4 ms·

What's with the obsession of calling everything 'tax'? It's not a government and it's not doing anything else than making money on provided services, and theref

What's with the obsession of calling everything 'tax'? It's not a government and it's not doing anything else than making money on provided services, and therefore it's not tax. This whole euphemism and emotion thing is just getting in the way of reality and proper discussion.

bluntfang 6y ago
Can you help us understand what the reality and proper discussion is?
- oneplane 6y ago
  I probably can't. But the title could have been: "Apple didn't want Facebook to bring their 30% margin to the foreground of attention".
bioinformatics 6y ago
Narratives are more important than facts. A lie repeated a million times becomes truth, and a million repetitions happen in a blink of an eye nowadays.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bluedevil2k 6y ago
> A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization Apple pretty much is the government when it comes to the App Store. A single entity, monopoly powers, no competition, makes all the rules and is allowed to enforce them without penalty. “Tax” is a pretty apt term for the 30%.
- FloresHernandez 6y ago
  You can opt out of Apple ecosystem simply by changing your phone. You can't not opt out of your government ecosystem (Or at least, it's more complicated). This is like calling Walmart profit margin "tax" ... just buy in another store.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    > You can opt out of Apple ecosystem simply by changing your phone The issue isn’t the end users, it’s the app owners. A single entity controls access to the large majority of paying customers (after all, Apple makes most of the profit compared to Google/Android),
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    I know some people that recently bought new $1000 iPhone without knowing about the 30% fee. They can't "simply change their phone" because they'd lose boat loads of money. I get sunk costs, but they feel mislead, and I don't blame them. Apple has worked very hard to lock in users, it's not very easy to just switch phones.
    - ziml77 6y ago
      Not just the cost of the device, but also the cost of any applications that they've purchased. And there's the trouble of trying to get social circles to move away from FaceTime and Apple Messages. I also can't imagine that migrating data off of Apple's services to other comparable services is easy.
      - colinmhayes 6y ago
        Yep, I don't feel like I can switch because some of my friends refuse to do normal calls, only using facetime/facetime audio. Plus the imessage data is much faster than texts. Trying to get my circle to switch to whatsapp, but until then I'm pretty stuck.
  - wvenable 6y ago
    > You can't not opt out of your government ecosystem Of course you can. If you can move from Apple to Android you can move from one country to another. It would hard to find a more perfect analogy to this situation.
- bluedino 6y ago
  It’s a fee, or a charge. It’s not a tax by the definition of the word. Why not call it a fine? Or a bonus?
  - shi314 6y ago
    A tax is a compulsory payment levied by the government on individuals or companies to meet the expenditure which is required for public welfare. So, it is a tax.
- randallsquared 6y ago
  > Apple pretty much is the government when it comes to the App Store. It definitely is not. The defining feature of a government is the legitimate use of violence. No actual or threatened violence, no government. There are lots of reasons to be concerned about the App Store and Apple, but let's not blur the lines between money voluntarily given to use a service, and money given to avoid arrest and jail.
  - simongr3dal 6y ago
    To be pedantic, a government can be a collective noun for governing and ruling bodies, state-affiliated or not. And Apple, the iPhone team, the iOS team, and the App Store team are certainly governing how developers can act.
  - zepolen 6y ago
    Well in this Apple governed App store 'State' the act of violence is the forced removal of an app (a shop) from being allowed to operate, and in some case (Epic Games), completely banning the citizen from the State, let's call that Jail since Apple again may set them free, again, at their discretion. This App Store ecosystem sits at over 1.5 billion inhabitants, larger than China. Frankly, state tax is the perfect word to use.
