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It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your

• remus 3y ago
  I also think apple's 30% cut is excessive, but I don't think this line of argument helps. We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have.
  • pompino 3y ago
    > We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have. Its not based on how much money they have. Its how they've managed to accumulate the money - by gouging devs.
    • kridsdale1 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • pompino 3y ago
        >Why do you get to run a business off it for free? There isn't a divine commandment as to what rights we "should" have. We vote, fight, protest and get to make up our own rights. >They spend hundreds of millions on SWE salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use. They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. At least see it and acknowledge it. I don't feel like paying for an Apple executives BMW car payment. But you do you.
        • Ma8ee 3y ago
          > There isn't a divine commandment as to what rights we "should" have. We vote, fight, protest and get to make up our own rights. Not in America. The only venue to change you have is to spend, or not spend money somewhere. Since people think they profit more from developing apps for iOS than not developing apps for iOS, Apple’s profit is “right”. And a century or so of indoctrination has made most Americans believe that this is just the natural order of things.
        • robertlagrant 3y ago
          This isn't about rights. You already have all the rights you need here. You would like others to work for nothing, or for what you care to give them, instead of the price they offer their services at, and you'd like to vote, fight and protest until they work for your price.
          • qwytw 3y ago
            > You would like others to work for nothing, So like developers working on macOS or Windows? It's so horrible that Apple has allowed third party developers to exploit them for for free for over 40 years now...
            • robertlagrant 3y ago
              It's not horrible, because they chose it. The price Apple offered there was $0. No one forced them.
              • qwytw 3y ago
                Well yeah, obviously. Because Apple benefited a lot more from developers making apps/etc. for their platform than the other way around. Now that the balances has shifted (of course only on mobile) Apple became a lot more exploitative.
      • jzl 3y ago
        It’s a symbiotic relationship Yes, exactly. It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. Apple is already getting their cut of the symbiotic relationship by selling their massively profitable iPhone hardware, full stop. Any chance you remember the first year of the iPhone when there were no third party apps? Other than being a good phone, it was basically just a technological novelty, and that was about it. Third party apps are literally what give value to the iPhone (and other iOS devices).
        • aspenmayer 3y ago
          Cydia was live on iOS before Apple's App Store. Which is to say, I agree.
        • ankit219 3y ago
          I have never fully agreed with this premise. On the face of it, yes apps help people stay on the store. But at the same time, Apple does come up with many good apps. Comparing it to the first iPhone is probably valid. They saw the writing on the wall and opened the gates, but could have easily chosen the other way of doing it themselves. No one wins in this scenario - nor the devs, nor the users, nor Apple. But it's not as clear as "Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place". Idly wondering, say you don't download any third party app and neither does anyone. You can still surf the internet for the most part. You can still connect with others via FaceTime/iMessage. You can still check mails etc. Things you won't be able to do is play games, go on dates, browse tiktok, book a cab (though all that is possible through safari but not a great experience). A caveat here: The original 30% was on infinitely reproducible digital goods only. Which is 80-90% gaming skins and artifacts and digital subscriptions. Don't know if that is still the case.
        • jrowen 3y ago
          It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. And developers need a solid platform with users willing to pay money. I feel like you have the wrong answer to the chicken and egg problem. The first iPhone was a marvel to pretty much everyone, and blew everything else at the time out of the water. I don't recall much sentiment of people being disappointed about the lack of apps, because there was no reason to expect that at that point. Just being able to use a lot of the web like you would on a computer was a massive leap from a RAZR or whatever. This is not to defend the 30% tax or anything, but I don't think it does any good to downplay the value they've built. The elephant in the room with your argument is that, if it were true, app developers would simply flock to Android and Apple would be forced to course-correct.
      • Hamuko 3y ago
        >They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. You can get about 1.1 terabytes of data transfer out from Amazon S3 to Internet for $100.
        • ryanbrunner 3y ago
          And anyone on Apple's scale is paying orders of magnitude less than that, even through Amazon.
          • Hamuko 3y ago
            I mean, if you were self-distributing your iOS app right now instead of having Apple do it, and you had to look up how much transferring data in the terabytes costs, you'd just use Cloudflare R2 instead. I'd be willing to bet that, all things being equal, most apps would save money if the developers were self-distributing them instead of using the App Store.
            • qwytw 3y ago
              > most apps would save money if the developers were self-distributing them instead of using the App Store There must be a reason why almost all games are still published on Steam despite the 30% though. The increased customer reach almost always outweighs the additional revenue (and this also applies to major companies like EA, Ubisoft etc. who have tried building their own storefronts).
              • seec 3y ago
                The thing is that you can't really talk about Steam like other platforms. They are already competing with themselves on price somehow. Games that are launched on Steam do not cost more than they do elsewhere in the first place, and secondly people very often buy on sales at prices low enough that it doesn't make sense to look elsewhere for the convenience of having it all in one place. There are also plenty of big games with publishers big enough that they have their own platform (EA, Ubisoft, Epic, Microsoft) and depending on many things their games may or may not be on Steam also. Steam also accepts keys purchased from elsewhere so in principle even if most of your sales are somewhere else, it is better to have it on Steam. I also think you Steam is offering some valuable community/platforms tools. Not much of this applies to the Apple app store. The truth is the reason people use it is because that's the only thing allowed. If peoples could install apps from anywhere with its own self-update mechanism (like sparkle or something more modern like a hybrid web-app) I doubt it would be used as much appart from free stuff from developers that do not want to figure out distribution. If there was a large price difference, most people wouldn't use it, just like most people do not go to the more expensive supermarket unless they absolutely have to.
      • thayne 3y ago
        And if no one wrote apps for iOS how many people would buy iPhones and iPads? Yes, it is a symbiotic relationship. But Apple has better position to negotiate, because it is as single entity, and have a lot more resources than the the other side. If all the app developers were able to organize and boycott apple, they might be able to force Apple to negotiate better terms. But that would probably result in many of the smaller companies going out of business, unless the boycott was very short lived. > Your $100 does not cover it. There are almost 2 million apps on the app store. Assuming there is roughly 1 developer license per app, (some developers will create multiple apps with a single license, but others will have multiple licenses to develop a single app), that is at least in the ballpark of "hundreds of millions on SWE". And that doesn't include revenue from selling the devices themselves.
        • camillomiller 3y ago
          You just proved your point wrong. Hundreds of million is peanuts, and it’s very improbable that it covers anything near the HR costs of Apple’s App Store infrastructure and department.
          • dvdkon 3y ago
            If Apple can't run the App Store just on developer fees, then I'm sure somebody else could. But that's conveniently not allowed.
        • ikiris 3y ago
          Where do you think those app developers / apps originally came from. Huge amounts of people bought those iphones first man.
          • kelnos 3y ago
            So what? Shut down the App Store tomorrow, and forcibly delete all non-Apple-authored apps off of everyone's iPhones. Watch everyone flock to Android, no matter how much they claim to hate it. Watch Apple's stock drop into the toilet. Apple needs all their third-party developers just as much as those developers need Apple -- more than at least some of those developers need Apple.
      • johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. I mean, let's be real here. Most people even if Apple fully allowed other payment processors would still opt into Apple's payment. Easiest to setup, most visible and familiar interface for consumers, and lets them push liability back to Apple. So they'd still get 30% from many consumers. This angle only applies in a situation where you think 1) the pareto principle applies and 2) all of that 20% decided to roll their own payment processing, which isn't trivial nor a risk many want to take onto themselves. It'd take a lot more than a dozen megacorps doing this to make Apple sweat. And if this does happen, it sounds like a service issue a that point. If you can offer all that convenience but people don't view it as worth 30%, then maybe the rate should be re-negotiated. >They spend hundreds of millions on SWE salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use they spend hundreds of millions to get other businesses to do business with them, and still charge many upfront costs along the way. Back then, we simply called that the cost to do business. Adtech also spends hundreds of millions each on salaries to make a nice SDK for you to use. I don't exactly feel I owe those companies for their labor since I'm (the dev) not the primary point of revenue.
      • NineStarPoint 3y ago
        Would Apple even approve something going on the app store that tried to do things in ways that were that non-standard? More generally it’s not like you can choose to host your own servers or, in forgoing all of Apple’s work, not have to pay that 30%. When Apple isn’t going to let you do things another way, they don’t get to argue that all of the benefits they do provide are what people are paying for. People have to pay the price to be allowed on the ecosystem at all.
      • 6510 3y ago
        I look at it like this. If someone is doing it you have to do it too, you cant run a competitive business if your competitor is taking 30%. It is not something you chose to do but you have to. The most important angle is what this grows into. Apple doesn't have to make hardware. They can simply stop doing that and live on rent alone. Hardware is hard work. It might just be that they have to stop doing it. How much they put the squeeze on who and who makes how much money isn't even important. This is not beneficial to the industry or to society. After the age of working your ass off while starving comes the age of contributing and thriving, this period ends with the age of entitlement. You do the work, I enjoy the benefits. we can only afford so much of that before our civilization turns into a hell hole. You will be working day and night to make ends meet while I have all the time and resources in the world to figure out how I'm going to take just a little bit more from you. It's not about wealth, people should be able to EARN whatever they EARN. It isn't even about mortality, we can go back to the age of working your ass off while starving, we know how to do that. The bigger issue is to have people in control who cant tie their own shoes. It sets us up for total failure. It takes one small incident to end humanity.
        • kridsdale1 3y ago
          > Apple doesn't have to make hardware. They can simply stop doing that and live on rent alone. This is what Valve discovered. Nobody in 2004 would have thought the best developer in the world would stop making games.
        • seec 3y ago
          To be honest it seems like what it is for the younger generation in life generally. A nice legacy from the boomers and unsurprisingly Apple is a very big boomer company. I think many here do not see this since they earn enough that those considerations are kind of irrelevant, but I believe current Apple problems reveal a systemic problem across society. Apple acts like an old entitled asshole who just want to capture value for not doing much because one day they did something good and I feel in general this is exactly what the current governing generation is doing...
      • guax 3y ago
        Apple wrote their kernel from zero?
        • kridsdale1 3y ago
          No, that’s why I excluded posix parts of the operating system. That’s from Berkeley.
      • AYBABTME 3y ago
        There's a point where the phone becomes similar to infrastructure, and allowing a single market actor to charge 30% tax on anyone using the roads, for any business conducted where someone took a road to get there, is ridiculous. I'm not saying the App Store is infrastructure-like. But the market share of Apple is so large, and it's quasi-impossible to conduct consumer business without being required to have a native app... that it's starting to be infrastructure-like. Can a viable B2C online business exist without being present via a native app? It seems untenable due to consumer expectations. Consumers also expect to be able to drive to coffeeshops, yet road providers don't charge 30% taxes on coffeeshop revenues.
        • MilaM 3y ago
          > I'm not saying the App Store is infrastructure-like. It is infrastructure-like. Try to live in modern society without a smartphone. It will be very difficult. Not impossible, but much less convenient.
          • AYBABTME 3y ago
            I meant I'm not ready to say that it is, I have not solidified this as a fact in my own mind. I'm contemplating.
        • seer 3y ago
          It’s no surprise countries like india are indeed treating phones as infra, with their whole government stack centered around smartphones. You’re forced to have and use one, but in return you get free transactions, strong identity and various other perks. It _is_ a monopoly, but the monopoly is the government so everyone has a say on how its run and audited. It’s still strange to me how the states allows private companies to do things the at should be public goods/services.
      • kelnos 3y ago
        Apple was just fine building all those platform SDKs for macOS without charging people to write apps for it. Why should iOS be any different? The servers do not cost 30% of all sales on the platform. Not even close. But none of that matters. Very few businesses set their prices based on how much it costs them to provide their goods or services. They charge what the market will bear. The problem is that there is no "iOS app distribution market"; Apple controls it, 100%, so they can set prices wherever they want, without regard to competition.
        • TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
          I feel the App Store is one thing differentiating Apple from Android phone manufacturers. Money from the App Store gets reinvested in the entire iPhone supply chain. Whereas in the case of Android, App Store money goes to Google only. It also encourages Apple to support their phones long term as its preferred that you stay on your aging iPhone and keep spending at the App Store then risking you leaving the Apple ecosystem because Apple allows their older phones to become obsolete. Android manufacturers on the other hand have every incentive to obsolete your phone ASAP because you buying a new phone is the only way they make money.
          • albert180 3y ago
            Do you seriously believe this? It's Apple that's blocking you from installing any apps or updates when you don't receive iOS Versions Updates anymore, while Google Play doesn't care about it, as long as the app itself is still developed for that version. Also they make more than enough money from the Hardware itself, they just take the profits off the software purchases.
            • ffgjgf1 3y ago
              > that's blocking you from installing any apps or updates Technically that’s the app developers who do that.
              • albert180 3y ago
      • greysphere 3y ago
        You just described most games.
        • kridsdale1 3y ago
          I am aware.
      • ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > Why do you get to run a business off it for free? So Microsoft did all of this on Windows (or Apple itself for that matter for macOS) due to entirely altruistic reasons? Also platforms need developers a whole lot more than developers need specific platforms. You can always go and works at a bank or something. Apple would be skewed with no 3-rd party developers they always knew it. > They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Maybe the ads on the app store would more than cover it? Not only do you need to pay 30% you also have to pay extra for placement so that Apple wouldn’t put your competitors apps at the top of the results when users search for your app?
        • blasphemers 3y ago
          It's like people don't remember windows phone failed because of a lack of third-party apps.
