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Comment by bovermyer | Hacker News Reader

There are easy alternatives to boosting "posts" (ads) in an app - use the web interface. Granted, I don't know if this is an option for Instagram.

On the other hand, I don't see why Apple would do this other than to specifically harm Meta. It seems like a strange thing to tax.

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> I don't see why Apple would do this other than to specifically harm Meta.

The policy applies to every social media platform with an app on iOS. Sure it costs the big players more, but if Meta were Apple I have no doubt they'd do the same, if not worse.

Also the article specifically states "the new policy shouldn’t have a material impact on the company’s revenue" as this only applies applies to the social media app itself, and not the ads manager app where advertises spend the big bucks.

facebook tried their FB credits thing for a while and then ditched it, and generally developers can still use their platform with few restrictions , no $100 / year and 30% tax. The biggest annoyance was the trump era where they enacted a bunch of puritan measures in response to criticism from the press. FB gives their platform for free to devs, very unlike apple

They apply in-app purchase rules to other, non-ad, digital goods, right? In that light, applying IAP to this type of digital good seems like what I'd expect Apple to want to do.

It seems such a non-brainer to me that facebook should have ditched the app versions and go web-only. The app experience will barely be different, apart from notifications. But given the users' addiction to fb&IG, doesn't seem like a huge loss ... at least from a distance

It seems like the same fee they apply to every other digital purchase. What's strange about it?

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