[HN Gopher] Apple and Google must allow other payment systems, n...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple and Google must allow other payment systems, new Korean law
declares
Author : commoner
Score : 1050 points
Date : 2021-08-31 10:25 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| exabrial wrote:
| Quite simply, if we're going to allow monopolies (which is a bad
| idea, but here we are), we need to trend towards a platform owner
| cannot compete inside the platform they are collecting revenue
| from. You get to own the platform and collect commission from
| players, or you get to own the platform and compete inside of it,
| but not collect commissions from competitors.
| Dah00n wrote:
| When the EU does the same things will turn for real.
| weddpros wrote:
| and they can, because there's not a single EU company with an
| app store to harm. App stores are designed for profit, not
| simply for our convenience.
|
| Imagine a government forcing AirBnb to let people pay hand to
| hand to the owner of the apartment. It's the same issue, right?
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| No it is not the same issue. Airbnb doesn't have a say if I
| make arrangements of my own with the host. We lose the
| benefits and security provided by airbnb if we think that
| airbnb's cut is unjustified.
|
| I only wish we (users and devs) could do that on Ios.
| weddpros wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the "arrangements" you're talking about are
| against their TOS, except if they happen after your stay
| booked on AirBnB...
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| That's ok. Airbnb is free not to do business with me. But
| I am free to do whatever I want with my property as
| owner. That is not the case when dealing with Apple. They
| block usage of my own hardware.
| commoner wrote:
| Actually, Airbnb does have strict anti-steering rules just
| like Apple and Google do. Several lines from their off-
| platform policy:
|
| > In order to protect our community and business, the
| following behaviors are prohibited:
|
| > Taking people off of the Airbnb platform for new,
| partial, or future bookings
|
| > Contacting potential guests prior to booking on Airbnb to
| move the booking off of Airbnb (ex: offering discounts to
| book off of Airbnb)
|
| > Asking guests for contact information prior to booking;
| all guest communications prior to booking must be on Airbnb
|
| > Asking for or using guests' contact information to settle
| additional payments outside of Airbnb's platform; all
| payments related to a guest's stay, including extensions of
| a stay (and besides exceptions identified below), must go
| through Airbnb (ex: using the Resolution Center)
|
| https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2799/airbnbs-
| offplatform...
|
| These rules are just as anti-competitive as the anti-
| steering rules in the Apple and Google app stores, and
| entrench Airbnb's market position.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| I get that. But what will they do? I can still flout
| their rules. Problem with iOS is that I can't do what I
| want with the hardware I paid for.
| commoner wrote:
| Airbnb can ban you from their platform. This is more of a
| problem for hosts (since Airbnb dominates the "home-
| sharing" market) than for guests (who have plenty of
| hotel and vacation rental options).
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| As a host, even if airbnb bans me, I can still do
| whatever I want with my own property. That is not true
| when it comes to iPhone. I am out of luck as a user and
| also as a dev, my phone becomes a paperweight unless I
| abide by apple's rules.
| [deleted]
| dannyw wrote:
| I can switch to Vrbo or even just Craigslist.
|
| I don't lose out on reaching ~100% of customers, because
| Apple and Google control access to effectively 100% of
| customers and act like a duopoly.
| blackoil wrote:
| If AirBnb and X capture market in an duopoly, maybe govt.
| will have to and should intervene.
| dannyw wrote:
| They wouldn't need to, because guests and hosts are welcome
| to use other platforms that exist.
|
| Android OR iOS is an exact duopoly.
| commoner wrote:
| One research firm says that Airbnb and Expedia (which owns
| Vrbo, Expedia.com, Hotels.com, and 5 other sites) control
| 93% of the online travel agency market. That looks like a
| duopoly to me.
|
| https://www.earnestresearch.com/airbnb-1-among-otas-hotels/
| dannyw wrote:
| There is a big difference between computing devices and
| marketplace services.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Uber allows cash payments. Don't see why would it be a
| problem for Airbnb.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Right, because GDPR was enacted not because it was a good
| idea, but rather because GDPR only harmed non-European
| companies.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Gdpr was a jobs program for European web devs :)
| jpambrun wrote:
| It more like if airbnb could somehow prevent competitors (say
| oxigenbnb) from reaching the internet.
| zibzab wrote:
| Nowhere near as bad as the Apple vs Samsung.
|
| IIRC, one guy in the jury had lost his business in a previous
| court fight with Samsung. How was that not discovered during the
| jury selection process??
|
| Edit: this was not a popular comment..
| freakynit wrote:
| Allow? That should be the norm. It should be "South Korea will
| stop Apple and Google in restricting competing payments".
| oenetan wrote:
| https://archive.is/GkoA8
| eric4smith wrote:
| Aka: the "Samsung Protection Act"
| billpg wrote:
| "Huh. Must be a rule about usury and credit card interest."
|
| "Oh, Korean, as in Korea."
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| A good regulatory trend. This is what governments are supposed to
| do to support what I would call "safe and efficient capitalism."
|
| That said, Apple did cut in half the fee for almost all
| developers and I installed Netflix, HBO, Prime, and Hulu apps
| that work fine with my existing streaming media plans that are
| direct to the providers. I forget, did Google also recently
| reduce developer fees? It may be as simple as both companies
| seeing the writing in the wall and are trying to get in front of
| this.
| dannyw wrote:
| Apple only gives those exception for "Reader" apps. They'll
| still ban you if you tried to do a Hey (from Basecamp).
| makecheck wrote:
| The Mac App Store gives a hint at what would happen if there was
| any choice. The amount of software actually _available_ for the
| Mac is far, far greater than what's listed in the store.
| Furthermore, while some quality and notable apps are still in the
| Mac App Store, _many_ well-known apps are not there. The number
| of lousy apps is also extremely high every time I go to search or
| just look at the front page, to the point where Apple does itself
| no favors by even drawing attention to most of the apps on that
| store (and it gives the impression that "most" Mac software must
| be like this).
|
| If they simply listed all major Mac apps, e.g. linking to their
| web sites or download links or whatever, they would _hugely_
| increase the value of the Mac platform and bring enough direct
| benefit to developers to be worth some kind of fee (and of course
| Apple gets $99 /year anyway). Instead, they tried to port the
| same clueless, greedy, review-burdened scheme to that store,
| layering completely unnecessary requirements on top (like poorly-
| thought-out sandboxing). And _since developers had a choice_ ,
| they mostly said No.
| kmonsen wrote:
| Isn't this mostly due to burdensome requirements which means
| most apps would have to remove features and the fact that they
| don't support upgrades? At least those are the arguments I have
| seen to not put the apps in the mac store.
| dwaite wrote:
| For many apps the issue isn't feature removal but sandboxing.
|
| https://panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/
|
| MAS requires sandboxing, distribution outside the store does
| not. That said, Apple turns the 'default sandboxing' screw
| another half turn with every release.
|
| In addition to subscription revenue, upgrades are possible by
| releasing a new product version (e.g. "OmniGraffle 7" in MAS)
| with a free tier ("read-only mode") and in-app purchases for
| new users as well as upgrades from OG 6.
|
| I believe you can read purchase receipts within your
| developer team to determine upgrades.
| barredo wrote:
| > The Mac App Store gives a hint at what would happen if there
| was any choice.
|
| There's a choice of app store in Android and almost nobody uses
| Amazon App Store, F-Droid, Samsung App Store and so on. It's
| great that they can exist, but I don't think the Mac App Store
| (which has been neglected since day 1) offers any guidance.
|
| People mostly use what they know or are giving by default. In
| desktop, be it Windows, Linux or macOS, people aren't used to
| app stores.
| jandrese wrote:
| The Amazon store used to have a killer feature where they
| gave away "bullshit excised" versions of apps (the "Actually
| Free" program), but sadly that has been discontinued and now
| the Amazon Store is a completely pointless cut down version
| of the Play Store.
|
| It's a shame because the old Fire tablets were pretty good
| for kids, but now the malignant ad and micropayment cancer
| has returned so it's no good anymore.
| mauricio wrote:
| I would disagree with the premise that the two stores are
| comparable. The alternative to not use the Mac App Store is not
| just financial, but also allows developers to bypass the
| sandbox requirements.
|
| Whether or not Apple permits alternative payment systems for
| iOS/iPadOS, all the apps will likely remain sandboxed.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Any OS feature should be in control of the user, not Apple
| who can sell access to these features to developers in the
| form of "entitlements".
| judge2020 wrote:
| Precisely: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/apples-head-of-
| software-says...
| tsycho wrote:
| I don't think that follows, sadly.
|
| The evolutionary history matters a lot in these things, since
| they set the culture and precedent on the platform.
|
| Macs and desktops started (or at least, became popular) as an
| open environment where users obtained software directly from
| vendors. iOS and Android (with the caveat that it has always
| supported sideloading) started as closed systems, and the vast
| majority of customers are used to getting their software from
| the official app store.
|
| UPDATE: Fixed a typo
| Reason077 wrote:
| This is about allowing alternative payment systems for
| purchases made in-app.
|
| Not necessarily alternative app stores / install mechanisms,
| which is a separate issue.
| ezekg wrote:
| But they are tightly related. Russia just issued a similar
| warning concerning iOS app distribution.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I don't see how they're related at all, at least beyond
| them being about the App Store.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| While they aren't _necessarily_ coupled, the bundling of
| an app-store and cloud services such as payments,
| notifications, and more, along with vetting (for security
| issues) does seem of value. One can certainly imagine
| third-party app stores including similar requires to
| apple. I can imagine a Yandex store, Tencent store, that
| both require you to use their payment platform if you
| want to host an app in their store. In fact, being
| integrated into a cloud-service-vendor's ecosystem might
| a reason to chose a particular store in the same way the
| Play and Apple are part of the decision today.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Not only that, but if you ever have the option of buying a
| software license directly from the developer or through the Mac
| App Store, you usually get much worse terms from the Mac App
| Store.
|
| You'll pay the same price, but instead of getting a license you
| can run on unlimited of your own machines, or sometimes a fixed
| number like you can register it to 3 machines at a time, you
| can only install it on other computers that are managed by the
| same iCloud account. I've learned this the hard way with a
| bunch of productivity apps, if you want to use it on a personal
| machine and a work machine in the same way you can easily
| install all the free apps that you use on both machines, you're
| out of luck if you bought it on the Mac App Store. I've ended
| up re-buying a few different productivity tools over the years
| that I made the mistake of buying on the Mac App Store first,
| so that I actually had a portable license I could use that
| wasn't tightly coupled to making my personal text messages and
| iCloud files available on the same computer I want to use the
| license on. You also can't install mac app store apps via
| homebrew in a setup script or any kind of tooling you use to
| manage the computer (maybe this is getting better with
| shortcuts, but I'm not aware of a way to do it).