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      To be fair, roughly half of Apple's money is made from hardware. The app store is extremely lucrative and apparently 70%+ of their revenue from the App store is just leeching off of mobile games, but Apple can definitely survive without the app store if push came to shove. BUT, I will also mention that part of its market capture comes from all the charges on devs even before the rev share. You need apple equipment to develop, and they (apparently) don't sell server racks anymore for businesses to scale off of, nor any legitimate form of emulation. You have a small cost per year to have a developer account, and a cost to submit your app for review. Then if you care about visibilty they have their own ad discovery program you can pay into. So I did disagree with a brief judge statement about how "It's possible to skirt around Apple's innnovation for free...". Apple controls and charges for the entire pipeline, even before you launch the app.
      • jb1991 3y ago
        > a cost to submit your app for review They charge you to submit an app? Is this new? When I worked as an iOS developer this was not a thing but that was many years ago.
        • __m 3y ago
          No they don’t
        • wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
          You pay 99 per year. But this definitely doesn’t cover their cost. The review process is very labor intensive on their side
          • munk-a 3y ago
            As someone who has developed a commercial app and spent time on the app store - their review process is a joke... there are non-compliances all over the store and I suspect a lot of their review process is highly automated.
            • 3y ago
    • camillomiller 3y ago
      This is a biased view that disregards basic available metrics. Apple is a hardware company. Developers are instrumental to its devices success and a point can be made that 30% might be too high of a fee. On the other hand many of those developers wouldn’t have a job in the first place if it wasn’t for Apple creating the App Store.
      • johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the argument shifts back to "well they got paid already". So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics back to being "a public commons"?
        • pompino 3y ago
          Agreed, While there may be people who think they're defending Apple "on principle", I hope those folks also realize that there is no "principle" that is ingrained in nature. We're all just making up rules, laws, taxes, as we go along. Just because a law or article of constitution is old, doesn't make it any more 'natural' than others. There is no "right" of any student for their debt to be forgiven, but we want to do it anyway. Apple has taken advantage (as have others) of a ridiculously broken tax code, availed of the strong US legal system, property rights, etc. How about we shift the balance back?
        • kergonath 3y ago
          > I find it interesting seeing the arguments here on how Apple should keep its large cut for years after it's become sustainable, but when mentioning the idea of giving copyrighted artists any sort of royalty (it'd be far, far, far from 30%) for training LLMs that the argument shifts back to "well they got paid already". Do you account for the fact that it might not be the same people making both arguments? Most websites’ readerships are not monoliths and even on HN there are plenty of people with different perspectives, and who are not necessarily vocal in the same threads. > So, how long does Apple get to reap the rewards of their old accomplishments from 18 years ago? how long should such works be benefited from before we shift the dynamics back to being "a public commons"? That’s an interesting argument, but it’s usually not discussed with any nuance. Basically there are several layers: - are we entitled to Apple opening their platforms? (AFAICT the opposite would be a first though the EU seems to be going that way) - is Apple entitled to profit from the App Store in principle? (Some people are arguing that they are not, but they are a fringe; Epic lost their argument about that) - is 30% too much? (But then, where is the line? It’s more or less the standard for closed platforms Where would you put your “public commons”? Did this ever happen?
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      Oh no, those devs would have certainly passed the difference on to the consumer.
  • pratnala 3y ago
    I agree that Apple should take some cut but 30% is predatory and excessive.
    • DeathArrow 3y ago
      They can get 99% provided they allow the users the freedom to download and install apps from wherever they want.
      • merlindru 3y ago
        This I don't care about the fee for using their services, I care about the fact that I'm forced to use their services
    • JimDabell 3y ago
      Apple charges 15%. The only developers who pay 30% are the ones earning over a million dollars a year through the App Store. Even then, they get charged 15% if it’s a long-term subscription.
  • nevir 3y ago
    Here's a little story / timeline from 2009-2010 (from my perspective as a dev on Kindle for iOS): * we submit the Kindle app ...including an in-app bookstore... to Apple for initial app review (Note: multiple ebook readers with in-app bookstores are already on the app store at this point) * several weeks pass with no response * Apple announces in-app purchasing (to be released several months later) * Apple rejects our app: we have to give them a 30% cut of all sales through the app, or remove the store and all references / external links to it. We chose option 2. * Apple forces the other ereader apps to remove their stores or go with IAP. Several (most?) just gave up and pulled their apps entirely * Apple negotiates agreements with most of the major book publishers that if they want to sell books on iBooks, ebooks must be listed at the same price on ALL stores, and have a 30% margin * Apple launches in-app purchasing and the iBooks store (with the iPad announcement, IIRC) ...aka even if we (or any other ereader app) wanted to sell books via our app, the terms Apple set forth effectively meant that ALL profit from those sales must go to them (and we would have to eat the bandwidth / service costs on top of that)
    • issafram 3y ago
      I did my first iOS development about a couple of years ago. Question, how in the world do you tolerate the storyboard XML files? One small change in XCode results in so many line changes. PRs are impossible to review with any confidence.
      • 0x0 3y ago
        Answer: Don't use storyboards.
      • ben_w 3y ago
        That's a big argument for SwiftUI, which replaces storyboards. But if you must use them, keep each storyboard small enough it's only going to be used by one dev at a time to avoid conflicts, and then combine trusting the GUI won't make stupid XML plus some automated UI tests to make sure functionality isn't damaged by e.g. a button being deleted.
        • 3y ago
  • yMEyUyNE1 3y ago
    I view such companies as Trolls under the Bridge (i.e. appstores) that connect the app developers and the users.
  • psychoslave 3y ago
    If merit was a highly pondering factor of income, coal miners would be extremely rich and no annuitant would exist out there.
  • gigatexal 3y ago
    People also need to remember how it was before in the CompUSA or telco provided phones. The retailer or marketplace would take > 30% margins closer to 50% and to get on a pseudo-smart phone before the current smart phone era one had to ask the AT&T's and Verizon's very nicely. But now one can build apps now and publish and just pay the 30% comission or 15% on subscriptions after the second year and look at the explosion in the app marketplace.
    • muro 3y ago
      We don't need to remember that, good riddance and great that they were disrupted. How do you disrupt this market though?
      • gigatexal 3y ago
        I honestly think Apple will need to be compelled by law verdict or congress to open up the appstore or allow other appstores and have some sort of cap on fees charged -- I dunno. The ideal would probably be what Steve envisioned before the AppStore was a thing and that's basically PWAs. But I think it's been alleged that Apple is arbitrarily nerfing Safari to prevent PWAs on iOS running as well as native applications -- though I've no source. How to effectively "disrupt" the appstore model is a billion dollar question I'm not sure of. What I do know is that the Tim Sweeny's et al of the world are hypocrites in that they just want to create their own rent-seeking AppStores and charge their own commissions and skirt around paying the platform anything for being on the platform. This is akin to wanting to be in a supermarket and put your kiosk inside and sell your product to the supermarket's customers without some sort of financial agreement between you and the supermarket.
