Implications of third-party payment processing on iOS and Android
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
In my experience, it’s only two specific types of people who want their phones to work significantly more like PCs, permission-wise. The first group is comprised of the technically-savvy — like many of you reading this — who feel confident in their own ability to gauge the trustworthiness of third-party software. The second group is business-minded people, who are thinking only about what percentage of purchases goes to whom, and are only thinking about the money.
I suspect he’s dead right about the demographics there, at least. (I’m sure opinions here will differ on whether those elite groups have the right idea or not.)
Case in point: did you know you can subscribe to DuoLingo online and save dollars a month? But Apple’s abusive “anti steering” rules mean developers can’t hint at it from within the app. We the users have had 3rd party purchases already and nothing’s burst into flames.
Non-technical people would expect to download the Kindle app and be able to buy books, or download Netflix and buy a subscription, or Subscribe to a Twitch streamer. They don't know why the apps lack these obvious features, but if they did, they'd at least be thinking “Boy, I sure wish iPhone apps and games could ask me for my credit card number to make purchases"