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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

#731

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…

The inability to unsubscribe should be fixed in the law, not by granting a payments monopoly for all users of a specific operating system or phone model.

>The inability to unsubscribe should be fixed in the law

Even taking your second part as given without addressing the actual complexity here: then how about you accomplish that FIRST? Because I've heard a lot of "we'll break this hack that makes things work suboptimally but better than nothing and then fix it properly in law later" over the decades and 99% of the time it breaks the hack and then surprise surprise never ever gets the "fixed in law" part, leaving us worse off without the gain. I'm all in favor of passing some laws in this area that'd accomplish stuff more efficient with fewer perverse incentives on all sides. I'd like to see users have the option by law to control their root key stores, to require standard secure APIs for subscriptions so that multiple 3rd parties can offer central management and users can cancel without any interaction with what they're subscribing to, for long basic price linked warranties required by law, local use and ad free data control options by law, but also for manufacturers/devs to be protected by default from liability etc. It'd be great to fix a whole lot of stuff.

But until that happy day happens I'm less inclined to just mindlessly bash down what we have and a lot of people are pretty happy with and seems to have struck an ok if far from ideal compromise. I mean, killing upgrades alone makes me hate the app store, but still fix first.

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

#732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam has a literal button on your library's page to add any game you have already installed and the definitely don't charge you 27% to do that.

That button does not give that game a store page, a discussion form, etc. That is not what I am talking about.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this whole post, but isn't it about having to pay 27% even when you don't use the store?

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

#733

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.

It's amazing to me that people in this thread still don't understand free markets. You are free to use Android, or Amazon phone. Or Graphene. Or one of the many others.

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

#734
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where can I vote out apple if I am unhappy with the 30%? Not everything you pay money for is comparable to taxes.

You vote with your wallet.

Voting with your wallet just means that those who have the most money are “most correct.”

Sorry but that’s not a society I want to continue living in.

There needs to be strict regulations and maybe apple needs to be broken up. Owning the hardware and App Store has already shown have abusive they can be. They need to divest or spin off one of them into a new company or we can pressure politicians to do this for us.

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

#735
post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The missing part is that Apple's maneuver was to effectively destroy the wholesale model in favor of an agency-model, and orchestrate all major publishers to charge more for ebooks just so they can earn their 30% commission from it. Apple actively engaged as facilitator to help publishers raise prices on the whole market, for a 30% cut. The result was that books previously available for $9.99 were suddenly sold for $…

I just looked and the last Song of Ice and Fire audiobook is 41€ in Apple Books. That is hilariously insane. I could perhaps pay that for all of them but for 1 — the others are basically the same price. That's 200€ for the set. There are weirdly other audiobook versions that cost only 29€ so I wonder what's the story here.

Audiobooks are just expensive in general. A song of Ice and Fire is $39 in Audible on android (well it's on sale now for $27). Sadly $20-40 is a fairly normal price for a audiobook.

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

#736
post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They are not your friend, they do not care about you" I beg to differ. As a blind user relying on accessibility, Apple was actually the first company that decided that accessibility should be an inherent part of the OS, not just an expensive add-on. Since the iPhone, blind users can just buy the product and turn speech output on, without having to install expensive extra software as was the case with Windows, for in…

This is a great result. That being said, I wouldn't bet they did that just because they cared about you in a friendly way.

If it's not driven by ROI, it can only be empathy and «do the right thing»

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

#737
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think apple's 30% cut is excessive, but I don't think this line of argument helps. We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have.

I agree that Apple should take some cut but 30% is predatory and excessive.

Apple charges 15%. The only developers who pay 30% are the ones earning over a million dollars a year through the App Store. Even then, they get charged 15% if it’s a long-term subscription.

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

#738
post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that 30% is too high or too low, the problem is that it shouldn't be a % but a flat fee structure, like every other services ever. If you have an app tomorrow that sells for $10 to 10k people you owe Apple $30k, now you manage to up your price to $30, same work same size same everything, but suddenly you now owe Apple $90k ? That's called a tax, not a fee. Doing so wouldn't stop apple from having a…

> The problem is not that 30% is too high or too low, the problem is that it shouldn't be a % but a flat fee structure, like every other services ever. I hate Apple like the next enlightened guy, but then banks and credit card companies should also charge a flat fee for their services. This isn't the case and probably never will be, however. But their fee is much more reasonable than Apple's fee.

There is a lot wrong with banks. In many cases people try to dip in a % when it should be flat. However, with credit the risk is proportional to the loan.

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

#739

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'm going to use this post as a reference for what I believe to be one of the least logical arguments I've ever seen on a technical forum. Congratulations.

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

#740
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about if you go to purchase a house, but one of the HoA agreements is that you only shop at Kroger.

And the only roads in and out of your neighborhood leads directly to a Kroger. And there's barbed wire fencing surrounding your neighborhood. Meanwhile, deliveries being made to Kroger from distributors may only use Kroger-branded trucks, which cost at least 20% more. Oh, and that truck may only be serviced by Kroger-approved mechanics. Those mechanics can only buy parts from Kroger. Any totaled truck can't be parted…

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