of backlash,
| especially since Apple isn't likely going to change their
| positions without enough of it.
| amplex1337 wrote:
| Does this make them a better company? You are allowed to not
| like the way a company does business but still own an ETF
| that profits from their success. I still would never own an
| Apple item out of principal. Their marketing, hype and
| fanboyism are their prime success factors it feels like.
|
| It's funny but since the rise of the iPhone I feel like
| society has gone straight downhill, not that they have been
| the only player in the smartphone game, but they sure have
| profited well, are the biggest drain in the industry to the
| home developers that contribute to their ecosystem. They pay
| 0 tax and aren't contributing to the better of society
| through computing while convincing half the population they
| are protecting them, etc. It's a scam.
|
| Like many large corporations, they aren't ANY better and will
| plead that it is due to 'competition' while being ahead of
| the food chain and able to lead in any way they choose.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| No, they aren't better, nor are they worse, they just are.
| Evaluate their behaviour on the merits of their behaviour,
| not based on their size or what kind of image their PR
| efforts have successfully projected into our brains
| (they're all about amazing design! and the other guys motto
| is don't be evil! and these guys over here have "open" in
| their name and they're basically like a non-profit with
| lofty, humanity-altering goals!).
|
| You're welcome to project general failings of society onto
| the emergence of the iPhone (but not Android because Google
| maybe isn't nearly as evil I mean it's in their motto). And
| there's tons of hype and fanboyism associated with their
| products. But they are good products. After ditching
| Windows back in 2008, I've haven't yet had a compelling
| reason to switch OSes again in my career as a software
| engineer. Their higher-end devices are absurdly priced but
| my employer buys them for me, maybe that's why.
| rchaud wrote:
| It's invalidated because a real-world alternative already
| exists (Android sideloading) and hasn't required Google to
| hold everyone's hand or to use their toll roads to distribute
| the product.
| zamalek wrote:
| And the Play/Android store is still wildly successful.
| tivert wrote:
| > What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point
| of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to
| side with the trillion dollar company.
|
| What's incredible is how people waste their tiny amount of
| personal energy defending their exploitation by a corporation
| that has _vastly more resources than them_ and _objectively_
| does not need their help.
|
| Apple is probably _the_ poster child for effectively using
| marketing to brainwash their customers into _identifying_
| with them in a cult-like manner. That cult was close to the
| only thing sustaining them through the 90s.
| nailer wrote:
| It's because people are defending the principle, not Apple.
|
| I think Apple is wrong, but I don't think they're wrong
| because they're successful - in fact I think saying Apple
| is wrong because they're successful is against the concept
| of objective reality and not appropriate for HN.
|
| The idea that Apple are wrong because they're successful is
| the same awful thinking that advocates for violence or
| systemic discrimination against people based on their skin
| color (because they're considered 'successful') and is
| abhorrent.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| > What's incredible is how people waste their tiny amount
| of personal energy defending their exploitation by a
| corporation that has vastly more resources than them and
| objectively does not need their help.
|
| Nobody here is trying to help Apple by posting on HN.
| They're just discussing their viewpoints on how Apple
| operates and its policies around taking commission on
| purchases. That's what this entire message board is about -
| talking about tech and the like.
|
| If they're wasting their time by posting in defense of
| Apple, you're doing the exact same thing with your response
| - neither is going to have any actual impact on the world,
| so either posting is a waste of energy or it's not. There's
| no valid argument that posting in defense of Apple is a
| waste of energy but posting attacks on Apple is a useful
| and productive thing to do.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| None of this matters. Only the substance of the defence
| matters. It either makes sense, or it does not.
| rurp wrote:
| 93% of stock wealth is held by 10% of Americans; the amount
| of Apple held by The Regular Person is relatively miniscule.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38958534
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I suspect the number of app Developers is quite smaller
| than that 10%.
| eaglelamp wrote:
| It's not incredible it is just a different view point. In
| your second paragraph you take a utilitarian point of view in
| which case the size of an organization is irrelevant so long
| as it produces a net gain for society.
|
| An alternative view values human freedom and autonomy. From
| this perspective the size of an organization is relevant - a
| large enough organization can impose its will on individuals
| who don't wish to associate with it.
|
| Neither viewpoint is wrong, but acting as if the one you
| prefer is somehow more correct or objective is.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _It 's not incredible it is just a different view
| point...Neither viewpoint is wrong_
|
| Claiming that Apple is "stealing" their cut of commission
| is definitely wrong.
| SllX wrote:
| > An alternative view values human freedom and autonomy.
|
| That is some choice rhetoric with a particular bias, but
| not a distinct point of view from people arguing for
| freedom and autonomy _for_ Apple's business practices.
|
| The corporation is a legal fiction, but it's still human
| owned, operated, and staffed, and reflects the millions
| (billions?) of choices that get made by individuals working
| together to accomplish whatever it is the corporation does.
| In Apple's case, that gestalt _includes_ running the App
| Store at a price to developers that they see fit who choose
| to do business with them.
| eaglelamp wrote:
| I didn't mean it as rhetoric, it's a simplified statement
| of a viewpoint.
|
| I think rhetorically "..who choose to do business with
| them" is doing a lot more work than anything I wrote.
| Once an organization reaches a certain size individuals
| start losing meaningful choice in how they interact with
| it. You can say that the "gestalt" will of the
| organization is more important, but you can't make other
| people concede that their point of view is merely a
| rhetorical stance.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Big minds think about systems. Small minds think about
| individuals within the system, like corporations or people,
| because they can't comprehend the bigger picture or even that
| one exists.
|
| The people who think Apple is evil because of their size are
| simply not systems thinkers. They have an illogical view of
| the world in which the little guy is always right simply
| because they are the little guy, and thus the big guy must be
| wrong. It's very similar to the Amerika thing you said. If
| you don't think about the system Apple or America operates
| in, it's really easy to hate them.