|
| If it's a cross-platform app, you pay the same price but lose
| the ability to ever run it on Windows in the future if you buy
| it from the app store. If it's one of the few AAA games that
| support MacOS at all, if you buy on Steam you usually get a
| cross-platform license and there will often be a bunch of
| bundles that include extra DLC packs at a discounted price.
| Once a game is a few years old it will start going on sale all
| the time on Steam. The mac app store version usually won't go
| on the same sales and usually doesn't have any bundles
| available either.
|
| If you have multiple user accounts created on a computer, you
| can't even upgrade a free app that a different user installed
| via the Mac App store, even if your user also has admin
| privileges. Only the same user that originally installed it can
| upgrade the app even though the app is available to every user
| on the machine.
|
| There's really no reason to ever install anything from the Mac
| App Store, other than first-party Apple apps where you have no
| other choice (like XCode, Garage Band, Keynote, Final Cut,
| etc.)
| makecheck wrote:
| And it's such an incredibly good example of why anti-steering
| rules should be illegal. Apple basically refuses to let apps
| even _tell_ the user that such alternate licenses are
| available!
|
| I hate anti-steering so much that I hope any future
| legislation against it also enforces _retroactive_ refunds
| for a significant period of time. Whatever money they have
| made is basically entirely due to pulling wool over users'
| eyes, and they need to be losing millions from this as a
| punishment.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| The Mac App Store came after there was a thriving ecosystem for
| Mac apps online/organically and without a middle man, and it
| provided close to zero value for developers on top of that. I
| don't think it's a fair comparison.
| giobox wrote:
| I think there is still value in the comparison, but you are
| absolutely correct. Any comparison must include this huge
| caveat - the Mac had a third party software ecosystem for
| over 20 years, well before OS X or a Mac App Store came
| along. There simply was far, far less historical incentive to
| adopt the macOS App Store than there was on iOS, which of
| course mandated the App Store from the beginning.
|
| As a thought experiment: how many companies would leave the
| official iOS App Store if offered a choice tomorrow? Epic Im
| sure... but the experience on Android suggests to me not that
| many. As with Android, I think a lot will still want a
| presence on the default/"official" store regardless of the 30
| percent take. Don't forget Apple have also done the hard part
| of getting a customer to enter their CC number to their
| iCloud account for their store, removing an enormous amount
| of friction in the sales process too.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| On the other side, as a customer I'm not exactly happy with
| the prior ecosystem either:
|
| - every app has their own licensing system
|
| - I have to keep track of emails, license key files, logins
| and other bullshit manually instead of having it
| synchronized automatically at application install. Not to
| mention I have a boatload of shop accounts that have
| collected my payment and other personal data (e.g. postal
| address) and whom I have to trust now that they keep their
| data secure enough to not have it stolen.
|
| - for subscription stuff, I have to update payment details
| for an awful lot of individual shops instead of having one
| single place
|
| - refund policies vary _wildly_ , as is tax compliance for
| foreign companies
|
| I agree that Apple and Google must be reined in - 30% cut
| are absurd rip-offs, and the fact that stores can censor
| legal content (e.g. anything marijuana/tobacco/drug related
| or adult content) is troubling - but the central store
| model does have advantages.
| grishka wrote:
| I believe there are many iOS apps that have never seen the
| light of day simply because it wasn't at all possible to make
| them compliant with the "review guidelines".
| jandrese wrote:
| There are entire categories of apps that aren't allowed by
| the rules (although you do occasionally find some examples
| in the store somehow). Emulators that can run ROM files are
| a good example. You won't find MAME in the app store except
| occasionally when someone at AppleHQ makes a mistake. Even
| then it quickly disappears.
| Joeri wrote:
| Sometimes I try to imagine what the app store rules would look
| like if apple had to abide by those same rules for all of their
| own apps. I imagine the rules would be much more lenient, app
| review a lot less error prone, and developers would be chafed
| far less by those golden handcuffs.
|
| Pretty sure apple's developer documentation would still be bad
| though.
| mdoms wrote:
| I agree, Apple should be broken up.
| haswell wrote:
| It's not necessary to break Apple up to implement a policy
| that requires Apple to apply the same process to their own
| apps.
|
| There are other standalone arguments calling for a breakup,
| but agreeing with the parent doesn't automatically lead to
| the conclusion that a breakup is required.
| wolpoli wrote:
| > It's not necessary to break Apple up to implement a
| policy that requires Apple to apply the same process to
| their own apps.
|
| It works in theory, but when the application team and
| review team both report to the same CEO, the review team
| will be pressured to bend the review policy.
| haswell wrote:
| Internal pressure is a fair concern, but is not a
| foregone conclusion. If anything, unfair approvals of
| Apple-developed apps would enrage the developer community
| and shine even more light on the issue.
| wins32767 wrote:
| And if it's have the policy or be broken up the CEO will
| be pressured to not let them bend it...
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The stick only works if you _actually_ get the stick if
| it 's merited, though. So it could easily end up actually
| being broken up under your proposal.
| sunshinerag wrote:
| or the users who don't like it can jump ship. really
| nothing holding you back.
| haswell wrote:
| I work on a platform that provides its subscribers with a
| store for 1st and 3rd party apps/solutions built on that
| platform.
|
| Every app delivered on this store must go through the same
| review process whether it's internally built or not. This has
| led to healthy innovation on the app store and deep empathy
| for the 3rd party developer.
|
| To be fair, it is possible to ship components that are part
| of the core platform outside of this mechanism, but I think
| just having one subset of internal development go through the
| same review/approval channels as 3rd party apps has been very
| positive for our developer community.
|
| I'd love to see the same thing here.
| novok wrote:
| So what is the platform?
| kernoble wrote:
| If I had to guess it would be something like Slack,
| Shopify, Squarespace or some other SaaS platform that
| needs to meet the needs of a hugely diverse customer
| base.
| [deleted]
| FpUser wrote:
| >"many well-known apps are not there"
|
| Not Mac user but I guess it is the same as for Windows. I have
| some desktop products for Windows. The thought of releasing
| them to MS Store had never crossed my mind.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You want Apple to pick 100 big apps and promote them?
|
| That would take away from the smaller person's chance.
|
| That list grows stale and complaints over who is on the list
| starts.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| The arbitrary integer n = 100 is out of place, comparing your
| example with GP's comment. The commenter is totally right -
| the Mac App Store is just a gimmick in the same way that the
| iOS App Store is a total gimmick to accumulate fees from app
| developers. The fact that the review system is so broken is a
| pure indictment of the model itself.
| makecheck wrote:
| Well honestly they should just have links to _all_ apps but
| that would require the search engine to not also suck
| (different discussion).
|
| It's just surprising to me that Apple didn't take such a
| basic step to do this, when it seems it would so clearly
| increase the value of the platform. It is why it is difficult
| to believe anything they say about how much they "love" the
| Mac...every single action they take to "help" the Mac
| platform is just baffling.
| realusername wrote:
| Maybe that's just a proof that there's not much value created
| by the app store if they can't convince developers to use it if
| they had a choice.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Exactly - I've always pointed out that developers for the
| Apple's ecosystem are being dumbasses. Why would you
| willingly pay Apple money annually (and then a percentage of
| your profit too) to develop on their platform when you
| actually _add value to it_!?
|
| Platforms struggle and / or fail to be successful in the
| market when developers don't support them. (You just have to
| look at MS Windows Mobile, Samsung's Tizen OS, LG webOS,
| Jolla Sailfish OS etc. to realise this).
|
| (I was one of these dumbass too once and bought a mac and
| other apple devices to create apps on Apple's platform before
| I realised that I was being a dumbass).
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Developers said no because the proposition was bad.
| alberth wrote:
| I wonder if Samsung (HQ in Korea) had influence on this
| requirement.
|
| EDIT: why the downvotes? If you don't think Samsung had
| influence, wouldn't it be more productive to reply and say so -
| that way there can be a healthy dialogue on the topic.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Oh, I absolutely think they had influence. LG already pulled
| out of making Android phones as the hardware has become a loss
| leader, no money in it for them. Samsung at least had the
| benefit of almost totally complete vertical integration.
|
| You would have to be a fool to think Samsung doesn't want a cut
| of app sales on their devices and as the most powerful company
| in Korea with large influence over government, they'll get
| their way. This was never about developers and it isn't a
| watershed moment to be excited about (unless I guess you live
| in Korea).
| jollybean wrote:
| You are being downvoted because you went against the populist
| grain of the thread, that's it. Accept that a lot of HN voting
| is just 'sided' and if you're on the wrong side of the flow ...
| that's it.
|
| Just take a moment to reflect on your comments, if they are
| reasonable and you're getting downvoted, and nobody is
| bothering to respond, it's probably populism. It it was it is,
| it's too bad, but don't fret about it.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Excellent. I am in favor of governmental intervention to push
| open standards, inter-operability, and public options for
| monopolistic platforms (not social media, but, for instance,
| Zelle or Venmo).
|
| Next do iMessage.
| coldtea wrote:
| When you have a legislative body and you can yield it, it's that
| easy...
| DavideNL wrote:
| Finally, hopefully the EU will follow soon and the break the
| oligopoly (or whatever it is.)
| throwawaysea wrote:
| This needs to be taken much further, to allow alternate app
| stores, as well as direct installation of apps. People must be
| allowed control and ownership of their hardware.
| chrisshroba wrote:
| Is an "up to 3%" fine enough to make these companies relinquish
| their 30% Apple/Google tax?
| Tomte wrote:
| Apple sells expensive phones, tablets and computers. 3% of
| South Korean revenue (all revenue, not just app store fees)
| should be massive.
| [deleted]
| EricE wrote:
| Good. I once bought into the gatekeeping concept - except Apple
| hasn't followed through with their end of the bargain. Scam apps
| are still rampant - even dominating the recommended sections in
| the app store. Customer service is abysmal - if you do go for a
| refund it's a crap shoot as to if you will ever get a human
| response. When they kicked Parlor for purely political reasons -
| that was it. Time to force the gates open and let the market
| decide.
| [deleted]
| jfoster wrote:
| They should unbundle. At the moment, doing business on the app
| stores entails so many things, but they can break them apart and
| allow developers to purchase them individually:
|
| 1. Put your app on the store. (but only reachable via direct
| link)
|
| 2. Have Gapple verify that your app does not represent any
| obvious security threat. (or else warn users upon install)
|
| 3. Make your app appear in search. (organically)
|
| 4. Make your app eligible as a recommendation. (organically)
|
| 5. Use Gapple payments.
|
| 6. Have your app appear in search. (guaranteed placement)
|
| 7. Have your app appear as a recommendation. (guaranteed
| placement)
|
| (and probably many others)
|
| I'm not sure how well that would go down with developers, but I
| view it as a more honest way for them to create a developer
| offering. If they want to then go ahead and bundle some of these
| and offer a discount for developers purchasing more of them, so
| be it, but unbundling allows developers to pick & choose the
| value they want provided.
