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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

#681

Post by HatchedLake721 »

cryptonym wrote: post #658
norman784 wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user I don't care for the 30% cut, what I care is to have a centralised payment method and subscription system, I don't have energy/time to keep with different subscriptions in each service/app and knowing that there are bad actors, they will do whatever possible to make hard to unsubscribe (like a few years ago the NYT, where you could only unsubscribe by phone and was very hard even so). But if even when using…

That's a fair statement, you may like Apple payment even if it adds 30% to whatever you are buying. What is not fair is forcing everyone into this. If I'm selling content, why couldn't I give customer the choice between: - Paying the 30% Apple cut and benefiting from everything you like about this - Buying directly, cheaper, without Apple cut (or maybe with a tiny cut if that make any sense, removing only 3pt is a jo…

Because it's Apple's marketplace and Apple's customers.

They spent billions on hardware, software, R&D, marketing and operations.

Why would they give another business a free access to a billion of their customers?

You want to earn money of Apple's customers? Then pay Apple a revenue share of the money you get from their customers.

That's how pretty much any marketplace works in the world.

From your local Target to Salesforce/Shopify/PlayStation/Epic Store/Steam/etc.

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

#682

Post by toyg »

zer0zzz wrote: post #574
andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

I can understand some perspectives of the Apple-defending crowd. Apple being the popular yet closed-end-to-end platform experience does kind of provide a level of balance in the industry that wouldn’t exist otherwise. I personally think it’s silly to look at Amazon or Google as an example of openness. I think it’s also kinda weird to label Apple as a monopoly unless you mean a monopoly on revenues. They seem to activ…

They realized that getting over 50% marketshare paints a target on their back, whereas what you want is 50% of profitable money in the market.

If BMW sell 10 cars with $1 margin, Jaguar sell 5 cars with $2 margin, and Ferrari sell 2 cars with $40 margin, the latter took home 80% of profits with 11% marketshare. Then Ferrari just work their hardest to make sure that their customers cannot change car without a lot of effort, effectively coopting (or rather enslaving) them forever.

That keeps antitrust law at bay in practice, while egregiously breaking it in spirit.

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

#684

Post by sekai »

Zetobal wrote: post #440
andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

This guy also hates taxes.

That 30% doesn't fund the schools or the roads, it's just a fee. Completely different.

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

#685

Post by toyg »

fenomas wrote: post #660
nevir wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a little story / timeline from 2009-2010 (from my perspective as a dev on Kindle for iOS): * we submit the Kindle app ...including an in-app bookstore... to Apple for initial app review (Note: multiple ebook readers with in-app bookstores are already on the app store at this point) * several weeks pass with no response * Apple announces in-app purchasing (to be released several months later) * Apple rejects ou…

Another random app store anecdote: way back when (2010?) Adobe made a feature where you could publish flash content as an iOS app. Like you build a flash game, hit publish, and an .ipa file comes out. So the feature goes into open beta, and a bunch of flash devs make iPhone apps, they work fine, they get accepted into the app store, users are using them, everybody's happy. Then a few days before the feature was sched…

Apple is very much a subscriber to the Darth Vader School of Business: "I'm altering the deal; pray that I don't alter it any further."

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

#686

Post by Fluorescence »

ribit wrote: post #678
jdkoeck wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, it’s crazy people defend Apple on this. Apple is not just providing a payment platform, it’s forcing you to use it. As a developer, you should be free to use any payment platform you want in your app, like on the web. Let the user decide. End of story.

I'm all for letting the user decide. But what you are proposing is not letting the user decide. If Melinda wants to use the Facebook app, but the Facebook app is only available on the Meta store, then Melina is forced to use the Meta store. This is not giving users choice. This is replacing one corp-backed store by multiple corp-backed stores. The user loses. The only way how this would be a choice is if the same app…

Melinda should be able to choose to have a business relationship with Meta. The Meta store, aka a trivial hosting/payment service, would be part of that Meta offering. She should not however only be allowed to have an Apple(Meta) relationship where Apple gets to tax and restrict Meta for it's own commercial benefit.

An "App Store", when it is not used as a rent-seeking choke-point, is a nothing-burger, it's a simple website to buy and download an app, yet you are trying to claim some great horror if this website was run by Meta not Apple. Please. It's nonsensical.

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

#687

Post by interpol_p »

tempodox wrote: post #626
interpol_p wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! Actually, they have kind of done this with Apple Arcade, and charge you a $10 subscription for the service

Arcade is for games only. Also, any discontinued games on Arcade immediately stop working on any device where you have downloaded them. Apps from the regular App Store stay functional, even when discontinued. If you thought you couldn't have less ownership than with the stuff from the App Store, Arcade shows you how. You're merely a tenant, and even if you keep paying the rent, stuff just disappears.

Yeah I was just trying to make a cynical point that when they allow you to filter by no-in-app-purchases, they charge you for the privilege

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

#688

Post by rickdeckard »

DeathArrow wrote: post #477
flanked-evergl wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is not moral just because it makes a profit or because it is legal, and revenue is also not profit. And I think if a company operates outside societal norms, which I think Apple with regards to European societal norms, it should expect to get regulated to fit those norms again. Maybe the US is too dysfunctional to do this any more, but the purpose of government should be to align the laws and regulations wi…

>My bank generates revenue by offering me a service in return for my money, not by monopolizing access to my money and then charging people who want to sell to me for the honour of allowing me to buy their goods and services. Well, maybe Apple should open a bank. You just gave them ideas. :)

They already operate as a bank, they just offload the legal/annoying part of it to others and focus on selling the sum of its customers' purchasing power

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

#689

Post by inemesitaffia »

toyg wrote: post #679
remon wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the wrong argument to make and a perfect example of why internet discussion is becoming harder. None of what you said matters. It does not matter how much money a company makes or if you personally think they're charging too much for a service. They're allowed to. The open question is if they're in a position where there's no reasonable alternative for developers and/or consumers which you can make a…

> It does not matter how much money a company makes or if you personally think they're charging too much for a service. They're allowed to. Ah yes, loan sharks are perfectly legitimate businessmen too, then. > The fact that this is the second highest upvoted comment is a rather sad datapoint I personally find sadder that there are people who just rationalize away the utter lack of morality in modern capitalism. "Why…

Why do companies charge extra to businesses for the same product? Should they? See the SSO tax

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

#690

Post by criley2 »

andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

> All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer

Apple stock is the most widely held stock by American 401k's and forms the basis of retirement investments for middle class Americans more than any other stock

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