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This is a complicated issue. On the one hand, I tend to have a generally unfavorable view of apple. I don't like closed systems, oversimplified to the point of

This is a complicated issue. On the one hand, I tend to have a generally unfavorable view of apple. I don't like closed systems, oversimplified to the point of missing critical settings UX, etc. That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. If the arguments were "these restrictions are so burdensome I can't be in the app store!", that's a different conversation. But they tend to be "I can access such an irresistible amount of customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits à la carte. It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear out of thin air, clearly benefiting enough to experience what you're complaining about, and wishing the deal were more beneficial to you _after the work has been done_. Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. I'm not sure we're there on this one, but the patience can't be infinite.

j-j-j-j 3y ago
Agreed. Apple has a full right to collect as much money as it can from users of the platform they've built and maintain. I wish the cut was more like 50%, to benefit my stocks, while I'm using exclusively FOSS and pay nothing. These devices are so shiny and great status symbol. I recommend everyone should be in Apple ecosystem and develop applications for it.
- agos 3y ago
  I legit can't tell if this is satire - hats off if this was your intent
e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
> That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This is not true at all. Netflix customers are Netflix customers, not Apple; the same goes for Amazon Kindle, Spotify, etc. Netflix literally cannot include a link to netflix.com in their app, otherwise Apple would pull the app from the store. The smaller the app, the more those users are Apple's customers. But obviously we don't want a world where we penalise small developers more than large ones, so that's not a solution either.
- graeme 3y ago
  If you’re a Netflix customer you just log into the app. There’s no issue. The debate is around people who are Apple customers but not Netflix customers, and who download the Netflix app through the App Store.
  - callalex 3y ago
    I don’t understand why I become the exclusive property of a specific corporation through the simple act of using a phone (which is something I am required to do in the modern day).
    - CharlieDigital 3y ago
      > through the simple act of using a phone Not just using it, but having paid for it.
      - homarp 3y ago
        and decided of paying Apple (for whatever reasons) and not any of the Android phones.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      Because you aren't their property. You just invented that straw man. And the simple act of using a phone is you making a conscious decision to agree to accept the terms and conditions that come with buying any product. You are in no way forced to and by supporting alternatives you help to change the market for everyone.
      - withinboredom 3y ago
        Where can I read the terms and conditions for my shoes? My pants? What about my vase I bought? Objects don’t come with terms and conditions.
        3y ago
Justsignedup 3y ago
The cut is too universal and not neuanced. If it was a 30% cut on profits, that would make sense, and everyone would grin but deal with it. But if you sell something for a 10% markup, having to give that + 20% to apple is bad. And now people ask "why do I have to pay more for your service on apple vs android". And now you're in a fun PR battle. In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs involved. Not to mention dev costs. In cases of say music, there's licensing you pay. If you order food, you are already working in the margins. This makes competition vs big boys even harder. How can I compete vs netflix if any streaming service I make who doesn't have netflix's negotiation power has to pay 30% of every payment. I can't get close to netflix's price. The list goes on. The point is, it isn't just a grin and move on problem :(
- maratc 3y ago
  > In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs involved. Not to mention dev costs. In Fortnite, anyone can develop their own maps ("islands") and sell them, while Epic will pay them 40% of the revenue. Now could you please explain how the platform charging 60% platform fee are the good guys in their fight against the greedy platform charging 30% platform fee?
- joshstrange 3y ago
  I agree with some of what you are saying but: > In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs involved. They are selling digital coins, there is zero cost to "minting" these. It's not up to Apple to make your margins work. F2P works because some people pay and others don't, the ones who pay cover server costs for those who don't. I can promise you Fortnight was bringing in a ton of _profit_ even with Apple's 30% cut. Also "think of the people running digital casinos for kids" (re: lootboxes and the like) isn't a winning argument. In fact I think hosting all that crap is a blacker stain on Apple than taking 30%. > In cases of say music, there's licensing you pay. Totally fair, see also: ebooks/audiobooks/tv/movies. > If you order food, you are already working in the margins. Apple doesn't take a 30% cut here. > How can I compete vs netflix if any streaming service I make who doesn't have netflix's negotiation power has to pay 30% of every payment. I can't get close to netflix's price. Valid when it comes to Google who seem to have struck a number of deals with places like Spotify (see EPIC vs Google suit, and why Google lost) and while there were some backroom deals with Apple I believe it was only for the 15% which Apple eventually rolled out for all subscriptions in the second year.
bradgessler 3y ago
“The Cut” is analogous to a cable package with 500 channels when all you want to do is watch 3 or 4 channels. I’d like to see Apple unbundle their take such that the maximum cut is 30% for devs who use all of the iCloud, dev, payment, and store for their apps. It’s debatable, but I think this is reasonable for this type of dev. The problem is when I have an existing SaaS business with all that infrastructure already built—I don’t need all of Apple’s infra, so why should I have to pay for it? I’d have no problem paying Apple a % for listing and distributing through their App Store and processing payments. Unfortunately Apple is being very short sighted about this and consequently are being forced to unbundle by the EU and it’s likely other countries will follow. That puts us in a situation where regulators are making these decisions instead of Apple, which is why I think we’re going to be in for some very janky user experiences that Apple will try to pin on regulators.
danielvaughn 3y ago
I see more symmetry in the relationship between Apple and developers. It's true the platform was created out of thin air, but without the apps in the app store, it's fair to say the iPhone would not have been nearly as successful. All the dedication and work that developers put into their platform has resulted in millions of applications available on their store - that's what gives it it's value. Obviously there's no "right" number, but I think 30% is way too steep.
- graeme 3y ago
  If this is true, why does Android not set their pricing at 5-10% or less, get more developers and outcompete apple? Google would then pay apple less in search default fees to boot. Android has been losing market share to apple globally for nearly a decade, in particular amongst the richest, most valuable customers. Developers are very valuable to apple but the field isn’t obviously unbalanced. The apple App Store is an incredibly profitable distribution system for developers.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    > If this is true, why does Android not set their pricing at 5-10% or less, get more developers and outcompete apple? You have discovered duopolies. It's not like Google isn't being sued for anti-competitive smartphone behavior right now. Okay to be fair, that's a somewhat dismissive answer, it is slightly more complicated. Google uses Android more as an advertising platform than as a product on its own. Their goals are slightly orthogonal to Apple's and taking full market share or capturing high-paying users (especially users who are advertising-adverse and prefer to pay for apps) is not necessarily the most important thing in the world to Google. As a point of reference, we're all fighting over the app store, but Google pays Apple more per-year to be the default search provider in Safari than Apple makes from the entire iOS app store in a year. All of the noise Apple has made... over less profit than they make with a single transaction from Google. This should tell you something about where Google's priorities lie and about whether or not the company really cares about seriously competing with iOS. Google is willing to expend enormous resources and to spend enormous amounts of money... about things they care about. Google gets enough developers to compete with iOS in general, they don't really need to do more. And because of that they'll charge what they can. Sure, maybe Google could do something radical and transform the market, but why would they? It's not what Google is here for, they're here to get your data and then advertise to you and Android is just one mechanism out of many that Google has to do that.
oatmeal1 3y ago
> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. What would happen if this had been the standard applied to Windows? > If the arguments were "these restrictions are so burdensome I can't be in the app store!", that's a different conversation. But they tend to be "I can access such an irresistible amount of customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits à la carte. For some developers, they are. The ones that are complaining about it are the ones still trying to be in the app store despite the burden.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > What would happen if this had been the standard applied to Windows? Microsoft had no problem taking features from popular third party Windows applications and building them into their own products, basically stealing the third party developers' markets. That looks worse to me than what Apple is doing.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Plese stop repeating this FUD in every reply on this thread, you already posted the exact same comment here[1] and here[2] as well, and I already explained you why it's false. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348035 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348077
    - pdonis 3y ago
      It's not FUD, it's historical fact. MS did exactly what I described, repeatedly. PG even commented about it in one of his essays years ago (his comment was that you could invest a lot in developing a third party Windows application and then find out you were just doing market research for Microsoft).
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        Then please post some source for your historical facts. Plus, Apple did the exact same things.
agos 3y ago
as an EU developer, I'll offer you two points to help you see why developers are not happy (euphemism). - I was working on an app for both healthcare professionals (paying customers) and their patients (the app was free for them). At the same time we could not have sign up for the doctors - Apple would like 30% of the subscription fee for the honor of hosting the client and its updates on their servers, but also Apple insisted vehemently that everybody should be able to sign up for the service, even if we insisted that we needed to check on their credentials (i.e. if they had a degree in medicine). We had to explain this multiple times to app review people as they kept on coming back to the same points. On the patient side, we were able to add payments to the doctors as luckily an exception had just been granted for use cases like that - up until then, Apple would have required 30% of the doctor's payment as well. We were still VERY on our toes, because the whole process felt like Apple at any time could change the rules and put us in the situation of paying a lot of money, drastically change our business model, or just shut down/lose tons of customer. While this might be technically legal, is not exactly a great business partnership. - These rules have giant exceptions for big companies who pay a lot less or are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as smaller app makers. This feels incredibly unfair.
- rossjudson 3y ago
  Very interesting example, and solid motivation for a regulatory framework. It makes sense for doctors and patients to be able to communicate through apps, and it makes sense for some aspects (even payments) to be conducted through them. I really don't know what the right solution is overall, but I am sure that having large numbers of one-off negotiations is not the right way to solve it.
bjornsing 3y ago
I very much agree, especially about the last part. These terms may seem like a “slap in the face”, but when you think a bit more about it: The EU themselves are 100% about “protecting consumers”. For example, the EU has made it illegal for my broker to let me buy US ETFs, because the prospectus is not available in Swedish(!). From that standpoint, how can you argue that it’s wrong for Apple to show a warning before letting a consumer send off their credit card details to a third party? And apparently that warning sign will cost most app developers more than the Apple tax (as they lose 50% of potential customers). Seems like a fair tax then. But I think it’s also fair to note that there are app developers to whom these arguments do not apply. For example I was a Spotify customer long before I installed the Spotify app on my phone, and I don’t mind them having my credit card details. EDIT: For clarity.
beacon294 3y ago
An open iPhone compatible is probably the answer here.
- standardUser 3y ago
  Why would anyone downvote this? Would love an explanation. Why not let Apple keep building their wall higher and higher but also let other's emulate and create interoperable alternatives. The best of all worlds.
  - nprateem 3y ago
    Because it's divorced from reality. In no world will volunteers maintain parity with a trillion dollar hardware and software company covered by a multitude of patents.
    - beacon294 3y ago
      Is this a joke? I was obviously calling back both to PC compatibles and UNIX compatibles. Both open systems have completely dominated the closed systems. It is obvious that Apple is doing everything to prevent this.
      - nprateem 3y ago
        Yeah and look at the raging success of Linux on the desktop.
        standardUser 3y ago
        Enduring success at the very least.
  - gradschool 3y ago
    Another explanation is that it's too radical of an idea even for HN. I see no reason a judge in a hypothetical anti-trust case against Apple couldn't give it a choice between ceasing operations and open sourcing its whole technology stack.
standardUser 3y ago
> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. More like Apple's hostages if Apple gets to dictate who does and does not have access to them.
- doublepg23 3y ago
  These users can't buy an Android phone?
  - standardUser 3y ago
    Why can't other companies emulate iOS?
    - menacingly 3y ago
      Why can't they build it?
    - threeseed 3y ago
      They can: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/IOS_emulators https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/IOS_emulators The issue is trying to make a business out of it.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        The issue is violating Apple trademarks. Apple vs Corellium ended with Corellium successfully arguing Fair Use on a novel iOS emulator that they sold to researchers. Apple's only protected trademarks were for the wallpaper and icon art. Conditionally, you are allowed to make a business out of selling iOS emulators. > As to count one, we agree that Corellium is shielded by the fair use doctrine. First, Corellium’s virtualization software is trans-formative—it furthers scientific progress by allowing security re-search into important operating systems. Second, iOS is functional operating software that falls outside copyright’s core. Third, Co-rellium didn’t overhelp itself to Apple’s software. And fourth, Co-rellium’s product does not substantially harm the market for iOS or iOS derivatives—so Apple’s own incentive to innovate remains strong. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/21-12835/21-12835-2023-05-08.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/2...
the_solenoid 3y ago
I like your takes on this. To me, theres two issues: 1) this push is all driven by big businesses looking to just get free money for nothing, which is why I worry that the EU is so taken up with it. 2) taxes, is you want to line apples 30% up with those, are just part of business. No, you cant write off the 30%, but if you want to keep adding 250million new phones to your potential customer base every year.... wtf, pay up and be happy? To be fair, taxes arent the same - taxes take money out of an economic system usually based on economic activity to make currency actually worth something. But they kind of are the same in that they keep the infrastructure that lets you reach customers going. I guess we can move to the windows model and place the burden on the customers, pay your $99/yr for updates or whatever, but then youd have ... like no one buy the phone. Apples stance is - if you generate economic activity on the phone, you should have to pay to upkeep the roads that keep the phone working. I am sure Apple and MS would love to do this with desktop, but the ship sailed on that ages ago, and probably wouldnt have ever worked.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > I am sure Apple and MS would love to do this with desktop, but the ship sailed on that ages ago, and probably wouldnt have ever worked. Charging third party app developers never worked on the desktop, but Microsoft had a lot of success with building the key features of popular third party Windows applications into their own products, thus taking away the third party developers' markets. Which is worse for the third party developer than just having to pay a fee or a percentage.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dudeinhawaii 3y ago
    You've posted this same strawman like 5 times in the comment threads. How about sticking to the thread you were on and debating the push-back others have made? Is this a new astroturfing strategy? If both Apple and other companies have engaged in taking away a 3P developer market by building their product features into their own, then what is the point of your whataboutism? You're trying to imply that paying a fee is better than having your product copied -- when in fact the comparison is 'pay a fee AND risk product copy/delisting' vs 'no fee, no delisting, risk product copying'. Stop trying to obfuscate.
danShumway 3y ago