  - shi314 6y ago
    A tax is a compulsory payment levied by the government on individuals or companies to meet the expenditure which is required for public welfare. Violence being monopolised by State is the modern political philosophy given by Weber in 1919. Tax existed when individuals namely aristocracy even had legitimate use of violence. Apple makes case it charges fees for public good by curating list and providing security to end users, that's public welfare unless it's millions of users aren't enough to be categorised as Public.
save_ferris 6y ago
> What's with the obsession of calling everything 'tax'? It’s a great way to get people upset that they have to pay for something because taxes have such a negative connotation in American politics. Taxation is regarded as financial oppression in some political circles, and it’s easy to co-oof that message for other purposes.
- xeromal 6y ago
  Considering the country was founded on tax related grievances, it would make sense that at least an iota of the culture grows up hating taxes.
bosswipe 6y ago
It may not be technically correct but everyone understands what tax means here. What I don't understand is this weird impulse to always defend the two trillion dollar corporation against any slight insult.
- mytherin 6y ago
  > It may not be technically correct but everyone understands what tax means here. That's exactly the point. Everyone understands what a tax means, so calling something that is not a tax "a tax" is intentionally misleading. People call it a tax to invoke emotions and mislead, not to clarify what is going on. Everyone also understands what a fee means. > What I don't understand is this weird impulse to always defend the two trillion dollar corporation against any slight insult. What I don't understand is why people think it's relevant that Apple is a two trillion dollar company. Apple is not a monopolist and operates in generally very competitive markets, yet many people still buy Apple products despite their high profit-margins. Clearly they are doing something very right in the eyes of many consumers to be a two trillion dollar company. How is that a bad thing?
verroq 6y ago
It’s standard rhetoric at this point. It is pretty appropriate for this kind of rent-seeking.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  IMO, this is not (economically-speaking) rent-seeking. Apple has created something that improved the world (that created new wealth) and is charging for it. That’s definitionally not rent-seeking.
  - jsnell 6y ago
    Apple indeed created new wealth by developing iOS and the App Store. Then, once they owned the market, they started exploiting it by adding new restrictions. The restrictions had no economic value, they're simply there to allow Apple to extract their unfair share of the value created by others.
stephc_int13 6y ago
For many developers, 30% of the app price is higher than what their company benefit. Thus, Apple (or Google or Valve) is making more than themselves on the product they made. We call it a tax because there is no way to avoid it except not selling our apps. And because 30% is quite high. It would not be seen in a such a negative way if it was in the 10-15% range.
- Spivak 6y ago
  > We call it a tax because there is no way to avoid it except not selling our apps. I’m genuinely confused by this sentiment. If you lose money after paying the 30% then you wouldn’t be in the App Store at all. But you “have to pay it” because even after the cut you’re still turning a profit. An apparently large enough profit for it to be worth the separate development and maintenance costs too. What makes you feel like you have no choice but to develop for iOS? Don’t get me wrong it’s absolutely shitty when someone with leverage over your business squeezes but the percentage can’t be the deciding factor here. The same as every business ever, Apple charges you whatever they think they can get away with. So either it should be okay for Apple to take a percentage cut or not.
  - stephc_int13 6y ago
    The percentage is clearly the main deciding factor here. This is bad for the ecosystem in general, and in my opinion Apple does not need that money. And they are evading the tax laws in most countries, simply because they can...

