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Funny how most replies in that thread don’t actually address the initial question: why is there a policy of prohibiting disclosure of how the money the user pay

Funny how most replies in that thread don’t actually address the initial question: why is there a policy of prohibiting disclosure of how the money the user pays gets distributed? Most “answers” immediately diverge into monopoly discussions, or questions-as-answers of why 30% ‘seems so high’ (even though neither was initially brought up).

lacker 6y ago
It seems pretty obvious to me. Apple wants a user experience that makes the user happy with Apple products, not one where the app is complaining to the user about Apple policies. Apple is happy to prohibit zillions of random different things; they perceive the openness or fairness of their platform as much less important than user experience.
- hetman 6y ago
  But how does prohibiting disclosure of money distribution facilitate this?
  - jachee 6y ago
    It's keeping the users who have chosen Apple's products from being weaponized-via-guilt-trip against them.
    - m00x 6y ago
      What if all apps did this? Isn't it just transparency?
      - jachee 6y ago
        Sure, it would be transparency. Why don't they just break down how every percent is allocated? How much is food? How much is electricity? How much is grey-market nootropics?
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      So, the same reason that China doesn't have a free press, then?
      - jachee 6y ago
        Not a lot of people immigrating to China willingly for that analogy to hold up.
        dane-pgp 6y ago
        Then perhaps a better example would be the UAE: https://www.news.com.au/travel/destinations/middle-east/dubai-migrant-workers-the-hidden-slaves-behind-glamour-city/news-story/b3997ed5b013870424e84d78a561946c https://www.news.com.au/travel/destinations/middle-east/duba...
        jachee 6y ago
        That's people getting scammed into migrant labor. Hardly a choice they'd make if they knew the facts. I don't see a parallel to someone buying a premium device, at a premium price, expecting—and getting—a premium experience. Apple respects the trust their customers have afforded them, and rightfully keeps potentially-hostile third parties from detracting from that experience.
    - asaus3r00 6y ago
      Speaking as a user, I’m fine with that. I’m not in the App Store to be used as a political/economic pawn for Facebook or other developers. iPhone developers know the risk and buy in anyway. Look, in all of human history societies with human hierarchy have enabled, and often glorified, the right of people above them in the hierarchy to exploit those below. Stop pretending America ever came close to getting that right and instigate political change. I’m not gonna fight for a better world because a first world tech bro feels screwed out of something he willingly agreed he wasn’t owed. There’s a whole raft of political problems that impact others that iPhone devs ignore. Shrug emoji, tech folk. Sorry life in your privilege bubble isn’t all unicorns.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > It seems pretty obvious to me. Me too. Absolutely no retailer, digital or physical, would allow anything like this.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sebastien_b 6y ago
And besides this, most people seem content to compare it with the physical world with (IMO invalid) comparisons of malls, etc. There's another thing: Apple already charges developers a fee every year. And they also sell ads on the App Store (which you basically have to buy otherwise you're a 'needle in a haystack'). AND they sell ads to your competitors, which use your (sometimes trademarked) keywords in their ads, which means you need to buy even more ads to counteract those. Apple wins, and wins.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- modeless 6y ago
  And they make every developer buy a Mac because they prohibit running macOS in VMs and in general don't allow building iOS apps without the use of Mac hardware. That's probably a bigger expense than the app store fees for most, and artificially inflates macOS market share in the important developer market.
  - nagyf 6y ago
    If you write an app that you can sell on the app store to 860 people for $5 you already got the money to buy a Macbook Pro 16”. I don’t think the Macbook restriction is such a big problem. However, if you sell it to 1 million people and Apple takes the 30% cut, that’s a loss of $1.5M for you... (Maybe I miss something, I never wrote iOS apps, I’m just doing the math)
    - mkl 6y ago
      You need to buy the Mac before writing the app. You might make enough to repay that investment, but it's out of pocket to start with. For many people that is a big problem.
      - d3nj4l 6y ago
        This also makes it difficult to write FOSS apps for iOS, because the developer would have to front the cost of a macOS workstation + the $99 yearly fee with no expectation of a return at all.
kstrauser 6y ago
An analogy I heard: What would Target do if their canned beans vendor started putting labels on the cans like "we sold this item for $0.23. Anything else is profit that your store is charging you."? Those cans would never see the shelves. If, in effect, Apple buys a product from its vendor for $3.50 and then resells it for $5.00, keeping the difference as profit, I can understand their statement that the wholesale price is irrelevant and shouldn't be shown.
- tyoverby 6y ago
  > What would Target do if their canned beans vendor started putting labels on the cans like "we sold this item for $0.23. Anything else is profit that your store is charging you."? Those cans would never see the shelves. Arizona Iced Tea does this and they're very successful.
  - hoistbypetard 6y ago
    Arizona Iced Tea puts the suggested retail price on their cans. They do not disclose what price they charge to the retailer on the cans.
    - smabie 6y ago
      Yeah but the implication is you should never pay more than 99 cents or whatever. Coke did the same thing, running advertisements about 5 cent Coke even though they couldn't control the actual price of a bottle of Coke. Worked really well apparently. Also, I've never paid above 99 cents for Arizona. So it seems that worked as well.
      - hoistbypetard 6y ago
        Books have printed the recommended price on the cover for decades. So have many snack foods. It's very different than disclosing your revenue split on the packaging. Apple lets you set the price on your app store page. And no one will have to pay more. They would object if you mentioned your revenue split there.
jasonhansel 6y ago
> “We know that these freedoms require protection,” [Tim] Cook said of First Amendment rights. “Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most.” Source: https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/18/tim-cook-free-expression-award-2/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/18/tim-cook-free-expression-awar...
nemothekid 6y ago
>why is there a policy of prohibiting disclosure of how the money the user pays gets distributed The same reason Visa doesn't let you let disclose to your customers that using your credit imposes a 3% fee to the merchant. People would use alternatives if they knew
- smabie 6y ago
  They would? Why? I don't care what my merchant is paying in fees. I care about what I'm paying in fees.
  - ThatPlayer 6y ago
    Yeah I don't know what he's talking about. A lot of places I've been to will give cash discounts. Or have minimum credit card orders
- mdoms 6y ago
  Visa and Mastercard fees are absolutely disclosed to customers, as a matter of course. In fact Australia implemented a law a couple of years ago that retailers who pass the processing fee to customers must only charge the actual fee itself and not an arbitrary "CC fee" (some retailers had been charging ridiculous fees like $5 or 15% previously). So by law these fees must be available to the public. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/excessive-payment-surcharge-ban https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/excessive-payment-surc...
epanchin 6y ago
Including your “answer”.
m463 6y ago
I think there are all kinds of weird clauses added by apple, #1 being you can't disparage apple.
- sebastien_b 6y ago
  Then those kinds of rules should apply both ways: Apple's can't disparage others either.