> In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This is just such a radically different way thinking about platforms than the way that I think about them. It's like saying that I owe Facebook for the privilege of talking to my college friends because "they're not my friends, they're Facebook's users and I've been given access to them." It's hard for me to debate something like this because it's just so fundamentally incompatible with my basic axioms about how interactions work online. The idea that platforms own their users is just not how I see the world. > It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear out of thin air, clearly benefiting enough to experience what you're complaining about, and wishing the deal were more beneficial to you _after the work has been done_. If every single developer jumped ship off of iOS, iOS would stop existing. We only have to look at Windows Phone to understand what the difference is between a platform with developer support and a platform without developer support. The reality is that Apple and developers have a mutually beneficial relationship and they are more like partners than customers. If Netflix, Disney+, Facebook, etc all stopped working on iOS, iOS users would jump to Android. Heck, look at the most recent Vision Pro launch, in which I saw users complaining that Apple even gave iPad developers the choice at all of whether or not their apps would be supported on the new device. The users want the apps. So this is something that users care about, and users pay Apple handsomely for the privilege of accessing developers on iOS. That doesn't mean developers should pay literally nothing, but this is a relationship. The argument that developers are just customers always strikes me as vaguely Comcast-y -- saying that Net Neutrality is unfair and that websites are leeches if they don't pay for network access. No, your customers are there because of us. Customers are paying for access to a service that allows them to access the stuff that they actually care about -- apps, movies, books, the ability to talk to their friends, the ability to transact online, the ability to browse websites. And this gets back to the disagreement on axioms above, but to treat those customers primarily as if they're just resources to be locked down and resold for even more profit -- I just don't think it's a healthy place for a platform to be in. > It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear out of thin air Funnily enough, iOS launched without an app store entirely on the promise of using web apps for all of its functionality. We weren't using the term PWA back then, but it's notable how different iOS's approach to application development is today than what it was when iOS launched. And notable for Apple's continued direction as the company appears to be actively reducing PWA functionality in Europe in response to increased browser access. What we have on the web is effectively what Apple hates -- a completely Open, device-agnostic ecosystem of apps that is much more difficult for any one company to lock down or extract rent from. But Apple didn't always hate that principle, when iOS originally launched they were all for it; and in fact Apple looked at the web as a key strategy in differentiating their devices -- by offering developers a way to target their devices without development kits, exhaustive agreements, or commissions. Over time that became less valuable to Apple, and it became increasingly important for Apple to distinguish between web capabilities and native capabilities. Is that change fair, are they entitled to do it? I don't know, but it's not the direction I want the computing industry to go. How we deal with Apple's increasingly hostile approach to Open Standards, user freedoms, and market competition is an open question, but it seems clear to me that we should be trying to deal with it at the point where Apple is threatening to go backwards on web standards in response to regulation that opens them up to browser and ecosystem competition.
curt15 3y ago
>In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Unless I am misreading somehow, this is an unusual position. Software developers don't sell their software to Apple. They sell to the end users. Unless an intermediary rebrands the software and takes ownership of customer acquisition and support, software users are the customers of the software developers.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > software users are the customers of the software developers Yes, but the users are also customers of the owner of the software platform that the developers are developing for. And the owner of the platform gets to set the platform's rules. Microsoft's standard practice for many years was to watch for which third party Windows applications were becoming popular, and build those features into one of their own products, thus cutting the market out from under the third party developer. I'm actually surprised that Apple hasn't done more of that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Except Apple did exactly what you just said Microsoft did to third party devs, and then also banned their apps off the appstore to boot because they do what their OS now does out of the box, like the famous keyboard for the Apple Watch.[1] At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps since you're not forced to use their store to sell to Windows users. Apple's grip of the iOS AppStore can be a poison pill for many devs who's livelyhood depends on Apple's automatic ML ban hammer and arbitrary rules which can change as they see fit with no warning. https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf-view https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf...
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps True; but that also means third parties can lose even more when MS pulls the rug out from under them. The developer of the third party keyboard app you refer to said, according to the article you referenced, that they lost a year of revenue. Some third party Windows devs were forced into bankruptcy.
ametrau 3y ago
30% is just too much and they don’t give anything near enough value for devs or App Store consumers.
- menacingly 3y ago
  Traditionally, when faced with something that isn't a good deal, you don't buy it.
  - LtWorf 3y ago
    But they kick developers that show the users how much apple is taking. How can people judge if it's a good deal or not if they don't even know what the deal is?
  - ametrau 3y ago
    The point is not that they can do it it’s whether it’s reasonable. Obviously.
Scarblac 3y ago
> You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. What? Of course they can. That someone will then just leave the market, or maybe change their product more. But there is absolutely no reason why they can't.
- menacingly 3y ago
  Yeah, I meant that to be the implication of the sentence, at some point folks take their ball and go home, and we have to see weeks of trending hashtags about the injustice done to Europe
brightball 3y ago
Jason Fried (Basecamp) really explained this in great detail recently. https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1743421673871929723 https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1743421673871929723
- burnerthrow008 3y ago
  The main thrust of his argument seems to be that developers should be able to engage in price discrimination. That's cool and all, but it seems anti-competitive to me as a customer. I don't want to pay more just because I don't have time to write each developer and beg for a discount. Remember, Amazon famously had to back down from advertising different prices to Americans in urban and rural areas due to customer backlash. While I partially sympathize with the ostensible desire to be able to offer great customer service under the guise of refunds for unexpected downtime in SaaS apps, it's hard to see how this won't be abused by developers: Won't every app just offer App Store refunds to convert customers to 3rd party payment? I suspect that's the actual reason these things are wanted. I completely understand that many people think 30% is too high (and maybe it is!), but it's hard to see how 0% isn't too low. What would be his reaction if Apple enabled all these customer service options he supposedly wants, but at a cost to the developer? For example, a code for first-responders to download the app for free, but the developer still pays 20% of the store price. Or a customer refund, where Apple keeps 20% instead of 30%. After all, it's not about the money, but actually about offering great customer service. So he'd go for that, right?
  - brightball 3y ago
    The thing is, why should you have to pay extra to offer better customer service? With a product like Hey, you're signing up for their email service. You might use that service on your desktop, web browser, Android phone or iPhone. It's more than a little nuts on Apple's part to try to force a product like that through the iPhone system, especially because if I start using an email account I'm going to continue using it whether I have an iPhone or not. Should Microsoft get a cut if I connect to my email account through a desktop app? The mobile app is merely 1 of many interfaces to the service. In Jason's case, he's arguing that they are setup to run a business to offer service to their customers...all of their customers. Apple forcing him to fracture his users into iPhone vs everybody else is just bad business before you factor in any cut at all.
summerlight 3y ago
> That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This looks like a very interesting argument. When you retain full control on access to a specifically defined set of customers (or relevant market), we call it monopoly. You should never have such a single powerful entity in a properly regulated, successful free market.
015a 3y ago
