Unsurprising that this is happening in South Korea first as there is a clear beneficiary that has strong government ties.
Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
191–200 of 627 posts
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Historically, people had to buy developer tools like compilers and assemblers for hundreds if not thousands of dollars either directly from the company or through retail channels if they wanted access to the inner workings of their computer. Apple included. So the pay-to-build model isn't new. As far as what "should" happen is concerned, that'll be a matter of debate and contract law if/when Apple changes its terms a…
Indeed. And Apple does have the benefit of prior art in the case of games consoles which have—for the past 30 years at least—required developers to accept some kind of revenue share for the right to distribute software to customers.
Is Apple advertising iPhones as game consoles?
When I search for iPhone on Google, the top result is a link to Apple with the text "Explore iPhone, the world's most powerful personal device."
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#193Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#194Finally. This is exactly how regulators should respond to the market abuse of these technology monopolies. If they wanted to head this off all they had to do was pay a reasonable amount of tax in the country where the revenue was generated and offer a reasonable (single percentage) fee for facilitating payments. They chose not to so they reap what they sow
one of the first regulations that make sense: more free market. As long as there are regulators with a lot of power there will be incentive to corruption anyway. I like free competition. Something that Google and Apple were trying to prevent. But putting all in the hands of an ever-increasing state is not the way to go either. Though I gree with the decision.
1. Network effects.
2. Information asymmetry.
3. Barriers to entry.
Purely free markets only apply to toiler paper rolls, and not even that.
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we can all agree that transfer pricing and the Double Irish Dutch sandwich were not intended to be used in the way they have been by modern multinationals.
What is stopping the governments from changing the laws to make it illegal? I do not understand the concept of expecting an entity to pay taxes they are not liable for paying.
America. Recall Washington crying foul when France wanted a digital tax.
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Developers (and users) deserve choice . If you want to pay 30% to Apple to take care of that for you, then you should be able to. If someone else doesn't want to pay 30% to Apple, then they should have that right too. I've lived through both fragmented platforms and unified platforms, and I'll take the former any day. They're messy, but fair and dynamic. And critically, they evolve and allow new competition to emerge…
>If someone else doesn't want to pay 30% to Apple, then they should have that right too. They have that right they can choose to not develop on Apples platform.
To go to Google's platform which is just Eurasia painted a different color :-)
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#197Finally. This is exactly how regulators should respond to the market abuse of these technology monopolies. If they wanted to head this off all they had to do was pay a reasonable amount of tax in the country where the revenue was generated and offer a reasonable (single percentage) fee for facilitating payments. They chose not to so they reap what they sow
I very much agree that this app stores market abuse thing needs to end, and I am also really glad to see that at least one country is responding like this.
> a reasonable (single percentage) fee for facilitating payments.
I want to point out, though, that the service Apple provides is not merely payment processing. They offer total customer management. Which, when integrated with their entire developer offering (TestFlight, App Store, etc) is pretty neat. I’ve integrated my app with Apple for iOS and then had to do it all over again with Braintree of web. You might say that entire exercise speaks to the inanity of the App Store monopoly, but the experience illustrated for me how much more Apple provides than just mere payment processing. You won’t find the words “chargeback” or “dispute” in Apple’s docs, because they take care of all that for you. With Apple, you don’t have to program UIs for changing subscription tiers or viewing transaction histories. And many other things.
Is it worth 30%? No. 15%? I don’t think so. Should I have to maintain and juggle different integrations for every app store? Definitely not. But Apple’s offering is decent and comprehensive. It would be made much better if it wasn’t a racket that held developers hostage. Think App Store competing with Play Store on Android devices. And vice versa. Now that would be cool!
I really hope similar legislation is passed in the United States and EU.
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should I pay Apple for the right to build a Mac app, or Windows for using their desktop apis? Maybe I should have to pay mozilla and google every time someone visiting my website and I use a piece of javascript that executes in their browsers?
Or maybe Google should have to pay Oracle for duplicating the layout of standard Java classes.
And Oracle should pay IBM for having practically invented SQL.
And everyone using virtualization should be paying IBM for having practically invented virtualization.
Repeat ad nauseam.
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. And Apple does have the benefit of prior art in the case of games consoles which have—for the past 30 years at least—required developers to accept some kind of revenue share for the right to distribute software to customers.
Is Apple advertising iPhones as game consoles? When I search for iPhone on Google, the top result is a link to Apple with the text "Explore iPhone, the world's most powerful personal device."
Can you suggest why that would be relevant? It's not like the software license model of general purpose computers is enforced under law.
Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we can all agree that transfer pricing and the Double Irish Dutch sandwich were not intended to be used in the way they have been by modern multinationals.
What is stopping the governments from changing the laws to make it illegal? I do not understand the concept of expecting an entity to pay taxes they are not liable for paying.
It's a problem when small companies have to pay company tax, and large multinational companies do not, merely because the latter has the legal know-how and the funds to achieve it. As an analogy, it'd be like a road worker paying 30 percent tax on a $70k income and a company CEO paying 0-5 percent tax on a $10m income.
The necessary solution is obviously systemic change rather than asking large companies to pay above what they're required to, the latter would actually be a breach of their agency duty and anyone who thinks companies should do that are foolish.
I don't know what the solution is. Perhaps abolishing company tax, which is my favorite proposal. Perhaps a worldwide company tax as Biden is pushing for (which concerns me for other reasons, even though I do admit it would solve this specific problem).