For me, that's a pretty good deal. I could never do this on my own. Any other provider would probably take the same cut for that kind of service.
Too bad we'll never know because Apple prevents the competition on their platform!
Maybe, just maybe, running a well-curated app store is just something that is expensive.
Like, 30% is a crazy amount to take, at the scale they operate at.
Are you trying to claim that Apple and Google are each running a "well curated" app store?
The benefit is that it could be a solution for the app discovery issues that currently come from having a single App Store with a single search interface. Users with specialized interests or needs can subscribe to smaller third party app stores as they see fit. There would be competition in app discovery. More customization in user experiences. Variety in editorial control.
It's a bit akin to reversing the current state of the web where giant closed sites such as Facebook or Google are single-entry points, and going back to the past where there were web communities and webrings. A Neocities for apps would be neat.
To be fair, Steam also was collecting 30% fees (I believe they have reduced recently, mostly because of pressure from Epic), so from this point of view it's not better than Apple.
I use 3 different stores on my phone for example.
Of course, an average person doesn't need that many. I use fdroid for sensitive apps (I can verify an app build there compared to playstore) and some developers provide apps without google services framework on froid as an alternative to their playstore version.
A price that has nothing to do with costs is a monopoly rent; in a competitive market marginal prices are driven down to marginal economic costs by competition.
Is f-droid magic?
The Kindle store doesn't take 30%.
No one is saying Apple shouldn't offer the service, or that it's not a good service, or even that Apple shouldn't charge 15%. If you think Apple do a good job and offer value for money then you should use their service and pay what they charge.
The only thing people want is the opportunity to use a competing service. That's it.
If you don't like it, then feel free to vote for something else (but if you lose the vote, thought luck), or move to a different country. Your choice.
It’s laughably naive to think this is about individual citizens voting for completion law.
Actually, a judge already found that at least some of Apple's practices were anti-competitive, and order them to stop.
So yes, in at least one trial, some of Apple's actions were declared anti-competitive.
> voting for completion law
This thread is actually literally about a law that was created. And more laws are being created right now, in south korea, the EU, and the USA, and those laws would require Apple to change more of it's behavior.
But also, as I mentioned before, a judge literally already found some of Apple's behavior to be illegally anti competitive.
They were ordered to stop only the narrowest of behaviors.
If you think that means you can just claim any practice of theirs is anti-competitive then you don’t understand.
I didn't say "any" practices. I said some.
So yes, some of Apple's practices were anti-competitive.
Apple has to win on every single count, otherwise it is a loss compared to the status quo, because that is 1 less thing they are allowed to do.
So yes, Apple is at the stage where already "some" of it's practices have been declared anti-competitive. And more lawsuits and laws are happening or being drafted.
In fact, the Open Apps Market app just went through the senate committee yesterday, in a rare bipartisan 20 to 2 decision, which would force sideloading of alternate App stores, I believe.
If that law passes, it is game over for Apple on this subject.
If that passes, there is basically nothing Apple can do to prevent everyone from completely bypassing the 30% fee.
Yes, but that’s irrelevant. It doesn’t mean their practices have been declared as such in some general way. If you want to discuss the specifics of that case, by all means do so, otherwise it’s just dishonest to pretend they are relevant.
As for what passed the committee - it’s possible that may indeed allow people to bypass the 15% fee (please don’t lie about it being 30% - that is only for a small number of developers).
It will also have all kinds of damaging impacts that make life harder for smaller developers, so it’s not a win for anyone except some larger scammy operators.
In any case, a committee vote is a long way from legislation. It’s unlikely to pass judicial review even if it passes both houses of Congress, which is also unlikely.
Huh. It's almost like pressuring apple with legal action forced them to lower their fees. That's pretty nice. Sounds like we need to more of that.
> pretend they are relevant.
It is relevant because it supports my general point that every loss for apple, is one less thing that they can do, and that there are a bunch of ways that they are being attacked, on many fronts.
Apple has to win on everything, or it is a loss, compared to nothing happening.
> It’s unlikely to pass judicial review
People are not making any significant arguments that the law is illegal or unconstitutional. Laws aren't unconstitutional just because you don't like them.