|
| Which is not to say one can't be a systems thinker and still
| think this was a bad decision or that Apple is given too much
| power or does things that are unethical or bad for consumers
| or whatever else. I totally concur that the government should
| require Apple and Google to allow sideloading, payments
| they're not involved in, etc BECAUSE I am thinking about the
| system and how having two corporations own the device our
| world runs on is a bad one. And how there's essentially no
| way for governments to mandate a third viable mobile OS into
| existence.
|
| But the people who say "I can't believe you'd side with
| Apple" phrase it that way because they are not thinking of
| the system. They're thinking small. They think making ad-hoc
| decisions about individuals within the system is appropriate
| because they can't think any bigger. If they could, they'd
| lay out the argument as I just did (and, as many, many people
| in here did too) or something that was less about the
| individual.
|
| There's been a lot of this on display (not so much here) in
| what people say about the whole Israel/Hamas situation too.
| It's not so much what they say (systems thinkers don't agree
| anymore than anyone else) but how they say it that tips it
| off.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Who is definitely not my friend is third party app developers
| who want to side load their trash spamware on to my phone.
|
| Every single platform out there is a dumpster fire of
| fraudulent and abusive software and products aggressively
| pushed by deception with every trick or vulnerability they can
| find exploited.
|
| The App Store works just fine for me as a user as is. I don't
| care at all what software you want to install on my phone or
| what access you feel entitled to.
| Someone wrote:
| I think you can be unhappy with the 15/30% price cut, yet
| objectively see little wrong with it, given current
| capitalistic economies and legislation. There are many other
| large companies with huge margins that, in your words "steal
| from society". Alphabet's is over 20%, for example, and it's
| very hard to avoid them when advertising online. Microsoft
| likely makes money on Xbox game sales, too.
|
| In capitalism 101, Apple created a market and a shop, so they
| can set the rules. If they demanded too much, developers would
| move away, their venture would collapse, iPhones would become
| less popular, etc.
|
| I think you'll find that selling ice cream at Disney theme
| parks similarly is expensive for ice cream vendors. They'll
| either demand a cut on revenues or charge a lot for the right
| to sell stuff, and be picky about who can sell what at their
| venues.
|
| Large retail companies such as Walmart won't technically take a
| cut if you want them to sell your product, but they'll
| negotiate lower prices from you, require you to take back any
| unsold inventory, etc.
|
| In summary: 'we' currently allow all kinds of huge companies to
| play by different rules than small companies and individuals.
|
| For me, the main issue is whether iOS needs special handling
| because of its success, and if so, what special handling.
|
| The first, for me, is "yes"; smartphones are different enough
| from theme parks, Xbox and Walmart to handle them differently.
| The second I'm less sure about.
|
| For example, yes, I'd like to have the option to side-load
| stuff, but also think Apple should have control over what their
| iPhone product stands for.
|
| They currently ban apps selling drugs, for example. Requiring
| them to support third party stores that may have such apps
| might harm the image of their iPhone product. Because of that,
| I think we should allow them (but not necessarily be happy
| with) to put up a firm warning whenever you try to install a
| third party app store, even though that would put them on
| unequal footing with Apple's store.
|
| Maybe, the best solution would be to make Apple's App Store a
| non-profit with a monopoly on selling iOS apps, with Apple
| keeping the right to specify what can and cannot be sold there
| (keeping that a true non-profit would be hard, though. Some
| non-profits manage to hoard lots of money over time, their
| CEO's 'deserve' large salaries, etc)
| Friedduck wrote:
| Oh grow up. It's so naive to think there's no time, effort or
| money in building what they have. That there's no ongoing
| costs. That it doesn't take thought.
|
| They should build it and you should just get it for free.
|
| Is 30% reasonable? Should there be some taper once your app is
| in maintenance mode? No, and yes.
|
| I don't see any reason from either side of this argument
| frankly. They've built a wonderful think that provides immense
| value, and we all benefit.
|
| They should be more flexible in their pricing model, and you
| should understand that actual people spent hundreds of
| thousands of hours of their lives to deliver it to you, and
| charging for that isn't stealing.
| savanaly wrote:
| What about their customers? Am I allowed to speak up for their
| freedom to engage in consensual commerce? Or is that craven of
| me as well?
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| "B-b-but Google and others do it, too!"
|
| I'd like to quote a passage from Reamde by Neal Stephenson: "So
| what are you going to do?" Yuxia asked. "Maybe tag along. Like
| escorting a drunk president home after a long night in the
| bar." "Didn't you say you had to make a phone call?" "I have
| been trained by the United States government," Seamus said, "to
| do more than one thing at a time."
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I wouldnt defend 30% specifically but surely they should get
| some cut or share. What is the right number? 1%? 50%? I don't
| know.
|
| > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for
| more productive purposes than make a few people who already
| have everything even richer.
|
| Kind of an odd take. They take a cut because they provide a
| service. They are not stealing. I guess lump me in with the
| defending apple crowd if you want to but to think they would or
| should charge nothing for their service feels... silly.