I think there's a lot of nuance in this situation. First: the most vocal developers really do not care about Apple's "ecosystem invented out of thin air". They just need to be where their customers are, wherever their customers are. The Spotify's, the Google's, the Netflix's, etc. The users who leverage the iPhone to access their Spotify subscription are Spotify customers, not only Apple customers. My relationship with Spotify pre-dates my relationship with Apple. I signed up for Paramount Plus due to a Superbowl Ad, not due to some contorted funnel which Apple, believing themselves to be the center of the universe, have inserted themselves into. If I could download these applications directly from the suppliers: I would. And, in fact, I do so, on Windows, on Linux, and even on Apple's own MacOS. The cognitive dissonance I can't reconcile among advocates for Apple's side is: simultaneously saying "Apple built this ecosystem, they deserve to tax it however they will" and "If you don't like it just go to Android". Ignoring the obvious problem that a duopoly is only marginally better than a monopoly: one of these has to be a weird argument, right? Either the ecosystems are not so-fungible as to be interchangeable for the purposes of marketplace competition; or, what Apple created isn't unique, it is fungible, and they shouldn't get as much credit as they have. I trend toward the latter; I don't believe what Apple has created is all that special. I think their App Review does vanishingly little to improve the functional security of their end-users. Their software technology is almost universally crappy, especially when speaking on anything developers have to interface with. The next few years will prove even their hardware to be un-special, if it isn't already. They've built what they've built on the shoulders of giants. AT&T built a nationwide fiber network "out of thin air". Verizon built a nationwide 5G UWB network "out of thin air". TSMC builds state-of-the-art chips "out of thin air". The open source community built FreeBSD "out of thin air". Slack and Spotify built their application experiences "out of thin air". If even one of these entities didn't exist, or made the decision to stop dealing with Apple's unique ecosystem, Apple would face an existential risk. If Slack wasn't on the iPhone: I wouldn't buy an iPhone. If iPhones did not work with Verizon: I would not buy an iPhone. The list goes on. Just think on that for a second: should AT&T have the right to say "our fiber backbone won't carry traffic generated by iPhone endpoint devices"? "Ultimately Apple is gaining unfairly access to our customers". "They represent a security threat to our customers". That would be insane! If its even possible, it would literally overnight destroy Apple as a company. So then it becomes, where do you draw the line? Why is it "obviously not ok" for AT&T to do that to Apple, but "eh its complicated" for Apple to do that to Epic Games? Your argument is that this is an Ayn Randian situation where Apple put in the work to win over these customers, and now devs want a free lunch. I get that. My argument is: Apple would not exist today without the giants shoulders they stand on, Spotify (as an example) is a material reason why they're so successful, to whatever degree, and their insolence in admitting this isn't just morally wrong; its psychotically egotistical. This is, generally, the argument against all Ayn Randian philosophy; its not new ground, this is why Ayn Rand isn't really respected as an philosopher, and why her arguments also don't work in Apple's case.
deleted 3y ago
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jebronie 3y ago
It is actually the ISPs who give Apple access to their customers. ISPs should charge Apple a 30% fee on every transaction their customer makes on the app store.
math_dandy 3y ago
> That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Windows users aren’t viewed as Microsoft’s customers from the point of view of third party software. Same with MacOS. Apple has pushed this paradigm in iOS because it’s ludicrously profitable. Controlling the evolution of a ubiquitous computing platform gives a company a huge amount of power. Add to that the power to control any commercial transaction performed on that platform is simply too much concentration of power.
- sib 3y ago
  "Windows" didn't sell them a computer. Microsoft sold an OS to - for example - Dell, who then sold a computer to the user. So they are Dell's customers. And Dell, for sure, earned a lot of money selling placement on the Home Screen (or pre-installation) to 3P app developers. (Of course, there are also computers such as the Microsoft Surface, but these represent a tiny fraction of the universe of Windows computers ever sold...) Whereas Apple sold the user a phone, so the users are clearly Apple's customers. There is an argument that they are also the 3P app developer's customers, but there should be no debate about the fact that they are Apple's customers, using a platform developed by Apple. If 3P app developers want to access Apple's customers on a platform developed by Apple, then they should expect to play by Apple's rules... (And no, I never worked for Apple. In fact, I have worked both for Google and for multiple 3P app developers who were subject to the so-called Apple Tax.)
  - awesomeMilou 3y ago
    > If 3P app developers want to access Apple's customers on a platform developed by Apple, then they should expect to play by Apple's rules... That whole argument is based on the implicit assumption that Apple's products would still be as attractive to consumers as they are right now, even if they didn't allow 3rd party developers access to their platform. Which is a completely insane take, like literally pathologically insane, you-should-get-professional-help take for me to swallow.
pimterry 3y ago
> In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This is problematic argument, that imo we should not accept in _any_ commercial context. * Are people browsing the web on an iPhone Apple's customers, and therefore 30% of web sales should be collected too? * If you use Comcast to access the internet, are you Comcast's customer? They're giving the retailer access to your traffic, so they should take a cut of every online purchase? * Should your headphones take a cut of all music streaming revenue, and refuse to play non-compliant music? * Should your TV take a cut from every video stream provider they allow to show video to their customers? There is significant value to society in general-purpose devices & services, where the user pays for something concrete, and can then use it with any 3rd party provider in any way they like. That principle has been a key driver of digital innovation for decades, and allowing it to disappear would be a Very Bad Thing.
- c0balt 3y ago
  > * Should your headphones take a cut of all music streaming revenue, and refuse to play non-compliant music? The RIIA Speakers, they only work with certified music software and automatically redirect a proportional a cut of your subscription payment to labels. /s
awesomeMilou 3y ago
> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Insane take imo. I'm baffled how people can write this out with a straight face. Just one counter example to the relationship you described: In Europe, if my app does not deliver as advertised, it is the customer that can sue me. Directly. They don't sue Apple because my app is in their app store, they obviously sue me, because I am the service provider. > Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. Watch us and learn. Apart from that, I think this is blowing things out of proportion: Apple hasn't offered any calculation at how they arrive at the 0.50c installation fee, but I'm sure were going to get some insight once the first lawsuits at the CJEU roll in.
- riversflow 3y ago
  >I'm baffled how people can write this out with a straight face. I would 100% buy an iPhone with no appstore, it would still be better as a smartphone than my Samsung with F-Droid and Google Play Store.
  - seec 3y ago
    Why do you have a Samsung then ? You contrarians are so fucking idiotic it's insane.
realusername 3y ago
> In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. I have the exact opposite point of view, they are my customers and Apple is simply a middleware which is blocking access to them. They only get their cut through very questionable and borderline illegal practices as seen in the EU. Maybe if they had to actually justify their cut in a real market, they would improve the sad state of their dev tools, that could start to somehow justify the cuts. Notice that they forbid any display of the Apple tax anywhere, that could be a marketing issue if Apple customers start to understand what's going on.
__loam 3y ago
It's completely ridiculous that this is where the conversation surrounding who can install software on hardware you own is.
LtWorf 3y ago
> Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. This makes no sense. If you were right there would be no android phones sold in europe because the conditions are so bad for the manufacturer. That, however, doesn't seem to match with reality at all.
surgical_fire 3y ago
> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Absolutely not. Let me give you a hypothetical example - I pay for Jetbrain Ultimate. I use it in the MacBook for work. If OSX was as closed as iOS, I would magically turn into Apple's customer? They are just the OS I am using (not even my own choice).
dwallin 3y ago
> You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. Apple would offer an app store in some form even if they were statutorily prevented from making any revenue from it because if they turned off the ability to install apps people would abandon iPhones in droves.
lxgr 3y ago
> "I can access such an irresistible amount of customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits à la carte. Yes, that's called "unbundling", and it's the bread and butter of antitrust regulation: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/tying-sale-two-products https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... It's not an exact match to Apple's situation, though; that's why there was a need for the DMA in the first place. > [...] I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. I'm not sure we're there on this one, but the patience can't be infinite. What is Apple going to do? Stop selling iPhones in the EU, the third largest economy in the world? That would only make sense if iPhones and iPads indeed were loss leaders for the App Store. Apple is a corporation, and corporations don't throw irrational tantrums. They do sometimes try to hold their customers hostage, but that type of behavior has a mixed track record at best.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