        • Workaccount2 3y ago
          It's just imessage. If imessage falls, so will the iPhone. The courts don't take stuff like "social compliance" into account when evaluating something like the iPhone, so it all looks rosy. In reality, it's incredibly difficult to be a social young person in the US without an iPhone. Which naturally spreads to families becoming "iPhone families". All of it just comes down to messaging though.
  • nkrisc 3y ago
    No, we can factor in who’s making them and how much money they have.
  • BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
    The merits are centered around the outcomes, which in this case are the consolidation of wealth by a few who don’t need it from the many who do. What other merits are more meaningful than the observable outcomes of the practice?
  • SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    Here’s a very simple example. Search ChatGPT in the App Store. The top result is an ad that’s not ChatGPT but looks extremely similar. The top 10 results are basically intended to look as much like the ChatGPT in name and logo as possible. Ostensibly this 30% cut is supposed to prevent things like this from happening, as Apple argues it uses that money to keep the App Store clean from fraudulent or misrepresenting apps, among other things. There is a much touted “review” process that is supposed to be partially funded by the 30% cut. So if that isn’t really happening, what, pray tell, is that 30% going towards? It isn’t making the App Store a better experience
  • taylorius 3y ago
    Why shouldn't who's making a claim and their money be relevant? Monopolies (and near monopolies) are a bad thing for free markets.
  • sharemywin 3y ago
    I think it's kind of the same argument. if you can justify an excessive marketplace tax for a company that "wins" in a wins a winner take all market dynamic then you get a $Trillion company. not sure how you get one without the other.
  • gunapologist99 3y ago
    That's often true, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule, because we also have to look at the capabilities of the two combatants. It's why you would probably/hopefully assist the underdog who was being bullied. We're talking about the wealthiest company in the world who can obviously afford to run out the clock on the court system and bury an opponent with legal fees. There's a monster difference of offensive capabilities, even if we realize that Epic is a sizeable company; in this case, Epic is really standing in for every other tiny company or one-man shop in the App Store, and we should thank them for doing that.
• microtonal 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • droopyEyelids 3y ago
    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking
  • DeathArrow 3y ago
    Apple has few talents: -putting disparate things together to form a whole and polishing it -design -marketing which includes cult building All these talents are put at work together in harmony. I own devices from Apple (which have both advantages and disadvantages) and other companies, but at no point I fell myself better because I own Apple devices, nor do I consider their devices better than anything else out there. For some people, brands are a part of who they are. Apple, Gucci, Christian Dior, Tesla are not longer manufacturers of goods to be used. They are symbols that are used to craft ones identity, together with whatever ideology of the day.
  • lozenge 3y ago
    When a UK court made Apple merely put a notice on their website for two weeks (due to stealing Samsung's design elements) they similarly found the worst possible way to "comply". So much so that the court issued another order to do it properly. The comments on the above Apple news website were all "why should Apple comply with a UK decision anyway".
• riscy 3y ago
  I've yet to see an HN hate thread about the trillion dollar company Google and its Play Store, with the same fees, stealing 30% from an even broader part of society.
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    Au contraire I believe Google is the most hated company on HN by a mile and half. We see this play out IRL even with their anticompetitive lawsuit outcomes
    • DeathArrow 3y ago
      Both Apple and Google do nasty things. Other companies, too. This thread is dedicated to Apple's own wrongdoings. If Google does nasty things, that doesn't mean Apple should get a pass. Most people here care about consumers, not about companies, especially about monopolistic companies.
      • riscy 3y ago
        Apple allowing alternate payment methods with a fee discount in the US, as Google does in other countries, is a wrongdoing? Consumers don’t care about the fees developers pay.
        • jsnell 3y ago
          It's not a fee that the developers pay. It's a fee that the customers pay.
  • account-5 3y ago
    You clearly not been looking hard enough; Google, rightly, gets hated on way more than Apple. My experience tends to be that on HN apple can do no wrong.
    • paulddraper 3y ago
      The iOS vs Android flamewar has a clear winner on hn
• charcircuit 3y ago
  >All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes This is how all businesses work. If there was no way to make profit then businesses would not exist. Apple spent billions of dollars creating an app platform with a clear monetization model that did not get in the way of them accumulating a lot of valuable apps and users. Developers are not forced to make apps for the platform nor are users forced to use the app platform. Other app platforms can impose lower fees and developers are free to release exclusively on those platforms if they wish. Apple hopes that the developers willing to tolerate the 15/30% fee for what the developer gets in return will be good enough to make their app platform competitive to users compared to others. It's not just defending a trillion dollar company, it is defending the right to set your own prices.
  • totaa 3y ago
    > nor are users forced to use the app platform is side loading or alternative stores like f droid available on IOS?
    • charcircuit 3y ago
      Yes, but it is for supporting developers and enterprises.
  • flanked-evergl 3y ago
    Something is not moral just because it makes a profit or because it is legal, and revenue is also not profit. And I think if a company operates outside societal norms, which I think Apple with regards to European societal norms, it should expect to get regulated to fit those norms again. Maybe the US is too dysfunctional to do this any more, but the purpose of government should be to align the laws and regulations with the morals of the people being governed. My bank generates revenue by offering me a service in return for my money, not by monopolizing access to my money and then charging people who want to sell to me for the honour of allowing me to buy their goods and services. Very few companies that I deal with as a consumer have similar business practices, and the ones that do, like Visa and Mastercard, is also something I think should be cracked down upon. There are many things the EU messes up in my opinion, but cracking down on this clearly immoral business practices is not one of those as it aligns 100% with my morals even though I'm incredibly pro "free" market (i.e. pro minimally regulated market, as every person who has ever been pro "free market" is).
• gonzon 3y ago
  the ironic thing is that the way you describe apple is the way 99% of people outside of hackernews would describe the people of hackernews (or tech ppl in general).
• jve 3y ago
  Stealing? I see it as fee for an exchange to access to a huge market of wealthy people (one that can afford an iPhone probably can afford your app). Where entry barrier is extremely low. If you make 100 sales, you don't have to pay much, if you make huge profits off the platform you make huge payments to the platform owner.
  • hyperhopper 3y ago
    They shouldn't have the right to be the gatekeeper in that relationship. The wealthy people own the hardware, the devs own the app. Why does apple get the legal right to demand money in that transaction when it would be better for everyone if they weren't involved
    • LoganDark 3y ago
      When you buy an Apple device you don't control the hardware or the software on it. Apple does.
      • hyperhopper 3y ago
        That should be illegal.
        • LoganDark 3y ago
          I agree.
    • yazaddaruvala 3y ago
      So what about people like me? I buy an iPhone because Apple gatekeeps the apps. I grew up in the age of torrents and Kazzaa and am tired of spam, malware, bloat, anti virus, etc. I want my phone to be an unbreakable toy, not a computing device.
      • ric2b 3y ago
        So you use exclusively the Apple store, problem solves?
• Zetobal 3y ago
  This guy also hates taxes.
  • atoav 3y ago
    So where can I vote out apple if I am unhappy with the 30%? Not everything you pay money for is comparable to taxes.