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| only in tech...
|
| can you imagine if selling a replacement bulb for a ford
| headlight required you to pay 30% to ford.
|
| only in tech can this be considered fair.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| I've got very bad news for you.. what do you think happens
| when Ford solicits bids for headlamps? Sure "you" don't pay
| something to Ford. But Ford absolutely gets its cut
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| that's not nearly the same thing, stop it.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| How is it not? Giant company vs tiny company. With
| basically all the profit being allocated to the giant
| company.
|
| Yes it's not software and yes the tiny company is not
| single-person company. But that really doesn't change the
| situation (well except for you being seemingly personally
| affected). You can call this situation unfair and say
| that it _should_ not exist. But reality just disagrees
| with your assessment that it _does_ not exist. At least
| as far as I can see. Feel free to explain the difference
| that I'm missing.
|
| And just for completeness sake: this isn't even unique in
| software. Distribution commissions were usually in that
| order of magnitude. Even for less service and reach
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| I can buy a 3rd party bulb that I can put directly into a
| vehicle I own, how Ford sources the bulbs they put into
| the vehicles they sell or repair has nothing to do with
| that.
|
| Steam deck recommends you purchase the official steam
| dock but they don't prevent you, nor do they take a cut
| of, 3rd party docks that interface with the steam deck.
|
| only in tech would someone argue they should be entitled
| to a cut of that transaction because they _sold_ the
| original hardware to the user.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Does windows deserve 30%? what about your isp? Or your
| motherboard manufacturer? What about nvidia? Should every
| single company providing you software or hardware take a cut,
| or only apple?
|
| We should own our own computers
| jwagenet wrote:
| Pretty much every middleman or service provider in every
| industry takes a cut, whether by charging you more than
| they paid or a fee for their service. For some reason
| people think software is uniquely exempt from this
| transaction. Nvidia and your motherboard manufacturer
| already charged you for the product they provided and you
| also paid for the fee Dell or Newegg charged on top. Your
| isp is charging you a fee for uninterrupted service. Apple
| is charging developers for hosting apps and developing
| tooling.
| noapologies wrote:
| Sure, but the cut is a fixed amount based upon the value
| of the services the middleman is providing. And most
| importantly, it is not a percentage of the revenue the
| customer is able to generate by using these services -
| these two models are polar opposites.
|
| A great example that highlights this absurdity is vehicle
| ownership - imagine if Tesla announced tomorrow that they
| are actually a "transportation platform" and started
| charging Uber drivers a percentage of their revenue, or
| Mazda found out about the weekend race you did in a Miata
| and is demanding a cut of the winnings.
|
| Businesses would love perfect price discrimination in
| every context (because profits!), but is not clear to me
| how that is a desirable state for humanity.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Seems to me the range of what a credit card charges would
| seem sensible. I.e. 3-7%.
|
| Alternatively charge 30% but be forced to allow side-
| installing Apps. That way developers can decide if they want
| the convenience and reach of the AppStore or not.
| merlindru wrote:
| > Alternatively charge 30% but be forced to allow side-
| installing Apps.
|
| Yes this exactly
|
| I don't care whether they charge 10%, 30%, or 100%
|
| I do care that there's no alternative to NOT using their
| services & paying their fee
| thefounder wrote:
| They should as much as Mozilla gets for the online
| transactions carried out on its browser.
| m_0x wrote:
| > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for
| more productive purposes than make a few people who already
| have everything even richer.
|
| Steal? What you want the App store to be free and become the
| Android Play Store which is utter garbage and hostile against
| small and mid developers?
| gustavus wrote:
| You know I hear this argument a lot, but had a revelation
| recently. Everything people are saying about apps and the app
| store could apply equally well to web browsers and webpages.
| After all there are plenty of malicious webpages out there
| that can do bad things, but we decided that it is fine,
| that's a risk we as society are willing to take. The
| alternative is to allow large organizations like the state
| and corporations to tell us what we can and can't do with
| devices we own and what we can or can't look at.
|
| In conclusion "Information wants to be free."
| xigoi wrote:
| I prefer F-Droid. It would be nice if iOS could have
| something like that too.
| drdeca wrote:
| > You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They
| are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or
| your life.
|
| I don't like what apple is doing here, and am not inclined to
| defend it.
|
| However, I am inclined to complain about this type of rhetoric.
| If invalid criticism are being made, it is appropriate to
| correct those criticisms, even if the criticisms being made are
| criticisms of some vile person or organization.
| dnissley wrote:
| It's super easy to avoid all of this drama: Do not buy an
| iPhone. Almost any other phone will allow you to download and
| install arbitrary programs from any source that offers them.
| It's quite wonderful.
|
| It amazes me that people would rather force apple to open up
| through dubious court cases than simply buy a different device.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Nothing in current smartphone-land beats a Google Pixel
| running GrapheneOS.
|
| Put GrapheneOS on your phone(s) and Qubes OS on PC(s), and
| you have the world's two most secure and owner-respecting
| operating systems in existence today!!!! :^)
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I support Apple not because they need my support, but because
| the supporting argument aligns with my principles. I believe
| that the entire App Store ecosystem _belongs to Apple_ , and
| that none of us have any right to dictate what Apple does with
| it. It's theirs in the same way my organs are mine. Just
| because it happens to be massively successful doesn't change
| this. I'm not a negative utilitarian.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| I'm an app designer and was able to get my PWA to look very
| native. This is my way to avoid the app store fees which are
| absolutely ridiculous. Apps take up too much storage space
| anyways.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I'm extremely familiar with the iOS native components (I even
| made some of them originally). I'd like to see your PWA to see
| if your claim is true.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Sure thing but you have to buy my product first! My approach
| was blending iOS and Android. For example I like the
| hamburger menu for user adoption (very Android) but I like SF
| symbols light forms and weight. So there is a blending of
| forms. Modals and context menus behave as you would expect. I
| didn't do any blurred backdrops. Lastly, a pwa in fullscreen
| mode removes the URL bar even through it runs with chrome!
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Paste the link to your product?
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Sure it's www.petpages.app
| eviks wrote:
| What did you miss in functionality vs a native app?