These types of laws are attempting to be passed in lots of countries. So no, all of these laws everywhere, that lots of countries are trying to pass, are not all illegal.
> that make life harder for smaller developers
Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
Don’t be silly. The bill only passed committee last week. Arguments over constitutionality will come in due course.
> These types of laws are attempting to be passed in lots of countries. So no, all of these laws everywhere,
No they aren’t.
> that lots of countries are trying to pass, are not all illegal.
That remains to be seen.
> that make life harder for smaller developers Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
This simply isn’t true.
If a developer has to negotiate with a multitude of different stores, each with different rules, their life will be harder.
Given that the alternative is to lose access to customers, it’s the small developers who will be harmed most by this.
These bills are supported by giant corporations who want to run their own stores. It’s just about them taking a cut, and has nothing to do with consumers or small developers.
Which means that you have absolutely no justification for the law being illegal. You just don't like it, and are reaching for whatever things that you can, without any justification.
> That remains to be seen.
This is code for "I have absolutely no good arguments, or any legal justification, for why it is illegal, I just want to assert that it is illegal because I don't like it!".
Because if you had good arguments you would have said them.
So I have no idea why you are making these strong claims that it is very unlikely that it will pass constitutional review, when your only justification is "that remains to be seen".
> No they aren’t.
Yes they are. Go look up the EU tech laws that they are attempting to pass. They include a similar provision, that would force other app stores on the platform.
You are pretty misinformed if you didn't know that there was a big EU tech law, that they are attempting to write and pass right now.
> This is code for "I have absolutely no good arguments, or any legal justification, for why it is illegal, I just want to assert that it is illegal because I don't like it!".
Saying my argument is something I didn’t write is just a dishonest and lazy move. What I wrote isn’t code for anything. You seem to be unable to handle my points as they were written.
You also didn’t respond to my rebuttal of your actual position. Let’s try again:
> that make life harder for smaller developers Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
This simply isn’t true.
If a developer has to negotiate with a multitude of different stores, each with different rules, their life will be harder.
Given that the alternative is to lose access to customers, it’s the small developers who will be harmed most by this.
These bills are supported by giant corporations who want to run their own stores. It’s just about them taking a cut, and has nothing to do with consumers or small developers.
Since you are not quick on the uptake to figure out what I was saying, I will spell it out explicitly.
When I said it was a "code", I didn't literally mean that you were speaking in code, like some sort of cryptographic secret language. Instead I was making fun of you, for asserting that the laws were illegal, without any actual justification.
You originally stated "It’s unlikely to pass judicial review". And you just asserted it. With no justification.
And then later, when I pressed you on it, your only justification, for why you think these laws are illegal is "That remains to be seen.". Which isn't an argument for why the laws might be illegal.
I was assuming that when you said "It’s unlikely to pass judicial review", that you might actually have a reason for why you think the law is illegal, other than "That remains to be seen.". But I guess I was wrong on thinking that you had a reason.
You had no actual reason or justification, for why these laws could be illegal, even though there are multiple laws, attempting to be passed in all sorts of countries, such as the EU, which you were wrong about.
You just said it was illegal, and said we'll have to wait to find out, lol. Thats not a reason, because you don't have any.
So you’ve now wasted comment after comment merely ‘making fun of’ that opinion without adding any substance. I assume that’s because you aren’t really sure of your position.
Perhaps this is just bluster to distract us from the fact that you didn’t respond to my rebuttal of your actual position. Let’s try again:
> that make life harder for smaller developers Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
This simply isn’t true.
If a developer has to negotiate with a multitude of different stores, each with different rules, their life will be harder.
Given that the alternative is to lose access to customers, it’s the small developers who will be harmed most by this.
These bills are supported by giant corporations who want to run their own stores. It’s just about them taking a cut, and has nothing to do with consumers or small developers.
So then you have asserted this, without any reason at all, which was my entire point. You have no reason or justification for thinking that the law is illegal. You just said "Its illegal, and I have no reason why I think that!".
And before you say it, when I said that Quote, I am not literally saying that you said those words, instead I am saying how you didn't give a reason, and just asserted that it was illegal, with no justification.