    • thebruce87m 3y ago
      You vote with your wallet.
      • microtonal 3y ago
        I agree when it's a healthy market. But when the choice is between relinquish most control over your own device or relinquish most of your privacy, maybe it's time to regulate the market? In the EU this is happening on both fronts: - The GDPR has Android phone manufacturers to ask consent for different ways of using your data and being able to remove data. This is starting to work, on a Samsung phone Samsung/Google will ask you separate consent for using your data for diagnostics, ad targeting, etc. It's not perfect yet, but regulatory pressure is giving people privacy back. - The DMA will force Apple to allow side-loading and alternative payment methods without taking a cut. Once this has all played out, we'll still have a duopoly, but at least users and third-party developers are better protected.
      • azemetre 3y ago
        Voting with your wallet just means that those who have the most money are “most correct.” Sorry but that’s not a society I want to continue living in. There needs to be strict regulations and maybe apple needs to be broken up. Owning the hardware and App Store has already shown have abusive they can be. They need to divest or spin off one of them into a new company or we can pressure politicians to do this for us.
    • riscy 3y ago
      Don’t develop for iOS.
• Halvedat 3y ago
  It's very likely that people posting on Hacker News may hold equity in a company like Apple, may have their primary form of income derived from that company or may be able to attribute their sizeable wealth to its growth. It is no surprise that people will come to the defense of this giant when you stop to consider this. Apple doesn't have to care about them, it already has. I am of the opinion that there should be some sort of disclosure of financial interest.
  • lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Pretty much everyone that invests in the public equity markets holds equity in Apple. In fact, Apple would be most public market investor’s biggest holding (or 2nd biggest due to Microsoft’s recent increases) via index funds. Even if you are not invested in public equity markets, you can be exposed to them via local and state government’s pension fund investments, because if those do not perform as projected, then your taxes have to make up for it.
    • darkwater 3y ago
      With the caveat that if you just invest in indexed funds, if Apple does worse than before, probably some competitor does better than before, and it might compensate. If you just own AAPL stocks on the other hand...
  • fauigerzigerk 3y ago
    Maybe so, but I never found this line of argument particularly convincing. The investments people have in Apple are often insignificant compared to the rest of their income or wealth. Also, buying shares in the public market is like a bet. Instead of changing your opinion to agree with the bet you could simply bet the other way. Or you could bet that your own political activism will fail. Betting on an outcome doesn't mean you prefer that outcome. It can also be hedging. The people who really do have something riding on Apple's success are employees getting stock options. And yes, I would also like to know whether someone is an Apple employee when they are commenting on these subjects. Developers are affected by Apple's policies and success in very complex ways and can legitimately take either side on these questions. Disclosure: I have an app in the App Store that made me ~£100 in the previous fiscal year. I also have £3000 in a NASDAQ 100 ETF. Apple's share of that is ~£270.
• DeathArrow 3y ago
  >They are not your friend, they do not care about you Of course they care about you. They hope you are healthy and in a good shape so you can work more to earn more money and give them their share.
• todd3834 3y ago
  They probably do care a lot about developers staying on their platform. The 30% is only from companies making more than $1 million. Otherwise you can qualify for 15% small business program. I don’t need them to be my friend or to care about me but as a share holder I want them to succeed. So far their R&D has proven valuable to me as both a consumer and share holder. I don’t care if a few people who already have everything get richer. Since I believe the company is doing great things and I think it still has a bright future ahead I get to share in that upside too. And so can you if you want to.
  • eptcyka 3y ago
    Do they care though? As a developer, I either play by the rules and get access to their massive, lucrative market or I just don't. Its not like the investment developers and Dev companies make into their ecosystem can be just moved elsewhere - its all a sunken cost.
    • todd3834 3y ago
      Do you really think they wouldn’t care if developers left their platform? They care because it’s beneficial to them. I don’t expect anything else from any corporation including the ones who’ve employed me.
      • eptcyka 3y ago
        They don't need to care about developers - they cannot leave.
• puszczyk 3y ago
  I don’t care about trillion dollar company. I care about my experience. App Store purchases and subscriptions are a good experience for a user. I’ve never had problems canceling subscriptions, or getting refunds.
  • ric2b 3y ago
    Ok, but the argument is that people should have options, not that you should stop using the Apple store.
    • thealistra 3y ago
      I am afraid that some developers will drop Apple payments all together and I will have to type my credit card info inside of low-quality apps. Currently I just press ok after a Face ID.
      • asadotzler 3y ago
        Why do you install low quality apps?
• ribit 3y ago
  I have difficulty following this argument, especially the "stealing" part. App Store does not just randomly take money from the devs. App Store also provides a service. They do world-wide payment and VAT processing, refund processing, discovery, distribution, user login management, APIs, distributed cloud storage, etc. It costs money to run these things. As a small-time developer, I think this is a great deal for 15%. At the price levels of most small apps it would cost more to use a payment processor + hiring an accountant, not to mention the extra work involved in setting up and maintaining these things. For behemoth like Epic — sure, the "Apple tax" hurts, they'd rather gouge their customers without Apple's involvement. But frankly, I don't see any reason to punish one multi-billion corporation just so other multi-billion corporation can make more money. I care primarily about the interest of the small-time developers. And this is the point that should be made more often IMO — App Stores (and Apple bing one of the first ones) have democratized software development by making the barrier of entry extremely low. Anyone with some talent or idea can go and write an app, without any additional financial risk. App Store is based around sharing your success. The relatively few successful devs carry the costs to keep that barrier of entry low to everyone. And I really don't want that to change. On a serious notes, what are the alternatives? What exactly is your argument? That Apple should be charging nothing? Ok, then they also shouldn't be providing any services. You want to do distribution or payment processing? Take care of it yourself. Epic would love this of course, Joe the indie developer instead is dead in the water. Or are you arguing that Apple is charging too much? Well, there are solutions to that as well. They could charge for services individually for example, but that again hurts the small developer, because trying out things starts costing them money. Frankly, my idea would be to split the App Store into a separate commercial entity and make it nonprofit. I am sympathetic to the argument that the Store itself is not a product but is used to support and create value for Apple's ecosystem. I do think that the devs should pay for running the store, and I like the current success-based model and it's low barrier of entry for new devs, so basing the fees on actual operating costs seems like a good compromise. Of course, similar considerations should apply to other stores as well.
  • Aerbil313 3y ago
    Well written. It can be argued that Apple also develops the OS and UI libraries which the apps run on/with, which is also providing something.
• lijok 3y ago
  You need to learn the difference between defending an entity and defending an argument. The line of thinking you're expressing here is what leads to questioning free speech and privacy absolutism.
• lynx23 3y ago
  "They are not your friend, they do not care about you" I beg to differ. As a blind user relying on accessibility, Apple was actually the first company that decided that accessibility should be an inherent part of the OS, not just an expensive add-on. Since the iPhone, blind users can just buy the product and turn speech output on, without having to install expensive extra software as was the case with Windows, for instance. So keep your generic accusations for yourself, they are far from correct.