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Definitely. No haptics sadly. I didn't do any blurred
| backdrops or glassmorphic surfaces. I didn't implement
| material ripple effects. I increases tap targets beyond
| native iOS and Android specs.
| ativzzz wrote:
| Do you do IAP? Stripe or paypal is just slightly more
| inconvenient than Apple pay. Does not being in an app store
| hurt your marketability at all?
| squigglydonut wrote:
| What is IAP? Stripe was very easy. It does hurt my
| marketability you are correct.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Oh in app purchasing. No my product is entirely dependent on
| the user purchasing a physical product. There's no IAP.
| Possibly in the future if users want something that is an
| upsell then I could see that happening. But I would have to
| hear it from users and by that point they would already be in
| my app-store-less ecosystem
| ativzzz wrote:
| Makes sense. One of the benefits of a mobile app is the
| ease of selling things in the app. Of course you can make
| it easy with a webapp too, but you need to handle the
| payment infra yourself and ask for credit card info
| squigglydonut wrote:
| For sure. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it is to
| work with stripe. I am not handling any payment info. I
| don't even host the checkout UI myself it's all done by
| stripe. It is literally a link that I push into the view.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| Caveat: I am not a mobile dev, I don't really have skin in the
| game here. I stay away because App & Play store sound like
| nightmare environments to do business with faceless entities and
| automated bans without appeal.
|
| It really seems to me the best way around this is:
|
| - Don't sell on the Apple store at all with no alternative
| (likely same for Google if your particular gripe is the 30%).
| Stick with web.
|
| - Push more PWAs to your customers. Sounds like Apple is finally
| opening up a bit on that front? Maybe the EU antitrust will open
| the doors wider.
|
| - Sell ONLY on Apple (and again Google), then 15-30% is your
| norm, and you won't feel the "loss" of not having a middleman.
|
| The argument about 30% being standard and OK to me only makes
| sense without the $99/yr license in place, and if only comparing
| to other locked down platforms. E.g. with Steam, there's plenty
| of ways to distribute via Steam and still have them take a lower
| cut, or you have other stores you can sell on. It's only the
| consoles that have the same kind of locked-down environment, but
| even then those are explicitly niche devices whereas phones are
| general-purpose.
| eviks wrote:
| You have skin in the game as a consumer
| deadbabe wrote:
| Why not merely raise prices if the cut Apple takes bothers you so
| much?
| 55555 wrote:
| Google should update the Chrome TOS so that they get 30% of all
| sales placed through Chrome, regardless of payment processor
| used. They're missing out on trillions of dollars and all they
| have to do is update their TOS!
| Hamuko wrote:
| Apple has thankfully figured out that there's good money in
| online sales so they'll in fact get a cut if you buy stuff on
| Safari, although only if you use Apple Pay and even then they
| only get a miniscule 0.15% (or less) cut. I imagine this is
| because they don't have the technology to skim off all
| transactions yet and laws prohibiting excessive processing
| fees.
| riscy wrote:
| Does there exist a payment processor that takes zero cut?
| rahkiin wrote:
| In the Netherlands there are payment processors with a
| fixed cut like 15 cents.
| pcammeraat wrote:
| Mollie?
| rahkiin wrote:
| Yes for ideal. Not for CC of course because of the
| duopoly of visa/mastercard
| virgilp wrote:
| That's only cheaper for payments in excess of 100EUR
| ixaxaar wrote:
| UPI in India has 0 fees, currently doing about 52% of all
| digital transactions in the country.
| riscy wrote:
| That's amazing. Wish we had an equivalent in the US.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I have dreamed of starting a credit card/payment
| processor company that does this, giving users instant
| discounts everywhere they use it. Retailers will bend
| over to move people away from paying % fees.
|
| The problem is that it is extremely capital intensive to
| get it off the ground.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| Apple Pay is not a payment processor, it's a mechanism for
| delivering payment information to a payment processor.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| I'd argue 0.15% is a huge cut for the service they're
| offering. With Apple Pay the payment is still being processed
| by the card scheme, the merchant's acquirer, their bank and
| the user's bank. Each of these charge fees and Apple's cut
| likely comes out of the user's bank's cut, since they are the
| ones co-operating with Apple to get their cards onto Apple
| Pay. In the EU, this fee called interchange fee is limited to
| 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. Imagine if
| Apple managed to negotiate for 50-75% of that. That would be
| ludicrous in my eyes.
| 4pkjai wrote:
| A lot of businesses spend more than 30% of their products cost
| on Google Ads.
|
| I know plenty of people who sell something for $20, and spend
| $30 on Google Ads to get that user to their site.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Those businesses operating at a loss are a tiny fraction of
| the "real economy", even though they may be giants in the
| future.
| vasco wrote:
| Pretty much every VC backed startup for the past 15 years
| uses that model. Startup success is in a large amount "who
| can use internet ads the best".
| ric2b wrote:
| But at least there are alternatives, even if Google is
| dominant in the space.
| burnerburnson wrote:
| What does that have to do with anything? Using Google Ads is
| not a requirement of having your website be accessible
| through Google Chrome. It's not analogous to this situation
| at all.
| xnx wrote:
| Competitors set those prices, not Google.
| lemax wrote:
| All this to allow you to process the payment yourself. This is
| just the industry standard 3% payment processing fee.
| IceHegel wrote:
| Yes, there's a very real sense in which the world is better for
| having had Apple than not. They have made technological life more
| beautiful.
|
| For that reason, people seem strangely committed to defending
| them through their rent-seeking period.
|
| Apple cannot be both a good company and a monopoly.
|
| As their users, we should not accept the false framing and false
| choice their management presents of either monopolistic control
| of the mobile ecosystem or endless spam and a Wild West free-for-
| all.
|
| I do not understand why people's hearts are still drawn to Apple
| as the company of Steve Jobs, when it is clearly something very,
| very different today.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| So as a customer, if you give Apple lots of money for a phone,
| you also give them the right to milk you more through app store
| and commissions. Developers aren't bringing money from home to
| pay Apple, they are paying Apple from what end users pay.
|
| I hope Apple will be forced to allow third party app stores and
| sideloading apps.
| todd3834 wrote:
| It's very interesting to read through the threads. I'm seeing two
| sides of the argument but clearly the majority here are not happy
| about what Apple is doing or anyone who tries to stick up for it.
| I hope people continue to share their perspective. Even if it is
| not popular to the HN crowd because I appreciate a balanced
| discussion.
| laktak wrote:
| If Apple collects a commission here, then why doesn't it collect
| one on advertising in the app?