> So you’ve now wasted comment
When you make a completely unsubstantiated comment, with no justification, it is important to keep it on point, so that you don't just shrug your shoulders and ignore it. Because you have made multiple false statements, and then when I point out the false statements, you just ignore that.
You similarly disagreed with me, that there were other countries trying to pass similar laws, by just saying "no they aren't", when actually they are, and you can easily google these EU laws that people are writing.
When you keep on making completely false statements like that, it is important to point out, so that you are aware of how little you know about this topic.
> So then you have asserted this, without any reason at all, which was my entire point. You have no reason or justification for thinking that the law is illegal. You just said "Its illegal, and I have no reason why I think that!".
No I didn’t say it’s illegal. Where did I say that?
I said I expect that it won’t pass judicial review. That is what I expect.
> Because you have made multiple false statements, and then when I point out the false statements, you just ignore that.
You haven’t pointed out a single false statement. It seems like you’re just descending into outright lies now.
If you can quote a false statement I made rather that making one up, then I’ll reconsider that opinion.
It seems like you are are just lying to distract from the fact that you didn’t respond to my rebuttal of your actual position.
Let’s try again:
> that make life harder for smaller developers Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
This simply isn’t true.
If a developer has to negotiate with a multitude of different stores, each with different rules, their life will be harder.
Given that the alternative is to lose access to customers, it’s the small developers who will be harmed most by this.
These bills are supported by giant corporations who want to run their own stores. It’s just about them taking a cut, and has nothing to do with consumers or small developers.
Ok, so expect that it will be declared illegal. As in, "it won’t pass judicial review". That is what I meant by that statement.
I am saying that you are claiming that " it won’t pass judicial review", but you didn't give a reason or justification for why that would be case.
> You haven’t pointed out a single false statement
The most obvious false statement, would be the one that I just quoted of you, in that post. Which would be when you said "no they aren't", in response to me, when I said that other countries were trying to pass similar laws.
A similar law, would be the EU laws that are being written right now. So that is the false statement. It would be how you were not aware of those similar EU laws.
> If you can quote a false statement
The quote is "No they aren't", in response to my statements about these EU laws. I literally quoted that in my previous post.
I don’t think the EU laws are similar. That is another opinion.
Neither of these statements are false. You may disagree with my opinions but it’s delusional to confuse opinion with fact.
You are lying when you say I’m making false statements. to distract from the fact that you didn’t respond to my rebuttal of your actual position.
Let’s try again:
> that make life harder for smaller developers Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
This simply isn’t true.
If a developer has to negotiate with a multitude of different stores, each with different rules, their life will be harder.
Given that the alternative is to lose access to customers, it’s the small developers who will be harmed most by this.
These bills are supported by giant corporations who want to run their own stores. It’s just about them taking a cut, and has nothing to do with consumers or small developers.
So an opinion with absolutely no stated reason or justification. Thats my point. It is entirely unjustified, with no stated reason for it.
> I don’t think the EU laws are similar.
So then you are not aware of the EU laws being considered and written right now, that would force Apple and Google to allow competing app stores, and allow people to bypass the Apple fee.
That is the missing piece of information, that you do not have, that makes your statement false.
>So an opinion with absolutely no stated reason or justification. Thats my point. It is entirely unjustified, with no stated reason for it.
So you you knew it was an opinion and lied when you called it a false statement.
>> I don’t think the EU laws are similar.
>> So then you are not aware of the EU laws being considered and written right now, that would force Apple and Google to allow competing app stores, and allow people to bypass the Apple fee.
You are delusional if you think you know what I am or am not aware of.
> That is the missing piece of information, that you do not have,
As I say, you are delusional if you think you know whether I have that information or not.
> that makes your statement false.
No, it just makes it your opinion that the bills are similar, and my opinion that they are not.
This bizarre obsession is clearly just to distract from responding to my rebuttal of your actual position. Let’s try again:
> that make life harder for smaller developers Nobody is making the Apple App store illegal. Those developers can continue to use that, if they prefer it. It is just other companies can choose something else if they want.
This simply isn’t true.
If a developer has to negotiate with a multitude of different stores, each with different rules, their life will be harder.
Given that the alternative is to lose access to customers, it’s the small developers who will be harmed most by this.
