Live data from Hacker News

Facebook says Apple blocked it from informing about App Store 30% fee

nasdaq.com

11–20 of 88 posts

Re: Facebook says Apple blocked it from informing about App Store 30% fee

#15

This is really why the law should come down like a ton of bricks on Apple. They aren't just bleeding everyone dry, they're also trying to prevent people from realizing Apple is doing it.

FB, etc get the use of Apple's infrastructure, they get the benefits of apple providing updates to hardware for 5 years without charging consumers.

That shit costs money, whether it costs 30% I don't know, but given that seems to be in the order of the charges of every other store (what % of sale price do companies get on retail sales?).

The problem here is a bunch of companies have decided that they want special rules for themselves that don't include paying for services that they benefit from.

Any iOS device apple sells has 5 years of ongoing costs - software support, service upkeep, etc.

Google's store doesn't have the update and software maintenance costs, and the actual hardware sellers have demonstrate no interest in taking them on, so it's clearly not free. In fact google charges 30% on everything as well, but also makes money from all of the surveillance they have on the platform (after all, spying is how google makes its money).

Put very simply. Apple makes a profit from a sale of hardware when the user buys a new device. That's it. They continue to support that hardware for 5 years.

Google makes profit from every android device as long as that device is being used. If you buy a second hand android device then that device continues to generate revenue for google.

Despite this google charges the same commission/rent as apple.

Re: Facebook says Apple blocked it from informing about App Store 30% fee

#17
post #13
post #3

Seems like a surprisingly lazy political play from Facebook.

As a community we don't have to resort to automatically criticising Facebook even when they are morally in the right

How big is each FB update? I recall they used to be hundreds of mbs, multiple times a week, times a hundred million or whatever users. I don't think that's free.

Re: Facebook says Apple blocked it from informing about App Store 30% fee

#18
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.

Re: Facebook says Apple blocked it from informing about App Store 30% fee

#19
post #15

This is really why the law should come down like a ton of bricks on Apple. They aren't just bleeding everyone dry, they're also trying to prevent people from realizing Apple is doing it.

FB, etc get the use of Apple's infrastructure, they get the benefits of apple providing updates to hardware for 5 years without charging consumers. That shit costs money, whether it costs 30% I don't know, but given that seems to be in the order of the charges of every other store (what % of sale price do companies get on retail sales?). The problem here is a bunch of companies have decided that they want special rul…

Facebook was setting up a marketplace for paid digital events:

> On Friday, the social media giant claimed that Apple rejected the inclusion of a warning that the latter company would take 30% of sales in a paid-online events feature Facebook is rolling out in an update of its app.

Do you really think Apple provided 30% of the value of the event -- created and hosted by someone else, organized by Facebook?

There's a point at which Apple is not responsible for creating the entire economy, even if parts of it incidentally touch OSX. Like, this is functionally no different than the web browser OSX is providing -- but Apple has decided that because it touches the App store, they deserve a ton of flesh.

Re: Facebook says Apple blocked it from informing about App Store 30% fee

#20
post #15

This is really why the law should come down like a ton of bricks on Apple. They aren't just bleeding everyone dry, they're also trying to prevent people from realizing Apple is doing it.

FB, etc get the use of Apple's infrastructure, they get the benefits of apple providing updates to hardware for 5 years without charging consumers. That shit costs money, whether it costs 30% I don't know, but given that seems to be in the order of the charges of every other store (what % of sale price do companies get on retail sales?). The problem here is a bunch of companies have decided that they want special rul…

> they get the benefits of apple providing updates to hardware for 5 years without charging consumers.

Apple's updates included things like intentionally slowing down old phones without notifying users of what was going on, instead of encouraging a cheap battery replacement.

Post reply on HN