  • cryptonym 3y ago
    This is a great result. That being said, I wouldn't bet they did that just because they cared about you in a friendly way.
    • tuyiown 3y ago
      If it's not driven by ROI, it can only be empathy and «do the right thing»
      • cryptonym 3y ago
        Who said there is no ROI? Apple is no charity, they probably found another way to generate profit out of it (brand reputation, more sales, you name it). It might be better than previous situation, profit was generated in a terrible way. Still doesn't mean you owe them something nor they are being particularly "nice" with you. If cutting it was a way to generate high profit, finance and shareholders would probably ask for this to be removed quickly. For instance, in the last vote they refused assessments on social and environmental issues.
        • tuyiown 3y ago
          > Who said there is no ROI? I did not because I don't know.
        • lynx23 3y ago
          You are so full of activism and the resulting hatered, it hurts to read. I hope you have something in your life that makes you feel cozy.
• highwaylights 3y ago
  Keeping the tax at more or less the same rate on outbound links is incredibly brazen, even by Apple standards. If the EU DMA does eventually force them to open the platform to competing stores it’s going to be very hard to defend the different policies in different markets, especially as I assume Epic will push aggressively to have Fortnite and the Epic Games store on iOS in those markets as early as possible to force the conversation.
• kriops 3y ago
  That’s a strawman if I ever saw one. Apple is morally entitled to licence their products however they’d like, because property rights. If you don’t like it, then nobody is forcing you to give them your business.
• dragonelite 3y ago
  The lords and churches of the past wouldn't even dare to ask as much as 30% of revenues in our feudal past.
  • riscy 3y ago
    It’s 15% for the commoners (<$1M) and I’d believe that in feudal times.
  • qwytw 3y ago
    IIRC the standard for serfs was 2-3 days of labor per week (in some cases during harvest even up to 5), for a 6 day workweek. Add various random fees and rents and that's way more than 50-60%. Of course everything improved massively after the plague. So it depends on which part of the middle ages we're talking about.
• zer0zzz 3y ago
  I can understand some perspectives of the Apple-defending crowd. Apple being the popular yet closed-end-to-end platform experience does kind of provide a level of balance in the industry that wouldn’t exist otherwise. I personally think it’s silly to look at Amazon or Google as an example of openness. I think it’s also kinda weird to label Apple as a monopoly unless you mean a monopoly on revenues. They seem to actively swerve away from getting over 50% share of anything.
  • toyg 3y ago
    They realized that getting over 50% marketshare paints a target on their back, whereas what you want is 50% of profitable money in the market. If BMW sell 10 cars with $1 margin, Jaguar sell 5 cars with $2 margin, and Ferrari sell 2 cars with $40 margin, the latter took home 80% of profits with 11% marketshare. Then Ferrari just work their hardest to make sure that their customers cannot change car without a lot of effort, effectively coopting (or rather enslaving) them forever. That keeps antitrust law at bay in practice, while egregiously breaking it in spirit.
• maccard 3y ago
  > It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple It's incredible to me that people arguing against apple here don't realise that they're arguing to allow another billion dollar company to do what they want, and that their own opinion is the only one that could possibly be valid If you want an open ecosystem with alternative app stores, head on over to Android. The value of iOS to me is the app store and related ecosystem.
  • mihaaly 3y ago
    Regardless, it is a phenomenon here that negative words on Apple - justified or not alike - attract numerious downvotes without comments, just for the sake of it.
    • maccard 3y ago
      Honestly, I've found nuanced discussion on this topic in any direction attracts downvotes, and reddit-tier comments like the one I replied to float to the top. It's a pity as the quality of the discussion here is usually above this.
  • nprateem 3y ago
    > head on over to Android I'll just tell all my potential customers to buy a new phone before buying my app. That'll work.
• ben_w 3y ago
  > You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. True. > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. I'm old enough to have developed software before the App Store existed, and remember that everyone was very excited both buy it finally being introduced to iOS, and by the relatively low fees of only 30%. You're free to argue that 30% is too high, or even that the 15% for small developers is too high, that this is rent-seeking by Apple and only made sense when they were also a small company… but I think this is also true for the businesses trying to convince everyone that it matters, and I think they would like to charge the same sticker price while collecting the difference for themselves.
  • sofixa 3y ago
    > and by the relatively low fees of only 30%. 30% is low compared to what? Mafia extortion rates?
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • deleted 3y ago
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    • ben_w 3y ago
      When the App Store was new, the web hosting for my indie shareware games was about 30% of their net revenue after the payment processor and marketplace fees. The payment processor (cheapest PayPal (U.S. Accounts), most expensive American Express/Optima International[0]) and marketplace (Kagi[0]) fees were on top of that hosting fee, and cost anywhere from (1.9 to 5.0)% + $0.30 (payment provider) plus 2.5% + $1 (market place for ≤$25), which makes those two items combined also more than 30% for any item sold for less than $5.08-5.77. Hosting fees are of course cheaper today, more so when bulk bought (I think more than enough to compensate for games today getting into the 100GB range when my shareware was 10s of MB). I'd hope that payment providers are also. But at the time, it looked amazing. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20090903044400/http://www.kagi.com/kagisolutions/pricing.php https://web.archive.org/web/20090903044400/http://www.kagi.c...
• xanderlewis 3y ago
  I haven't done any defending, but I reject the idea that it's a ridiculous idea to do so. I choose (almost always) to defend people on the basis of whether they are right or wrong (by some measure), emphatically not due to some expectation of return on investment because they 'care about me'. Also, no one is defending Apple because they think 'the trillion dollar company needs defending' -- they're doing it, presumably, because they just so happen to have an opinion on the matter that aligns with Apple's.
• the_other 3y ago
  I often defend Apple. I don't want to defend Apple on this current topic: I think taking a cut of out-of-app physical purchases/subscriptions is ridiculous and should be legally challenged. However... > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. If you're gonna argue that, you have to inspect the edges of this position. Are you willing to let go of your own shares? Or the interest on your pension (or equivalent), which comes via the roughly the same route you're arguing against. If you own your own company, do you share most/all profits with your staff (rather than pay a wage), or your shareholders? This is all wrapped up together. IMO, To make such a claim, you need really to argue against the system these "rich people" operate in as much, if not more than, the individual cases.
  • quonn 3y ago
    > If you own your own company, do you share most/all profits with your staff This is not the same, there a degrees of unethical behavior. We should collectively try to give more meaning to these degrees instead of jumping to first principles. Taking your example, there is a difference between taking a cut or underpaying your staff or severely underpaying them or perhaps not paying them at all or perhaps forced labor or perhaps outright slavery.