These bills are supported by giant corporations who want to run their own stores. It’s just about them taking a cut, and has nothing to do with consumers or small developers.
I don't make much of distinction between an opinion, and making a statement. I only went with that, because apparently calling it an "opinion" is important to you, for reasons that are a mystery.
I am happy to call it an "opinion" because my main point is not whether it is a statement, or an opinion, of which I don't care or make much of a distinction, my main point is that you still did not give any reason or justification for it.
> whether I have that information or not.
Well since I just mentioned it, I now know that you are aware that the EU is working on laws that allow alternative apps stores.
And if you are aware of it, then your statements, or opinions, or whatever you want to call them, are false, because that is a pretty clear similarity.
People as in consumers? 99% of Apple consumers don’t care about this drama. They just want to click and install an app that’s safe, vetted, and no one will steal their credit card.
Same as I don’t care when digitally buying PlayStation games. I don’t care how much Sony charges developers to be on their marketplace, and I don’t want to use alternative stores with additional places where I have to put in my credit card or ask for refunds.
At the moment there's no point in caring. You don't have a choice, so why worry about it?
You have to remember that you, as someone who doesn't care about alternative stores and wouldn't switch, aren't the market for an alternative store. This is about other people and their freedom to choose. Arguing that the Apple iOS store works for you and therefore it should work for everyone else is not how free markets work.
There were more options in the past.
There was Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Nokia, Symbian, etc.
But when Apple came to market, they made such an excellent device, along with great developer and consumer experience, that developers agreed for 30% cut and most decided to ditch developing for other platforms, and consumers decided to ditch other now "shitty" phones where they couldn't download their favourite apps for.
Microsoft released great phones, but still had issues with software. They tried solving that with throwing money at developers, but developers still didn't want to develop for Windows Phone.
Developers played crucial part in the last 10 years to form the market where we are today.
And suddenly in 2022, after playing on the same terms for the last 10 years, an access to a marketplace with 1+ billion active users needs to be a free, basic human right that everyone cries for.
Why would a business transaction between you and a third party necessarily involve Apple being a payment option?
And you are a participant of this marketplace, because Apple spent billions on R&D and ended up being so good, that developers and consumers abandoned other platforms in droves.
Apple also smoked previous multibillion competitors (BlackBerry and Nokia) into shame, and they’re now part of history and MBA lectures on how a young and innovative player can kill your slow and boring business in a short time.
That’s why Apple is a market leader, with the best vertically integrated hardware and software devices, as well as a marketplace with billion people that both devs and consumers eagerly want to be part of.
The same marketplace developers agreed to join by paying up 30% of revenue 10+ years ago, while abandoning Windows Phone and others, and playing part in the shaping the market where it is today.
And suddenly developers cry wolf that it’s a basic human right to have access to a marketplace with 1 billion people for free, which they played active part in building.
It is not "giving access" to third parties, it is restricting them from accessing my phone unless they use Apple's preferred software distribution method.
The fact that they were in the right place at the right time with the right fashion and right look and feel to capture this market does not entitle them to perpetually profit from it. And I do say "happened to", because the iPhone had nothing other than chance going for it, and it was simply an idea whose time had come. Several others were developing smartphones at the same time, such as Nokia, LG, and Google's Android. Apple had better and faster execution, much better marketing, and luck.
It seems to me that Verizon and others are in a state of perpetually profiting their consolidation of companies that were in the "right place at the right time."
Would you agree with this? If so, do you think these companies are making outsized profits given lack of entitlement?
How would you craft policy that would cover not just the Apple but other companies like wireless carriers?
Separately, you mention Mentor Graphics above. Did you mean to refer to chip-level design tool software?
Still, this seems like a separate problem to me - one is consolidation of different service providers into fewer ones; the other is extending your market position in one space (smartphones as hardware) into another (smartphone software). I doubt the exact same legislation could cover both, as acquiring/merging with competitors is different from creating your own market monopoly.
I don't know enough about how these things can exactly be regulated to propose actual legislation. I can only say that the current situation is bad and getting worse, and that allowing huge mergers, and allowing companies to control all activity on the hardware they sell, are both negatives that need to be legislated somehow.
