Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#121

Post by tomelders » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 9:38 AM UTC

barranger wrote: post #76

tomelders wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon don't roll over, then someone else will and they'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

No they won't. This isn't something Amazon (or another big player) can do, they simply don't have a large enough profit margin to support giving apple 30% of the full purchase price. This will end up being nothing more than another straw on the camel's back. When (if?) a true competitor comes out, it seems that the best marketing for the new device will be done by Apple themselves.

It'll work for someone, it always does.

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#122

Post by loewenskind » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 9:40 AM UTC

It sounds like Apple wants apps to stop cheating by redirecting to a browser. Personally I do find this annoying about the Kindle App. I would prefer to do my purchasing inside the app.

In my opinion the solution is for apple to not charge the app sale percentage (30%) on in-app sales. An app sale charge is a one time thing, you could have an infinite amount of in-game sales, why would each transaction cost the same as the initial one?

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#123

Post by i386 » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 10:22 AM UTC

IMNAL nor familiar with American Antitrust laws, but wouldn't Apple actions fall under laws against Coercive Monopolies?

Apple are potentially forcing Amazon to price purchases through its iOS application at a higher price to make up on lost margins on sales due to Apples surcharge. Someone is going to pay for that: either Amazon will eat the cost or the consumer will.

What they are effectively creating is a barrier to entry for Amazon conducting business on their platform all the while Apple have a competing offering that is unencumbered by the surcharge.

Now if Apple didn't have there own competing business to Amazons ebook business I wouldn't be as concerned since there is no competitive stake hold in the surcharge. IMO, this issue has Antitrust written all over it.

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#124

Post by anonymoushn » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 12:45 PM UTC

warmfuzzykitten wrote: post #56

arjunnarayan wrote: post #43

Developers should simply add a 42% "Apple shipping and handling" tax to all in-app purchases, to let end-users know what is going on. That is the only way to attack Apple: to get the end users on your side.

Sounds like an excellent way to get your app removed from the App Store.

Does Apple have a policy that states you can't charge 43% more for something than you do elsewhere?

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#125

Post by anonymoushn » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 12:55 PM UTC

rewind wrote: post #79

tomh- wrote: post #23

How long till I have to pay Apple 30% for ordering a pizza using an iPhone? How long till I have 30% premium to pay for shopping online using a mac computer?

Don't worry, they'll just put a new clause in the agreement that says you can't charge more to iOS users than non-iOS users. Stores won't raise their prices 30% for all users or they'll go out of business. So they'll either give Apple their 30% or not sell through iOS devices at all. Not necessarily an easy choice, especially if you're already established with millions of iOS users. That 30% will not come out of your…

This is like saying that FICA is only a 5.65% tax because that's the amount of withholding people see on their paychecks. It neglects that the cost of employing a person also includes another hidden 7.65% that would otherwise go straight to the employee.

What's likely is that either the users will pay and know that they are paying extra, or the users will pay and not know that they are paying extra. The second case already happens with credit card processing fees, and the costs incurred by credit card users are usually spread across all users.

Of course, the providers could decide to just make less profit from now on, but that seems fairly unlikely to me.

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#126

Post by seshagiric » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 1:11 PM UTC

New car from Apple. Its called iCar.

If you use it as a taxi, you pay 30% of the taxi fare.

If you use it to go to a mall, they pay Apple 30% of your spend.

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#127

Post by memetichazard » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

Dylanlacey wrote: post #111

fbailey wrote: post #77

easily solved: Buy this book for 10$ on amazon.com Buy this book for 13$ with your itunes account* *explanation

This is the first solution I hit upon: show the user the pricing of each option and see what happens. I wonder what creative solution Apple will come up with. Bah, it won't be creative, it'll be: * An app will not charge consumers more to purchase content in-app then they would in other locations.

Amazon responds. Buy directly from Amazon.com and receive a 30% credit towards your next Amazon purchase!

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#128

Post by FaceKicker » Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 5:42 PM UTC

This makes sense to me as a general policy. Without this policy, every developer could simply bypass giving Apple a cut of their revenue by offering their app through the app store for free and then charging users through an external payment system to use the application's functionality.

Obviously Apple wouldn't approve such an app, meaning they should have some explicit policy against using external payment systems for any application functionality, such as the ability to read a particular book on the Kindle app.

If you disagree with Apple taking a cut of app developer profits at all, that's another discussion entirely, but assuming that it's okay for Apple to take a cut of developers' profits, I think this policy is reasonable, if not necessary, new or not.

Re: Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

#129

Post by Dylanlacey » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:44 AM UTC

memetichazard wrote: post #127

Dylanlacey wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first solution I hit upon: show the user the pricing of each option and see what happens. I wonder what creative solution Apple will come up with. Bah, it won't be creative, it'll be: * An app will not charge consumers more to purchase content in-app then they would in other locations.

Amazon responds. Buy directly from Amazon.com and receive a 30% credit towards your next Amazon purchase!

Touche.