bluntfang 6y ago

Can you help us understand what the reality and proper discussion is?

oneplane 6y ago
I probably can't. But the title could have been: "Apple didn't want Facebook to bring their 30% margin to the foreground of attention".

bioinformatics 6y ago

Narratives are more important than facts. A lie repeated a million times becomes truth, and a million repetitions happen in a blink of an eye nowadays.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

bluedevil2k 6y ago

> A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization Apple pretty much is the government when it comes to the App Store. A single entity, monopoly powers, no competition, makes all the rules and is allowed to enforce them without penalty. “Tax” is a pretty apt term for the 30%.

FloresHernandez 6y ago
You can opt out of Apple ecosystem simply by changing your phone. You can't not opt out of your government ecosystem (Or at least, it's more complicated). This is like calling Walmart profit margin "tax" ... just buy in another store.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  > You can opt out of Apple ecosystem simply by changing your phone The issue isn’t the end users, it’s the app owners. A single entity controls access to the large majority of paying customers (after all, Apple makes most of the profit compared to Google/Android),
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  I know some people that recently bought new $1000 iPhone without knowing about the 30% fee. They can't "simply change their phone" because they'd lose boat loads of money. I get sunk costs, but they feel mislead, and I don't blame them. Apple has worked very hard to lock in users, it's not very easy to just switch phones.
  - ziml77 6y ago
    Not just the cost of the device, but also the cost of any applications that they've purchased. And there's the trouble of trying to get social circles to move away from FaceTime and Apple Messages. I also can't imagine that migrating data off of Apple's services to other comparable services is easy.
    - colinmhayes 6y ago
      Yep, I don't feel like I can switch because some of my friends refuse to do normal calls, only using facetime/facetime audio. Plus the imessage data is much faster than texts. Trying to get my circle to switch to whatsapp, but until then I'm pretty stuck.
- wvenable 6y ago
  > You can't not opt out of your government ecosystem Of course you can. If you can move from Apple to Android you can move from one country to another. It would hard to find a more perfect analogy to this situation.
bluedino 6y ago
It’s a fee, or a charge. It’s not a tax by the definition of the word. Why not call it a fine? Or a bonus?
- shi314 6y ago
  A tax is a compulsory payment levied by the government on individuals or companies to meet the expenditure which is required for public welfare. So, it is a tax.
randallsquared 6y ago
> Apple pretty much is the government when it comes to the App Store. It definitely is not. The defining feature of a government is the legitimate use of violence. No actual or threatened violence, no government. There are lots of reasons to be concerned about the App Store and Apple, but let's not blur the lines between money voluntarily given to use a service, and money given to avoid arrest and jail.
- simongr3dal 6y ago
  To be pedantic, a government can be a collective noun for governing and ruling bodies, state-affiliated or not. And Apple, the iPhone team, the iOS team, and the App Store team are certainly governing how developers can act.
- zepolen 6y ago
  Well in this Apple governed App store 'State' the act of violence is the forced removal of an app (a shop) from being allowed to operate, and in some case (Epic Games), completely banning the citizen from the State, let's call that Jail since Apple again may set them free, again, at their discretion. This App Store ecosystem sits at over 1.5 billion inhabitants, larger than China. Frankly, state tax is the perfect word to use.
- shi314 6y ago
  A tax is a compulsory payment levied by the government on individuals or companies to meet the expenditure which is required for public welfare. Violence being monopolised by State is the modern political philosophy given by Weber in 1919. Tax existed when individuals namely aristocracy even had legitimate use of violence. Apple makes case it charges fees for public good by curating list and providing security to end users, that's public welfare unless it's millions of users aren't enough to be categorised as Public.

save_ferris 6y ago

> What's with the obsession of calling everything 'tax'? It’s a great way to get people upset that they have to pay for something because taxes have such a negative connotation in American politics. Taxation is regarded as financial oppression in some political circles, and it’s easy to co-oof that message for other purposes.

xeromal 6y ago
Considering the country was founded on tax related grievances, it would make sense that at least an iota of the culture grows up hating taxes.

bosswipe 6y ago

It may not be technically correct but everyone understands what tax means here. What I don't understand is this weird impulse to always defend the two trillion dollar corporation against any slight insult.

mytherin 6y ago
> It may not be technically correct but everyone understands what tax means here. That's exactly the point. Everyone understands what a tax means, so calling something that is not a tax "a tax" is intentionally misleading. People call it a tax to invoke emotions and mislead, not to clarify what is going on. Everyone also understands what a fee means. > What I don't understand is this weird impulse to always defend the two trillion dollar corporation against any slight insult. What I don't understand is why people think it's relevant that Apple is a two trillion dollar company. Apple is not a monopolist and operates in generally very competitive markets, yet many people still buy Apple products despite their high profit-margins. Clearly they are doing something very right in the eyes of many consumers to be a two trillion dollar company. How is that a bad thing?

verroq 6y ago

It’s standard rhetoric at this point. It is pretty appropriate for this kind of rent-seeking.

sokoloff 6y ago
IMO, this is not (economically-speaking) rent-seeking. Apple has created something that improved the world (that created new wealth) and is charging for it. That’s definitionally not rent-seeking.
- jsnell 6y ago
  Apple indeed created new wealth by developing iOS and the App Store. Then, once they owned the market, they started exploiting it by adding new restrictions. The restrictions had no economic value, they're simply there to allow Apple to extract their unfair share of the value created by others.

stephc_int13 6y ago

For many developers, 30% of the app price is higher than what their company benefit. Thus, Apple (or Google or Valve) is making more than themselves on the product they made. We call it a tax because there is no way to avoid it except not selling our apps. And because 30% is quite high. It would not be seen in a such a negative way if it was in the 10-15% range.

Spivak 6y ago
> We call it a tax because there is no way to avoid it except not selling our apps. I’m genuinely confused by this sentiment. If you lose money after paying the 30% then you wouldn’t be in the App Store at all. But you “have to pay it” because even after the cut you’re still turning a profit. An apparently large enough profit for it to be worth the separate development and maintenance costs too. What makes you feel like you have no choice but to develop for iOS? Don’t get me wrong it’s absolutely shitty when someone with leverage over your business squeezes but the percentage can’t be the deciding factor here. The same as every business ever, Apple charges you whatever they think they can get away with. So either it should be okay for Apple to take a percentage cut or not.
- stephc_int13 6y ago
  The percentage is clearly the main deciding factor here. This is bad for the ecosystem in general, and in my opinion Apple does not need that money. And they are evading the tax laws in most countries, simply because they can...