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

Post by donmcronald » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #45

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…

There’s a lot of drama associated with this stuff. 100% of nothing is less than 70% of something. When I was in college I interned at a company that negotiated retail placements for stuff like software. The 30% slice is a much better model than the terms our customers were stuck with. In some cases, software people lose more in the channel for commercial software as well — companies like SHI skim the cream for doing…

Post by donmcronald » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

rfw300 wrote: post #173

Barrin92 wrote: post #167

Apple is nothing else but the digital equivalent of a landlord extracting economic rents from everyone in the ecosystem. It's time to put an end to it, and while we're at it the same goes for all the other platform owners. We (in this case the EU) should give it the same treatment we gave credit card companies. Cap their rates at 1% or whatever so they can cover the operational costs of their stores, stop them from b…

> Just imagine if Microsoft had taken a 30% cut from every developer who ever compiled software for windows Microsoft has the whole code-signing racket going on for Windows, but that's at least a flat fee in fairness.

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

d1zzy wrote: post #172

Barrin92 wrote: post #167

Apple is nothing else but the digital equivalent of a landlord extracting economic rents from everyone in the ecosystem. It's time to put an end to it, and while we're at it the same goes for all the other platform owners. We (in this case the EU) should give it the same treatment we gave credit card companies. Cap their rates at 1% or whatever so they can cover the operational costs of their stores, stop them from b…

When you will build your own piece of land from scratch then you also get to decide what laws govern it. The iPhone, iOS and the Apple Store exist because someone had the idea, will and spent tons of money building it. They aren't natural resources that Apple acquired and imposed on people so now everyone else has no choice but to pay the Apple tax. So I don't see how that analogy applies here.

Post by viktorcode » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

croh wrote: post #33

Google/Apple should drop the percentage. 30% is too high. Store is a kind of ecosystem which based on the mutual benefits of both Apple and Devs. Devs helped to accelerate their products. Having billions in reserve, they should not hurt this relationship.

Post by viktorcode » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

nvrspyx wrote: post #193

d1zzy wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30% is too high What determines what is too high here? If it's about the cost of it (it costs Google/Apple much less money to build and maintain an ecosystem so they can "afford" to do it) wouldn't that imply that there is a huge market opportunity for someone else to build their own ecosystem and charge less? But maybe because that doesn't happen is proof that it may not be "too high".

> imply there is a huge market opportunity for someone else to build their own ecosystem and charge less? Hmmm. Let's see what one would need to do at a bare minimum: - start manufacturing phones - build own OS (or fork Android) - develop own SDK - develop own online store infrastructure - manufacture other devices (e.g. Apple) and/or develop other services (e.g. Google) to complete "ecosystem" The barrier to entry i…