Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

This is not accurate. Do more research. Steam has a tiered cut they introduced to keep big players on their store, for example. Google and Apple both offer a lower rate for small business. And alternative stores on PC successfully operate with much lower cuts (EGS, GOG, itch, humble). It's not "in line with the rest of the industry", it's "no higher than the other bad ones".

Steam also doesn't collect 30% for distribution (ie developer issued keys for things like bundles)

Apple and Google are extracting so much wealth from the people who use and develop smartphone software it is insane.

I am continuously shocked at how supportive the HN community is of Apple collecting these tolls.

> No need. Market is functioning reasonably well, as Android, PineOS, FirefoxOS, and similar alternatives exist.

I'm not sure I'd like a government (whom at least in theory, exists to protect & provide as much collective good for their constituents as possible) to approach the situation in such a cold strictly economic fashion. Hundreds of millions of people unfairly being taken advantage of to the benefit of a small privileged few is exactly what I think governments ought to be trying to prevent.

>Just because someone purchased a product doesn't mean they were coerced into the purchase.

So what if they weren't coerced? Should government really have to wait until an apple exec points a gun to someone's head while they make a purchase before they can try and help? Isn't it possible a lot (I'd argue most) of these people don't realize all the financial nuances they've unwittingly become party to when choosing a phone. Think about all the grandparents who opted to get iphone because that is the one their grandchildren uses, think of all teenagers who chose IOS because that's what their friend group uses, heck think of all the literal children using IOS because that's what their parents gifted them for Christmas. Should the government really just turn their heads while children, teenagers, elderly, and so on are unwittingly agreeing to participate in a financially abusive arrangement.

I think you and I are running into the classic "is" vs "ought" disagreement. While I agree with you that this is currently legal, I also believe that it ought not to be due to the negative impact it has on hundreds of millions of people.

I am curious how much running the App store costs. According to Statista [0], its gross revenue in 2021 was 85.1B. If this is the right number to use, then Apple gets between ca. 12.5 and 25.33B from it (for a 15% and 30% cut, respectively.)

I know costs and prices are somewhat independent of each other, but even the 12.5B seems like a lot. I wish I knew how much App store's technical infrastructure costs.

0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/296226/annual-apple-app-...

Mainly two ways.

One is by tracking outgoing links via a specific framework that needs to be used, the ruling only provides for Apple having to allow linking out, no restrictions on Apple’s part for requiring a certain way of doing it.

The other is the courts explicitly affirming Apple’s right to audit as a part of them stating that the commission will still be owed regardless.

The latter is important because it allows Apple to claim a legitimate interest in defense if somehow a case is brought specifically about Apple’s requirements on how to link to a URL outside the app.

Think: “Judge you said the commission would still be owed and you stated we can audit, you even lamented on how cumbersome it would be for all parties involved to settle the commission owed to us if third party payment options would be used, us requiring a specific framework to be used to link outside the app alleviates some of that. We have a legitimate interest in imposing these requirements because it helps us measure links to external purchase flows, which in turn helps us automate measuring these external transactions.”

If you read the appellate court’s judgment, the annoyance towards the district court is palpable. Because the district court both stated the unlawfulness of the anti-steering provision under California statutes as well as stating how cumbersome after the fact collection is of the commission as well as stating that the commission is still owed.

All of this is marginally contradictory, but because the district court didn’t err in sufficient ways for the appellate court to step in and all of it ultimately is in line with the law and standing jurisprudence, the appellate court’s hands were tied, because the appellate court isn’t for do-overs, it’s merely there for significant errors that cause harm.

SCOTUS refused to take up the case, so until further notice the law of the land is that a) developers are allowed to steer users away from the the app while b) Apple remains entitled to their commission regardless because c) there's nothing inherently illegal about Apple's commission because d) it primarily is a payment mechanism for usage of Apple's IP by virtue of how it's structured in the developer agreement and e) as such it's legal because Apple can't be forced to give away their IP for free.