Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case • Hacker News Board

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#411

Post by Why_O_My » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #240

yurishimo wrote: post #15

I'm really happy to see this moving forward, but I loathe the potential future landscape. Every fortune 500 is going to immediately pivot to their own IAP options which will make my life harder compared to Apple Pay. I'm hoping with this movement, tools like Stripe/Paddle will develop some better IAP flows to make it as easy as possible. Adding my card information to 50 different in-app wallets does not sound appeali…

As a Developer, I also don't look forward for integrating 50 frameworks for payment, deal with the limitations of each and every one and go through the bureaucracy of 180 countries for export compliance and taxes. When you sell something through Apple, depending on the location of your user, Apple will act as Agent or as a Commissionaire. This makes everything easy, even for a solo developer. Sold an in-game coins in…

You make It sound like apple's service will disappear over night. If you're fine with them taking 30% then that's your choice. And if your app does become big enough to reap the benefits of implementing mutiple payment providers then thats even better.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#412

Post by yalogin » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #275

sudhirj wrote: post #223

Think Apple has already seen the writing on the wall - both S. Korea & the US are now probably going to push back against the IAP restrictions, and they can / should do a couple of things, which might actually increase revenue. 1. Cut down the IAP commission to 15% for everyone. 2. Cut down the commission to 5% for those who pay for a Business Account, say at $5,000 a year. The thing is no customer wants to use any c…

> The thing is no customer wants to use any company's half-assed bug-riddled purchase or subscription system. Every iOS and macOS user will prefer to use the Apple system. The first sentence is true but incomplete, making the second wrong. For example, the Amazon app is highly likely to have people using their existing Amazon payment method. Companies like Stripe are going to offer their own SDKs just like they do fo…

This is true, and the solution for Apple is to go cross platform themselves with their functionality. Make IAP a service usable on other platforms/apps. I am not sure how successful they will be though if they go that route.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#413

Post by NikolaNovak » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #366

eropple wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies will want it, but I'm not sure users will. Apple does a really good job of warning me, I feel, and centralizing subscription cancellation etc., and that's huge. Like, if I have to go to your app--or worse, your website--to cancel a subscription? I'm gonna just not use your stuff, because I'm going to forget about it until you whack me for another year or whatever.

You'll get no argument from me that Apple's system is pretty good from a consumer standpoint — that's the primary reason why I predicted that it'd remain popular. It's really nice knowing that you can nuke a subscription without getting some dark patterns trying to talk you out of it. On the other hand, it's really easy to imagine that you'd see something like “$9.99 IAP; $7.99 direct from Epic/Amazon/Google/Netflix/…

The other part is, what do the Apple subscription cover in terms of platforms?

e.g.: If I can pay for say Guardian subscription either:

1. via their website/app and use it on iPhone, android, PC, etc; or

2. Pay for same subscription via Apple subscription and ONLY have it on my iPhone

- that's a HUGE diff, and one that I have been extremely peeved off to discover in the past :-/. It only took one such experience to permanently sour me on Apply subscriptions.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#414

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #223

Think Apple has already seen the writing on the wall - both S. Korea & the US are now probably going to push back against the IAP restrictions, and they can / should do a couple of things, which might actually increase revenue. 1. Cut down the IAP commission to 15% for everyone. 2. Cut down the commission to 5% for those who pay for a Business Account, say at $5,000 a year. The thing is no customer wants to use any c…

[deleted]

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#415

Post by musesum » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #337

travoc wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would really pay a 30% premium on all your digital purchases just to be warned about a subscription expiring next year? You might be an edge case.

A fair amount of companies makes their subscription cancellation actively hostile in an effort to not get people to do it. To give an example, though you can subscribe online, the NYT requires you to call during only certain hours to a customer service line where you get badgered and questioned like you’re trying to cancel a cable subscription. If the US mandated that you need to provide equivalent means of subscript…

This used to be the case with NYTimes, several years ago. But, I think it has improved. Same horrible experience, a few years ago. Then, I resubbed after a couple years. A few months ago, NYTimes ran an article on "dark patterns." So, I attempted to unsub -- it was much easier.