j-j-j-j 3y ago

Agreed. Apple has a full right to collect as much money as it can from users of the platform they've built and maintain. I wish the cut was more like 50%, to benefit my stocks, while I'm using exclusively FOSS and pay nothing. These devices are so shiny and great status symbol. I recommend everyone should be in Apple ecosystem and develop applications for it.

agos 3y ago
I legit can't tell if this is satire - hats off if this was your intent

e63f67dd-065b 3y ago

> That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This is not true at all. Netflix customers are Netflix customers, not Apple; the same goes for Amazon Kindle, Spotify, etc. Netflix literally cannot include a link to netflix.com in their app, otherwise Apple would pull the app from the store. The smaller the app, the more those users are Apple's customers. But obviously we don't want a world where we penalise small developers more than large ones, so that's not a solution either.

graeme 3y ago
If you’re a Netflix customer you just log into the app. There’s no issue. The debate is around people who are Apple customers but not Netflix customers, and who download the Netflix app through the App Store.
- callalex 3y ago
  I don’t understand why I become the exclusive property of a specific corporation through the simple act of using a phone (which is something I am required to do in the modern day).
  - CharlieDigital 3y ago
    > through the simple act of using a phone Not just using it, but having paid for it.
    - homarp 3y ago
      and decided of paying Apple (for whatever reasons) and not any of the Android phones.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Because you aren't their property. You just invented that straw man. And the simple act of using a phone is you making a conscious decision to agree to accept the terms and conditions that come with buying any product. You are in no way forced to and by supporting alternatives you help to change the market for everyone.
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      Where can I read the terms and conditions for my shoes? My pants? What about my vase I bought? Objects don’t come with terms and conditions.
      - 3y ago

Justsignedup 3y ago

The cut is too universal and not neuanced. If it was a 30% cut on profits, that would make sense, and everyone would grin but deal with it. But if you sell something for a 10% markup, having to give that + 20% to apple is bad. And now people ask "why do I have to pay more for your service on apple vs android". And now you're in a fun PR battle. In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs involved. Not to mention dev costs. In cases of say music, there's licensing you pay. If you order food, you are already working in the margins. This makes competition vs big boys even harder. How can I compete vs netflix if any streaming service I make who doesn't have netflix's negotiation power has to pay 30% of every payment. I can't get close to netflix's price. The list goes on. The point is, it isn't just a grin and move on problem :(

maratc 3y ago
> In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs involved. Not to mention dev costs. In Fortnite, anyone can develop their own maps ("islands") and sell them, while Epic will pay them 40% of the revenue. Now could you please explain how the platform charging 60% platform fee are the good guys in their fight against the greedy platform charging 30% platform fee?
joshstrange 3y ago
I agree with some of what you are saying but: > In cases of say fortnight, there are real server costs involved. They are selling digital coins, there is zero cost to "minting" these. It's not up to Apple to make your margins work. F2P works because some people pay and others don't, the ones who pay cover server costs for those who don't. I can promise you Fortnight was bringing in a ton of _profit_ even with Apple's 30% cut. Also "think of the people running digital casinos for kids" (re: lootboxes and the like) isn't a winning argument. In fact I think hosting all that crap is a blacker stain on Apple than taking 30%. > In cases of say music, there's licensing you pay. Totally fair, see also: ebooks/audiobooks/tv/movies. > If you order food, you are already working in the margins. Apple doesn't take a 30% cut here. > How can I compete vs netflix if any streaming service I make who doesn't have netflix's negotiation power has to pay 30% of every payment. I can't get close to netflix's price. Valid when it comes to Google who seem to have struck a number of deals with places like Spotify (see EPIC vs Google suit, and why Google lost) and while there were some backroom deals with Apple I believe it was only for the 15% which Apple eventually rolled out for all subscriptions in the second year.

bradgessler 3y ago

“The Cut” is analogous to a cable package with 500 channels when all you want to do is watch 3 or 4 channels. I’d like to see Apple unbundle their take such that the maximum cut is 30% for devs who use all of the iCloud, dev, payment, and store for their apps. It’s debatable, but I think this is reasonable for this type of dev. The problem is when I have an existing SaaS business with all that infrastructure already built—I don’t need all of Apple’s infra, so why should I have to pay for it? I’d have no problem paying Apple a % for listing and distributing through their App Store and processing payments. Unfortunately Apple is being very short sighted about this and consequently are being forced to unbundle by the EU and it’s likely other countries will follow. That puts us in a situation where regulators are making these decisions instead of Apple, which is why I think we’re going to be in for some very janky user experiences that Apple will try to pin on regulators.

danielvaughn 3y ago

I see more symmetry in the relationship between Apple and developers. It's true the platform was created out of thin air, but without the apps in the app store, it's fair to say the iPhone would not have been nearly as successful. All the dedication and work that developers put into their platform has resulted in millions of applications available on their store - that's what gives it it's value. Obviously there's no "right" number, but I think 30% is way too steep.

graeme 3y ago
If this is true, why does Android not set their pricing at 5-10% or less, get more developers and outcompete apple? Google would then pay apple less in search default fees to boot. Android has been losing market share to apple globally for nearly a decade, in particular amongst the richest, most valuable customers. Developers are very valuable to apple but the field isn’t obviously unbalanced. The apple App Store is an incredibly profitable distribution system for developers.
- danShumway 3y ago
  > If this is true, why does Android not set their pricing at 5-10% or less, get more developers and outcompete apple? You have discovered duopolies. It's not like Google isn't being sued for anti-competitive smartphone behavior right now. Okay to be fair, that's a somewhat dismissive answer, it is slightly more complicated. Google uses Android more as an advertising platform than as a product on its own. Their goals are slightly orthogonal to Apple's and taking full market share or capturing high-paying users (especially users who are advertising-adverse and prefer to pay for apps) is not necessarily the most important thing in the world to Google. As a point of reference, we're all fighting over the app store, but Google pays Apple more per-year to be the default search provider in Safari than Apple makes from the entire iOS app store in a year. All of the noise Apple has made... over less profit than they make with a single transaction from Google. This should tell you something about where Google's priorities lie and about whether or not the company really cares about seriously competing with iOS. Google is willing to expend enormous resources and to spend enormous amounts of money... about things they care about. Google gets enough developers to compete with iOS in general, they don't really need to do more. And because of that they'll charge what they can. Sure, maybe Google could do something radical and transform the market, but why would they? It's not what Google is here for, they're here to get your data and then advertise to you and Android is just one mechanism out of many that Google has to do that.

oatmeal1 3y ago

> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. What would happen if this had been the standard applied to Windows? > If the arguments were "these restrictions are so burdensome I can't be in the app store!", that's a different conversation. But they tend to be "I can access such an irresistible amount of customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits à la carte. For some developers, they are. The ones that are complaining about it are the ones still trying to be in the app store despite the burden.

pdonis 3y ago
> What would happen if this had been the standard applied to Windows? Microsoft had no problem taking features from popular third party Windows applications and building them into their own products, basically stealing the third party developers' markets. That looks worse to me than what Apple is doing.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Plese stop repeating this FUD in every reply on this thread, you already posted the exact same comment here[1] and here[2] as well, and I already explained you why it's false. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348035 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348077
  - pdonis 3y ago
    It's not FUD, it's historical fact. MS did exactly what I described, repeatedly. PG even commented about it in one of his essays years ago (his comment was that you could invest a lot in developing a third party Windows application and then find out you were just doing market research for Microsoft).
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Then please post some source for your historical facts. Plus, Apple did the exact same things.