| sadfev wrote:
| 2. Verification is key! I don't want more garbage (there's
| already plenty) in app stores. They should charge a flat one
| time fee or for smaller developers give the option of higher
| fee/transaction till the amount is paid and then revert back to
| normal fees.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Google shouldn't control the store and the search. The
| incentives for kickbacks are perverse and such conflicts of
| interests shouldn't be allowed.
| swiley wrote:
| How about getting rid of App Stores altogether unless they
| follow an f-droid like model? (Selection of alternative repos,
| Published source, declaring potentially unwanted behavior etc.)
| justapassenger wrote:
| You want to explain to your grandma how to get the right repo
| so she can get WhatsApp?
| noptd wrote:
| Having to forward a link to family members every so often
| seems well worth it to me.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| You either overestimate your family's tech literacy, or
| you have a household of people working in tech if you
| think it's as simple as reading a link for the average
| consumer.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > reading a link There's nothing to read. Clicking the
| link immediately prompts the user to add the repository
| to their F-Droid installation.
| swiley wrote:
| I don't want my grandma using WhatsApp. The corporation
| that owns it behaves pathologically as a matter of policy
| and I have no idea what they'd try to do to her.
|
| So yes. That's a perfect example of how this would be an
| improvement.
| kobalsky wrote:
| preventing your grandma from using whatsapp through
| technological friction must be one of the worst ways to
| handle it.
|
| this extremely selfish, I've seen whatsapp let old people
| enjoy internet like we did as kids.
|
| if you want to be a responsible member of the tech
| community at least take the time to educate your own
| grandma.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Conversely, eliminating the friction required for Grandma
| to unwittingly hand over her personal information isn't
| exactly an altruistic response. It's a lose-lose
| situation, you may as well just support the more open
| platform if they're both bunk anyways.
| benbristow wrote:
| Doesn't F-Droid have quite a big repo configured by
| default?
| judge2020 wrote:
| Depends on if Whatsapp still wants to abide by the
| security/privacy requirements of being in an imaginary
| Apple-operated default repo.
| pessimizer wrote:
| If I'm happy right now with Apple/Google management, the
| way I would explain it to my grandmother is "don't change
| anything, just use the default" or "pick [Apple/Google]
| from the list."
|
| Why does everyone pretend like this is hard?
|
| -----
|
| edit: The things I have a hard time explaining to my
| grandmother are when she asks "How do I turn this off?" or
| "Why did everything change and why can't you change it
| back?"
| raman162 wrote:
| I don't think we can ever get rid of app stores but I am pro
| multiple app stores per operating system.
|
| The only downside I see to multiple app stores is having to
| download multiple stores to get certain apps, kinda what it
| is like with purchasing video games on steam versus origin,
| etc. That is although minor, still an inconvenience.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| The dominoes have been in place for a while, now they are slowly
| beginning to fall...
| alarz wrote:
| > In a statement, Google defended its service fees, which it says
| "helps keep Android free,"
|
| Isn't Android an open source OS? Sounds like they're just whining
| to me.
| jollybean wrote:
| First Domino Drops.
|
| Judges in some countries can reference rulings from other
| jurisdictions.
|
| Politicians are surely taking note.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I'll take the opinion that the "App Store tax" is better for the
| broader economy. Most people who aren't VCs can't get a piece of
| startups early on anymore. If I can invest in Google and Apple I
| get a bit of exposure to pre-IPO and private tech companies.
| stirlo wrote:
| Finally.
|
| This is exactly how regulators should respond to the market abuse
| of these technology monopolies.
|
| If they wanted to head this off all they had to do was pay a
| reasonable amount of tax in the country where the revenue was
| generated and offer a reasonable (single percentage) fee for
| facilitating payments.
|
| They chose not to so they reap what they sow
| laurent92 wrote:
| What regulators should mostly do is provide rulings in 2 weeks.
| Monopoly lawsuits have been threatening for 5 years and are
| still in limbo, our entire West is in threadlock: Slow justice,
| slow regulators, slow administrations, fast market grabs...
| pyrale wrote:
| Due process doesn't fit in 2 weeks, and I don't believe the
| issue with monopoly law not being enforced is related to the
| speed of justice.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Slow justice and slow regulation are a feature, not a bug.
| Premature either is more dangerous than delayed action.
|
| In hindsight, the correct time for regulation was probably
| 2008 for Google (DoubleClick purchase and Android shipping
| with "Android Market") and Apple (App Store).
|
| It should have been a clear line from hardware control ->
| distribution control. And if regulators hadn't seen it, then
| Congress should have drawn it for them in updated laws.
|
| Unfortunately, the world had a bit more going on that year.
| beambot wrote:
| Android was effectively launched in 2008, per Wikipedia:
| "It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first
| commercial Android device, the HTC Dream, being launched in
| September 2008."
|
| In this case, I'm not sure how to square new innovation
| (smart phones first launching in 2008) with slow
| regulation.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| No, the spec doc lists "Speedy trials" as a requirement.
| Slow justice is no justice.
| germandiago wrote:
| one of the first regulations that make sense: more free market.
|
| As long as there are regulators with a lot of power there will
| be incentive to corruption anyway.
|
| I like free competition. Something that Google and Apple were
| trying to prevent.
|
| But putting all in the hands of an ever-increasing state is not
| the way to go either. Though I gree with the decision.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > one of the first regulations that make sense: more free
| market
|
| State regulations dictating conditions to market participants
| cannot make something more "free market". They can favor more
| competition by artificially limiting the advantage of the
| most successful competitors, but that's not "free market",
| which is the _absence_ of market distortion by state
| regulation, not the presence of only those market distortions
| that you prefer.
|
| > I like free competition.
|
| No, clearly, you like competition with the leaders
| artificially handicapped by the State, not _free_
| competition. Which may be a valid preference, but don 't
| pretend its a free market with free competition.
| MatekCopatek wrote:
| Well, depends on your definition of free market. Wiki says:
|
| > In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and
| demand are free from any intervention by a government or
| other authority, and from all forms of economic privilege,
| monopolies and artificial scarcities.
|
| So while your remark about state regulations isn't wrong,
| the (grand)parent comment is clearly talking about the
| second part of this definition.
|
| Whose freedom is the "free" bit about? Is it about Apple
| being free to do whatever they want with their platform or
| is it about me being free to buy iPhone apps from anyone?
| oblio wrote:
| 1. Network effects.
|
| 2. Information asymmetry.
|
| 3. Barriers to entry.
|
| Purely free markets only apply to toiler paper rolls, and not
| even that.
| vincnetas wrote:
| So when you have Apple and Google (two gorillas) how do you
| imagine "free competition" happening without state
| intervention?
| amelius wrote:
| > This is exactly how regulators should respond to the market
| abuse of these technology monopolies.
|
| A somewhat faster response would have been nice though.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| What are you talking about? They pay sales tax based on
| revenue, and they provide a lot more than facilitate payments.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's going to be a hell for the users and the smaller
| developers.
|
| Devs will have to support multiple platforms, different API and
| options. Also different legal arrangements would be needed as
| each country has different laws and processes. Remember the
| agreements and forms we fill for different countries when we
| want to sell paid apps/features on App Store? I also can't wait
| to pay account fees for many app stores and modify my apps to
| fit specific app store rules.
|
| The %30 cut, for me covers this boring complexity. I'm
| sceptical that the potentially lower commissions will offset
| the added development and administrative costs.
|
| As for the users, people will start forgetting where they paid
| what. They will get frustrated, blame devs etc. It would become
| tiresome and many will be turned off the moment a payment is
| requested simply because they don't want to go through the same
| stuff multiple times.
|
| I despise platform fragmentations. Instead of telling companies
| what they must do, I think the regulators should intervene for
| market fairness, i.e. Apple&Google getting heavily fined when
| enforce different rules on different developers differently or
| compel them to accept an app in the App Store if they can't
| clearly indicate which rule is being broken.
|
| I would like to remind you all the troubles we need to go
| through to support just platforms: AppStore and Play Store. I
| am NOT looking forward to start paying fees and do
| development/Marketing work/Adjustments for Epic, Microsoft,
| Oracle, T-Mobile, Vodafone etc. just to reach the exact same
| users as of today.
|
| Edit:
|
| I, as a developer, don't want to deal with multiple platforms
| and their management and fees. Please tell me if you are mobile
| developer or is your opinion ideological. The Arguments so far
| look like coming from people who have no real experience with
| getting an app into the AppStore.
|
| How do you plan to sell Apps in the UK, France, Turkey, charge
| VAT and pay it to the respective governments for example. How
| do you plan to file your export paperwork in the US? How do you
| plan to deal with compliance?
|
| Seriously, are there any indie developers here with hands on
| experience? How do you handle international trade and taxation
| outside of platforms like AppleStore?
| sleepydog wrote:
| I think what will happen is that most developers will offer
| in-app payments with a discount if you don't pay through
| Google or Apple, to reflect the lower cut that alternative
| payment services would take. This should put pressure on
| Google and Apple to compete with those payment services,
| which is a good thing, IMO.
|
| It may reduce the revenue Google and Apple receive, but
| honestly I think that could be a good thing. They both do
| much more than maintain their OS. Both companies have suites
| of apps that they develop in-house and offer for free.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You realize that you don't have to deal with "boring
| complexity" when you use plenty of other payment processors,
| like Stripe, right?
|
| And instead of being charged 30%, you get charged a
| transaction fee, plus ~3%.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It doesn't work like that. Here is the Stipe page with
| description of what you need to do:
| https://stripe.com/docs/tax/registering
|
| Essentially, you need to register with the authorities of
| all the markets you would like to support.
|
| Different trade agreements with each country, different
| documents, different language.
|
| So you pay %3 instead %30 and then give the rest to the
| lawyers and accountants.
|
| Good luck with that.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Your app might only be targeted at a single country or a
| single market with "easy" taxation rules across borders
| like the EU.
|
| Companies do that all the time and if they see the value
| of being available globally by paying apple 30% that's
| fine as well.
|
| However right now we don't know whether such a service is
| in fact worth 30% percent because Google and Apple
| effectively prevent a competitor from offering lower
| prices
| mrtksn wrote:
| Obviously everyone can do whatever they like, I am
| pointing out the burden this puts on smaller developers.
|
| Suddenly, creating and distributing apps can get
| prohibitive for smaller developers.
| commoner wrote:
| > Suddenly, creating and distributing apps can get
| prohibitive for smaller developers.