• yard2010 3y ago
  Ikr. That's a big incentive to be evil! Special snowflakes will vouch for you no matter what
• norman784 3y ago
  As a user I don't care for the 30% cut, what I care is to have a centralised payment method and subscription system, I don't have energy/time to keep with different subscriptions in each service/app and knowing that there are bad actors, they will do whatever possible to make hard to unsubscribe (like a few years ago the NYT, where you could only unsubscribe by phone and was very hard even so). But if even when using third party payment systems they need to integrate with Apple subscription API and you can cancel/track in one place then I'm fine with that.
  • cryptonym 3y ago
    That's a fair statement, you may like Apple payment even if it adds 30% to whatever you are buying. What is not fair is forcing everyone into this. If I'm selling content, why couldn't I give customer the choice between: - Paying the 30% Apple cut and benefiting from everything you like about this - Buying directly, cheaper, without Apple cut (or maybe with a tiny cut if that make any sense, removing only 3pt is a joke)
    • HatchedLake721 3y ago
      Because it's Apple's marketplace and Apple's customers. They spent billions on hardware, software, R&D, marketing and operations. Why would they give another business a free access to a billion of their customers? You want to earn money of Apple's customers? Then pay Apple a revenue share of the money you get from their customers. That's how pretty much any marketplace works in the world. From your local Target to Salesforce/Shopify/PlayStation/Epic Store/Steam/etc.
      • seandoe 3y ago
        I don't think that's equivalent. If you buy a Ford car, you aren't forced to buy tires from the Ford dealership. You're not a "Ford Customer" beholden to the Ford Motor Company when it comes to everything related to the car. If you buy a Dell desktop you aren't forced to buy all software through a Dell marketplace. I'm sure if these companies could, they would, and apple can and so they do. But is that the world we want? Sure, in a totally "free" market apple should be able to do want ever they want. But are we more interested in freedom for corporations or freedom for people? Would things be better for everyone if we used the power of government to prevent these anticompetitive practices? Why can't apple offer good reason for iPhone users to buy software through their marketplace and take the 30%, all the while allowing users to choose to download software outside of the marketplace?
• poszlem 3y ago
  What a wild take. Epic doesn't care about me either. What difference does it make? Are we supposed to judge if something's right or wrong based on who's doing it, rather than what they're actually doing?
• remon 3y ago
  This is exactly the wrong argument to make and a perfect example of why internet discussion is becoming harder. None of what you said matters. It does not matter how much money a company makes or if you personally think they're charging too much for a service. They're allowed to. The open question is if they're in a position where there's no reasonable alternative for developers and/or consumers which you can make a strong case for. That line of argument would not be affected at all by how much money Apple makes, their cut or if they're spending their money in a socially productive way. The fact that this is the second highest upvoted comment is a rather sad datapoint on issues related to internet based conversation where opinions consistently trump fact or reason.
  • toyg 3y ago
    > It does not matter how much money a company makes or if you personally think they're charging too much for a service. They're allowed to. Ah yes, loan sharks are perfectly legitimate businessmen too, then. > The fact that this is the second highest upvoted comment is a rather sad datapoint I personally find sadder that there are people who just rationalize away the utter lack of morality in modern capitalism. "Why screw others? Because we can! Woot!" is even worse than "greed is good".
    • inemesitaffia 3y ago
      Why do companies charge extra to businesses for the same product? Should they? See the SSO tax
      • toyg 3y ago
        Companies should be free to compete on various variables, which include price for their services. But there is no competition for the Apple AppStore on Apple devices, it's a captive market. At that point, it's not competition but exploitation; and exploitation surely is a Bad Thing. We used to be taught that one of the Bad Elements of feudal life was that the local lord could impose arbitrary taxes to use a road or a bridge, with no recourse for people and tradesmen. Now we are at the same point in the digital world.
• deleted 3y ago
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• criley2 3y ago
  > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer Apple stock is the most widely held stock by American 401k's and forms the basis of retirement investments for middle class Americans more than any other stock
  • hortense 3y ago
    Wouldn't that be Microsoft? It's worth 2.9T, vs Apple's 2.84T.
• ants_everywhere 3y ago
  Apple is a lifestyle brand and some people act pretty threatened when that brand is criticized.
• namdnay 3y ago
  > make a few people who already have everything even richer. "a few people" being everyone with a retirement plan, 401k or any equivalent around the world, i.e. the vast majority of people in developed countries if anything, taking from smaller companies to give to megacorps is a net benefit for "the common man", since the former will generally belong to founders/VCs/private equity in which they have no stake, and the latter are owned by everyone with exposure to the MSCI World :)
• hospitalJail 3y ago
  Its completely obvious Apple has some sort of mind control going on. Its insane to see society is okay with this.
• Darthy 3y ago
  Apple Vision Pro is coming out soon, with the same terrible rules for app developers. We should put out an open letter to Apple that we will collectively ignore that product until it contains more favourable terms.
  • spdif899 3y ago
    Great idea, I was totally planning to spend $3500 on a first gen gadget but now you've convinced me not to
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• thinkerswell 3y ago
  It's amazing to me that people in this thread still don't understand free markets. You are free to use Android, or Amazon phone. Or Graphene. Or one of the many others.
  • webstrand 3y ago
    Apple preventing 3rd party software not paying the apple tax from running on their phones is not "free market". The only reason they can get away with this is because of laws that protect their market from 3rd parties.
    • systoll 3y ago
      …what laws? Apple restricts third parties almost entirely through technical measures. Jailbreaking to bypass the technical measures is legal.
      • webstrand 3y ago
        It may have finally been settled now as legal? I know in the past it was considered a violation of DMCA, circumventing technical countermeasures. Looks like the lawsuit was settled not decided, and Apple is free to sue it's next victim.
• kasajian 3y ago
  I'm going to use this post as a reference for what I believe to be one of the least logical arguments I've ever seen on a technical forum. Congratulations.
• concordDance 3y ago
  People can defend Apple purely for "Someone is wrong on the Internet!" reasons. We're mostly not Homo Economicus Machiavelli who only do things for considered reasons. (I agree that the 30% is probably bad for society though)
• kspacewalk2 3y ago
  What's incredible is the idea that an argument or a point of view is somehow invalidated purely because it happens to side with the trillion dollar company. This is in the same vein as "this cause is supported by teh evil Amerika, hence it must be evil" line of thinking, typically espoused by self-declared anti-imperialists (who are often mere anti-US-imperialists). >make a few people who already have everything even richer. I do wonder what percentage of Apple stock is owned by pension funds and the like, i.e. The Regular Person, once you unwind the levels of indirection (mutual funds, index funds, ETFs, etc). It is surely a double digit percentage, but high, low? No idea.
  • timtom39 3y ago
    > I do wonder what percentage of Apple stock is owned by pension funds and the like, i.e. The Regular Person, once you unwind the levels of indirection (mutual funds, etc). It is surely a double digit percentage, but high, low? No idea. Pretty high. The S&P 500 has ~7% apple stock which means many peoples retirement accounts have several percentage points of apple stock.
    • Podgajski 3y ago
      So Apple takes 30% of your money from one hand and gives you back 3% with the other?