agos 3y ago

as an EU developer, I'll offer you two points to help you see why developers are not happy (euphemism). - I was working on an app for both healthcare professionals (paying customers) and their patients (the app was free for them). At the same time we could not have sign up for the doctors - Apple would like 30% of the subscription fee for the honor of hosting the client and its updates on their servers, but also Apple insisted vehemently that everybody should be able to sign up for the service, even if we insisted that we needed to check on their credentials (i.e. if they had a degree in medicine). We had to explain this multiple times to app review people as they kept on coming back to the same points. On the patient side, we were able to add payments to the doctors as luckily an exception had just been granted for use cases like that - up until then, Apple would have required 30% of the doctor's payment as well. We were still VERY on our toes, because the whole process felt like Apple at any time could change the rules and put us in the situation of paying a lot of money, drastically change our business model, or just shut down/lose tons of customer. While this might be technically legal, is not exactly a great business partnership. - These rules have giant exceptions for big companies who pay a lot less or are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as smaller app makers. This feels incredibly unfair.

rossjudson 3y ago
Very interesting example, and solid motivation for a regulatory framework. It makes sense for doctors and patients to be able to communicate through apps, and it makes sense for some aspects (even payments) to be conducted through them. I really don't know what the right solution is overall, but I am sure that having large numbers of one-off negotiations is not the right way to solve it.

bjornsing 3y ago

I very much agree, especially about the last part. These terms may seem like a “slap in the face”, but when you think a bit more about it: The EU themselves are 100% about “protecting consumers”. For example, the EU has made it illegal for my broker to let me buy US ETFs, because the prospectus is not available in Swedish(!). From that standpoint, how can you argue that it’s wrong for Apple to show a warning before letting a consumer send off their credit card details to a third party? And apparently that warning sign will cost most app developers more than the Apple tax (as they lose 50% of potential customers). Seems like a fair tax then. But I think it’s also fair to note that there are app developers to whom these arguments do not apply. For example I was a Spotify customer long before I installed the Spotify app on my phone, and I don’t mind them having my credit card details. EDIT: For clarity.

beacon294 3y ago

An open iPhone compatible is probably the answer here.

standardUser 3y ago
Why would anyone downvote this? Would love an explanation. Why not let Apple keep building their wall higher and higher but also let other's emulate and create interoperable alternatives. The best of all worlds.
- nprateem 3y ago
  Because it's divorced from reality. In no world will volunteers maintain parity with a trillion dollar hardware and software company covered by a multitude of patents.
  - beacon294 3y ago
    Is this a joke? I was obviously calling back both to PC compatibles and UNIX compatibles. Both open systems have completely dominated the closed systems. It is obvious that Apple is doing everything to prevent this.
    - nprateem 3y ago
      Yeah and look at the raging success of Linux on the desktop.
      - standardUser 3y ago
        Enduring success at the very least.
- gradschool 3y ago
  Another explanation is that it's too radical of an idea even for HN. I see no reason a judge in a hypothetical anti-trust case against Apple couldn't give it a choice between ceasing operations and open sourcing its whole technology stack.

standardUser 3y ago

> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. More like Apple's hostages if Apple gets to dictate who does and does not have access to them.

doublepg23 3y ago
These users can't buy an Android phone?
- standardUser 3y ago
  Why can't other companies emulate iOS?
  - menacingly 3y ago
    Why can't they build it?
  - threeseed 3y ago
    They can: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/IOS_emulators https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/IOS_emulators The issue is trying to make a business out of it.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      The issue is violating Apple trademarks. Apple vs Corellium ended with Corellium successfully arguing Fair Use on a novel iOS emulator that they sold to researchers. Apple's only protected trademarks were for the wallpaper and icon art. Conditionally, you are allowed to make a business out of selling iOS emulators. > As to count one, we agree that Corellium is shielded by the fair use doctrine. First, Corellium’s virtualization software is trans-formative—it furthers scientific progress by allowing security re-search into important operating systems. Second, iOS is functional operating software that falls outside copyright’s core. Third, Co-rellium didn’t overhelp itself to Apple’s software. And fourth, Co-rellium’s product does not substantially harm the market for iOS or iOS derivatives—so Apple’s own incentive to innovate remains strong. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/21-12835/21-12835-2023-05-08.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/2...

the_solenoid 3y ago

I like your takes on this. To me, theres two issues: 1) this push is all driven by big businesses looking to just get free money for nothing, which is why I worry that the EU is so taken up with it. 2) taxes, is you want to line apples 30% up with those, are just part of business. No, you cant write off the 30%, but if you want to keep adding 250million new phones to your potential customer base every year.... wtf, pay up and be happy? To be fair, taxes arent the same - taxes take money out of an economic system usually based on economic activity to make currency actually worth something. But they kind of are the same in that they keep the infrastructure that lets you reach customers going. I guess we can move to the windows model and place the burden on the customers, pay your $99/yr for updates or whatever, but then youd have ... like no one buy the phone. Apples stance is - if you generate economic activity on the phone, you should have to pay to upkeep the roads that keep the phone working. I am sure Apple and MS would love to do this with desktop, but the ship sailed on that ages ago, and probably wouldnt have ever worked.

pdonis 3y ago
> I am sure Apple and MS would love to do this with desktop, but the ship sailed on that ages ago, and probably wouldnt have ever worked. Charging third party app developers never worked on the desktop, but Microsoft had a lot of success with building the key features of popular third party Windows applications into their own products, thus taking away the third party developers' markets. Which is worse for the third party developer than just having to pay a fee or a percentage.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dudeinhawaii 3y ago
  You've posted this same strawman like 5 times in the comment threads. How about sticking to the thread you were on and debating the push-back others have made? Is this a new astroturfing strategy? If both Apple and other companies have engaged in taking away a 3P developer market by building their product features into their own, then what is the point of your whataboutism? You're trying to imply that paying a fee is better than having your product copied -- when in fact the comparison is 'pay a fee AND risk product copy/delisting' vs 'no fee, no delisting, risk product copying'. Stop trying to obfuscate.