> Separately, you mention Mentor Graphics above. Did you mean to refer to chip-level design tool software?
Yes, it was the first thing that came to my mind as Unix-based commercial software. Honestly, I have no idea if it actually runs on a Mac, but the exact software was immaterial to my point, so I didn't do too much research.
And while I could use F-droid on an Android, I would lose access to important software that clings to the Play Store, such as MS Office support and many banking apps - though, admittedly, that is a different issue to tackle and less Google's fault. And I'm not referring to the fact that they may simply be unlisted there, but the fact that they will refuse to run unless the phone is locked down using Play services.
Edit: Not to mention, the point is to improve the iPhone (and Android phones), not just to seek for alternatives. We can look at as system and decide as a society that we want to do better, we don't have to wait until someone provides that better thing and then "vote with our wallets".
That's 5 million people who do care then, considering 500 million iPhone users (which is a conservative number).
There are alternatives there.
An analogy would be, creating a product and getting on store shelves. You pay the store owner a percentage of each sale, in order to be sold in the store
Apple is not a government, they should not be able or allowed to levy taxes.
The fact that I went to your school does not give you a right to a chunk of my lifelong income, the fact that you once sold me a tool doesn't either and so on.
If there is no performance there is no right to invoice. The only entities that can do that legally are called governments, which - incidentally - Apple is doing their damnest to not pay taxes.
It is just absolutely ludicrous to get big on the back of a giant and then to start complaining. Just get big without it that is what you wish.
Re tax evasion: EVERY mid-sized company in Europe that I have worked for has elaborate tax evasions schemes in place, mainly by having other entities in countries like Luxembourg.
It's the fact that the EU tolerates places like Luxembourg an Ireland that this happens. No one talks about it because it's just better for headline to go for the big Californian names.
Seriously though, how you get started is immaterial, you should be free to change service providers, especially service providers that are price gouging you when you feel that you can no longer justify their cut.
As for the tax avoidance (not evasion, that's an important distinction here), yes all the big guys do it, but that does not make it right and if Apple were to actually pay their taxes I would see that as them at least understanding the pain of having to pay a good chunk of your income every year.
I pay my taxes and contribute to my community through them, Apple siphons off a very large chunk of the worlds wealth into the pockets of a very small number of shareholders and now wants to argue that they have an unassailable claim to 30% of the income of other companies. And I strongly disagree with that.
If they charged between 1 and 5% for their service that would be fine by me, but it would still not give them an automatic right to this fee, they would have to compete with everybody else.
Anti competitive behavior has one clear and common thread running through it the world over: an element of abuse and that is clearly present here.
I believe we have a fundamentally different world view, so I am not sure if it makes sense to continue debating.
I believe in meritocracy. Apple put hard, hard work into building an ecosystem of 1.8 bn active devices. I believe they are entitled to reap the benefits and not let any upstart compete with them as they wish.
The rent seekers are the inheritors of a machine that they themselves did not build (the shareholders of Apple), and who are taking away a good chunk of income of those whose products people wish to use, a sure sign of merit.
So you don't believe in meritocracy, you believe in perpetually inherited wealth.
Meritocracy would mean that, at any point in time, whoever is the best at doing something should rise to the top. Maintaining someone else's advantage because they were the best at some previous point in time actively works against a meritocracy.
This is like saying that nobility is a form of meritocracy, as Queen Elizabeth II's great great great grandmother put hard, hard work into building an empire, so she should now entitled to reap the benefits, not let some upstart president of a colony compete with her as they wish.
This is about access to marketplace with 1+ billion people for a vertically integrated device that cost billions of R&D money.
Same as if you want your SaaS to be on Shopify or Salesforce store. You'll pay a cut to be there. Because Shopify and Salesforce offer you access to their customers to install your app in 1 click.
The drop to 15% took too long. But it’s here now. If the Epics of the world want to enlist/manipulate the suffering of the “little guy,” they really can’t anymore.
Only thanks to the Epics of this world.
The value that Apple provides for the smaller developers is immense, you don't actually see small developers complaining about Apple(with exception to those who were sherlocked maybe) but you see multi billion corporations pretending to be advocating for the little guy.