|
| That's not true, because the law does not prohibit
| developers from using Apple's or Google's current payment
| systems. It enables more payment processing options (with
| lower fees) without removing existing ones. Developers
| can also choose different payment processors for
| different regions.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It means that if those payment processors gain market
| share from Apple I will need to support them to reach the
| exact same userbase because if the users adopt using the
| alternatives it is very likely that they will stop
| bothering to upkeep their Apple payment methods. It
| happens all the time and there's even API for it to offer
| the users a grace period until they fix their payment.
| commoner wrote:
| If your customers prefer to use a payment processor that
| costs you 3% instead of Apple's 15%/30%, then why
| wouldn't you support that payment processor? You gain
| more revenue and honor your customers' preferences at the
| same time.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Because supporting payment processors is extra work(which
| is requires technical and non technical skills) that can
| go into development, that's why. It is something that I
| would prefer to delegate, pay the due and forget about
| it.
|
| What's so hard to understand that? Have you ever created
| a product and made money from it?
| commoner wrote:
| By migrating from Apple's 30% fee to a payment processor
| that charges only 3%, your revenue would increase by
| 38.6%. The only way that additional revenue would not
| make up for your development cost is if your revenue were
| low in the first place. There are plenty of developers
| who would gladly integrate another payment API for the
| additional revenue.
| mrtksn wrote:
| My revenue wouldn't necessarily increase(unless maybe
| price reduction drives the sales enough), my costs due to
| Apple's commission will decrees and my development and
| legal costs will increase.
| commoner wrote:
| Just to be clear, by "revenue", I'm referring to revenue
| after Apple's or the payment processor's cut.
| mrtksn wrote:
| My landlord doesn't care. From his perspective, all that
| matters is that if I make enough money to pay the rent.
| He is not interested if my revenue after Apple's cut has
| increased.
|
| If my net income decreases(because my costs increase more
| that the revenue after Apple's cut increase), I am
| screwed.
| mbesto wrote:
| > I am pointing out the burden this puts on smaller
| developers.
|
| This already existed. You're saying that the 30% was to
| cover this burden, but what other people are pointing out
| is that this 30% isn't necessarily a true market cost of
| doing business since there was never another option.
| There is nothing stopping another entity (Stripe or
| otherwise) from providing a service that covers this
| burden similar to Apple. If it happens to cost 30% then
| so be it, but we don't truly know the cost because its
| effectively a monopolistic economic arrangement provided
| by Apple.
|
| > Suddenly, creating and distributing apps can get
| prohibitive for smaller developers.
|
| How so? It's not effected distribution. Apple will still
| provide an option for a 30% cut. If more devs go to
| another option then Apple may compete and this 30% may
| even go down. This is a good thing for the consumer and
| the developer.
| yobbo wrote:
| > I despise platform fragmentations
|
| It is fair to point out that "platform fragmentation" occurs
| _because_ of the policies of Apple and Google, not because of
| regulation.
|
| If they had some altruistic care for user/dev experience, the
| platforms would be open and frictionless to begin with. Their
| aim is to insert friction at all points of interoperability,
| and remove friction inside of their own platform.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Nothing is altruistic. It's simply business and business is
| about to get harder for smaller developers.
| commoner wrote:
| Smaller developers now have more payment processing
| options in South Korea. In addition to Apple's and
| Google's own systems, they can also choose from a wide
| variety of third-party systems that charge ~3% instead of
| 15%/30%. I don't see how this would be anything but a
| benefit for smaller developers.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Do you have know-how on distributing apps and getting
| paid for? This sounds to me like ideological talk.
|
| "We wouldn't need to spend money on cleaning staff if
| everyone clean their door front."
|
| Yeah, sure.
| commoner wrote:
| I do, and your arguments in this thread don't convince me
| at all. Is there something incorrect in my comment?
| Developers went from having one payment processor that
| charges 15%/30% to many payment processors that can
| charge as little as under 3%. Revenue-wise, there is no
| downside to having these additional options.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Where can I buy your stuff?
|
| I don't know if your money works differently from mine
| but for me I get to own the difference between Cost and
| Revenue. Revenue increase is not good if the cost
| increase is higher. I doubt that the revenue will
| increase, the costs will certainly.
|
| The costs consist of my time and the payments I make to
| build and distribute my stuff. This will reduce the costs
| that I pay to Apple but will increase the development and
| legal burden.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Users definitely want to have third party app stores. One of
| the most obvious use cases for a smartphone imo, running a
| GBA emulator, isn't even possible in Apple's ecosystem
| because of the stringent app store regulations. How crazy is
| it that my $1200 phone can't play pokemon red but a $80 linux
| handheld (or any android device if you know what you're
| doing) can. Simply pathetic. 9-year-old 90s me is laughing at
| these pathetic devices of the future.
|
| Side note if Nintendo had played their cards right they could
| have made the entire library of GBA games available in a
| Nintendo smart phone app, like 10 years ago...
| keithnz wrote:
| I saw nothing saying you can't still use them.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Sure, you can do dev work for Windows Phone Store. That
| doesn't mean that it's as rewarding as doing work for Apple
| AppStore.
|
| The fragmentation will not open the floodgate for all the
| users out there who were holding off because they didn't
| want to use App Store or Play Store. It's going to be the
| exact same userbase but there will be more gatekeepers to
| deal with.
| stirlo wrote:
| > but there will be more gatekeepers to deal with.
|
| They're not mandating support for alternative payment
| providers merely saying Apple and Google cannot prevent
| you as a developer offering an alternative to your users.
| Whether you decide to support alternatives is up to you
| but when you can use stripe for a 2% fee or Apple/Google
| with 30% how can you be worse off?
| mrtksn wrote:
| No one mandates to support AppStore or Google Play in
| first place. That's something you do if you want to reach
| the users of that service.
| mbesto wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > require in-app purchases
|
| You need to bifurcate the payment % from the selling of
| the app itself and the in-app purchase.
|
| For iOS, the AppStore is essentially mandated to download
| and sign an iOS app. No one is saying that you shouldn't
| have some cost associated with getting that distribution
| (since Apple is providing value there), it's more about
| the cut they take for every additional fees once the app
| is already downloaded.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Companies want to reach the users of the devices.
|
| Apple and Google effectively prevent you from doing that
| without being in their stores. The fact that
| "technically" you can install apps on android and
| "technically" users can get an apple dev certificate / or
| sometimes jailbreak their device are nothing more than a
| single atom layer thick fig leaf.
|
| These two companies effectively have a duopoly on the
| mobile phone market and act accordingly.
|
| Edit: Corrected to not attack the parent commenter.
| mrtksn wrote:
| No body is preventing me from doing anything, please stop
| speaking for me.
|
| Please read carefully: I do have Apps in the AppStore, I
| am happy with the business relationship with Apple and I
| am not looking forward to be forced into establishing new
| business relationships to reach the exact same user base.
| keithnz wrote:
| I'm not sure how you think you will have to do anything
| different or be forced into something? your app can stay
| the same, has the same presence. But, under this law, you
| could choose to have micro transactions or subscriptions
| where , if you choose to, you could use stripe, or some
| other payment provider where you pay a much lower fee, if
| you choose to.
| Vespasian wrote:
| I clarified that I did not intend to speak for you. Sorry
| for that.
|
| You'll be in luck then because you will still be able to
| use apples services without anything changing. This or
| similar laws do not obligate you to offer options.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| "Allow other payment platforms" is not the same as "Demand
| devs to support them all", I don't know between which lines
| you must have read it.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Sure, You can't have platform fragmentation costs if you
| don't support platforms.
|
| You only support them if you want to reach the customers.
| That's exactly the same as not supporting Android or iOS or
| not getting into App Development in first place.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| So, for example, if the bulk of the customers in Korea
| might be using Samsung Pay, you might just want to keep
| integrating with that instead of also having to provide
| Apple mechanisms, and maybe restructure your price since
| Apple imposes its tax?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Sure, I can do that. Let's take a look at it:
|
| 1) I need to learn and integrate Samsung's API or I need
| to hire someone to do that for me. I need to maintain a
| version of the app that works the way Samsung thinks it
| should(how do you deliver and restore purchases might
| differ from Apple).
|
| 2) Then I need to go through paperwork and payments that
| will enable me to sell Korea software from UK. I haven't
| look at the trade agreements between UK and Korea, I
| guess the easiest way is to pay a specialist that knows
| it.
|
| That's something that I would rather don't go through.
| Probably it's not possible unless I make significant
| money from it anyway.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Well, Korean government is likely to prioritize their
| local developers. And their darling, Samsung. UK and US
| have to jump through some hoops, sorry not sorry.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Why not compete on merits instead?
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| There's a Goldilocks zone in which something mostly
| resembling free market can exist. Beyond that zone,
| there's some old boys network running the show, where
| who's married to whom, who plays <leisure sport for rich
| dudes> with whom, and who's chums with whom are the
| things that matter.
| mrtksn wrote:
| So the small developers are the old boys network? That's
| funny.
|
| Let me tell you what will happen if that becomes the
| case, there would be publishers that you pay so that they
| release your apps in Korea and there would be large
| companies with enough departments to handle the hops.
|
| The idea that this will benefit anyone but the large
| companies is ridiculous. Don't you find suspicious that
| there are no crowds of indie developers but giants like
| Epic who make the noise about it? Do you believe that
| Epic is an altruistic organisation?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Developers (and users) deserve _choice_.
|
| If you want to pay 30% to Apple to take care of that for you,
| then you should be able to.
|
| If someone else _doesn 't_ want to pay 30% to Apple, then
| they should have that right too.
|
| I've lived through both fragmented platforms and unified
| platforms, and I'll take the former any day.
|
| They're messy, but fair and dynamic. And critically, they
| _evolve_ and allow new competition to emerge.
| monkeywork wrote:
| >If someone else doesn't want to pay 30% to Apple, then
| they should have that right too.
|
| They have that right they can choose to not develop on
| Apples platform.
| simion314 wrote:
| >They have that right they can choose to not develop on
| Apples platform.
|
| This is the EXACT same choice you or Apple/Google the
| company not to use electricity, nobody comes with guns
| and forces you to connect your stuff to the electric
| grid. I can be a business but not make a mobile app for
| iOS and Google Store because I think this companies are
| evil, I am "forced" similarly on how I have to use
| electricity.
| oblio wrote:
| To go to Google's platform which is just Eurasia painted
| a different color :-)
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > They have that right they can choose to not develop on
| Apples platform.
|
| The same argument also applies to Korea. Apple has the
| choice of allowing other payment systems, or they can
| choose not to sell in Korea.
| simondotau wrote:
| > _If someone else doesn 't want to pay 30% to Apple, then
| they should have that right_
|
| That _right?_ Are you saying developers should have the
| right to all of Apple 's stuff for free, no matter what? Is
| Apple not allowed to distribute their tools and libraries
| under a license of their choosing?
