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Some banks and other services such as Privacy.com offer disposable credit card numbers to conceal your payment identity. These services work very well. You can

Some banks and other services such as Privacy.com offer disposable credit card numbers to conceal your payment identity. These services work very well. You can ask Apple to offer this service, if you want Apple to intermediate for you. But as long as Apple does not offer a such a service, it is not the seller's obligation to cater to a buyer's preference to use Apple to pay for everything. An Apple user has no right to compel a developer to transact with Apple on unfavorable terms, and is therefore not entitled to the "choice" that you are describing. The Dutch antitrust regulator has determined that Apple is not allowed to force developers to exclusively use Apple's payment system. There is no antitrust principle that compels developers to offer Apple Pay or any specific payment option. But as I said before: > Depending on how the antitrust situation is resolved, Apple may be able to require developers to offer Apple Pay, yet still allow developers to offer other payment options alongside it. If that's not an option for Apple, then the burden is on Apple to offer a competitive payment processing solution to be accepted by both developers and users.

threatofrain 5y ago
> An Apple user has no right to compel a developer to transact with Apple on unfavorable terms, and is therefore not entitled to the "choice" that you are describing. I am not talking about a customer's right to compel a developer to choose private and safe methods for payment. I am talking about leverage in a free marketplace. It's not that you don't have the right... you don't even have the weight as an individual customer to step into a negotiating room for a conversation. Apple does. I am also far more sympathetic to consumer protection than whether companies should be able to choose Stripe or manage your financial information for their business benefit. This is the "unfavorable terms" you're talking about. > Depending on how the antitrust situation is resolved, Apple may be able to require developers to offer Apple Pay, yet still allow developers to offer other payment options alongside it. If this is the case then the conversation will be moot. But this is speculative, so I am arguing for the other side of your forward-looking statement.
- commoner 5y ago
  Apple's payment system offers no more leverage than a free disposable credit card that you can limit and cancel at any time. When Apple's payment system is the only option, its high fees (unfavorable terms) generate a huge amount of deadweight loss in the app economy. What Apple needs to do is find a way to allow its users to retain as much of the convenience of its own payment system as possible without violating antitrust regulations. This is achievable by, for example, requiring apps to let users quickly and easily unsubscribe from recurring subscriptions in the app itself. Currently, iOS users have little to no leverage against Apple. To make certain kinds of purchases in iOS, buyers must pay a large price premium to subsidize Apple's fee regardless of whether they prefer to do so. The Dutch antitrust regulator recognizes this as a problem, and is instructing Apple to correct the situation. How Apple proceeds from here will determine the user experience on its platform, but continuing to violate antitrust laws harms both users and developers through market inefficiency.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    > Apple's payment system offers no more leverage than a free disposable credit card that you can limit and cancel at any time. When Apple's payment system is the only option, its high fees (unfavorable terms) generate a huge amount of deadweight loss in the app economy. > Currently, iOS users have little to no leverage against Apple. To make certain kinds of purchases in iOS, buyers must pay a large price premium to subsidize Apple's fee regardless of whether they prefer to do so. Instead of chatting abstractly about high fees, why don't we put some numbers on the table? Apple Pay's "high fees" go to banks at 0.15% per transaction, or 15 cents per $100.¹ The IAP fee is not the same thing as Apple Pay. Apple Pay is a protocol for payment where neither Apple nor the store keep your credit card information. IAP is a revenue sharing agreement with Apple. Many people agree that the IAP is onerous, and as a business contract it is subject to various legal jurisdictions. If you disagree with high fees, we should really be talking about the IAP and not Apple Pay. > Apple's payment system offers no more leverage than a free disposable credit card that you can limit and cancel at any time. I see this ordering of effects as backwards: first Apple uses its leverage, which derives from its hundreds of millions of more spendy users, and now we have Apple Pay, a private system of paying where even Apple does not store your credit card number on their servers, or other identifying information.² This differs from Privacy.com, where you may directly linking your debit account. Also note that you may wish to be careful when cancelling a "disposable" credit card when you have recurring charges. An individual customer of insurance does not have leverage over the insurance company. As a collective, you have all the leverage, which in turn means more bargaining power for the insurance company. As an individual member of Costco, you have no leverage over Costco. As a collective, you have the only reason why Costco can demand better prices. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-fees-vex-credit-card-issuers-11633449317 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-fees-vex-credit-card-... [2]: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-pay/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-pay/ Also, thanks for chatting.