But, that is only the NYTimes. My guess is that the original hypothesis holds true for others; I doubt JFax has improved.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#416

Post by mrtksn » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

Why_O_My wrote: post #411

mrtksn wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Developer, I also don't look forward for integrating 50 frameworks for payment, deal with the limitations of each and every one and go through the bureaucracy of 180 countries for export compliance and taxes. When you sell something through Apple, depending on the location of your user, Apple will act as Agent or as a Commissionaire. This makes everything easy, even for a solo developer. Sold an in-game coins in…

You make It sound like apple's service will disappear over night. If you're fine with them taking 30% then that's your choice. And if your app does become big enough to reap the benefits of implementing mutiple payment providers then thats even better.

It doesn't work like that. Friction destroys revenues, large companies can remove friction by having their portfolio of users with credit cards collected. Small devs cannot do that because the user will need to enter payment details each time. The best chance would be to use something like Paypal, which is again a huge friction since the user will need to switch apps or enter login information.

As a result, unless you are a huge publisher you don't actually have a realistic chance to sell over alternate low-cost methods. This is not because you can't put the code there but because it will make the user experience so bad that a fraction of your users will proceed.

It's not about being technically possible but it's about being feasible. It doesn't matter that you can technically do it if not enough people want to play along and deal with it.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#417

Post by zamadatix » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

> 43 With respect to the appropriateness of Peely's "dress," the Court understood Apple merely to be "dressing" Peely in a tuxedo for federal court, as jest to reflect the general solemnity of a federal court proceeding. As Mr. Weissinger later remarket, and with which the court agrees, Peely is "just a banana man," additional attire was not necessary but informative. Trial Tr. (Weissinger) 1443:17.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#418

Post by rfrey » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #366

eropple wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies will want it, but I'm not sure users will. Apple does a really good job of warning me, I feel, and centralizing subscription cancellation etc., and that's huge. Like, if I have to go to your app--or worse, your website--to cancel a subscription? I'm gonna just not use your stuff, because I'm going to forget about it until you whack me for another year or whatever.

You'll get no argument from me that Apple's system is pretty good from a consumer standpoint — that's the primary reason why I predicted that it'd remain popular. It's really nice knowing that you can nuke a subscription without getting some dark patterns trying to talk you out of it. On the other hand, it's really easy to imagine that you'd see something like “$9.99 IAP; $7.99 direct from Epic/Amazon/Google/Netflix/…

I suppose that would only happen if Apple were very uncompetitive in price. In the example above, the options would be equivalent to the company if Apple only dropped their cut to 25% and the competition was free.

Assume Apple dropped to 15% and the competition was 10% - then it would be 9.99 IAP, 9.63 on Amaozon/Stripe/Netflix, which probably wouldn't be worth the consumer confusion.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#419

Post by thehappypm » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

I've read the doc like 10 times. I think there are two key takeaways.

First, Apple can't stop companies like Epic from including links to other payment tools. Practically speaking, that means things like Kindle can now have a "Purchase on Amazon.com" button (which it currently does not have in order to avoid the 30% cut).

Second, the App Store itself is a-okay. Apple does not need to allow side loading or a second App Store.

Analysis from me: it's a win for Apple. They get to keep their App Store, which would be tremendously bad for them if they were forced to allow alternatives. There will be revenue loss from in-app purchases that are done via external links now, but Apple's own mechanisms are likely to continue being the easiest and most seamless, so that revenue stream will hardly go to $0.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#420

Post by YeBanKo » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

hnra wrote: post #373

bobthepanda wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair amount of companies makes their subscription cancellation actively hostile in an effort to not get people to do it. To give an example, though you can subscribe online, the NYT requires you to call during only certain hours to a customer service line where you get badgered and questioned like you’re trying to cancel a cable subscription. If the US mandated that you need to provide equivalent means of subscript…

I just checked my NYT account I can cancel from the website? I only have a digital subscription however.

I think it is a recent change if you are in California. I used to have subscriptions to Economist and NYTimes. Both we very hard to manage and cancel.