|
| Should we ignore licenses altogether? Perhaps I don't want
| to pay the "cost" associated with use of a GPL-licensed
| library in my proprietary application. Should I have the
| right to just ignore the GPL license?
| passivate wrote:
| We need to re-define what 'rights' mean in a digital age.
| The ideas of property rights from the 1800's are vaguely
| applicable in digital contexts.
|
| Ultimately, we are the creators of the society we live
| in, so if we don't think laws are working for everyone,
| we should change them. We have tons of laws against price
| gouging, preventing businesses from fleecing customers,
| etc. Apple grabbing 30% of sales of a company is not
| something I support.
| jpambrun wrote:
| This argument is nonsensical.. I should be able to use my
| fully-paid-for device how I see fit.
| the_solenoid wrote:
| You can (I guess to an extent). But, you cannot use iOS
| however you see fit - it's probably in that wall of text
| you agree to every time it updates.
|
| I get all these laws etc, but they are all at the behest
| of other big business who wants to take the ecosystem
| apple made and profit MORE off of it.
|
| This whole thing does not help small devs, or consumers.
| I would argue apples PR stance that it actively basically
| harms consumers is 100% spot on.
|
| The problem may be that people in ios have grown to not
| be looking over their shoulders for scams, but all of
| this will just bring about that exact thing.
|
| The grift as soon as ios/app store opens up will be
| insane. You can't stop it in an open platform, and again,
| the average tech user is not at all savvy about tech.
|
| There are probably good solutions to this, but so far
| nothing out in public is anything but self-serving of
| already monied interests.
| simondotau wrote:
| Apologies if I wasn't clear. I'm talking about the
| relationship between Apple and developers who are
| building applications using Apple's proprietary software
| libraries.
|
| I completely agree that consumers should have very wide
| rights to the device they purchased.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| Should I pay Apple for the right to build a Mac app, or
| Windows for using their desktop apis? Maybe I should have
| to pay mozilla and google every time someone visiting my
| website and I use a piece of javascript that executes in
| their browsers?
| simondotau wrote:
| If Apple or Microsoft or Mozilla or Google wanted to,
| they could have. They chose a different model because it
| suited their business strategy.
|
| Whereas Sony and Nintendo _did_ choose that model for
| their games consoles.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Historically, people had to buy developer tools like
| compilers and assemblers for hundreds if not thousands of
| dollars either directly from the company or through
| retail channels if they wanted access to the inner
| workings of their computer. Apple included. So the pay-
| to-build model isn't new. As far as what "should" happen
| is concerned, that'll be a matter of debate and contract
| law if/when Apple changes its terms and if/when you agree
| to them.
| simondotau wrote:
| Indeed. And Apple does have the benefit of prior art in
| the case of games consoles which have--for the past 30
| years at least--required developers to accept some kind
| of revenue share for the right to distribute software to
| customers.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Is Apple advertising iPhones as game consoles?
|
| When I search for iPhone on Google, the top result is a
| link to Apple with the text "Explore iPhone, the world's
| most powerful personal device."
| simondotau wrote:
| Can you suggest why that would be relevant? It's not like
| the software license model of general purpose computers
| is enforced under law.
| howinteresting wrote:
| It would be evidence in antitrust proceedings to
| demonstrate that Apple is not aligning itself with the
| game console market but with the personal computer
| market.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Or maybe Google should have to pay Oracle for duplicating
| the layout of standard Java classes.
| simondotau wrote:
| Indeed, though here we're talking about developers
| literally including Apple proprietary code in their build
| process.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If Apple wants to license theur libraries and dev tools
| at FRAND rates, I'd have no problem with them charging
| for those.
|
| But pretending the current cut isn't supported only
| because of their platform control is crazy.
|
| Form an open market for app distribution, and then see
| what the market sets competitive rates at.
| giyokun wrote:
| Actually not really. Developers are just calling into
| code that the user already paid for when they bought the
| device.
| oblio wrote:
| And Oracle should pay IBM for having practically invented
| SQL.
|
| And everyone using virtualization should be paying IBM
| for having practically invented virtualization.
|
| Repeat ad nauseam.
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| Apple has no right to restrict any API usage in the iOS
| that is running on MY hardware that I fully paid them
| for.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Apple doesn't do that. The restrictions Apple impose are
| on distribution(i.e. you can't use Apple's distribution
| services to distribute your app to the users of that
| service if Apple don't let you), you can do whatever you
| like to your own device and Apple can't do anything about
| it. That's why it's perfectly legal to jailbreak your
| phone.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| That's splitting hairs. They do do that, exactly by
| imposing restrictions on distribution.
|
| Your argument is: "You're free to write an app for
| yourself, but Apple isn't restricting you from using
| private APIs, they're restricting you from distributing
| it using their resources, oh and they're blocking any
| alternative distribution methods, too."
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| What does "fully paid" mean? Would that allow Apple to
| sell hardware where they control API usage at a cheaper
| price than a device where they do not control API?
| simondotau wrote:
| I'm not talking about restrictions placed upon the end
| user, but rather on the developer who is distributing an
| application which uses these libraries. If they're not
| willing to accept the license terms for those libraries,
| that is a license violation.
|
| Do you know who would agree with that? The FSF. They will
| argue that an application built against an API licensed
| under the GPL is a derivative work and therefore falls
| under the terms of the GPL.
|
| This was the case back when Qt was quite infamously
| licensed under the GPL rather than the LGPL.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Would forcing Apple to make everything required to run
| linux on Apple hardware available to all devs be fine
| then? Just to keep things fair and allow for competitors
| and such. Maybe force all hardware manufacturers to allow
| OS selection when doing a factory reset? Libraries? I'm
| allowed to use them without selling/distributing as long
| as they are critical to run the hardware that I paid
| for(as long as they are only used for said device).
| Copyrighting/blocking people from reverse engineering any
| piece of code that is needed for hardware to function
| should be illegal in the first place.
|
| Edit: A few typos and such.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > Devs will have to support multiple platforms, different API
| and options. Also different legal arrangements would be
| needed as each country has different laws and processes.
| Remember the agreements and forms we fill for different
| countries when we want to sell paid apps/features on App
| Store? I also can't wait to pay account fees for many app
| stores and modify my apps to fit specific app store rules.
|
| The ruling force platforms to allow developers to use
| different payment processors. It doesn't force developers to
| use these processors.
|
| Digital payments predate app stores by a decade. It's mostly
| a solved issue.
|
| > As for the users, people will start forgetting where they
| paid what.
|
| It's just a charge on your bank account in the end. I'm not
| sure the where is really significant.
|
| > I think the regulators should intervene for market fairness
|
| You must be happy then because that's exactly what they are
| doing.
| boudin wrote:
| I think it's going to be better for users and developers. On
| the ios store it will be possible to add a link to a website,
| tell the user that an external registration is necessary for
| apps that are companion app of a web service.
|
| For the case above, it should also be possible for customers
| with one user account only to use ios apps. What I just say
| above might seems to make no sense, but that's the current
| user experience that Apple enforces us to provide.
|
| From a dev experience, I can only see thinga getting better.
| If we can get to the point when an app store allows to
| publish apps that can be built on something else than a mac
| and with a good CI and CD, that could be a dev dream come
| true.
|
| From a business point of view, it can only be positive,
| having ways out of the random death sentenced decided
| randomly by Apple and Google using their store obscure rules
| and review process to kill apps.
|
| On android it's already fragmented in a way (Huawei has its
| own store now that their phones doesn't ship with the google
| layer). So it can just push more devs to take this into
| consideration.
| dmitryminkovsky wrote:
| I very much agree that this app stores market abuse thing needs
| to end, and I am also really glad to see that at least one
| country is responding like this.
|
| > a reasonable (single percentage) fee for facilitating
| payments.
|
| I want to point out, though, that the service Apple provides is
| not merely payment processing. They offer total customer
| management. Which, when integrated with their entire developer
| offering (TestFlight, App Store, etc) is pretty neat. I've
| integrated my app with Apple for iOS and then had to do it all
| over again with Braintree of web. You might say that entire
| exercise speaks to the inanity of the App Store monopoly, but
| the experience illustrated for me how much more Apple provides
| than just mere payment processing. You won't find the words
| "chargeback" or "dispute" in Apple's docs, because they take
| care of all that for you. With Apple, you don't have to program
| UIs for changing subscription tiers or viewing transaction
| histories. And many other things.
|
| Is it worth 30%? No. 15%? I don't think so. Should I have to
| maintain and juggle different integrations for every app store?
| Definitely not. But Apple's offering is decent and
| comprehensive. It would be made much better if it wasn't a
| racket that held developers hostage. Think App Store competing
| with Play Store on Android devices. And vice versa. Now that
| would be cool!
|
| I really hope similar legislation is passed in the United
| States and EU.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I wonder if raising fees in the developer program would
| recoup some of the cost of doing at least some of these
| things. 99 dollars for an individual and 299 for a business
| if I recall correctly, that's peanuts and hasn't been raised
| in a very long time. I don't think asking for more is bad,
| since it's a yearly fixed cost
| MR4D wrote:
| Asking for more will start to limit the number of
| developers who develop for their platform. Probably not the
| Microsoft's of the world, but tons of smaller ones.
|
| For instance, if you raised the individual's fee to $500,
| then a bunch of people would opt out, either not developing
| iOS apps, or just make a web app. Neither of those are good
| solutions from Apple's point of view.
| howinteresting wrote:
| If the app/play stores allowed alternative payment
| mechanisms, then third parties would have an incentive to
| build out an end-to-end flow as well, possibly even better
| than Apple or Google do (eg upgrade pricing, better cross-
| platform support).
