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Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

developer.apple.com

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Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#201

Post by wbobeirne »

StefanBatory wrote: post #193
tracerbulletx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, toy makers, the true problem of our world. 30 years ago I'm sure you'd be complaining about "addicted" spending on keeping up with the most popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys. It's not evil to make things kids want and make money off it. If you don't want your kids to buy things, that's on you and its a problem from time immemorial, not a new issue with video games.

In Fortnite, skins are available to buy only sometimes. At a given time, you can buy like, 6-7 of them. If you want something that is not up, well, tough luck, it may never come back.

That is also true of action figures, trading cards, comic books etc.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#202

Post by tracerbulletx »

StefanBatory wrote: post #193
tracerbulletx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, toy makers, the true problem of our world. 30 years ago I'm sure you'd be complaining about "addicted" spending on keeping up with the most popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys. It's not evil to make things kids want and make money off it. If you don't want your kids to buy things, that's on you and its a problem from time immemorial, not a new issue with video games.

In Fortnite, skins are available to buy only sometimes. At a given time, you can buy like, 6-7 of them. If you want something that is not up, well, tough luck, it may never come back.

I heard they make whole cartoons to feature a specific toy character and put them in kids happy meals and have limited collectors editions. Will the manipulative horrors of marketing to children ever cease or will we all be coerced into a life time sentence at Disney land by a clever cereal tie in.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#203

Post by solardev »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #167

If you haven't watched Tim Sweeney's appearance on Lex Fridman (which went live two days ago ironically), he discusses this battle against Apple, which he's maintained at a furious pace for years. He goes into detail on how the previous guidelines stifle innovation, how app developers are basically forced to implement anti-consumer practices to maintain the ridiculous costs of achieving success on the app store, etc.…

Fortnite started as a P2W coop game where legendary weapons were all inside loot boxes. It was very predatory. Then an internal team at Epic made an experimental battle royale mode and that's what became modern Fortnite. The old one is still available as Fortnite: Save the World.

Epic is largely owned by Tencent anyway, who makes a lot of their money from gambling games.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#204

Post by bsimpson »

StefanBatory wrote: post #193
tracerbulletx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, toy makers, the true problem of our world. 30 years ago I'm sure you'd be complaining about "addicted" spending on keeping up with the most popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys. It's not evil to make things kids want and make money off it. If you don't want your kids to buy things, that's on you and its a problem from time immemorial, not a new issue with video games.

In Fortnite, skins are available to buy only sometimes. At a given time, you can buy like, 6-7 of them. If you want something that is not up, well, tough luck, it may never come back.

They also charge like $20 just to play as whatever licensed character in their game.

If you wanna be able to play as Batman or Mr Meseeks or the dog from Adventure Time, that's $60 already.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#205

Post by Aeolun »

StefanBatory wrote: post #193
tracerbulletx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, toy makers, the true problem of our world. 30 years ago I'm sure you'd be complaining about "addicted" spending on keeping up with the most popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys. It's not evil to make things kids want and make money off it. If you don't want your kids to buy things, that's on you and its a problem from time immemorial, not a new issue with video games.

In Fortnite, skins are available to buy only sometimes. At a given time, you can buy like, 6-7 of them. If you want something that is not up, well, tough luck, it may never come back.

That’s the same for the Tomica Blackhawk X3 Transformable Robot. Unless you find it somewhere on ebay second hand, after it leaves store shelves you will never see it again.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#206

Post by hnlmorg »

owebmaster wrote: post #22
hnlmorg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically the App Store only exists because of the ridicule Apple received when they announced their new smartphone which then only supported 3rd party applications as web apps. Back then, native apps were considered a “must have” feature for smartphones. How times have changed.

[flagged]

Youre making reductive assertions on my comment.

I’m neither defending nor explaining Apples actions. Just adding commentary on why the App Store exists.

Also you’re getting cause and effect the wrong way around. Plenty of businesses have made 10s of billions based on happy accidents. Just because Apple now makes a mint from the App Store, it doesn’t mean it was part of their original vision for the iPhone.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#207

Post by brutal_chaos_ »

taylorbuley wrote: post #178
stavros wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let "better" be the enemy of "good".

The way my favorite boss told me, it was "don't let `great` be the enemy of `good enough.`"

Good enough is how everything went to shit (enshitification). "It's an MVP? Good enough, ship it and bolt on features no one wants." Personally, I am very tired of "good enough." I wish we built great things.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#208

Post by repeekad »

nicce wrote: post #63
arghwhat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that "shooting themselves in the foot" also translates to "earning more money for a longer time".

We need some courage to give larger fines. It is too common to calculate fines just as financial risk rather than something which you should not do because it is not a good thing. It is obvious that they are making more money than the possible fines are when they still continue doing this. Or just put persons responsible for company's ill decisions and suddenly all problems disappear.

Also don’t forget, only very large companies can make this kind of calculated risk; when the parking ticket isn’t calculated based on your income, the parking ticket for some is just a fee to park while to others it means not making rent that month, the fines stifle competition while the big players can take advantage

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#209

Post by macguillicuddy »

gruez wrote: post #191
macguillicuddy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not what the credit card system (with chargebacks and liability shift) is supposed to counter more generally? Lots of these arguments could equally be applied to a shopping mall but we don't require all stores within a mall to use the same merchant services provider.

>Is this not what the credit card system (with chargebacks and liability shift) is supposed to counter more generally? The credit card system is far less generous than App Store's policies. Apple offers no-questions asked refunds. Credit cards don't.

I feel that this is orthogonal to my point - it's not about how generous or not a given mechanism is, more to question why the App Store is any different from other transactions we need to protect. You either have to argue that App Store transactions need more consumer friendly refunds than other credit card transactions for some reason, or otherwise that credit cards should have no-questions asked refunds.

As another commenter said, in some cases Apple's power in the relationship is detrimental to the consumer - if a user issues a chargeback then Apple can disable their entire Apple account.

Re: Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US

#210

Post by m-s-y »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #49
hnlmorg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically the App Store only exists because of the ridicule Apple received when they announced their new smartphone which then only supported 3rd party applications as web apps. Back then, native apps were considered a “must have” feature for smartphones. How times have changed.

> How times have changed. They really haven't. 'Web apps' are terrible, both from an end-user and developer perspective. They are a bloated, overcomplicated mess.

Yes! Ditto for most Electron apps. 1Password, this evil eye is indeed looking right atcha.
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