      • kspacewalk2 3y ago
        "Apple" takes and gives nothing. "Apple" is a collective figment of imagination of its shareholders, which people typically picture as dastardly moneybags living in mansions, but often forget to also picture, like, themselves, in retirement.
        • fennecfoxy 3y ago
          So we should let every company charge 10000% what they currently do, because some of the shareholders might be relying on extra dividends for retirement. Hmmm.
• throw__away7391 3y ago
  Who is definitely not my friend is third party app developers who want to side load their trash spamware on to my phone. Every single platform out there is a dumpster fire of fraudulent and abusive software and products aggressively pushed by deception with every trick or vulnerability they can find exploited. The App Store works just fine for me as a user as is. I don’t care at all what software you want to install on my phone or what access you feel entitled to.
• Someone 3y ago
  I think you can be unhappy with the 15/30% price cut, yet objectively see little wrong with it, given current capitalistic economies and legislation. There are many other large companies with huge margins that, in your words “steal from society”. Alphabet’s is over 20%, for example, and it’s very hard to avoid them when advertising online. Microsoft likely makes money on Xbox game sales, too. In capitalism 101, Apple created a market and a shop, so they can set the rules. If they demanded too much, developers would move away, their venture would collapse, iPhones would become less popular, etc. I think you’ll find that selling ice cream at Disney theme parks similarly is expensive for ice cream vendors. They’ll either demand a cut on revenues or charge a lot for the right to sell stuff, and be picky about who can sell what at their venues. Large retail companies such as Walmart won’t technically take a cut if you want them to sell your product, but they’ll negotiate lower prices from you, require you to take back any unsold inventory, etc. In summary: ‘we’ currently allow all kinds of huge companies to play by different rules than small companies and individuals. For me, the main issue is whether iOS needs special handling because of its success, and if so, what special handling. The first, for me, is “yes”; smartphones are different enough from theme parks, Xbox and Walmart to handle them differently. The second I’m less sure about. For example, yes, I’d like to have the option to side-load stuff, but also think Apple should have control over what their iPhone product stands for. They currently ban apps selling drugs, for example. Requiring them to support third party stores that may have such apps might harm the image of their iPhone product. Because of that, I think we should allow them (but not necessarily be happy with) to put up a firm warning whenever you try to install a third party app store, even though that would put them on unequal footing with Apple’s store. Maybe, the best solution would be to make Apple’s App Store a non-profit with a monopoly on selling iOS apps, with Apple keeping the right to specify what can and cannot be sold there (keeping that a true non-profit would be hard, though. Some non-profits manage to hoard lots of money over time, their CEO’s ‘deserve’ large salaries, etc)
• Friedduck 3y ago
  Oh grow up. It’s so naive to think there’s no time, effort or money in building what they have. That there’s no ongoing costs. That it doesn’t take thought. They should build it and you should just get it for free. Is 30% reasonable? Should there be some taper once your app is in maintenance mode? No, and yes. I don’t see any reason from either side of this argument frankly. They’ve built a wonderful think that provides immense value, and we all benefit. They should be more flexible in their pricing model, and you should understand that actual people spent hundreds of thousands of hours of their lives to deliver it to you, and charging for that isn’t stealing.
• savanaly 3y ago
  What about their customers? Am I allowed to speak up for their freedom to engage in consensual commerce? Or is that craven of me as well?
• fennecfoxy 3y ago
  "B-b-but Google and others do it, too!" I'd like to quote a passage from Reamde by Neal Stephenson: "So what are you going to do?" Yuxia asked. "Maybe tag along. Like escorting a drunk president home after a long night in the bar." "Didn't you say you had to make a phone call?" "I have been trained by the United States government," Seamus said, "to do more than one thing at a time."
• AlwaysRock 3y ago
  I wouldnt defend 30% specifically but surely they should get some cut or share. What is the right number? 1%? 50%? I don't know. > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. Kind of an odd take. They take a cut because they provide a service. They are not stealing. I guess lump me in with the defending apple crowd if you want to but to think they would or should charge nothing for their service feels... silly.
  • PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    only in tech... can you imagine if selling a replacement bulb for a ford headlight required you to pay 30% to ford. only in tech can this be considered fair.
    • AlwaysRock 3y ago
      I pay ford, or some other distributor, 100% of the cost of the replacement bulb plus whatever their markup is when I purchase it.
    • hnaccount_rng 3y ago
      I’ve got very bad news for you.. what do you think happens when Ford solicits bids for headlamps? Sure “you” don’t pay something to Ford. But Ford absolutely gets its cut
      • PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        that's not nearly the same thing, stop it.
        • hnaccount_rng 3y ago
          How is it not? Giant company vs tiny company. With basically all the profit being allocated to the giant company. Yes it’s not software and yes the tiny company is not single-person company. But that really doesn’t change the situation (well except for you being seemingly personally affected). You can call this situation unfair and say that it _should_ not exist. But reality just disagrees with your assessment that it _does_ not exist. At least as far as I can see. Feel free to explain the difference that I’m missing. And just for completeness sake: this isn’t even unique in software. Distribution commissions were usually in that order of magnitude. Even for less service and reach
• m_0x 3y ago
  > All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer. Steal? What you want the App store to be free and become the Android Play Store which is utter garbage and hostile against small and mid developers?
  • gustavus 3y ago
    You know I hear this argument a lot, but had a revelation recently. Everything people are saying about apps and the app store could apply equally well to web browsers and webpages. After all there are plenty of malicious webpages out there that can do bad things, but we decided that it is fine, that's a risk we as society are willing to take. The alternative is to allow large organizations like the state and corporations to tell us what we can and can't do with devices we own and what we can or can't look at. In conclusion "Information wants to be free."
  • xigoi 3y ago
    I prefer F-Droid. It would be nice if iOS could have something like that too.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• drdeca 3y ago
  > You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. I don’t like what apple is doing here, and am not inclined to defend it. However, I am inclined to complain about this type of rhetoric. If invalid criticism are being made, it is appropriate to correct those criticisms, even if the criticisms being made are criticisms of some vile person or organization.
• dnissley 3y ago
  It's super easy to avoid all of this drama: Do not buy an iPhone. Almost any other phone will allow you to download and install arbitrary programs from any source that offers them. It's quite wonderful. It amazes me that people would rather force apple to open up through dubious court cases than simply buy a different device.
  • rustcleaner 3y ago
    Nothing in current smartphone-land beats a Google Pixel running GrapheneOS. Put GrapheneOS on your phone(s) and Qubes OS on PC(s), and you have the world's two most secure and owner-respecting operating systems in existence today!!!! :^)
• thegrimmest 3y ago
  I support Apple not because they need my support, but because the supporting argument aligns with my principles. I believe that the entire App Store ecosystem belongs to Apple, and that none of us have any right to dictate what Apple does with it. It's theirs in the same way my organs are mine. Just because it happens to be massively successful doesn't change this. I'm not a negative utilitarian.