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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'

#211

Post by pwinnski »

toyg wrote: post #200
pwinnski wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has not been true since 2011, nine years ago! https://venturebeat.com/2011/06/09/apple-backtracks-on-in-ap...

As your sibling comment demonstrates, Apple will try and try again to reinstate that policy. One way or the other, they’ll squeeze developers until the last ounce of profit goes to Apple. They are the supermarket chain of software now, and that’s what supermarket chains do.

I don't think this is true.

Look, Apple does all kinds of terrible things, and I definitely think the government ought to take action against them.

But Apple one time, in 2011, announced that they were going to put in a rule that you couldn't charge a different amount outside the App Store than inside, and when furor erupted, they never implemented the policy. That's it. One time, never actually in practice.

They are still 100% terrible with this nonsense about not being allowed to link to or even mention alternative forms of payment, but let's focus on what they actually do that's bad, rather than what we imagine they might like to do in alternate realities.

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

#212

Post by huhtenberg »

fermigier wrote: post #117

This reminds me of a very different time... In 1997, then CEO of Sybase Mitchell Kertzman said in an interview with the French trade magazine 01 Informatique: "Q: When you launched Jaguar CTS, a middleware tool competing with a Microsoft product, you received a rather explicit phone call... A: It was the Mafia! When I hung up, I realized that I had just received a phone call from the godfather who forbade me to sell…

Back in the early '00s there was a popular legend in the startup circles that you don't want Microsoft to be interested in what you do.

The legend went that if Microsoft liked you and decided to acquire you, they would give you a binary choice between a low-ball offer and a lawsuit based on their patent portfolio.

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

#213

Post by holidayacct »

Forced in-app purchases are just a vector for governments to figure out who is using protonmail and how. They are better off avoiding apple as a platform if they don't understand why in app purchases are a bad idea given protonmail's business model.

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

#214

Post by pwinnski »

simion314 wrote: post #170
pwinnski wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProtonMail had no IAP in their app at all, but offered paid subscriptions on their website. Apple insisted that they offer IAP in the app, and ProtonMail is upset. Here: > "Out of the blue, one day they said you have to add in-app purchase to stay in the App Store. They stumbled upon something in the app that mentioned there were paid plans, they went to the website and saw there was a subscription you could purchase…

The problem is bigger then that. Apple takes a 30% cut(and the fanboys will say it is legal and fair and theoretically Apple could make it 99% and should still be legal) and on top of that cut they are forcing you not to inform the customer about alternatives, YES Apple prevents you to be informed by better reals and deciding for yourself what is better, so you could say that Apple is protecting you because you are t…

Yeah, Apple's practices are far from ideal, your insults aside, but I'm not sure how much of that is relevant here. On this thread at least, nobody seems to have mentioned percentages but you.

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

#215

Post by nomel »

stale2002 wrote: post #155
joshstrange wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, should Sony/MS/Nintendo also drop their percentage? How about the cut stores get to put products on their shelves? Because whenever I zoom out and look at more that just Google/Apple the more I see examples of this happening everywhere and I wonder why there isn't similar outrage. Like with the whole "FB mad that Apple wouldn't let them call out the 30% cut" thing, I mean Kroger isn't going to let a…

Sony/ect don't have nearly the same market dominance over a huge industry, as compared to Apple. Apple has 50% of the entire US smart phone market. This is a significant larger amount of market power then those other situations.

I think his point is that every middle man is doing it, so it's more like 100% of the products you purchase indirectly.

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

#216

Post by whimsicalism »

manfredo wrote: post #203
whimsicalism wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that avoids the rent-seeking problem... how?

You can side load apps. You don't need to go through Google Play.

But, correct me if I'm wrong, vendors aren't allowed to bundle other app stores into the home screen if they want to use the Play store.

That seems like classic rent-seeking.

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

#217

Post by powersnail »

coder543 wrote: post #137
powersnail wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe Apple can dictate what ProtonMail is sending to its user via email. Requiring no app generated notification has a clear line. Requiring no email, which is a general mean of communication, has too big an implication. What about sending a text? Or a mail? Or to a secondary email? I’m not a lawyer, but such a clause in contract would be deemed rather unjust, wouldn’t it? It feels like a lawsuit waiting t…

> It feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Lawsuits against Apple's App Store policy enforcement are already in progress, but Apple has the best lawyers money can buy, and rulings are years away. If a substantial part of your business risked being terminated at the click of a button by some unelected person that you have never met, with no proper way to appeal such an unjust decision, you'd probably think twice abo…

At least part of the job of those lawyers is to tell Apple to not fight unlikely battles; or at least I hope.

Apple wasn't crazy enough to go after Amazon Kindle app for asking the user to buy ebooks on Amazon.com, which bypassed Apple's system.

Probably---hopefully---they aren't crazy enough to fight a email client for sending emails regarding upgrade plans.

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

#218

Post by itake »

manfredo wrote: post #202
dpiers wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about video game consoles? Early in a generation, they are sold at razor-thin (or negative) margins, with the expectation that the manufacturer will recoup losses from licensing fees over the life of the console and that costs will come down in later revisions. If manufacturers lose their substantial licensing fees, they would be forced to charge more upfront for the consoles which is objectively worse for consu…

Consoles are much, much narrower in use than smartphones. Most consoles have a few thousand titles, if that. By comparison the App Store had millions of applications. And as you point out, manufacturers are building these consoles at a loss. Apple builds it's phones at a profit. Getting a game approved for sale on a console is much more involved than releasing an App on the App Store, and involves significant manual…

Apple does a manual review of the quality of their apps as well as their content (e.g. if you own a social app that allows users to publish images, they will verify there are no adult images being published and there are systems in place for banning these images.)

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

#219

Post by manfredo »

whimsicalism wrote: post #216
manfredo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can side load apps. You don't need to go through Google Play.

But, correct me if I'm wrong, vendors aren't allowed to bundle other app stores into the home screen if they want to use the Play store. That seems like classic rent-seeking.

But the point is, you can just download a .apk file and install like like you would on a desktop. You can even download a .apk file that installs an alternative app store. You do have to click through a couple screens with scary warning messages, but it's a much, much softer lock-in than Apple & the App Store.

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

#220

Post by donmcronald »

systemvoltage wrote: post #197
stefano wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premium is actually higher than that. For $100, the developer gets $70. Which means the premium is $30 on a $70 base price, i.e. a ~42% higher price. That's a very steep price for easier payment cancellation.

It is the percentage of the market price that the customer paid, not what developer got. You're twisting this. Think about it this way - if Apple was not in the middle, the developer would have received $100. So it is 30% less than what they would have received without Apple cut.

They meant the user pays a 42% premium. If the developer needs to earn $70 they need to charge $100 on the App Store which is a 42% increase for the user. So if you’re talking about passing along those costs it’s +42% on every purchase.
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