I'm very annoyed by all this, I'm afraid that they will win and solo developers will lose any chance to make it big without getting screwed by large publishers.
Can you please stop saving the small developers from Apple? Thank you.
And they are.
The little guys won't stand up to 30% of their gross taken but the big guys can and do. As a result after all the lawsuits have run their course Apple will be charging a much lower fee in the hopes of regaining their payment processing marketshare.
The answer of course is that different businesses have different margins. For some, even paying 99% commission to Apple would not break the business, as they have such great margins that even getting 1% of each sale would still leave them profitable. For others, even a 1% commission is too much, as they have such low margins even losing 1% of sales price makes them unprofitable.
For any set price, some business models are excluded from the App Store, for better or for worse.
I want to know if this is your gut feeling or do you know something concrete.
Thanks.
There is plenty of competition in the payment processing space.
When you take the card companies' cut into account the fees are even lower for the transaction processing.
I wonder how all of those defending Apple in this thread would respond if they jacked up the prices to say 75%. And why stop there?
I've been running an international business for a couple of decades and this has never been a problem at all.
I'm asking legitimate question, I'm puzzled by your dismissive tone. How do you sell software and services in 175 countries for less work and commission than Apple's service?
Good for you that you are running international business for a couple a decade know, would you share some of that knowledge?
Thank you.
If you were a bit larger that equation would change. Your first step would then be to use a commercial payment services provider such as Stripe, Adyen or any of the others to process the transactions for you (rates: 1 to 5%), possibly falling back to Apple in case their coverage doesn't perfectly overlap. Then at an even higher level of transactions you could choose to do the payment processing yourself.
It's pretty simple, really. And as for taxes: that too is something that you can arrange in different ways, depending on where your main place of business is registered.
My dismissive tone is because it appears that you want me to do a bunch of homework for you while at the same time arguing that there is nothing to be concerned about in 10's of comments in this thread. You have already made up your mind and seem to use questions as a way to argue rather than that you are really interested in the answers. I predict that as a result of this response you are going to come up with another set of questions for me to answer or a new set of arguments that move the goalposts away from your previous claims.
But the essence of my response is: anti-competitive behavior can not be argued for by utility to some subset of the customers. The phone company provides a lot of value. But if they behave in an anti-competive way, for instance by price gouging customers on something that costs them peanuts such as roaming then they deserve to be smacked down, even if some people will argue that you could of course buy a different phone for every country as an alternative, and so those roaming charges are acceptable because they are cheaper. That misses the point entirely.
Right.
Can you please stop saving smaller developers from Apple? Thanks!
PS: You maybe need some homework too. Essentially, Stripe etc. doesn't handle anything else that processing your payments(Maybe that changed or will change in the future). They have list of countries that they support and links to the governing bodies, you are on your own to figure out how to sell in these countries. There are some companies that handle stuff like that but you don't simply pay 99$/year and start using them, there are also publishers that will do it for you but they are much much more predatory and restrictive that Apple. So please, if you have something that you know say it, instead of passive aggressively attacking my character. If you are business genius you say you are, it would be much nicer of you to share some of that with those who know less instead of throwing generalised assumption and saying things like "go do your homework".
Your arguments in this thread are based on some kind of extrapolation that is not warranted.
As for what Stripe and other PSPs do: I'm intimately familiar with that stuff. You are free to do your own marketing/sales/payment processing/whatever but you should not be forced to deal with any particular party, including Apple at some price that they set.
Note that if Apple would charge regular PSP fees we probably would not be having this discussion and you would be making more money.
Then when I press you to show some calculation, you admit that you actually need to be "a bit bigger than a small". Essentially, what you say that all you need is a dream and a few million dollars in the bank. Thanks, great advice.
You keep repeating that you know a lot and I am sure you do but your arguments fall short of actual information. You keep saying things that "you need to learn" which I tolerate and try to be respectful despite I really don't enjoy being patronised.
Besides, I want to note that the real issue for me is not the %30 or %15 or whatever cut Apple takes. The real issue is that Apple/Google/Amazon or any other company can cut you off if they want. At this point, I think these services must be regulated like utility, i.e. businesses that depend on these must be guaranteed to be treated equally and fairly. Apple is has done fine for the most part but IMHO what we need is rights, not all that BS about making Apple change their software to accommodate something.
