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Comment by shubhamjain | Hacker News Reader

So Apple wants a 30% cut on the money that could easily go to small business owners and artists. A $2T company that makes tens of billions in profit every year can't help being as extractive as it can in the middle of pandemic when everyone is struggling.

How can anyone be okay with this blatant abuse of power? How does it matter if the event is online or offline. If it's happening on a Zoom call or in a coffee shop. Apple isn't just harming big companies like Fortnite, it's harming individual creators. If this isn't case for anti-trust, I don't know what is.

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Apple has improved the experience of phone and software for elderly folks and kids by giving them the Apple choice, where before if you wanted to use Microsoft Office, you either did it Microsoft's way or you don't use Microsoft Office (!).

Facebook can still communicate anything they want to customers through the channels <they> pay for. Facebook is also free to pursue any kind of financial arrangement they want with customers via channels which they can maintain and pay for.

But now through Apple's way, folks can have a one-stop shop to manage any runaway subscriptions, which is an unprecedented consumer benefit. Now folks don't need to maintain 10 different financial relationships... merely because they have 10 apps.

Before consumers only had one choice. Now they have two — Microsoft's way, or Apple's way. I'm still struggling to see how this hurts <consumers>, as opposed to the overarching story that Apple takes Very Good care of their customers. Without Apple in the middle, the Microsoft and Adobe's of the world each already have enough power to force customers to do things their way.

Yeah, but in this instance we’re talking about Facebook. I could care less about what Apple charges them. I do feel for indie developers and don’t support the 30% fee, but in the case of $FB (or zoom) allow me to introduce you to the world’s tiniest violin...

Also, I’m sure FB is only piling on because of the privacy changes to iOS which harm FB’s core advertising business. FB would charge 30% in a heart beat.

Again, I would do away with the 30% fee, but please find me someone other than Facebook to feel sorry for.

This money isn't going to facebook though? Facebook doesn't even take a cut of it. I imagine fb's intentions were to let the customer know that if 30% of the effective donation/payment had not gone to the recipient it wasn't fb taking a cut.

Abuse of power? They have guidelines every developer must follow. Give one a break, what about the rest?

Let the rest go as well. Would it kill Apple to make an exception for charitable purchases?

And even if they don't make an exception, it's ridiculous that they wont even let developers be transparent about where the money goes.

It's nothing but exploitive to keep online events in the same category as in-app purchases. There is a cost to conducting an event—offline or online. Secondly, Apple is well-aware that creators can't conduct offline events that easily because of the pandemic. Hiding behind "it's-rules" is just a trademark of an Evil Corp.

Change the guidelines? Defending a company with "they are following the rules they themselves have written" is so bizarrely common.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamewar style comments to HN. These threads are getting exceedingly repetitive. They're also getting nastier. We don't want those qualities here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I’m being downvoted flagged and accused of “flamewar“ for simply saying that Apple has a set of rules developers must follow and they can’t make exceptions otherwise where would it end?

Actually I think I misread your comment. I thought "Give one a break" was snark, but you were talking about developers. Sorry!

Ah I can see that now :)

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