danShumway 3y ago

> In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This is just such a radically different way thinking about platforms than the way that I think about them. It's like saying that I owe Facebook for the privilege of talking to my college friends because "they're not my friends, they're Facebook's users and I've been given access to them." It's hard for me to debate something like this because it's just so fundamentally incompatible with my basic axioms about how interactions work online. The idea that platforms own their users is just not how I see the world. > It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear out of thin air, clearly benefiting enough to experience what you're complaining about, and wishing the deal were more beneficial to you _after the work has been done_. If every single developer jumped ship off of iOS, iOS would stop existing. We only have to look at Windows Phone to understand what the difference is between a platform with developer support and a platform without developer support. The reality is that Apple and developers have a mutually beneficial relationship and they are more like partners than customers. If Netflix, Disney+, Facebook, etc all stopped working on iOS, iOS users would jump to Android. Heck, look at the most recent Vision Pro launch, in which I saw users complaining that Apple even gave iPad developers the choice at all of whether or not their apps would be supported on the new device. The users want the apps. So this is something that users care about, and users pay Apple handsomely for the privilege of accessing developers on iOS. That doesn't mean developers should pay literally nothing, but this is a relationship. The argument that developers are just customers always strikes me as vaguely Comcast-y -- saying that Net Neutrality is unfair and that websites are leeches if they don't pay for network access. No, your customers are there because of us. Customers are paying for access to a service that allows them to access the stuff that they actually care about -- apps, movies, books, the ability to talk to their friends, the ability to transact online, the ability to browse websites. And this gets back to the disagreement on axioms above, but to treat those customers primarily as if they're just resources to be locked down and resold for even more profit -- I just don't think it's a healthy place for a platform to be in. > It sucks, but you're living in an ecosystem they made appear out of thin air Funnily enough, iOS launched without an app store entirely on the promise of using web apps for all of its functionality. We weren't using the term PWA back then, but it's notable how different iOS's approach to application development is today than what it was when iOS launched. And notable for Apple's continued direction as the company appears to be actively reducing PWA functionality in Europe in response to increased browser access. What we have on the web is effectively what Apple hates -- a completely Open, device-agnostic ecosystem of apps that is much more difficult for any one company to lock down or extract rent from. But Apple didn't always hate that principle, when iOS originally launched they were all for it; and in fact Apple looked at the web as a key strategy in differentiating their devices -- by offering developers a way to target their devices without development kits, exhaustive agreements, or commissions. Over time that became less valuable to Apple, and it became increasingly important for Apple to distinguish between web capabilities and native capabilities. Is that change fair, are they entitled to do it? I don't know, but it's not the direction I want the computing industry to go. How we deal with Apple's increasingly hostile approach to Open Standards, user freedoms, and market competition is an open question, but it seems clear to me that we should be trying to deal with it at the point where Apple is threatening to go backwards on web standards in response to regulation that opens them up to browser and ecosystem competition.

curt15 3y ago

>In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Unless I am misreading somehow, this is an unusual position. Software developers don't sell their software to Apple. They sell to the end users. Unless an intermediary rebrands the software and takes ownership of customer acquisition and support, software users are the customers of the software developers.

pdonis 3y ago
> software users are the customers of the software developers Yes, but the users are also customers of the owner of the software platform that the developers are developing for. And the owner of the platform gets to set the platform's rules. Microsoft's standard practice for many years was to watch for which third party Windows applications were becoming popular, and build those features into one of their own products, thus cutting the market out from under the third party developer. I'm actually surprised that Apple hasn't done more of that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Except Apple did exactly what you just said Microsoft did to third party devs, and then also banned their apps off the appstore to boot because they do what their OS now does out of the box, like the famous keyboard for the Apple Watch.[1] At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps since you're not forced to use their store to sell to Windows users. Apple's grip of the iOS AppStore can be a poison pill for many devs who's livelyhood depends on Apple's automatic ML ban hammer and arbitrary rules which can change as they see fit with no warning. https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf-view https://www.verdict.co.uk/apple-watch-keyboard-app-store/?cf...
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > At least Microsoft can't ever ban you from selling Windows apps True; but that also means third parties can lose even more when MS pulls the rug out from under them. The developer of the third party keyboard app you refer to said, according to the article you referenced, that they lost a year of revenue. Some third party Windows devs were forced into bankruptcy.

ametrau 3y ago

30% is just too much and they don’t give anything near enough value for devs or App Store consumers.

menacingly 3y ago
Traditionally, when faced with something that isn't a good deal, you don't buy it.
- LtWorf 3y ago
  But they kick developers that show the users how much apple is taking. How can people judge if it's a good deal or not if they don't even know what the deal is?
- ametrau 3y ago
  The point is not that they can do it it’s whether it’s reasonable. Obviously.

Scarblac 3y ago

> You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. What? Of course they can. That someone will then just leave the market, or maybe change their product more. But there is absolutely no reason why they can't.

menacingly 3y ago
Yeah, I meant that to be the implication of the sentence, at some point folks take their ball and go home, and we have to see weeks of trending hashtags about the injustice done to Europe

brightball 3y ago

Jason Fried (Basecamp) really explained this in great detail recently. https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1743421673871929723 https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1743421673871929723

burnerthrow008 3y ago
The main thrust of his argument seems to be that developers should be able to engage in price discrimination. That's cool and all, but it seems anti-competitive to me as a customer. I don't want to pay more just because I don't have time to write each developer and beg for a discount. Remember, Amazon famously had to back down from advertising different prices to Americans in urban and rural areas due to customer backlash. While I partially sympathize with the ostensible desire to be able to offer great customer service under the guise of refunds for unexpected downtime in SaaS apps, it's hard to see how this won't be abused by developers: Won't every app just offer App Store refunds to convert customers to 3rd party payment? I suspect that's the actual reason these things are wanted. I completely understand that many people think 30% is too high (and maybe it is!), but it's hard to see how 0% isn't too low. What would be his reaction if Apple enabled all these customer service options he supposedly wants, but at a cost to the developer? For example, a code for first-responders to download the app for free, but the developer still pays 20% of the store price. Or a customer refund, where Apple keeps 20% instead of 30%. After all, it's not about the money, but actually about offering great customer service. So he'd go for that, right?
- brightball 3y ago
  The thing is, why should you have to pay extra to offer better customer service? With a product like Hey, you're signing up for their email service. You might use that service on your desktop, web browser, Android phone or iPhone. It's more than a little nuts on Apple's part to try to force a product like that through the iPhone system, especially because if I start using an email account I'm going to continue using it whether I have an iPhone or not. Should Microsoft get a cut if I connect to my email account through a desktop app? The mobile app is merely 1 of many interfaces to the service. In Jason's case, he's arguing that they are setup to run a business to offer service to their customers...all of their customers. Apple forcing him to fracture his users into iPhone vs everybody else is just bad business before you factor in any cut at all.

summerlight 3y ago

> That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This looks like a very interesting argument. When you retain full control on access to a specifically defined set of customers (or relevant market), we call it monopoly. You should never have such a single powerful entity in a properly regulated, successful free market.