lacker 6y ago

It seems pretty obvious to me. Apple wants a user experience that makes the user happy with Apple products, not one where the app is complaining to the user about Apple policies. Apple is happy to prohibit zillions of random different things; they perceive the openness or fairness of their platform as much less important than user experience.

hetman 6y ago
But how does prohibiting disclosure of money distribution facilitate this?
- jachee 6y ago
  It's keeping the users who have chosen Apple's products from being weaponized-via-guilt-trip against them.
  - m00x 6y ago
    What if all apps did this? Isn't it just transparency?
    - jachee 6y ago
      Sure, it would be transparency. Why don't they just break down how every percent is allocated? How much is food? How much is electricity? How much is grey-market nootropics?
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    So, the same reason that China doesn't have a free press, then?
    - jachee 6y ago
      Not a lot of people immigrating to China willingly for that analogy to hold up.
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        Then perhaps a better example would be the UAE: https://www.news.com.au/travel/destinations/middle-east/dubai-migrant-workers-the-hidden-slaves-behind-glamour-city/news-story/b3997ed5b013870424e84d78a561946c https://www.news.com.au/travel/destinations/middle-east/duba...
        jachee 6y ago
        That's people getting scammed into migrant labor. Hardly a choice they'd make if they knew the facts. I don't see a parallel to someone buying a premium device, at a premium price, expecting—and getting—a premium experience. Apple respects the trust their customers have afforded them, and rightfully keeps potentially-hostile third parties from detracting from that experience.
  - asaus3r00 6y ago
    Speaking as a user, I’m fine with that. I’m not in the App Store to be used as a political/economic pawn for Facebook or other developers. iPhone developers know the risk and buy in anyway. Look, in all of human history societies with human hierarchy have enabled, and often glorified, the right of people above them in the hierarchy to exploit those below. Stop pretending America ever came close to getting that right and instigate political change. I’m not gonna fight for a better world because a first world tech bro feels screwed out of something he willingly agreed he wasn’t owed. There’s a whole raft of political problems that impact others that iPhone devs ignore. Shrug emoji, tech folk. Sorry life in your privilege bubble isn’t all unicorns.
CharlesW 6y ago
> It seems pretty obvious to me. Me too. Absolutely no retailer, digital or physical, would allow anything like this.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sebastien_b 6y ago