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| For everyone who thinks Google is some paragon of cooperation and
| openness as compared to Apple, they just got slammed in court
| effectively attempting to call their platform open while paying
| off companies to stay in the Play Store in a very similar case to
| Epic v. Apple. In fact, this was Epic v. Google. Why did Google
| lose and Apple largely win?
|
| Because Apple had always said their platform was closed and were
| up front about it.
|
| Google, on the other hand, called their platform open and then
| engaged in anti-competitive behavior to get the benefits of a
| closed ecosystem.
|
| You might not like Apple's approach, but at least they're up
| front and honest about it.
|
| https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/alphabet-loses-googl...
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't judge people's policies and actions based on what they
| say about them. I judge based on the policies and actions
| themselves.
|
| Apple is demonstrably more closed (which IMO makes them worse)
| than Google on this axis. What they've both said about their
| platforms is irrelevant to me.
| dns_snek wrote:
| This is pointless whataboutism, they're both bad. Google is
| more open as a platform, but sucks in many other ways and Apple
| doesn't get points for being anti-competitive to begin with.
|
| There's nothing "honest" about deceiving your customers and
| hiding a 30% fee with NDAs.
| SLJ7 wrote:
| Apple specifically forbids developers from mentioning the 30%
| cut in their apps. That means either the users pay more, the
| developers lose money, or they do what Netflix did and just
| force the user to figure out how to sign up (because you can't
| direct people to the site either). Apple has completely
| draconian rules that very specifically leave users in the dark
| about how app store revenue works. They are in no way
| transparent with 99% of their customers.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| What would happen if a few big boys like Netflix pulled their
| apps from Apple in protest? Like using Apple's policies to
| indirectly attack Apple through its users.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| The first thing that should be regulated is the app search
| functionality. Randomized results for a given query, max. 1 ad
| supported first entries per page.
| pritambarhate wrote:
| I think all developers should start charging 30% more (op top of
| the price for which it sells on website.) if user is purchasing
| via In App Purchases. Slowly all users will come to know that if
| you buy on web generally it's cheaper and they will change their
| behaviour and IAP sells will drop significantly.
| tommica wrote:
| And I'd guess Apple would make a clause for that, if they don't
| have it already to ban that kind of behaviour.
| az226 wrote:
| but that might not happen because of how onerous the rules are
| for non-IAP. it's an awful user experience, 1) the link isn't
| where you normally buy, 2) you are warned about leaving, 3) you
| get switched to a different app, 4) you then got to log in, 5)
| you got to find what you wanted to buy because no such
| information was carried, and 6) you got to fill out your card
| and billing information. Unless you are buying something very
| expensive, it simply won't be worth it. Especially for
| subscriptions.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Unfortunately we only have to pick between iOS and Android
| devices. Android devices are generally less expensive and maybe
| you have more freedom in some particular situations. Apple
| devices have better CPUs.
|
| What I would like to see instead is more competition in the OS
| market and the hardware to be like PCs: you buy whatever device
| you like and install whatever software you want from wherever you
| want.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I used to get all riled up about these assholes but then took a
| step back, looked at my own usage (which I believe is typical for
| the majority) and realized I didn't purchase an app (or did an
| IAP) in over 5 years.
|
| So let them burn through their goodwill and suck the gambling
| whales dry, why do I need to get my blood pressure up over their
| greed...
| thih9 wrote:
| This feels absurd to the point of comedy. The only thing missing
| is a monkey's paw curling its finger and some ominous voice
| "Epic, be careful what you wish for".
| Gareth321 wrote:
| > Links cannot be placed directly on an in-app purchase screen or
| in the in-app purchase flow.
|
| This and the other rules amount to effective evasion of the
| ruling. If the link isn't allowed under almost all circumstances,
| it's hard to see how Apple is complying in good faith.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| It's clear that countries are going to need to legislate this.
| Existing anti-trust laws are insufficient.
| d3vmax wrote:
| This made sense earlier when the app store started, now with
| abundant bandwidth and reduced cost of hosting, and increase in
| number of developers/apps and other player/markets, they should
| reduce it to 5%. It is like how we treasured 5 mb internet on
| mobile devices, now we use that in a sec.
| bob1029 wrote:
| The solution is very simple for me. Stop participating in the
| native app ecosystems.
|
| The way I see it, you get 2 major pieces of value out of these.
| First, they serve as a B2C marketing channel. Second, they
| provide access to certain native hardware features & OS
| integration.
|
| The first point is difficult to contend with, but HN and Twitter
| seem to serve as a fine counterpoint.
|
| For native hardware access, I'd recommend just trying it in your
| browser right now. You'd likely be surprised what works in 2024
| on iOS/Safari clients. We've been shipping just a webapp to our
| customers for the last 3-4 years now. We do 2D barcode scanning,
| signature capture, etc. without any difficulty these days. You DO
| NOT need a native app to access camera, location, etc. you may
| find some friction with the web, but you just have to work
| through it and have patience.
|
| Watching founders obsess over App Store presence and its
| requisite taxation is a bit of a red flag for me regarding the
| effectiveness of their business model. The open web exists - why
| haven't you even tried it yet? Seems to me it's easier to
| complain about how unfair things are on twitter than it is to
| iterate into a viable business.
| bdcravens wrote:
| The question isn't whether founders have tried the open web,
| but whether they can reach their customers there. Myself, I
| feel that as a developer and a power user I'm far enough
| removed from "regular" users that I don't know the answer to
| the question, I only know it's important to ask it.
