4 ms·

No, actually - in pure economic terms, 'Tax' is actually a reasonable term to use. Fees which can be perceived as arbitrary capture of a piece of economic acti

by jariel 6y ago

No, actually - in pure economic terms, 'Tax' is actually a reasonable term to use. Fees which can be perceived as arbitrary capture of a piece of economic activity (and monopoly pricing could be considered that in part) acts just like a tax. You can actually demonstrated the 'economic loss' (deadweight) from a tax with the supply and demand curve. The loss is usually more than that, but at least the direct math is there. [1] And this: "talk about the App Store is just the result of other middlemen lobbying for a part of the action." is just completely false. There are no 'middle men' to lobby. [1] https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/consumer-producer-surplus/deadweight-loss-tutorial/a/lesson-overview-taxation-and-deadweight-loss https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...

zepto 6y ago
> No, actually - in pure economic terms, 'Tax' is actually a reasonable term to use. Fees which can be perceived as arbitrary capture of a piece of economic activity (and monopoly pricing could be considered that in part) acts just like a tax. Whether something is a tax or not has nothing to do with perception. Also these fees don’t act ‘just like a tax’. They are not taxes. They don’t act like taxes. It’s dishonest to call them taxes. It’s reasonable to compare them to taxes. It’s false to call them taxes. > There are no 'middle men' to lobby. This makes no sense. Epic is lobbying and want to be a middleman. Facebook is lobbying and wants to be a middleman. Your link is about taxes, but does nothing to support the argument that App Store fees are taxes. Edit: Here is proof that Epic is lobbying: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/16/epic-games-behind-anti-apple-app-store-legislation-in-north-dakota https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/16/epic-games-behind...
- jariel 6y ago
  You're missing some key points, and your comment is not a rebuttal it's just a 'refusal'. Apple, were it not a 'kind of monopoly' would have considerably different pricing structure. The difference between that 'free market price' and 'Apple's current price' - is the the part that has similar effects to a 'Tax'. Apple's fee is like a tax for exactly the reasons I highlighted - it creates 'dead-weight' in the market. This is bad for everyone, even Apple in the long run - just as carriers like AT&T and Verizon wanted to charge 10 cents per 'WAP' page back in 2002, which a price they can dictate because they had the power to, but was obviously completely stupid because it would have restricted the market. ... 'Epic' is not a 'middleman'. 'Epic' is a vendor, they are on the other side of the value chain. They are effectively having to pay a 30% tax on their business and it has nothing to do with 'middlemen'. It's unlikely Facebook wants to be a 'middleman' because they could already be doing that for Google Play - and they are not. Once we see true, independent app stores and software that supports smaller vendors - which will happen when other app stores can be on equal footing - we'll see what the 'true' free market competitive pricing for those services will be. My guess is that it's well under 10%, probably in the range of 4-8% depending on services provided. 3.5% of that will be processing fees to VISA and the networks etc..
  - zepto 6y ago
    > Epic' is not a 'middleman' Completely false. Epic proposes to run their own App Store. They are a middleman. You would know this if you had been following their cases. The Google play analogy is absurd for obvious reasons. By that logic, anyone who would be interested in opening a store on iOS would already be running one on Android, which is clearly not the case. If Apple is charging too much, the solution is for competitors to build their own platform. They can easily afford to do so, and that would create jobs, innovation, consumer choice, and pricing pressure. Forcing Apple to provide a platform for them is the opposite of market dynamics. Epic and others are trying to avoid making real investments in the future because lawsuits and lobbying are cheaper than building platforms.

by jariel 6y ago

zepto 6y ago

> No, actually - in pure economic terms, 'Tax' is actually a reasonable term to use. Fees which can be perceived as arbitrary capture of a piece of economic activity (and monopoly pricing could be considered that in part) acts just like a tax. Whether something is a tax or not has nothing to do with perception. Also these fees don’t act ‘just like a tax’. They are not taxes. They don’t act like taxes. It’s dishonest to call them taxes. It’s reasonable to compare them to taxes. It’s false to call them taxes. > There are no 'middle men' to lobby. This makes no sense. Epic is lobbying and want to be a middleman. Facebook is lobbying and wants to be a middleman. Your link is about taxes, but does nothing to support the argument that App Store fees are taxes. Edit: Here is proof that Epic is lobbying: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/16/epic-games-behind-anti-apple-app-store-legislation-in-north-dakota https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/16/epic-games-behind...

jariel 6y ago
You're missing some key points, and your comment is not a rebuttal it's just a 'refusal'. Apple, were it not a 'kind of monopoly' would have considerably different pricing structure. The difference between that 'free market price' and 'Apple's current price' - is the the part that has similar effects to a 'Tax'. Apple's fee is like a tax for exactly the reasons I highlighted - it creates 'dead-weight' in the market. This is bad for everyone, even Apple in the long run - just as carriers like AT&T and Verizon wanted to charge 10 cents per 'WAP' page back in 2002, which a price they can dictate because they had the power to, but was obviously completely stupid because it would have restricted the market. ... 'Epic' is not a 'middleman'. 'Epic' is a vendor, they are on the other side of the value chain. They are effectively having to pay a 30% tax on their business and it has nothing to do with 'middlemen'. It's unlikely Facebook wants to be a 'middleman' because they could already be doing that for Google Play - and they are not. Once we see true, independent app stores and software that supports smaller vendors - which will happen when other app stores can be on equal footing - we'll see what the 'true' free market competitive pricing for those services will be. My guess is that it's well under 10%, probably in the range of 4-8% depending on services provided. 3.5% of that will be processing fees to VISA and the networks etc..
- zepto 6y ago
  > Epic' is not a 'middleman' Completely false. Epic proposes to run their own App Store. They are a middleman. You would know this if you had been following their cases. The Google play analogy is absurd for obvious reasons. By that logic, anyone who would be interested in opening a store on iOS would already be running one on Android, which is clearly not the case. If Apple is charging too much, the solution is for competitors to build their own platform. They can easily afford to do so, and that would create jobs, innovation, consumer choice, and pricing pressure. Forcing Apple to provide a platform for them is the opposite of market dynamics. Epic and others are trying to avoid making real investments in the future because lawsuits and lobbying are cheaper than building platforms.