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US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

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Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#41

Post by danpalmer »

jrks11o wrote: post #28
danpalmer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contractually, developers are still required to pay 27% commission to Apple (or 12% for the small business programme). i.e. Apple are only removing a 3% payment processing fee here. They say it'll be hard to actually audit this, and it will, and many developers may manage to get around it, but technically that's a breach of contract and they could be removed from the store for it, so I'm sure many won't risk it.

What about sketchy apps with subscriptions, are those still managed via Apple? As an end user, I like the fact I can just cancel through Apple instead of having to find my way around a 3rd party site that is trying its best to prevent me from unsubscribing.

This change means that users could go and subscribe externally, including to scam subscriptions, and you would no longer be able to cancel via Apple. That's probably part of the motivation for why they don't want to implement this sort of thing.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#42

Post by MBCook »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #33
danpalmer wrote: post #23

This is not new. The 27% fee has been around for over a year now I think, may have been announced in 2021 even, for markets outside the US that already mandate this. I've seen these screens already in apps.

It seems like according to Sweeny the 27% rate itself is not new but it only went into effect today.[0] [0] https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/174728054136210228...

In the US.

As GP mentioned it has been in effect for a while in Holland and maybe Korea or a few other places for at least certain kinds of apps due to local laws.

Interesting note: this only applies to the US. I know the EU is forcing changes as well, but those are EU only.

So South America, Asia, Australia, Africa, Canada, Mexico, and others haven’t changed one bit and likely still require 30%.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#43

Post by lxgr »

danpalmer wrote: post #31
lxgr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true (and I even believe that it is to a large extent!), there should be no problem for Apple to let its value proposition stand for itself and allow some competition. Besides that, that list is very bundled. What if I e.g. want the convenient subscription payment processing, but want to (or need to) bring my own CDN for most content? What if I want their marketing and am willing to pay for it, but prefer m…

I agree, although I think this is doing that to some extent. Sure there's some scary text in the popup that I think could be toned down, but I'm not an expert, and to be fair there are risks going externally. Allowing other app stores would be the big win in competition here, properly forcing Apple to win on value proposition. The DMA could force this, but I'm not certain about the details.

The scary text doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that they are not unbundling anything. They are charging an effectively equal/higher fee for less services than developers would get from just sticking with in-app purchases.

It's an arguably quite sloppy illusion of competition/choice.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#44

Post by MBCook »

newprint wrote: post #21

My feeling is that this is a half measure and any half measure allow for the "freedom of interpretations". AAPL will put a lot of road blocks around external purchase links (result of recent ruling). I expect apps that will use external purchase links to be scrutinize a lot more, unexpectedly take off from the AAPL app store for made-up reasons and myriad of other road blocks around the ruling. You know, AAPL needs i…

They’ll try. That’s who Apple is.

But court has also found their required to do this. So if there are roadblocks are onerous you know someone’s going to go running to the court to try and get that fixed.

They could end up in big trouble if they try and fight it too hard. But they’re also not gonna roll over.

Expect the same exact thing with the DMA changes in the EU.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#45

Post by greg_V »

nerdawson wrote: post #7

They want a 27% commission on sales made from those links and the right to audit companies' accounts for compliance. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747406430054097099 It's beyond a joke. Between that and the payment processing fees, you're no better off. In fact, you get all of the same costs but none of the benefits of Apple's app store native payment infrastructure.

Apple is acting like a state within their domain. Collecting a VAT and requiring compliance that's reserved usually for the national tax office with inspective powers.

Having locked in the richest consumers of the world, they get to say what goes and what doesn't, worldly courts and laws be damned.

It's both hilarious and gruesome at the same time, because we're supposed to be equal under consumer laws or whatever, but there you go!

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#46

Post by karlshea »

danenania wrote: post #29
nerdawson wrote: post #7

They want a 27% commission on sales made from those links and the right to audit companies' accounts for compliance. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747406430054097099 It's beyond a joke. Between that and the payment processing fees, you're no better off. In fact, you get all of the same costs but none of the benefits of Apple's app store native payment infrastructure.

It seems a lot more egregious that anything Microsoft did in the 90s. While MS tried to push their own products and lock out competitors, they never tried to take a massive cut of all the software on their OS. The level of sheer FU everyone chutzpah is pretty impressive. They're indeed making quite a joke out of antitrust at this point.

I'm not sure that's a direct comparison. Back then sure you could get shareware but mostly the market was paid boxed software. I can't find a direct source but I remember hearing brick-and-mortar retailers would take even more than 30% of sales. And Visual Studio sure wasn't free.

Everything was different though, you'd be paying for your OS upgrades too which doesn't happen on iOS. I agree 30% is crazy, but the market on iOS they're enabling has to get paid for somehow. That source of revenue was different for Microsoft in the 80s/90s but it still existed.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#47

Post by lacker »

These conditions are onerous enough that the Kindle app probably still cannot handle in-app purchases. It's really pretty annoying that I have to leave the Kindle iOS app and go to the Kindle web app to make a purchase. Obviously it wouldn't cost either Apple or Amazon anything to allow this, it wouldn't be insecure or unsafe in any way, and it would be nice for consumers. So the fact that Apple and Amazon haven't made a deal to allow this indicates to me that Apple is putting its competitive interests ahead of its users interests.

Hopefully they all figure something out eventually to allow Kindle purchases from the app.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#48

Post by lxgr »

danpalmer wrote: post #23

This is not new. The 27% fee has been around for over a year now I think, may have been announced in 2021 even, for markets outside the US that already mandate this. I've seen these screens already in apps.

It's been mandated for dating apps in the Netherlands, to my knowledge. It being allowed for all apps in the US is arguably still news.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#49

Post by MBCook »

danenania wrote: post #29
nerdawson wrote: post #7

They want a 27% commission on sales made from those links and the right to audit companies' accounts for compliance. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747406430054097099 It's beyond a joke. Between that and the payment processing fees, you're no better off. In fact, you get all of the same costs but none of the benefits of Apple's app store native payment infrastructure.

It seems a lot more egregious that anything Microsoft did in the 90s. While MS tried to push their own products and lock out competitors, they never tried to take a massive cut of all the software on their OS. The level of sheer FU everyone chutzpah is pretty impressive. They're indeed making quite a joke out of antitrust at this point.

Microsoft had like 95% of the market.

Apple has 50%. Courts have already ruled they’re not a monopoly. Epic asked the Supreme Court to look at that again and they specifically decided not to and to leave the decision in place.

That’s why Apple can do what they’re (now, post order) doing legally and Microsoft couldn’t.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#50

Post by karmasimida »

lacker wrote: post #47

These conditions are onerous enough that the Kindle app probably still cannot handle in-app purchases. It's really pretty annoying that I have to leave the Kindle iOS app and go to the Kindle web app to make a purchase. Obviously it wouldn't cost either Apple or Amazon anything to allow this, it wouldn't be insecure or unsafe in any way, and it would be nice for consumers. So the fact that Apple and Amazon haven't ma…

I found myself actually able to use browser to purchase Kindle books on iPhone now, is it because of this lawsuit?
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