| gajnadsgjoas wrote:
| I think it's not that easy, Telegram tried very hard but got
| forced into apple restrictions in web browsers, you can read
| many complaints about it from the founder
| bob1029 wrote:
| Exactly how was telegram forced? Are they trying to operate
| in both pools at the same time?
|
| I am under no legal contracts with Apple, aside from any
| EULAs I may have clicked through for iOS, etc.
| ken47 wrote:
| Imagine a world where laws forced Apple to enable feature an
| Apple-compatible version of the Play Store alongside the App
| Store and vice versa. Likewise with Kindle and any other
| developer that wants to adhere to a legally mandated App Store
| API.
|
| How would that not be a net positive for the mobile device
| ecosystem?
| gigatexal wrote:
| Apple will continue to collect 12 to 27 percent comissions ...
| Apple is the best / ultimate troll. Hilarious.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "Entitlement"
|
| Interesting terminology.
| CodinM wrote:
| This thread has a lot of weird turns I'd not expect.
|
| "All they do is steal 30% from society" - objectively it's for
| providing a service, an infrastructure, a very solid user market,
| a very solid developer experience (you have to build for a
| limited number of iOS versions, you don't have to test on a
| gazillion devices with different flavors of Android), a slightly
| higher income userbase, and a few others.
|
| Seeing the whole thing simply as "theft" boggles my mind,
| especially coming from people working in or around this industry.
| ken47 wrote:
| I see lots of comments about potential alternatives to 30%. But
| the only way to really find new optima is to mandate App Store
| competition. Force Apple and Google to expose the exact API that
| their app stores are using and allow the laws of economics to
| determine the outcome. Even under these conditions, only mega
| corporations and organizations could compete with Google and
| Apple, so it's not utopia, but way better than what we've got.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| Yes Apple is obviously engaging in rent seeking behavior to
| profit off developers. But do they deserve to do so?
|
| First they invented the smart phone and App Store. That gives
| them a right to rent seeking by most people's standards for a
| particular period of time. It's why we have patents. Perhaps you
| think 16 years is a long time but then Mickey Mouse's patent
| expired recently.
|
| Second they managed to stave off competition and still maintain a
| large market share. Smartphones had a large number of companies
| get into this business, including all of big tech at one point
| (remember fire phone?) and yet Apple has not barely managed to
| survive, instead it dominated. That has to count for something.
| The real problem is this society instinctively sides for the
| little guy and against the big guy. Sometimes that makes sense,
| but just like you wouldn't try to change the rules to reduce the
| amount Roger Federer earns, there's no sense in trying to hobble
| a winning dominant company like Apple. Even as a developer (who's
| never worked for Apple), I think developers should just deal with
| it even if it sucks because I prefer a society where winners get
| to win. If your product is good enough, you can make users work
| to pay you and still be a market leader (think Netflix or Kindle
| store, both of which I buy from my browser).
| sschueller wrote:
| "First they invented the smart phone and App Store"
|
| No they did not. The first iPhone was released on June 2007 and
| Apple had no intent to give anybody else the ability to develop
| any app for their phone. In fact Steve Jobs was vehemently
| against any app store.
|
| Apple only introduced app store on the second year of its first
| iPhone launch, one day before release of new iPhone 3G.
|
| Other types of smart phones and app stores existed before
| Apple.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Communicator
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile_2003
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Marketplace
| majani wrote:
| For me the issue is that in a perfect scenario, you would be
| able to adjust your pricing to 30% more and see whether the
| market could bear it. But Apple ties developers to fixed
| pricing tiers which doesn't allow this. Maybe the battle should
| be for removal of these fixed tiers
| amelius wrote:
| This only shows that users still don't fully own their phone.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| > "...the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (US) to
| include a link to the developer's website that informs users of
| other ways to purchase digital goods or services."
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...
|
| I'm guessing Apple were required to provide developers with
| Alternative Payment options and not 'a link to a webpage that
| informs users'...
| mattdesl wrote:
| Can't a developer just add a message to their website to
| circumvent this link tax? "Open this again in any regular browser
| to receive a 27% discount."
|
| I don't see anything that prohibits this:
| https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...
|
| Apple cannot (or, per antitrust law, should not) tell a developer
| how to design and sell their merchandise _in their web based
| storefronts_.
| ing33k wrote:
| Yeah, but will it matter ? It's a mobile native world. That's
| why distribution matters.
| mattdesl wrote:
| If that messaging is allowed, it is a huge change from
| before, where external links for taking payment was not
| allowed at all within an app. A lot of users will probably
| opt for the 27% discount if given the choice.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I think if what youre selling is just app based content apple
| could sue and force an audit. Like if the product is just a
| subscription to the mobile app they could claim that all
| revenue received from that is subject to the fee. But if youre
| selling a more general subscription that can be used on
| different platforms I think this would work.
| markonen wrote:
| Apple's policies for external purchases are hilarous. The only
| goal is to be punitive.
|
| For the External Link Account Entitlement that "reader" apps can
| use to link to purchase flows off-app, Apple _forbids_ offering
| IAP in the same app. Why? Because they think this will discourage
| adoption.
|
| For the new StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement that
| other apps can use for the same exact thing, Apple _requires_ an
| IAP alternative. Why? Because they think this, too, will
| discourage adoption.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Apple isn't a company, it's an economy
| aleksandrvin wrote:
| Should Apple let an alternative way to install ios ipados app
| first, and then mention about devs benefiting from their user
| base?
| Mutjake wrote:
| Probably an unpopular opinion, but as an Apple user it is okay
| for me to pay 30% extra (which I often do instead of using
| Android and getting certain apps for free), so I avoid having to
| sideload Epic/Facebook/whatnot stuff from their own mandatory app
| store + having the hassle of figuring out if there's a
| subscription model and how difficult it is to terminate, how to
| handle refunds, what darkpattern analytics are included in the
| appstore binary etc. etc.