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Apple very pointedly does _not_ offer total customer
| management. As an iOS developer, I don't know who my
| customers are; I can't contact them; I can't offer them a
| refund, demo, or promo code; I can't have any kind of
| relationship with them whatsoever. It's infuriatingly archaic
| and useless. Whatever that system is, it certainly isn't
| "total customer management".
| horsawlarway wrote:
| It's pretty clearly "Total customer control" not
| management.
|
| Apple has pulled off a _really_ nifty trick of convincing
| (cough _abusively forcing_... cough) companies to concede
| full control of the customer /business relationship to
| Apple.
|
| From my point of view, you're not really selling anything
| on the Apple App store - you're giving Apple the right to
| resell your digital products.
|
| In exchange they keep all analytics data. They keep full
| control of customer contact and communication. They dictate
| the terms of the sale, including place and payment method.
| They control everything.
|
| Your customer is Apple, and they are just as abusive to
| their "vendors" (app developers) as Walmart is.
|
| Calling it a "Marketplace" is a sham - The core definition
| of a "Marketplace" is --- arena of competitive or
| commercial dealings --- And the Apple store is no more a
| "marketplace" than Walmart.
| dmitryminkovsky wrote:
| > From my point of view, you're not really selling
| anything on the Apple App store - you're giving Apple the
| right to resell your digital products.
|
| In my understanding that that's the contractual
| relationship the developer and user enter into with
| Apple.
|
| Personally I think this isn't all bad considering it
| provides a uniform experience for the user, which lowers
| cognitive load for the user and might makes the user more
| willing to purchase. Once they know what app purchasing
| is like, they can confidently purchase more apps. And
| they know that no matter who develops an app, in the
| event of a dispute they will deal directly with Apple.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| That sounds like a problem, but as a customer, I see that
| as a feature. I do not want to be mailbombed by everyone
| who has ever written an app I used for some time in the
| past.
| jkestner wrote:
| And there are other features that I'd like as a customer
| that Apple will not let developers offer. More payment
| options, for example. Why not have the choice of multiple
| app stores and let the market sort them out? We'll see
| the best ideas adopted by all.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The other side of the coin is the app can't refund from
| their side, nor stop your subscription or fire you as a
| client either. They need to wait for you to do it, which
| can brew complicated situations.
| simonh wrote:
| I suppose it's customer management in the sense that they
| are not your customers, they are Apple's customers. Apple
| is providing you access to sell your app to Apple's
| customers through Apple's store.
| dmitryminkovsky wrote:
| This is true. I should have used the term "billing
| management." The opaqueness you mention I like to think of
| as a firewall between the developer and the user in terms
| of billing. I can truly say to the user: "I'm sorry, but I
| can't help you with that." Many times that's bad, many
| times that's good, and not because I don't want to deal
| with users but because I like when users have uniform,
| familiar experiences that they understand. The clearly
| divided responsibilities (developer provides software,
| Apple provides billing) helps maintain focus on product.
| mdoms wrote:
| > They offer total customer management.
|
| No, they FORCE total customer management.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| > total customer management
|
| you mean end-to-end locked-in ownership of your customers
|
| You can offer total customer and management and compete on
| its merits and price point, not by forced monopoly.
| mafuy wrote:
| I agree that Apple's system adds a lot of value. And that's
| why I believe it can and should compete with other systems.
| There should be no problem with informing users about other
| payment options both in- and outside of an app. But Apple
| chose to forbid this. And that's not ok.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Sure but the point is that developers should have the option
| of rolling out their own solution if they don't need all the
| features Apple provides or agree with the fee. This in turn
| creates competition which may reduce rates all around.
| judge2020 wrote:
| The common argument against that is that the 30% also goes
| to actually developing iOS - you could envision the margin
| Apple makes on every iPhone as one that goes towards the
| R&D costs of developing the hardware, while the post-sale
| revenue goes towards the post-sale costs of developing iOS
| (and all the updates they test/push out for 5+ years after
| the device is released).
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's weird using the argument that it's a shell game as a
| positive argument. "It's not a money grab, it's just a
| hidden fee!"
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Apple admitted this wasn't true in a lawsuit. There were
| actual internal convos about how they didn't need as much
| money...
|
| > Separately, the documents show that in 2011, Schiller
| suggested that Apple could "ratchet down from 70/30 to
| 75/25 or even 80/20 if we can maintain a $1B a year run
| rate," in terms of App Store commissions, since the 30
| percent commission rate would "not last forever."
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/20/apple-sideloading-
| plans...
| judge2020 wrote:
| It's not that they don't need more money, it's that, in
| my opinion, they also shouldn't be forced to operate on
| razor-thin margins. What is an acceptable profit margin?
| There's no clear answer so you'd be reliant on a judge or
| congress to determine that.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| An acceptable profit margin would be based on actual
| costs, not a static 30% which means paid apps are
| subsidizing free apps or apps like Netflix and Amazon
| that do not take payment on iOS. Charge based on
| bandwidth/downloads, not on who is using their payment
| processor.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Charge based on bandwidth/downloads, not on who is
| using their payment processor.
|
| This obviously doesn't tell the whole story either. Some
| apps provide utility to the end user but don't monetize
| well. Those apps are valuable to have as a way to drive
| people to use app store, and keep developers educated.
| wvenable wrote:
| > The common argument against that is that the 30% also
| goes to actually developing iOS
|
| How were operating systems funded before vendors could
| take a cut of every transaction?
| judge2020 wrote:
| They didn't receive updates. Now Windows pushes ads in
| the OS as a mechanism of recouping the cost of developing
| and testing updates for old hardware.
| wvenable wrote:
| Operating systems have been getting automatic updates for
| over 20 years. And what 3rd party ads are in Windows? I
| don't have any.
| threeseed wrote:
| Here is how to disable the many forms of advertising on
| Windows 10:
|
| https://www.howtogeek.com/269331/how-to-disable-all-of-
| windo...
|
| Also don't forget that there is a ridiculous amount of
| user behaviour telemetry and metadata that Microsoft has
| permission to use for any reason.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| This isn't a common argument, it's just Apple's argument.
| dmitryminkovsky wrote:
| Nothing like a business exposing its alleged cost
| structure to try and justify passing on costs. It's the
| worst argument. It's not even an argument. It induces me
| to somehow be part of their business, when I'm not an
| employee, board member or even a shareholder. It's TMI.
| danieldisu wrote:
| iPhone users pay the development of iOS, iphone users
| want to use an iPhone in part because all these third
| party apps.
|
| This is just them wanting more money, and according to
| latest earnings they already make a lot.
| orangepanda wrote:
| > if [developers] don't need all the features
|
| Some "features" are seen only by customers, e.g., managing
| all your subscriptions in one place. I can think of some
| services that would LOVE making cancelling a subscription
| more difficult.
|
| I don't care about apple's cut. Allowing sideloading
| instead would have been a win win for everyone
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Stripe Billing[1] only charges 0.5% for this.
|
| Apple's offerings may have been good when the alternative was
| software sold on physical CD's in a store, but compared to
| the alternatives today there is no way 30% is by any means
| fair or reasonable. The 30% commission is essentially
| monopoly rents.
|
| 1. https://stripe.com/billing
| eigen wrote:
| Looks like its a bit more complicated than that according
| to the webpage.
|
| Stripe Payments [1]: 2.9% + $0.30
|
| Stripe Billing [2]: 0.5%
|
| Stripe Invoicing [3]: 0.4%
|
| [1] https://stripe.com/pricing
|
| [2] https://stripe.com/billing/pricing
|
| [3] https://stripe.com/invoicing/pricing
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| You don't need both Billing and Invoicing. Invoicing is
| for one-time payments (typically after a service has been
| delivered), and Billing is for recurring payments.
|
| All in all, we're looking at $0.30 + 3.4% (or 3.3%). This
| is clearly lower than 30%, except for very inexpensive
| apps (~$1.29 or less).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > If they wanted to head this off all they had to do was pay a
| reasonable amount of tax in the country where the revenue was
| generated
|
| Like a donation? Or are these companies evading tax laws?
| stirlo wrote:
| I think we can all agree that transfer pricing and the Double
| Irish Dutch sandwich were not intended to be used in the way
| they have been by modern multinationals.
| svdr wrote:
| This seems to have ended:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57368247
| oblio wrote:
| Want to bet that the end of this included a hidden grace
| period to allow large corporations using them to:
|
| A) find another similar system
|
| B) put their internal bureaucracies at work to switch the
| entire corporation to the new system?
|
| It's like stock market news, by the time it's in the
| newspaper it's much too late, all the insiders have
| finished their trades and you're the chump buying
| overpriced stuff.
|
| We'll probably find out the 2021 latest scheme in 2031,
| when it gets banned.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| What is stopping the governments from changing the laws to
| make it illegal?
|
| I do not understand the concept of expecting an entity to
| pay taxes they are not liable for paying.
| pindab0ter wrote:
| Because that would be bad for 'het vestigingsklimaat';
| the branch/business climate.
| xdennis wrote:
| These companies paying them not to.
| jtbayly wrote:
| So... they _are_ paying money to the government that they
| aren 't required to?
| foepys wrote:
| The problem is the EU's process which requires all
| countries to vote unanimous on this. Ireland is vetoing
| any change to keep being allowed to set their own tax
| rates and underbid anybody else while still keeping
| access to the EU market. In that regard The Netherlands
| aren't any better by the way.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| They do that to pay proportionally less (not zero) and
| the countries they are paying proportionally less to are
| interested in being the fiscal hosts of those
| multinationals.
| [deleted]
| criley2 wrote:
| The issue is that the governments offering tax evasion to
| corporations are smaller countries that use their evasion
| schemes as a competitive advantage against larger
| countries.
|
| The incentive for a big country like the US is to make
| these companies pay their domestically accrued taxes, but
| the incentive for a small country like Ireland is to
| attract these companies to come open offices and do
| business locally at all.
|
| These companies have tricks to avoid paying taxes, such
| as creating a parent company in Ireland that owns all of
| the intellectual property, then making the actual Apple
| or Google in the USA rent the intellectual property from
| that Irish parent for the cost of all of their revenue.
| Thus to the US company, they paid 100% of their revenue
| as the cost of doing business and have 0 tax. Then to the
| Irish company, they can essentially launder this revenue
| into being almost completely tax-free.
|
| For the record, the "Double Dutch Irish" has been closed,
| but there will always be another Caribbean country or
| looked-over European country willing to offer major
| benefits to a multinational in exchange for an office and
| some local hires. After all, why should a small country
| care if a multinational isn't paying taxes to another
| country far away?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Thus to the US company, they paid 100% of their revenue
| as the cost of doing business and have 0 tax.
|
| Why is the country that wants taxes not able to change
| their rules to collect something similar to an excise
| tax?
| [deleted]
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| America. Recall Washington crying foul when France wanted
| a digital tax.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| It's a problem when small companies have to pay company
| tax, and large multinational companies do not, merely
| because the latter has the legal know-how and the funds
| to achieve it. As an analogy, it'd be like a road worker
| paying 30 percent tax on a $70k income and a company CEO
| paying 0-5 percent tax on a $10m income.
|
| The necessary solution is obviously systemic change
| rather than asking large companies to pay above what
| they're required to, the latter would actually be a
| breach of their agency duty and anyone who thinks
| companies should do that are foolish.
|
| I don't know _what_ the solution is. Perhaps abolishing
| company tax, which is my favorite proposal. Perhaps a
| worldwide company tax as Biden is pushing for (which
| concerns me for other reasons, even though I do admit it
| would solve this specific problem).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > It's a problem when small companies have to pay company
| tax, and large multinational companies do not, merely
| because the latter has the legal know-how and the funds
| to achieve it.
|
| Hence the question of why are countries not changing the
| rules so the large multinational companies cannot achieve
| it.