015a 3y ago

I think there's a lot of nuance in this situation. First: the most vocal developers really do not care about Apple's "ecosystem invented out of thin air". They just need to be where their customers are, wherever their customers are. The Spotify's, the Google's, the Netflix's, etc. The users who leverage the iPhone to access their Spotify subscription are Spotify customers, not only Apple customers. My relationship with Spotify pre-dates my relationship with Apple. I signed up for Paramount Plus due to a Superbowl Ad, not due to some contorted funnel which Apple, believing themselves to be the center of the universe, have inserted themselves into. If I could download these applications directly from the suppliers: I would. And, in fact, I do so, on Windows, on Linux, and even on Apple's own MacOS. The cognitive dissonance I can't reconcile among advocates for Apple's side is: simultaneously saying "Apple built this ecosystem, they deserve to tax it however they will" and "If you don't like it just go to Android". Ignoring the obvious problem that a duopoly is only marginally better than a monopoly: one of these has to be a weird argument, right? Either the ecosystems are not so-fungible as to be interchangeable for the purposes of marketplace competition; or, what Apple created isn't unique, it is fungible, and they shouldn't get as much credit as they have. I trend toward the latter; I don't believe what Apple has created is all that special. I think their App Review does vanishingly little to improve the functional security of their end-users. Their software technology is almost universally crappy, especially when speaking on anything developers have to interface with. The next few years will prove even their hardware to be un-special, if it isn't already. They've built what they've built on the shoulders of giants. AT&T built a nationwide fiber network "out of thin air". Verizon built a nationwide 5G UWB network "out of thin air". TSMC builds state-of-the-art chips "out of thin air". The open source community built FreeBSD "out of thin air". Slack and Spotify built their application experiences "out of thin air". If even one of these entities didn't exist, or made the decision to stop dealing with Apple's unique ecosystem, Apple would face an existential risk. If Slack wasn't on the iPhone: I wouldn't buy an iPhone. If iPhones did not work with Verizon: I would not buy an iPhone. The list goes on. Just think on that for a second: should AT&T have the right to say "our fiber backbone won't carry traffic generated by iPhone endpoint devices"? "Ultimately Apple is gaining unfairly access to our customers". "They represent a security threat to our customers". That would be insane! If its even possible, it would literally overnight destroy Apple as a company. So then it becomes, where do you draw the line? Why is it "obviously not ok" for AT&T to do that to Apple, but "eh its complicated" for Apple to do that to Epic Games? Your argument is that this is an Ayn Randian situation where Apple put in the work to win over these customers, and now devs want a free lunch. I get that. My argument is: Apple would not exist today without the giants shoulders they stand on, Spotify (as an example) is a material reason why they're so successful, to whatever degree, and their insolence in admitting this isn't just morally wrong; its psychotically egotistical. This is, generally, the argument against all Ayn Randian philosophy; its not new ground, this is why Ayn Rand isn't really respected as an philosopher, and why her arguments also don't work in Apple's case.

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jebronie 3y ago

It is actually the ISPs who give Apple access to their customers. ISPs should charge Apple a 30% fee on every transaction their customer makes on the app store.

math_dandy 3y ago

> That said, I really don't understand the issue with their cut, or insisting on handling payments. In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Windows users aren’t viewed as Microsoft’s customers from the point of view of third party software. Same with MacOS. Apple has pushed this paradigm in iOS because it’s ludicrously profitable. Controlling the evolution of a ubiquitous computing platform gives a company a huge amount of power. Add to that the power to control any commercial transaction performed on that platform is simply too much concentration of power.

sib 3y ago
"Windows" didn't sell them a computer. Microsoft sold an OS to - for example - Dell, who then sold a computer to the user. So they are Dell's customers. And Dell, for sure, earned a lot of money selling placement on the Home Screen (or pre-installation) to 3P app developers. (Of course, there are also computers such as the Microsoft Surface, but these represent a tiny fraction of the universe of Windows computers ever sold...) Whereas Apple sold the user a phone, so the users are clearly Apple's customers. There is an argument that they are also the 3P app developer's customers, but there should be no debate about the fact that they are Apple's customers, using a platform developed by Apple. If 3P app developers want to access Apple's customers on a platform developed by Apple, then they should expect to play by Apple's rules... (And no, I never worked for Apple. In fact, I have worked both for Google and for multiple 3P app developers who were subject to the so-called Apple Tax.)
- awesomeMilou 3y ago
  > If 3P app developers want to access Apple's customers on a platform developed by Apple, then they should expect to play by Apple's rules... That whole argument is based on the implicit assumption that Apple's products would still be as attractive to consumers as they are right now, even if they didn't allow 3rd party developers access to their platform. Which is a completely insane take, like literally pathologically insane, you-should-get-professional-help take for me to swallow.

pimterry 3y ago

> In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. This is problematic argument, that imo we should not accept in _any_ commercial context. * Are people browsing the web on an iPhone Apple's customers, and therefore 30% of web sales should be collected too? * If you use Comcast to access the internet, are you Comcast's customer? They're giving the retailer access to your traffic, so they should take a cut of every online purchase? * Should your headphones take a cut of all music streaming revenue, and refuse to play non-compliant music? * Should your TV take a cut from every video stream provider they allow to show video to their customers? There is significant value to society in general-purpose devices & services, where the user pays for something concrete, and can then use it with any 3rd party provider in any way they like. That principle has been a key driver of digital innovation for decades, and allowing it to disappear would be a Very Bad Thing.

c0balt 3y ago
> * Should your headphones take a cut of all music streaming revenue, and refuse to play non-compliant music? The RIIA Speakers, they only work with certified music software and automatically redirect a proportional a cut of your subscription payment to labels. /s

awesomeMilou 3y ago

> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Insane take imo. I'm baffled how people can write this out with a straight face. Just one counter example to the relationship you described: In Europe, if my app does not deliver as advertised, it is the customer that can sue me. Directly. They don't sue Apple because my app is in their app store, they obviously sue me, because I am the service provider. > Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. Watch us and learn. Apart from that, I think this is blowing things out of proportion: Apple hasn't offered any calculation at how they arrive at the 0.50c installation fee, but I'm sure were going to get some insight once the first lawsuits at the CJEU roll in.

riversflow 3y ago
>I'm baffled how people can write this out with a straight face. I would 100% buy an iPhone with no appstore, it would still be better as a smartphone than my Samsung with F-Droid and Google Play Store.
- seec 3y ago
  Why do you have a Samsung then ? You contrarians are so fucking idiotic it's insane.

realusername 3y ago

> In the vast majority of cases, these are not your customers. These are apple's customers they have given you access to. I have the exact opposite point of view, they are my customers and Apple is simply a middleware which is blocking access to them. They only get their cut through very questionable and borderline illegal practices as seen in the EU. Maybe if they had to actually justify their cut in a real market, they would improve the sad state of their dev tools, that could start to somehow justify the cuts. Notice that they forbid any display of the Apple tax anywhere, that could be a marketing issue if Apple customers start to understand what's going on.

__loam 3y ago

It's completely ridiculous that this is where the conversation surrounding who can install software on hardware you own is.

LtWorf 3y ago

> Also, I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. This makes no sense. If you were right there would be no android phones sold in europe because the conditions are so bad for the manufacturer. That, however, doesn't seem to match with reality at all.

surgical_fire 3y ago

> These are apple's customers they have given you access to. Absolutely not. Let me give you a hypothetical example - I pay for Jetbrain Ultimate. I use it in the MacBook for work. If OSX was as closed as iOS, I would magically turn into Apple's customer? They are just the OS I am using (not even my own choice).

dwallin 3y ago

> You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. Apple would offer an app store in some form even if they were statutorily prevented from making any revenue from it because if they turned off the ability to install apps people would abandon iPhones in droves.

lxgr 3y ago

> "I can access such an irresistible amount of customers via apple, I just wish I could take those benefits à la carte. Yes, that's called "unbundling", and it's the bread and butter of antitrust regulation: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/tying-sale-two-products https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... It's not an exact match to Apple's situation, though; that's why there was a need for the DMA in the first place. > [...] I do wonder if EU flies a little close to the sun with this stuff. You can't legislate that someone lose more money than they gain with access to your market. I'm not sure we're there on this one, but the patience can't be infinite. What is Apple going to do? Stop selling iPhones in the EU, the third largest economy in the world? That would only make sense if iPhones and iPads indeed were loss leaders for the App Store. Apple is a corporation, and corporations don't throw irrational tantrums. They do sometimes try to hold their customers hostage, but that type of behavior has a mixed track record at best.

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