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Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

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Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#41

Post by djfdat »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #17
dvt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is two big corporations arguing over which one makes more profit from you. This slightly oversimplifies the situation, as Apple's policy is pretty clearly anti-competitive and, more importantly, anti-developer. As a developer, you have to bump your prices because of the Apple tax. (And even as a consumer, prices are pushed up. Let's say you want to sell X for $10; too bad: you now have to sell it for $12 if yo…

As a developer, if Apple's fees went away, would you drop your price or just make more profit? Prices may have been pushed up but there is little incentive for them to ever come down.

There would be more room to drop your prices, not saying that people necessarily will. And if they don't, the extra profit goes to developers of the app you are purchasing, rather than the (second?) largest company in the world.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#42

Post by blibble »

xivzgrev wrote: post #39

I mean I gotta give respect to Apple. They seem to have done the minimal technical compliance with the order. Users can make a purchase for their app outside of the App Store. But at the same time they put in as much friction as they could, including reframing the charge to developer as a lead commission - and the net cost to developer is HIGHER than using Apple. Of course epic is going to challenge the spirit of the…

> I mean I gotta give respect to Apple. They seem to have done the minimal technical compliance with the order.

it's borderline contempt of court

> I can respect though how they approached a potentially large setback for their business.

I'd be pretty mad if I was the judge, they might like my 2nd ruling even less

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#43

Post by atdrummond »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #17
dvt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is two big corporations arguing over which one makes more profit from you. This slightly oversimplifies the situation, as Apple's policy is pretty clearly anti-competitive and, more importantly, anti-developer. As a developer, you have to bump your prices because of the Apple tax. (And even as a consumer, prices are pushed up. Let's say you want to sell X for $10; too bad: you now have to sell it for $12 if yo…

As a developer, if Apple's fees went away, would you drop your price or just make more profit? Prices may have been pushed up but there is little incentive for them to ever come down.

That leaves an opening for someone to exploit with a market clearing price.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#44

Post by extheat »

threeseed wrote: post #10
jrochkind1 wrote: post #4

Can anyone provide a link to context on what OP is talking about, for those who don't know it? I don't understand what Apple is actually doing from this tweet/thread. Are they are somehow managing to force even payment links from ordinary web sites in an ordinary web browser (Safari?) to go through them as payment processor? (How?) Or is this a new rule for app store apps (what is the new rule?) Or a new payment stru…

https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl... And there is more to this issue than people realise. Apple has had major lawsuits over the years [1] due to kids racking up large credit card bills via in-app purchases. And similar concerns exist for gambling apps. So this explains why they need to show such a large warning because they don't want to be held responsible for actions of a third party. Whi…

This sounds even worse for Apple. If it’s too easy to make an in-app purchase, why don’t they make it harder to complete one by adding password requirement for payments through their App Store? Of course they won’t do that because it hurts /their/ bottom line. Following this logic, letting people complete payments outside of Apples control should absolve Apple of the legal liabilities between payments made between the user and a third party. If this is not the case, can you sue Apple for unauthorized payments made over Safari?

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#45

Post by grishka »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #30
grishka wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure why they feel so emboldened Because they feel like they own the relationship between the user and the developer by virtue of it happening on a device they made, regardless of how much their contribution, if any, was to the formation of that relationship in the first place.

the same could be said of any game developed on Unreal and required to pay an (admittedly lower) percent to Epic

You have a choice to use a different engine to build your game (including rolling your own). You don't have a choice to not use the app store to distribute your iOS app.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#46

Post by montagg »

dvt wrote: post #12
annoyingnoob wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> This is two big corporations arguing over which one makes more profit from you. This slightly oversimplifies the situation, as Apple's policy is pretty clearly anti-competitive and, more importantly, anti-developer. As a developer, you have to bump your prices because of the Apple tax. (And even as a consumer, prices are pushed up. Let's say you want to sell X for $10; too bad: you now have to sell it for $12 if yo…

It's legally settled, so, from a US law perspective, it's clearly not ant-competitive, and the US will need new legislation if that's not good enough.

I figure you probably see this very clearly, but the problem is that a lot of people don't see it that way, and the law doesn't. Clarifying what is anti-competitive in your view, and crucially what other economic and competition trade-offs you're willing to make to realize that rule, is what will really move the conversation forward.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#47

Post by NoPedantsThanks »

extheat wrote: post #44
threeseed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl... And there is more to this issue than people realise. Apple has had major lawsuits over the years [1] due to kids racking up large credit card bills via in-app purchases. And similar concerns exist for gambling apps. So this explains why they need to show such a large warning because they don't want to be held responsible for actions of a third party. Whi…

This sounds even worse for Apple. If it’s too easy to make an in-app purchase, why don’t they make it harder to complete one by adding password requirement for payments through their App Store? Of course they won’t do that because it hurts /their/ bottom line. Following this logic, letting people complete payments outside of Apples control should absolve Apple of the legal liabilities between payments made between th…

I think they did this. I'm pretty sure you can activate a password-entry requirement for in-app purchases, if it's not enabled by default.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#48

Post by massysett »

ado__dev wrote: post #15
ribosometronome wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that option is important to you, why deeply embed yourself in an ecosystem that doesn't have it when others exist?

Apple's hardware is unmatched unfortunately.

Perhaps Apple’s hardware is unmatched in part because they profit from it by using the very mechanisms you don’t like. The engineering resources to focus on perfect hardware aren’t cheap. There is plenty of junk hardware out there that gives you more freedom.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#49

Post by ado__dev »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #33
ado__dev wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the issue is how high the fee is, the issue is Apple forcing developers to use their payments platform. Apple is within its right to charge whatever they want. Unreal Engine is free to charge whatever fee they want. But you're not forced to use UE. You are forced to use Apple IAP system, or their alternative now, is to allow you to use your own system, but still pay them a ridiculous fee, for what exact…

> you're not forced to use UE. you are forced to pay Epic 5% of sales (if your game makes more than $1 million), so pretty much like Apple (fees are lower of course)

But again, you have the choice of not using Epic. You can use Unity, or any other game engine, or even make your own if you're so inclined. With Apple, you don't have a choice if you want to be on iOS (which has close to 60% marketshare in the US).

And I'm not arguing that apple needs to reduce the fee. They can charge whatever they want for their IAP system. But, other companies that have software/services that are cross-platform, should be allowed to use their own payment processors without paying additional fees to apple imo. Apple should be able to put up the message that hey, you're leaving our ecosystem, you're on your own, blah blah. But I don't see a reason why they should also get a cut at that point.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#50

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

montagg wrote: post #46
dvt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is two big corporations arguing over which one makes more profit from you. This slightly oversimplifies the situation, as Apple's policy is pretty clearly anti-competitive and, more importantly, anti-developer. As a developer, you have to bump your prices because of the Apple tax. (And even as a consumer, prices are pushed up. Let's say you want to sell X for $10; too bad: you now have to sell it for $12 if yo…

It's legally settled, so, from a US law perspective, it's clearly not ant-competitive, and the US will need new legislation if that's not good enough. I figure you probably see this very clearly, but the problem is that a lot of people don't see it that way, and the law doesn't. Clarifying what is anti-competitive in your view, and crucially what other economic and competition trade-offs you're willing to make to rea…

The court decided that the anti-steering was anti-competitive and the SCOTUS said LGTM.
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