|
| > As an analogy, it'd be like a road worker paying 30
| percent tax on a $100k income and a company CEO paying
| 0-5 percent tax on a $10m income.
|
| This seems unrelated to my question, but is there
| anywhere that this is true? All the examples of this I am
| familiar with in the US involve ignoring the fact that
| the CEO is not getting $10m of cash income, otherwise
| they would be paying a lot more tax than someone with
| $100k cash income. Which is stupid and invalidates any
| point trying to be made.
|
| If the argument is that society needs to start collecting
| tax on wealth and forcing sales of assets, then so be it,
| but it should be stated as such.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| "Hence the question of why are countries not changing the
| rules so the large multinational companies cannot achieve
| it."
|
| I don't know. Probably some combination of cronyism,
| status quo bias, and the problem being very difficult to
| solve? Also it wasn't really front of mind in a big way
| in people's day to day political thinking in the US until
| about 5 years ago. "but is there anywhere
| that this is true?"
|
| It was a hypothetical, I was trying to provide a what-if
| analogy. I don't know if it is true or not true in
| itself. "If the argument is that society
| needs to start collecting tax on wealth and forcing sales
| of assets, then so be it, but it should be stated as
| such."
|
| That's some people's argument, but not mine. My only
| observation is that the company tax as it is currently
| implemented is extremely regressive. I'm not against
| regressive tax per se, but it's too regressive in this
| case. If large and small companies paid the same flat
| rate, I'd be pretty happy. How to achieve it, I don't
| know.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| Large companies pay giant amounts of tax when they aren't
| reinvesting all their earnings like Amazon was for
| decades.
|
| Reinvesting earnings is a strategy available to all
| corporations, large and small.
|
| Corporate income tax is not in any way shape or form
| regressive.
|
| Crazily innumerate reporting on taxes paid by big
| corporations leads people to believe straight up false
| things about taxation.
| moomin wrote:
| Think of it like an invasive and experimental medical
| treatment. You know the disease is there, but a lot of
| the changes you could make would damage good tissue as
| well as the bad.
| muh_gradle wrote:
| Agreed. Hopefully we see a growing trend on this.
| jollybean wrote:
| Good ruling, however, I think it's fair that if the app is listed
| in a store, they can require that in-app payments are via the
| store. For downloads from other sources, this doesn't have to be
| a requirement. I don't think G&A should be obligated to showcase
| products for which they don't receive the revenue as vendors
| would simply shift the payment inside the app.
|
| A bigger ruling would be to require Apple to allow downloads from
| other sources, a feature which exists on Android. I don't think
| the security argument really holds, moreover, people should be
| able to have the choice.
| bloppe wrote:
| This is going in the wrong direction. Government shouldn't be
| imposing regulations on monopolistic app stores when competition
| can naturally break the monopolies and bring them in line with
| developer and consumer needs. Let there be multiple app stores,
| charging developers competitive fees and implementing competitive
| security and convenience features. Don't let the platform favor
| any particular app store, or raise barriers to app mobility
| between stores. See how long 30% fees and hostile policies last
| when any developer can just upload their apps to another store
| with minimal modifications, and any consumer can easily use that
| store.
| threeseed wrote:
| > See how long 30% fees and hostile policies last
|
| And then see how the ecosystem degrades to the lowest common
| denominator and we re-enter the Windows 95 era.
|
| Race to build malware apps, virus and malware checker apps to
| prevent the malware etc.
| 10000truths wrote:
| That lowest common denominator _already_ exists in official
| app stores. There are huge swathes of garbage apps that try
| to scam you with expensive subscriptions /MTX, use shady ad
| networks that push more garbage apps on you, ask for every
| permission under the sun for no other reason than to collect
| data on you, etc.
| StreamBright wrote:
| This has to happen in the EU too.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Awesome, now let's see the U.S. pass a similar law please.
| 57844743385 wrote:
| The breaking of control of these companies has to go much
| further.
|
| Businesses build on the platform and can be killed in an instant
| by some arbitrary automated decision to kick the developer off
| the platform with no recourse.
|
| That's completely unacceptable.
|
| Also, they must be made to pay tax. Why do you and I pay for
| military education, government services education etc but they
| pay zero?
|
| These big companies are thief kingdoms and parasites on society.
|
| Apple and google have had it good for too long. Something must be
| done.
| JoshTko wrote:
| Unsurprising that this is happening in South Korea first as there
| is a clear beneficiary that has strong government ties.
| mromanuk wrote:
| It's only bad if this benefits Samsung, opening an App Store
| with high fees. Competition should lower Payment fees, now it's
| a cartel or duopoly.
| [deleted]
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| They could make up for that 3% with elevated fees from korean app
| publishers and consumers. Then pretend law doesn't exist and
| simply count that as operating cost in Korea?
| [deleted]
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Very good.
|
| South Korea is maybe less corrupt than most EU countries after
| all...
| fleaaaa wrote:
| Given the history of payment process in SK, I doubt it.. it's
| just other side of messed up system, likely worse. But this is
| definitely a step up I guess.
| [deleted]
| andai wrote:
| Maybe, or perhaps the government was "persuaded" by Korean
| payment companies? Still, sounds like a net win.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Yes, Samsung or some other giant probably played a role
| there.
|
| But this is long overdue, Apple and Google should have never
| been allowed to take that much power in the first place.
| xmly wrote:
| Apply pay and Google Pay are both handy. I like using Apple Pay
| now instead of typing credit card number.
| tpae wrote:
| This is a bit hypocritical from the South Korean government. If
| you worked in IT in South Korea, you would know their payment
| systems are complete garbage. They won't let you integrate with
| anything else, and consumers have to use Internet Explorer with
| ActiveX to be able to make any purchases
| stale2002 wrote:
| So, everything else that has happened up to now, could be
| described as minor losses, for Apple and Google.
|
| This is not such a case though. This is a major loss for them.
|
| For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting on
| this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on, and
| were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this
| fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think that.
|
| Because, the writing has been on the wall, for quite a while now,
| for their iron grip on their app store payments.
|
| If it wasn't going to be the epic lawsuit, it was going to be a
| different lawsuit in the US, or another country. Or if all that
| didn't work, it was going to be laws such as this, that blow the
| doors wide open, and spell doom for these closed systems.
| square_usual wrote:
| > For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting
| on this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on,
| and were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this
| fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think
| that.
|
| To the extent that I've seen this point on HN, it has always
| been in the context that there is no law in the _US_ which
| prohibits what Apple or Google are doing, and hence it would be
| difficult for regulators to win _without_ new laws or rules in
| place. I 'm not American, so I can't say whether those people
| were right or not, but I think it would've been pretty
| ridiculous if anyone said there would never be laws against it.
| misnome wrote:
| > For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting
| on this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on,
| and were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this
| fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think
| that.
|
| Or perhaps you need to go re-read the comments? I don't recall
| people writing "Apple and Google are in the right and deserve
| to win" as much as I recall people writing "Apple and Google
| are wrong and deserve to lose" and "30% is unfair os they
| deserve to lose", and people pointing out that the current
| system does have benefits.
|
| I recall people saying that they don't think their behaviour is
| outright illegal, or doesn't qualify as antitrust in the US.
| Obviously regulation supersedes this.
|
| In fact, making regulatory laws to force changes in the way
| they are behaving, implies that it's not illegal now, so seems
| to vindicate the people saying that?
| q-rews wrote:
| I agree but I'm curious about how it will play out in practice.
| Apple charges $99/year just to publish apps on the store and
| then takes 30% of the payments. If forced, will they leave just
| the $99 payment or will they change it to, say, "pay more if
| you want your payment processor" or "you can use your payment
| processor but you still owe us 15%"?
|
| Many platforms require fees to sell on them. eBay for example
| has asked for a percentage for years, even if it did not handle
| payments at all.
|
| Are Apple and Google going to be forced to offer the service
| (the App Store) for free because of their duopoly?
| Vespasian wrote:
| They wouldn't be forced to offer their services for free.
|
| However laws can and do regulate what constitutes a "fair"
| price for a certain service.
|
| In some countries the quasi/effective/total monopoly ISP is
| forced to rent their last mile phone cables to competitors
| for a regulated price.
|
| A similar thing could happen to Apple and Google with a
| government agency deciding what they are allowed to charge
| for their services of providing the app store and the OS.
|
| Or they could be forced to allow competing app stores with
| the same privileges as their own (beyond what is
| "technically" possible on Android).
|
| Either way it looks like they'll loose their iron grip over
| on customers phones (in some countries at least). That's the
| price of effectively monopolizing a market and getting very
| rich doing it.
| techpression wrote:
| I will assume this will end up just how banking regulation ends
| up, the banks makes the same amount of money (or more) and the
| loss from regulation is made up somewhere else (higher fees,
| worse interest rates, etc).
|
| Pay-per-download seems to be a very likely future for apps using
| external payment systems, free or not (which is only fair, you
| are after all leeching off the App stores in that scenario),
| charged by Apple/Google to the developer.
| munhitsu wrote:
| In other words South Korea is asking for 3% digital tax. This
| seems actually pretty low.
| ewg4345h43 wrote:
| Great news! Every country should do the same! and each OS should
| also allow external app stores.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| In a statement, Google defended its service fees, which it says
| "helps keep Android free,"
|
| Now that is some brass neck, payments keep a service free!
| Newspeak! If you pay me PS500k a year I will work for free. Give
| me PS20k and I'll give you a free car. Unbelievable, well done
| Korea
| Despegar wrote:
| People who believed the propaganda about "charging 30% for
| payment processing" are in for a surprise when they pay Stripe's
| fees but then realize they're still on the hook for
| Apple/Google's commission. It will just be collected in a less
| efficient way.
| 015a wrote:
| I was under the impression that the App Store was a value-
| addition for iPhone customers. Its a reason why people buy
| iPhones, after all! Apple's commission should be covered in
| operating system fees, which of course there are none, because
| its all rolled into the hardware, which of course costs $1400
| with 200% margins.
|
| Well, ok, maybe that's an extreme take. Short of that,
| certainly, developers would possibly pay some kind of annual
| fee to gain publishing access to the store? Maybe a setup like
| this could work? Wait, (puts finger to ear) I'm getting some
| new information, it turns out... they already do this?
|
| Yes, as changes like this roll out in more countries,
| inevitably, their ability to collect commissions will get
| "weird". Its their own damn fault! Apple and Google were the
| ones who picked a rotten, cursed way to collect revenue.
| They'll need to figure it out; its their lunch.
|
| How long has apt, snap, npm, whatever, ran with zero revenue?
| Epic and Microsoft run stores at, what, 12%? Don't start with
| me about how "they're incumbents, they have to price lower";
| yeah, they're pricing nearer to cost instead of using their
| monopoly market power to justify arbitrarily higher prices!