|
| If you need certain amount of money per user for the product to
| be profitable, raise the price to account for Apple's cut. But
| please do not force me to install app stores from companies which
| have their lifeblood in data brokering my life. At least I have
| an understanding with Apple that if they go haywire with that
| stuff (like it was close with the whole CSAM scanning debacle
| which damaged my trust in Apple and I started considering
| alternatives) they will lose my hardware purchases as well.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| This is such a common talking point, the "hassle of side-
| loading app stores and the insecurity of trusting them (for
| permissions enforcement)," that I wonder if some PR firm out
| there was hired and this talking point is showing up everywhere
| so people subconsciously think it's consensus and start
| parroting it themselves (why I'm now seeing it and responding)!
| The application security model is at the OS level and not the
| app store level (which is really just a dressed up branded
| package manager, and has been done forever in GNU-land).
| Mikho wrote:
| The real problem with the Apple Tax -- it ruins value-chain and
| makes it uneconomical
|
| For every value created a customer receives there is value
| captured by a company paid by this customer. Let's say a company
| creates a service valued as 1X by the customer and the customer
| pays 1X for that. This balance guarantees accessibility and
| interest among many customers.
|
| Apple tax demands for a customer to pay 1.43X for the same value
| of 1X (0.43 = 30% of 1.43). It means that the balance is ruined
| and customers do not get enough value for what they pay. In
| value, they still get 1X despite paying for 1.43X.
|
| There is a price elasticity curve that measures how many clients
| a company loses after each step of the price increase. In other
| words, a company gets significantly fewer customers due to the
| increased price at the same time, it's unable to benefit from an
| additional 0.43X customers paid. A drop in the revenue is
| significant. At the same time, the company needs to increase its
| marketing budget effectively decreasing its margin even more.
| That makes business unsustainable.
|
| Imagine what a decrease in purchases a product gets if its price
| is increased by 43%. This ruins all economic assumptions of a
| business.
|
| Not to mention that if it has any network effect, significantly
| fewer users result in a degraded experience for all users.
|
| I'm considering using PWA for the next mobile app and not
| investing in native iOS development. Even 50% fewer users due to
| PWA installation is better than being a lifetime slave to Apple
| which extorts 43% of what a company gets after Apple TAX from a
| user.
| nojvek wrote:
| Don't forget the $100 tax just to be part of ecosystem. I paid
| that twice but didn't get the apps approved. Learnt my lesson.
| gretch wrote:
| I applaud you taking personal action and voting with your
| wallet / dev cycles.
|
| > it ruins value-chain and makes it uneconomical
|
| This is empirically not true. If the value-chain is so 'ruined'
| and 'uneconomical'. Why are there so many iOS devs? Lots of
| people are participating in the system and lots of people are
| getting rich.
|
| Examples of truly uneconomical ecosystems are Windows Phone and
| Blackberry - which is why all the devs left and those platforms
| are dead.
| evanmoran wrote:
| I don't believe you're accurate. All apps that could charge
| money through Apple payments stopped doing so long ago and
| now are "free" with an external subscription or ads: Netflix,
| Amazon Prime, Microsoft Office, Slack, Google Docs/Drive,
| Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Hey Email, etc. Only
| free-to-play games / gambling / scam apps stayed in the App
| Store, and the rest are gone.
| mmcnl wrote:
| It depends on what you consider "value". Apple would argue the
| distribution through the App Store is part of the value chain.
| I think the real issue here is that Apple demands 30% always.
| 30% might be the "distribution value" for small indie devs, but
| it probably decreases once the developer is big enough and
| their products are well known (Epic/Fortnite, Spotify). Then it
| becomes just a tax that indeed skews the price-elasticity
| curve.
| realusername wrote:
| > Imagine what a decrease in purchases a product gets if its
| price is increased by 43%. This ruins all economic assumptions
| of a business.
|
| That's exactly why the apps succeeding financially on the play
| store and app store are casino-like games.
| joshspankit wrote:
| There's a lot to talk about but I'm calling this out as trivial,
| easy, and in bad faith:
|
| > No redirecting, intermediate links, or URL tracking parameters
| are allowed.
|
| It's 100% clear to me that the link they let you use will be a
| redirected intermediate link through Apple's servers, probably
| with tracking params (and at the very least with OS-level
| tracking).
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I am not that happy with this.
|
| From a legal perspective and the size of Apple I understand why
| this happened and for the most part I fully agree with the legal
| arguments.
|
| I went with Android for a well over a decade and it was fun. So
| many things I could do with it and so many ways to fiddle with it
| even rooting it. My nerd in me like that.
|
| I had an iPhone for a while and the lack of customizations and
| fiddling was quite annoying, switched back, then a few years ago
| I went and got an iPhone for reals (I mean fully knowing what I
| was giving up).
|
| I was tired of all the Android problems. I didn't enjoy fiddling
| anymore I had no longer an interest in rooting it. and I was
| pissed off about 6000 different Android implementations and how
| older phones lost Android updates quickly leaving plausible
| security vulnerabilities.
|
| (I suppose Google phones get all the updates for a long time).
| and usually, one vendor would make their own "enhancements" to
| the OS anyways.
|
| I became the enemy and embraced the walled garden, the shitty
| game of move your new app icon around and around to try to fit it
| where you want it, more expensive hardware/cables etc. In my
| opinion there is less shit in the app store as well.
|
| As long as the sideloading and whatever else does not impact my
| phone as long as I dont do it myself I am fine with it. It it
| leads to more vulnerabilities and other problems for everyone I
| dont like it.
