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Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

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Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#541

Post by Aldo_MX »

ricardobeat wrote: post #121
pcr910303 wrote: post #103

It’s not usual for news on my country to be on top of HN. Very unexpected. I’m guessing though that the South Korean market is be significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out it’s business from South Korea and call it a day. I guess this is, in some kind, a victory against the huge companies. But… personally I do find sad that this would be detrimental to South Korean app UX. Stripe isn’t a thing here…

Apple Pay is already available as an API, you can even use it on the web. Indeed would be nice to centralize all subscriptions, we have yet to see how they would interface with 3rd party payment options. But on the whole this should be a win - if anything, those competitors will have a strong incentive to improve their UX.

Why not create a credit card startup that makes it easier to cancel subscriptions instead of being the devil's advocate?

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#542

Post by arcticbull »

orhmeh09 wrote: post #535
arcticbull wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Tim Cook era they are now (or are now transitioning into) a services company. Steve would have murdered anyone who proposed putting a 90 day Apple TV+ upsell in Settings on a new phone. Out the airlock. Instantly. They’re moving to selling subscriptions and data is critical to that. Strict rules would actually give them a huge edge over their other services competitors on platform and if they could couch it in…

Do you remember MobileMe? Jobs was in charge when its 60-day demo shipped with OS X: https://www.dummies.com/computers/macs/how-to-decide-whether...

I actually have a .Mac account from back in the day - only one I missed was iTools. That IIRC was embedded in the MobileMe settings pane, the AppleTV+ ad is top level of Settings. Between your face and software update haha. Not anywhere even close to an AppleTV settings pane.

At least they kept it out of Buddy this time haha.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#543

Post by NonEUCitizen »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #131

Very good. South Korea is maybe less corrupt than most EU countries after all...

The South Korea government has imprisoned two of its former presidents for corruption. It is even brave enough to jail Samsung's leader (though let him out recently after 18 months in jail).

For me, above proves South Korea is less corrupt and far better governed than most EU countries and USA.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#544

Post by ehvatum »

simonh wrote: post #444
bostik wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% was highway robbery from the start. Pure and simple. It was merely a less awful deal than most other indie commission models, with sites like Kongregate and their ilk demanding >80%. Against that kind of flaying and skinning, 30% was an improvement! I've said it before. A very good agent, who actually works for their client and arranges them with repeat lucrative contracts, gets 15%. App stores, as gatekeepers to…

>30% was highway robbery from the start. That was not at all obvious to anyone in 2008. It's a pretty typical margin from the console industry, which was the main point of reference at the time. Apple spent several billion building the App Store infrastructure, the SDK and setting up the review and payments system and it took years for App Store revenue to catch up with the sunk investment and expenses. Also practica…

>However that all happened and we are where we are. I don't object to Apple's app store margins or IAP charges, it's their product, their rules.

You are right. It's a question of incentives. The Apple/Google duopoly is incentivized towards control because it allows for abusive profit extraction. They have less incentive to open their platforms and both continue to invest heavily to avoid doing so, because their product, their rules is extremely profitable.

>I do think banning developers from informing users of how to get subscriptions and such outside the store is foolish.

From the Apple/Google perspective, it is foolish in only one respect: it so outrageous that it invites legislative and regulatory response.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#545

Post by mattl »

judge2020 wrote: post #488
mattl wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% was the iTunes deal for apps. On iTunes songs were all 99 cents and Apple got 30 cents.

Songs were $1.29 for a long time as well. $0.99 songs seemed to be mostly for radio edits and similar.

That was later after iTunes plus came out (higher fidelity, no DRM in some countries)

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#546

Post by mattl »

Steko wrote: post #518
mattl wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% was the iTunes deal for apps. On iTunes songs were all 99 cents and Apple got 30 cents.

Iirc Apple ate the credit card fees on their cut which meant they earned a few pennies if you only bought one somg at a time.

Nope. It was always the deal.

I have artist sales records predating the iPhone.

Edit: Also worth remembering that iTunes is/was/is the iTunes Music Store (itms) and that Apple sold apps via it for the click wheel iPod under the same percentages.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#547

Post by shagie »

pcr910303 wrote: post #103

It’s not usual for news on my country to be on top of HN. Very unexpected. I’m guessing though that the South Korean market is be significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out it’s business from South Korea and call it a day. I guess this is, in some kind, a victory against the huge companies. But… personally I do find sad that this would be detrimental to South Korean app UX. Stripe isn’t a thing here…

> I’m hoping that Apple will provide APIs for showing payment screens and Apple will still control the ability to show all subscriptions, cancel them in one single place, etc… but I don’t think Apple will ever do that. Unfortunate…

I'm not sure that Apple can do it without being an intermediary in the process - managing the billing. And... well... that's what Apple Pay is.

In order for Apple to be the one to show and cancel subscriptions, they need to be the ones billing you and then processing that transaction (possibly batching it up with others to reduce processing fees).

Likewise, if there's a dispute - for example a child made a few hundred dollars of in app purchase and the parents would like to refund that... Apple can reverse those transactions ( https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204084 ). If you're dealing with a 3rd party payment system... you're going to have to deal with the 3rd party payment system on your own.

Another "it can be gotten around" when you leave the App Store and payment processor is the in app purchase constraints ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204396 ) in that a developer wouldn't have to honor that check at all.

---

The future of 3rd party payment processors that developers ask for really means taking Apple and its APIs out of the process. Entering in the credit card information (making sure that developers aren't trying to bypass access constraints on the wallet) and sending that out themselves.

For example, PayPal charges 4.99% plus a fixed fee that's about $0.10 per transaction ( https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees ). This is comparable to what a developer would have to pay to Visa or any other payment processor for doing micro transactions of their own. Having Apple do it means that Apple would really like to charge at least 5% + $0.10/transaction which for a $0.99 is $0.15 and that's 15%... which is the amount that a small developer shop would have to pay for doing it through Apple.

---

And so, I return back to the question - how would you see Apple opening up the APIs for doing payment processing without doing the payment processing themselves (and insuring extra expenses)?

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#548

Post by sam0x17 »

kernoble wrote: post #485
sam0x17 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. I think that when corporations do exploitative things, they are being short-sighted, and will eventually suffer in the long run. And really what I would advocate for is stricter regulations so we don't have to rely on the good will of corporations in general. Their track record is terrible.

The thing is this "long run" is a hypothetical for investors and their finite lifetimes and finite windows of return. Companies aren't accountable to some infinitely long running algorithm or timeless dynasty of shareholders, they are accountable to living breathing greedy humans who want to make a buck NOW, not when they are dead or for their heirs.

Right, hence we need to regulate the hell out of them.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#549

Post by howinteresting »

simondotau wrote: post #515
howinteresting wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be evidence in antitrust proceedings to demonstrate that Apple is not aligning itself with the game console market but with the personal computer market.

You still haven't explained how that is relevant. The law doesn't currently distinguish between a personal computer and a game console.

Antitrust regulators do.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#550

Post by howinteresting »

simondotau wrote: post #526
howinteresting wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, regulators can do that, and they would have pretty clear antitrust grounds to do it as well. The difference between random people using the GPL and Apple is that Apple is worth a trillion dollars. That matters quite a bit.

It matters if you're making an emotional argument, but I'm not sure it's relevant to any legal argument.

Antitrust regulators don't care about the size of the trusts they're meant to regulate? Interesting.
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