Let's see your reaction when they crank it up to 50%, 70% or even more. Your arguments are going to be exactly the same, right?
> At this point, I think these services must be regulated like utility, i.e. businesses that depend on these must be guaranteed to be treated equally and fairly.
This is exactly the crux of this court case. Apple is abusing its position, it has turned itself into a utility and there is no way to opt out and switch to another utility.
You're countering your own point. The fact that there is so much money to be made on the app store, is why they have a right to charge 30%. They created the platform, and made it a great place to buy apps for users, and a lucrative place to sell apps for developers.
And as phones are taking over phone apps are becoming an ever more important part of our lives. Apple can't just sit there and charge 30% of phone apps forever, that starves an upcoming market and holds back progress.
Citation needed
One thing that Apple has made very easy for devs are In-App Payments. But I think you can argue if that is such a good thing for Apple's customers.
Something being possible isn't the same as being good. Selling 1000 copies at %30 commission(it tends to be around %50 once you ad stuff like VAT) is much better than selling 10 copies at %1 commission.
I also think that from the users perspective it's much better to have one place where you manage all your payments/subscriptions/downloads etc. That can be solved through some kind of unified purchasing interface though.
Currently, if you you manage to make a great app or game you have access to the exact same processes as the Epic or Microsoft.
No you don't. Netflix and Amazon got special deals (before the whole Epic saga) [1] [2]. From partial waivers of the Apple Tax, to Apple-run editorial promotions, to bundling!
"The emails could serve as evidence that for lucrative and powerful partners, Apple seems to be willing to make concessions."
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/5/22421734/apple-epic-netfli...
[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206400/apple-tax-amazon-...
However, Apple shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the market for mobile apps (or "oligopolize" it together with Google, if you want to be extremely pedantic). There should be other options for these types of services.
If Apple offers the best case for your business: Great! Keep using Apple. If someone else's business doesn't need availability in 175 countries (say, they are a taxi app operating in one city), perhaps they should be able to choose some other payment processor who won't demand 30% of every in-app purchase for offering them the exact same service as Stripe.
Even if you think Apple's (and Google's, and Microsoft's, and so on) cut is too high, the idea that the entirety or even the bulk of the value that they offer is strictly in facilitating transactions is incorrect.
There is good historical precedent to believe that this "service" is approximately 0 in value: the Windows desktop market (in its heyday). People were making money selling software to consumers on Windows without Microsoft doing anything to "maintain the ecosystem" other then developing their OS.
So, the approximate value of the service Apple offers to businesses except payment processing, taxes, etc, is 0, which is approximately how much Apple should be paid if someone is using Stripe instead of Apple for payment processing.
That's a loaded question.
I don't think they are scared, it's just easier for them to collect their cut when the payments flow through their systems. It also enables them to do really good customer service and this helps them sell more iDevices. Purchasing, refunds, cancellations are all handled by Apple and are accessible from a single place and that makes for a superb customer experience.
Let's not forget that companies are not charities. When they are charities, they register as such.
The mafia also provides services. You don't just pay them and get nothing in return. Of course, there, as here, you really have no choice but to pay; and to pay ridiculously inflated rates.
> ... at equal price
Not true. Apple's price is zero. Sucks if you're competing with them, then. Maybe we should all be thankful Apple at-least let's you compete, even if with a handicap. Unlike the mafia.
So you can almost take money from Apple by buying these cards and spending them on your app. The only problem is taxes.
They help you collect taxes but they don't manage the tax payment processes. You will still need to create a company in France or register for VAT in France, understand the French accounting and laws, them pay the French taxes if you sell to people in France, for example.
It's also only 35 countries. No match for what Apple does.
The 27% in the article is just mad, I think they could justify 10% when not using their payments, maybe. But it would be better to have an opt out where there is a set rate for app approval (this could easily be hundreds of dollars) and a download cost for app/data delivery and storage.
It's why I would like to see it broken down as line items and for them to make it optional to just pay the costs of each service directly rather than them charging a % cut.