|
| It is not the 100% great mobile phone. (hello my classic BB), and
| at times inconvenient but I prefer a nice walled garden and
| limits on what I can do.
|
| I also prefer all my family and friends to be on the iPhone, if
| and only if I know I will be providing endless technical support
|
| "uh you need to fix my cellphone!" > ok.,. what phone do you
| have? Well its a model XXX from YYY company about 4 years old. >
| Do you know what version of Android its running? 1 Sure its the
| VVV version customized for YYY but it has not been updated for
| over year. > Buy an iPhone.
|
| another day
|
| "uh you need to fix my cellphone!" > ok.,. what phone do you
| have? " uh it is an iPhone 10" > great. > what is the problem?
|
| 1 In real life there is no way the people I provide with
| unwilling endless technical support would have even a small
| inkling of what OS it is running. but it fit the made-up dialog.
| mzs wrote:
| Apple just admitted that 3% is the reasonable cost for bandwidth
| and service related to an online storefront and that their margin
| is huge.
| SLJ7 wrote:
| No, 3% is just Apple accounting for credit card processing
| fees. It will end up costing developers roughly the same
| whether they use alternative payment methods or not, which is
| obviously Apple's plan.
| nojvek wrote:
| The browser paradigm may be the most open platform we have. I can
| go to any website, download whatever I want and not pay tax to
| some central authority.
|
| I can inspect the dom, scripts run on my device, the network. Set
| adblockers and script filters.
|
| None of those freedoms are available on smartphone apps. As a dev
| you pay the trillion dollar mega corps, as a consumer you also
| pay to them.
|
| The app paradigm could have been as open as the web, but we voted
| with our dollars for a walled garden with 30% tax.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| And you wonder about the corrosive influence of billionaires
| giving lavish vacations to SCOTUS judges and senators who accept
| gold bars from foreign governments affects legal rulings or
| legislation presented spoon-fed by lobbyists. Of course the Apple
| mafia will still get a cut of something they don't deserve
| because the law and the legislature are on their side.
| beretguy wrote:
| People should completely abandon app development and make PWAs
| instead.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| I designed and built my PWA. You just have to define a manifest
| and set an empty service worker. Boom now your mobile responsive
| app is a PWA. PWA can look exactly like native app if you are
| careful with the design. There are navigation patterns that users
| expect. Make sure to dial in the information hierarchy and design
| modals correctly. Use familiar iconography and use type that
| works at small point sizes. This is basic mobile design
| regardless of platform.
|
| Firefox hooks into the Android type display settings. I would
| like to see chrome support this. It really adds to the app feel.
|
| When you make a PWA you have to remake native components.
| Material Design 3 Web Components is not done yet. Apple has
| nothing for you so just set your border radius to 17px or
| whatever they use. Backdrop filter blurs.
|
| You don't get the advertising from the app and play store. You
| don't get discoverability. However, discoverability is a
| marketing function. If your acquisition costs are under 30% of
| your product fees then there is no reason why you can't drive
| users to your mobile optimized website.
| mentos wrote:
| Curious to know what frameworks you are using?
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Nextjs and native browser components that I style in ways
| that are familiar to mobile app users. So like ,<input> and
| you use CSS to give it 8px border radius and 48px height.
| Since I'm going for a material style with an iOS feel I mix
| the forms. Another example is I use a hamburger menu but I
| use sf symbols light "icon" as an SVG.
| square_usual wrote:
| SF Symbols are copyrighted. You should be careful about
| your usage of them in a non-Apple-approved manner.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Yes I know. Show me exactly what you are referring to.
| squigglydonut wrote:
| My PWA is used on Apple products and I developed it with
| the intent of being used on Apple Products. I cannot
| control if a user uses a non Apple product. I cannot be
| expected to restrict what products my users use to access
| my product.
|
| Added: I will also add that the icons I'm using are very
| basic. Found in many ui kits. The minus symbol, arrows,
| trash can. The only one that is recognizable to the
| trained eye is that I'm use the copy symbol (two pages).
| So if it's going to be an issue for that one I would be
| fine to use something from Google. I just want Apple to
| know that I'm on team Apple. I want people to use Apple
| products. When they come out with SwiftUI Kit for web, I
| will be the first user. For a product like mine, most
| users are iphone users.
| pritambaral wrote:
| Is it still true that iOS PWAs cannot be opened with a link
| (except from a notification pushed to the app).
| squigglydonut wrote:
| Interesting. Can you explain more about exactly when that
| happens? I can test it with mine.
| bob1029 wrote:
| In a B2B setting, this whole class of issues can be resolved
| with basic endpoint management. For some of our customers, we
| use InTune to push our PWAs as homescreen icons to enrolled
| iOS devices. Other customers dont even care about the icon
| being done automagically. Their users will either open safari
| directly (gasp) or will setup the icon however they prefer.
| politician wrote:
| > [3% discount]
|
| > Apps that use the StoreKit External Purchase Link must continue
| to offer in-app purchases as an option.
|
| This is worthless. I cannot believe a court allowed Apple to get
| away with such a useless remedy.
| kesavvaranasi wrote:
| I don't understand why Apple is asking for a commission if the
| developer is implementing their own payment flow. If Apple is
| still mandating that you offer in-app purchase as an option
| alongside a custom payment flow, then Apple charging a commission
| for both options seems excessive.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| I think DOJ lawsuit will be interesting.
| CountSessine wrote:
| At some point I guess Apple will have to give up the 30% and
| instead charge more directly for their costs associated with
| running the App Store, namely hosting costs (probably very small)
| and the cost of testing and reviews (probably larger). If there
| are competitive App Store's, that where all of the free software
| will wind up.
| anonymous344 wrote:
| How is an has been okay all this time for example Trello in the
| app store? Users subsribe to it's paid-tiers only from their
| website
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-17 23:01 UTC)