4 ms·

> In 2008 an app charging $1,000 that told people you were rich was censored. That’s not censorship. It’s protecting customers from being duped into buying som

> In 2008 an app charging $1,000 that told people you were rich was censored. That’s not censorship. It’s protecting customers from being duped into buying something they don’t understand and getting ripped off. TFA quotes an app review where someone felt scammed. The dev is quoted as saying he didn’t want people to buy it by accident and then feel cheated: > "I don't want to collect money from people who did this by accident and I am glad that Apple returned the money for two orders," Heinrich said. It sounds like he had good intent, was following the rules. It still wasn’t a good app to be in the App Store.

blunte 6y ago
If someone chooses to drop 1k to buy any app, one must assume they made some consideration before buying. Conversely, there are countless free apps (Facebook-owned included) which extract far more value than 1,000usd from their users... and the users are completely unaware because the price of the app didn't give them pause.
- kube-system 6y ago
  That might be true, if we assume the buyers are adults who are using their own phone and paying with their own money. I don't think there were many spending controls at the time.
  - blunte 6y ago
    probably not; but the early adopters of that technology were probably upper class people who could survive with and deal with a financial snafu of 1000$. what really got people (and apple) worked up was the idea that someone could create a "nothing" and make a lot of money with that. now we laugh because we can all create crypto tokens and sell them to naive investors.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      > the early adopters of that technology were probably upper class people who could survive with and deal with a financial snafu of 1000$ While there's undoubtedly an intersection between the set "tech geeks who want to be early adapters" and "people for whom losing $1K is no big deal", they're not identical. Remember that the original iPhone was $399[1]; losing 2.5x the cost of the phone to somebody's dumb software joke would not have just been an "oopsie, I guess we'll have to get a slightly cheaper jar of caviar for afternoon tea, Lovey" moment for a lot of us. [1]: Technically, it was $599 for the 8GB model, but that initial price only lasted 3 months, and early buyers got a $100 credit in partial offset.
- 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
  > If someone chooses to drop 1k to buy any app, one must assume they made some consideration before buying. The first iPhone was released in 2007. In 2008 people had only just begun writing apps and publishing to the app store. It's probably fair to say that people were still finding their way around the app store and some people were just curious. Kids have sometimes ended up dropping thousands of dollars on stupid in-app purchases in games. I'm pretty sure they spent zero time considering the consequences. Generally I think consumer protections are a good thing.
  - SllX 6y ago
    App Store launch was late 2008, something like 15 months after the iPhone launched, which is to reinforce your point. At the time the ground rules were not at all well established, only what was in that first policy document developers had to sign and Apple hadn’t yet accounted for any of the edge cases developers would come to discover. App Store descriptions were also more prominent at launch than they are today. The developer did nothing to obfuscate what it was nor to try and cheat anyone. The price was there, the description was there. It was exactly what he advertised.
- interpol_p 6y ago
  But if they didn't make any considerations before buying, we should still encourage them to return the app and reverse the transaction There's no point punishing people for accidentally spending money on a digital product they don't want when the tech involved to reverse that decision is available, ready to use, and won't hurt any parties involved
Lammy 6y ago
> It still wasn’t a good app to be in the App Store. aka it was bad PR for Apple, so it was removed.
chrischen 6y ago
Not sure if duping would be a good reason. Most people would easily be able to get a refund from the App store.

blunte 6y ago

If someone chooses to drop 1k to buy any app, one must assume they made some consideration before buying. Conversely, there are countless free apps (Facebook-owned included) which extract far more value than 1,000usd from their users... and the users are completely unaware because the price of the app didn't give them pause.

kube-system 6y ago
That might be true, if we assume the buyers are adults who are using their own phone and paying with their own money. I don't think there were many spending controls at the time.
- blunte 6y ago
  probably not; but the early adopters of that technology were probably upper class people who could survive with and deal with a financial snafu of 1000$. what really got people (and apple) worked up was the idea that someone could create a "nothing" and make a lot of money with that. now we laugh because we can all create crypto tokens and sell them to naive investors.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    > the early adopters of that technology were probably upper class people who could survive with and deal with a financial snafu of 1000$ While there's undoubtedly an intersection between the set "tech geeks who want to be early adapters" and "people for whom losing $1K is no big deal", they're not identical. Remember that the original iPhone was $399[1]; losing 2.5x the cost of the phone to somebody's dumb software joke would not have just been an "oopsie, I guess we'll have to get a slightly cheaper jar of caviar for afternoon tea, Lovey" moment for a lot of us. [1]: Technically, it was $599 for the 8GB model, but that initial price only lasted 3 months, and early buyers got a $100 credit in partial offset.
2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
> If someone chooses to drop 1k to buy any app, one must assume they made some consideration before buying. The first iPhone was released in 2007. In 2008 people had only just begun writing apps and publishing to the app store. It's probably fair to say that people were still finding their way around the app store and some people were just curious. Kids have sometimes ended up dropping thousands of dollars on stupid in-app purchases in games. I'm pretty sure they spent zero time considering the consequences. Generally I think consumer protections are a good thing.
- SllX 6y ago
  App Store launch was late 2008, something like 15 months after the iPhone launched, which is to reinforce your point. At the time the ground rules were not at all well established, only what was in that first policy document developers had to sign and Apple hadn’t yet accounted for any of the edge cases developers would come to discover. App Store descriptions were also more prominent at launch than they are today. The developer did nothing to obfuscate what it was nor to try and cheat anyone. The price was there, the description was there. It was exactly what he advertised.
interpol_p 6y ago
But if they didn't make any considerations before buying, we should still encourage them to return the app and reverse the transaction There's no point punishing people for accidentally spending money on a digital product they don't want when the tech involved to reverse that decision is available, ready to use, and won't hurt any parties involved

Lammy 6y ago

> It still wasn’t a good app to be in the App Store. aka it was bad PR for Apple, so it was removed.

chrischen 6y ago

Not sure if duping would be a good reason. Most people would easily be able to get a refund from the App store.