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ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

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Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#51

Post by Pick-A-Hill2019 »

znpy wrote: post #37
hollander wrote: post #12

I hope they will complain about this with the EU. Maybe the EU can stop this nonsense.

Afaik ProtonMail is based in Switzerland, thus they might not be able to involve the EU.

Correct. But all it needs is for one company that is (or has offices in) the EU to to set a precedent.

The US is also making rumblings and I had high hopes when I started reading the senate report [2]that began

"Nearly a century ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” Those words speak to us with great urgency today."

However the conclusions (page 375 for the impatient) left me underwhelmed although their comparison to the early heydays of the railroad empire made me chuckle.

[2] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7222836/Investiga...

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#52

Post by whatatita »

dtech wrote: post #47
bsg75 wrote: post #43

I'm actually happier to pay a small premium for IAP based subscriptions because of the cancellation options. Having been subjected to asinine "retention" policies that make ending a subscription service an onerous and time consuming process (ex: NYT), and having seen first hand how a company purposefully makes subscription cancellations difficult, being able to open a single interface and click `Cancel` is a massive…

In the EU consumer protection law mandate this. You have to be able to cancel in all the same ways that you can sign up. The most common way to pay subscriptions is with SEPA direct debit, and banks have to let you revoke those authorizations even retro-actively for 90 days.

I think a biggissue in this space is how dated the US banking industry is. They trail behind in so many ways that are anti-consumer and then they're used to justify draconion mafia moves like this one from Apple.

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#53

Post by 1123581321 »

x2f10 wrote: post #22

I read the article, but I'm still stuck on why Apple is asking for IAP to be included. Is the argument: "Hey, your app works with subscription services. You need to give Apple users the option to purchase via the App Store." If so, why doesn't Fastmail (from what I can tell) offer IAP? Isn't this the same idea?

Don’t they? They said in June that they’d planned to and were also asked to. https://mobile.twitter.com/Fastmail/status/12738002229893242...

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#54

Post by glasss »

bsg75 wrote: post #43

I'm actually happier to pay a small premium for IAP based subscriptions because of the cancellation options. Having been subjected to asinine "retention" policies that make ending a subscription service an onerous and time consuming process (ex: NYT), and having seen first hand how a company purposefully makes subscription cancellations difficult, being able to open a single interface and click `Cancel` is a massive…

It's awful that in today's world, a feature of a platform is that they don't partake in a particular scummy business practice. It's a shame that we even have this issue.

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#55

Post by whatatita »

secretsatan wrote: post #20

From the article : Apple responded, saying that free companion apps to paid online services are no longer required to have in-app purchases as of September 11, 2020. As long as paid upgrades are not offered through the app and it has no notifications to customers about an external subscription service, everything is fine. So....

What's the "So.... [sic]" supposed to convey?

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#56

Post by wycy »

bsg75 wrote: post #43

I'm actually happier to pay a small premium for IAP based subscriptions because of the cancellation options. Having been subjected to asinine "retention" policies that make ending a subscription service an onerous and time consuming process (ex: NYT), and having seen first hand how a company purposefully makes subscription cancellations difficult, being able to open a single interface and click `Cancel` is a massive…

> ex: NYT

NYT is a great example of this. It took me multiple attempts over a span of 2 days to cancel my NYT subscription. There have been a few times since then when I've been tempted to re-subscribe (their election results tools are great), but remembering how hard it was to unsubscribe, I don't think I'll go back.

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#57

Post by 02020202 »

dtech wrote: post #47
bsg75 wrote: post #43

I'm actually happier to pay a small premium for IAP based subscriptions because of the cancellation options. Having been subjected to asinine "retention" policies that make ending a subscription service an onerous and time consuming process (ex: NYT), and having seen first hand how a company purposefully makes subscription cancellations difficult, being able to open a single interface and click `Cancel` is a massive…

In the EU consumer protection law mandate this. You have to be able to cancel in all the same ways that you can sign up. The most common way to pay subscriptions is with SEPA direct debit, and banks have to let you revoke those authorizations even retro-actively for 90 days.

that is a lot of crap. sing up for internet/telephone/television/... over email or online form and then try to cancel it the same way. go ahead, try it. i'll wait here.

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#58

Post by pier25 »

namanaggarwal wrote: post #49

What problem does Apple have with PWAs (apart from monetary ones ofcourse), how are they justifying not implementing features in browser for a good PWA?

IMO there is no real justification, but I've seen people from the Webkit team on Twitter claim privacy related issues.

Re: ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'

#59

Post by ascagnel_ »

dtech wrote: post #47
bsg75 wrote: post #43

I'm actually happier to pay a small premium for IAP based subscriptions because of the cancellation options. Having been subjected to asinine "retention" policies that make ending a subscription service an onerous and time consuming process (ex: NYT), and having seen first hand how a company purposefully makes subscription cancellations difficult, being able to open a single interface and click `Cancel` is a massive…

In the EU consumer protection law mandate this. You have to be able to cancel in all the same ways that you can sign up. The most common way to pay subscriptions is with SEPA direct debit, and banks have to let you revoke those authorizations even retro-actively for 90 days.

US consumer laws have been woefully inadequate for decades, and this is another instance where they’re lacking. You can issue an individual chargeback if you happened to use a credit card, but that can have adverse effects on both you and the merchant. If you used an ATM/bank card, your bank may go to bat for you, but there’s no guarantee.

I’m in the same boat re: Apple/Google subscription options. They don’t have a vested interest in keeping you attached to a single subscription, so they’ll keep the cancellation option easy in favor of keeping you in their ecosystem.

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