threatofrain 5y ago

> An Apple user has no right to compel a developer to transact with Apple on unfavorable terms, and is therefore not entitled to the "choice" that you are describing. I am not talking about a customer's right to compel a developer to choose private and safe methods for payment. I am talking about leverage in a free marketplace. It's not that you don't have the right... you don't even have the weight as an individual customer to step into a negotiating room for a conversation. Apple does. I am also far more sympathetic to consumer protection than whether companies should be able to choose Stripe or manage your financial information for their business benefit. This is the "unfavorable terms" you're talking about. > Depending on how the antitrust situation is resolved, Apple may be able to require developers to offer Apple Pay, yet still allow developers to offer other payment options alongside it. If this is the case then the conversation will be moot. But this is speculative, so I am arguing for the other side of your forward-looking statement.

commoner 5y ago
Apple's payment system offers no more leverage than a free disposable credit card that you can limit and cancel at any time. When Apple's payment system is the only option, its high fees (unfavorable terms) generate a huge amount of deadweight loss in the app economy. What Apple needs to do is find a way to allow its users to retain as much of the convenience of its own payment system as possible without violating antitrust regulations. This is achievable by, for example, requiring apps to let users quickly and easily unsubscribe from recurring subscriptions in the app itself. Currently, iOS users have little to no leverage against Apple. To make certain kinds of purchases in iOS, buyers must pay a large price premium to subsidize Apple's fee regardless of whether they prefer to do so. The Dutch antitrust regulator recognizes this as a problem, and is instructing Apple to correct the situation. How Apple proceeds from here will determine the user experience on its platform, but continuing to violate antitrust laws harms both users and developers through market inefficiency.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  > Apple's payment system offers no more leverage than a free disposable credit card that you can limit and cancel at any time. When Apple's payment system is the only option, its high fees (unfavorable terms) generate a huge amount of deadweight loss in the app economy. > Currently, iOS users have little to no leverage against Apple. To make certain kinds of purchases in iOS, buyers must pay a large price premium to subsidize Apple's fee regardless of whether they prefer to do so. Instead of chatting abstractly about high fees, why don't we put some numbers on the table? Apple Pay's "high fees" go to banks at 0.15% per transaction, or 15 cents per $100.¹ The IAP fee is not the same thing as Apple Pay. Apple Pay is a protocol for payment where neither Apple nor the store keep your credit card information. IAP is a revenue sharing agreement with Apple. Many people agree that the IAP is onerous, and as a business contract it is subject to various legal jurisdictions. If you disagree with high fees, we should really be talking about the IAP and not Apple Pay. > Apple's payment system offers no more leverage than a free disposable credit card that you can limit and cancel at any time. I see this ordering of effects as backwards: first Apple uses its leverage, which derives from its hundreds of millions of more spendy users, and now we have Apple Pay, a private system of paying where even Apple does not store your credit card number on their servers, or other identifying information.² This differs from Privacy.com, where you may directly linking your debit account. Also note that you may wish to be careful when cancelling a "disposable" credit card when you have recurring charges. An individual customer of insurance does not have leverage over the insurance company. As a collective, you have all the leverage, which in turn means more bargaining power for the insurance company. As an individual member of Costco, you have no leverage over Costco. As a collective, you have the only reason why Costco can demand better prices. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-fees-vex-credit-card-issuers-11633449317 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-fees-vex-credit-card-... [2]: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-pay/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-pay/ Also, thanks for chatting.