And besides this, most people seem content to compare it with the physical world with (IMO invalid) comparisons of malls, etc. There's another thing: Apple already charges developers a fee every year. And they also sell ads on the App Store (which you basically have to buy otherwise you're a 'needle in a haystack'). AND they sell ads to your competitors, which use your (sometimes trademarked) keywords in their ads, which means you need to buy even more ads to counteract those. Apple wins, and wins.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
modeless 6y ago
And they make every developer buy a Mac because they prohibit running macOS in VMs and in general don't allow building iOS apps without the use of Mac hardware. That's probably a bigger expense than the app store fees for most, and artificially inflates macOS market share in the important developer market.
- nagyf 6y ago
  If you write an app that you can sell on the app store to 860 people for $5 you already got the money to buy a Macbook Pro 16”. I don’t think the Macbook restriction is such a big problem. However, if you sell it to 1 million people and Apple takes the 30% cut, that’s a loss of $1.5M for you... (Maybe I miss something, I never wrote iOS apps, I’m just doing the math)
  - mkl 6y ago
    You need to buy the Mac before writing the app. You might make enough to repay that investment, but it's out of pocket to start with. For many people that is a big problem.
    - d3nj4l 6y ago
      This also makes it difficult to write FOSS apps for iOS, because the developer would have to front the cost of a macOS workstation + the $99 yearly fee with no expectation of a return at all.

kstrauser 6y ago

An analogy I heard: What would Target do if their canned beans vendor started putting labels on the cans like "we sold this item for $0.23. Anything else is profit that your store is charging you."? Those cans would never see the shelves. If, in effect, Apple buys a product from its vendor for $3.50 and then resells it for $5.00, keeping the difference as profit, I can understand their statement that the wholesale price is irrelevant and shouldn't be shown.

tyoverby 6y ago
> What would Target do if their canned beans vendor started putting labels on the cans like "we sold this item for $0.23. Anything else is profit that your store is charging you."? Those cans would never see the shelves. Arizona Iced Tea does this and they're very successful.
- hoistbypetard 6y ago
  Arizona Iced Tea puts the suggested retail price on their cans. They do not disclose what price they charge to the retailer on the cans.
  - smabie 6y ago
    Yeah but the implication is you should never pay more than 99 cents or whatever. Coke did the same thing, running advertisements about 5 cent Coke even though they couldn't control the actual price of a bottle of Coke. Worked really well apparently. Also, I've never paid above 99 cents for Arizona. So it seems that worked as well.
    - hoistbypetard 6y ago
      Books have printed the recommended price on the cover for decades. So have many snack foods. It's very different than disclosing your revenue split on the packaging. Apple lets you set the price on your app store page. And no one will have to pay more. They would object if you mentioned your revenue split there.

jasonhansel 6y ago

> “We know that these freedoms require protection,” [Tim] Cook said of First Amendment rights. “Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most.” Source: https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/18/tim-cook-free-expression-award-2/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/18/tim-cook-free-expression-awar...

nemothekid 6y ago

>why is there a policy of prohibiting disclosure of how the money the user pays gets distributed The same reason Visa doesn't let you let disclose to your customers that using your credit imposes a 3% fee to the merchant. People would use alternatives if they knew

smabie 6y ago
They would? Why? I don't care what my merchant is paying in fees. I care about what I'm paying in fees.
- ThatPlayer 6y ago
  Yeah I don't know what he's talking about. A lot of places I've been to will give cash discounts. Or have minimum credit card orders
mdoms 6y ago
Visa and Mastercard fees are absolutely disclosed to customers, as a matter of course. In fact Australia implemented a law a couple of years ago that retailers who pass the processing fee to customers must only charge the actual fee itself and not an arbitrary "CC fee" (some retailers had been charging ridiculous fees like $5 or 15% previously). So by law these fees must be available to the public. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/excessive-payment-surcharge-ban https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/excessive-payment-surc...

epanchin 6y ago

Including your “answer”.

m463 6y ago

I think there are all kinds of weird clauses added by apple, #1 being you can't disparage apple.

sebastien_b 6y ago
Then those kinds of rules should apply both ways: Apple's can't disparage others either.