| Application distribution is not that hard. Its not that
| expensive. Its a fucking GET request on an object that can be
| easily CDN'd, with some light versioning on top; just think
| about how many package managers Linux has, then tell me Apple
| needs to make a billion bucks a year to justify keeping the ten
| people who maintain it around. Its a value-addition to the OS
| and for your users who paid $1400 for a new phone; not a line
| of business. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell you
| something (and Apple is _definitely_ trying to sell you
| something).
| ptspts wrote:
| A possible outcome of this regulation: all Android and iOS
| payments get disabled in South Korea, paid apps become
| unavailable.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Such a move might embolden lawmakers in jurisdictions already
| considering similar laws.
| tester34 wrote:
| uh, so what?
|
| I struggle to understand acting as if those things were some
| incredibly important stuff just like water, internet,
| computers,
|
| or something that nobody would risk losing e.g via standing to
| fight against its vendor
|
| Maybe losing those will result in creating new, more open and
| less vendor locking alternatives
| dtech wrote:
| I don't think that's likely. It would be a suicidal PR move.
|
| If _anything_ is going to shake up law enforcement and
| regulators it 's these megacorps holding things hostage because
| they don't want to comply.
| krageon wrote:
| Any action may have a hundred different potential results.
| Simply calling out one of them (devoid of _any_ context, I
| might add) is not useful conversation.
| realusername wrote:
| That would be complete suicide by Apple & Google though...
| akmarinov wrote:
| How so? They'll lose just the SK market, that's not even in
| the top 5 of markets for them.
| realusername wrote:
| That would trigger a wave of countries who would like to
| imitate that by creating local competitors. If they fail so
| badly in korea, every country will want to replicate that.
| amelius wrote:
| Another possible outcome: apps with external payment methods
| will end up at the bottom of the search rankings.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Or, a bold red message in the AppStore description saying
| "WARNING: This app accepts payment through a scary, untrusted
| payment system! You're likely going to be scammed! Are you
| sure you want to download this potentially fraudulent app?"
| swiley wrote:
| It's not about the fees, it's about Apple dictating what people
| do with the phones after they're sold.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Unless I misread the article, it doesn't seem to break the
| monopoly on app stores, just on payments. I actually asked the
| question on another thread if anyone knows.
| pcr910303 wrote:
| It's not usual for news on my country to be on top of HN. Very
| unexpected.
|
| I'm guessing though that the South Korean market is be
| significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out it's
| business from South Korea and call it a day. I guess this is, in
| some kind, a victory against the huge companies.
|
| But... personally I do find sad that this would be detrimental to
| South Korean app UX. Stripe isn't a thing here, and most of the
| home-grown web-based payment systems have... like super shitty UX
| that require (on the desktop) native plugins running a server on
| some bespoke port. It did come a long way since from when we were
| the country that required IE6 for web banking, but the UX is
| still not really there.
|
| I'm hoping that Apple will provide APIs for showing payment
| screens and Apple will still control the ability to show all
| subscriptions, cancel them in one single place, etc... but I
| don't think Apple will ever do that. Unfortunate...
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Apple Pay is already available as an API, you can even use it
| on the web.
|
| Indeed would be nice to centralize all subscriptions, we have
| yet to see how they would interface with 3rd party payment
| options. But on the whole this should be a win - if anything,
| those competitors will have a strong incentive to improve their
| UX.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > home-grown web-based payment systems have... like super
| shitty UX
|
| They now have a reason to make it better, since they can now
| actually compete with Apple Pay and Google Pay.
| rkangel wrote:
| > I'm guessing though that the South Korean market is be
| significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out
| it's business from South Korea and call it a day.
|
| I think that's right. The next step would be for a large enough
| market to have a similar law, and then they'll just have that
| as their policy globally. That probably means EU or US.
| PontifexMinimus wrote:
| > That probably means EU or US.
|
| Or the UK, which has a larger economy than South Korea.
| Although going after big tech is not, as far as I know, on
| the radar of the UK government.
| truth_ wrote:
| Could things change if the Tories were to lose power?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Traction brings improvement over time. SV companies enjoy
| enormous first mover advantage and megaphone that pushes their
| products to the masses early to capture them, and then iterate
| on UX.
| [deleted]
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out
| it's business from South Korea and call it a day."
|
| I always found this line of argument disingenious and
| disturbing.
|
| Disingenious because it doesn't happen historically, so it
| sounds like a tired threat
|
| Disturbing - are we saying we would rather kneecap our
| democratic institutions, right or wrong, than live without
| iPhones?
|
| We'd die to defend our lands and laws from demands of foreign
| governments, but fold to demands of foreign megacorps?
| threeseed wrote:
| Companies pull out of countries all the time when changes in
| the socio, political, economic and most importantly regularly
| environment make their business untenable.
|
| Case in point: China or post-Brexit UK.
|
| You use this hyperbolic rhetoric to describe the situation
| but it really is an every day occurence.
| yuan_foundi wrote:
| so right!!
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Hopefully this starts a domino effect in other countries passing
| the same law.
|
| We have Epic to thank for this!
| joecool1029 wrote:
| >We have Epic to thank for this!
|
| More like the Republic of Samsung and Samsung Pay.
| wdb wrote:
| I am fine with them allowing other payment systems. As long its
| not OR OR so if apps start to avoid using the built-in payment
| solution of Apple and Google then I see it as a negative.
|
| I can't think of needing to use like Paypal to pay for in-app
| purchases or something for app X and use stripe for app Y and use
| iDEAL for app Z. In those cases its better to avoid the app and
| that's even ignoring app developers getting your payment details.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Are you ready to pay 30% premium for using Apple payment
| system?
| wdb wrote:
| Well, if it makes it easy to cancel a subscription or get a
| refund. Sure. And yes, if I don't need to use Paypal I am
| happy to pay a 15-30% premium.
|
| I am worried that using other payment systems make it much
| harder to achieve that.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Last time I checked, Paypal has dedicated page to all your
| subscriptions where you can just cancel them.
| wdb wrote:
| It's a horrible company that without reason keeps your
| money hostage. I still struggling to get my money back
| because you can't talk to a human
| mrweasel wrote:
| At this point: Yes, but only because I cannot imagine the
| alternatives being anything but worse.
|
| That's not to say that I don't think it would be interesting,
| and maybe it will be better in the long run. Personally I
| believe it will result in massive amounts of fraud.
|
| Multiple app stores are also going to be terrible, either for
| the developers or for the customers. Either you'll need five
| different app stores installed, because Facebook, EPIC,
| Google, Microsoft and others will be wanting their own store.
| Or developers need to push their apps to every bloody app
| store on the planet so they can reach all potential
| customers. So now you need to pay multiple developer fees to
| be in the different stores.
|
| Yes, 30% is a ripoff. Not allowing to charge for upgrades is
| developer hostile. The App Store is a mess of low budget apps
| and nonsense subscriptions, because Apple created a "race to
| the buttom" environment where developers can't actual make
| money. I'd rather see Apple fix their store, then governments
| forcing Apple to implement solutions that will even worse.
| musesum wrote:
| Would love to offer NFTs of works that are both authored and
| offered on iOS/Android. Would this be a first step? I don't know
| how to do it otherwise.
| janmo wrote:
| 2 things that surprise me: - Why did it take so long? This is
| clearly an abuse of monopoly power - The App Store is Apple's
| biggest cash cow, yet despite Apple losing it's ability to charge
| its 30% racketeering tax their stock is at an ATH.
| mikehearn wrote:
| I have a question about monopolies and market abuses.
|
| Apple released their phone in 2007, the App Store in 2008, and
| in-app payments in 2009. During that time their marketshare was
| fairly small, and it didn't start to really grow until they
| expanded availability to the Verizon network in 2011.
|
| Right at launch of the App Store, Apple announced its sales
| commission would be 30%. Then they extended that same fee to in-
| app purchases a year later. At the same time they set the rules
| that third-party app stores were not allowed, and that third-
| party payment processors could not be used.
|
| I'm mentioning all of this history to make this point: Apple made
| these rules when they were not a monopoly by any definition. They
| released these products, with these rules, into a free market and
| let the market (both users and developers) decide which products
| to use and which products to develop for.
|
| Now, obviously, between 2007 and 2021 the iPhone has been a wild
| success. Its platform has grown in users and developers every
| year.
|
| So in terms of the framing of "market abuse", at what point
| between the launch of these rules and now did Apple cross that
| threshold between free-market competitor who can legally control
| their own platform to monopolist abusing its power?
|
| I'm asking this question not just to make a point, but because I
| think it will be instructive for future companies to understand
| where in the growth curve the rules they started with can
| potentially cross over into being "abusive".
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| > I'm mentioning all of this history to make this point: Apple
| made these rules when they were not a monopoly by any
| definition.
|
| They are a monopoly for getting your app on ios phones and in
| front of ios users.
|
| This is why bundling is part of anti-trust law.
|
| Bundling their app store as the _only_ way to install
| applications on ios devices should have been stopped years ago.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| There are two issues at play here.
|
| First, with regards to the App store or Music store, Apple is
| the Market maker. It controls who gets to sell Apps on their
| market similar to how NASDAQ or the NY Stock Exchange controls
| which stocks are listed. Korea is saying Apple you already
| control the market, but you shouldn't dictate the payment
| systems too. I expect Apple will start raising the fees it
| charges to list Apps on their App store.
|
| Second, this article is about South Korea. South Korea doesn't
| care about the historical context of the US. Korea is saying if
| the Apple App store want access to South Korean customers, you
| must play by our rules. This is not unlike the European Union
| saying if you want to store data about EU citizens, then you
| must comply with GDPR.
|
| For the past few decades, we had assumed there was a monolithic
| global market for software apps. We are seeing now the
| fragmentation of the internet and the software market as
| countries assert their power over big tech.
| bostik wrote:
| 30% was highway robbery from the start. Pure and simple.
|
| It was merely a _less awful deal_ than most other indie
| commission models, with sites like Kongregate and their ilk
| demanding >80%. Against that kind of flaying and skinning, 30%
| was an improvement!
|
| I've said it before. A very good agent, who actually works for
| their client and arranges them with repeat lucrative contracts,
| gets 15%. App stores, as gatekeepers to their walled gardens,
| extort twice that.
|
| Btw - if they want to get into recurring payment scene, let
| them compete with payment processor fee structures. For the
| privilege of arranging trusted, mostly secured payments and
| handling the back office accounting, 3% should be a damn good
| ceiling. The payment industry is making money hand over fist
| with that kind of cut.
| simonh wrote:
| >30% was highway robbery from the start.
|
| That was not at all obvious to anyone in 2008. It's a pretty
| typical margin from the console industry, which was the main
| point of reference at the time. Apple spent several billion
| building the App Store infrastructure, the SDK and setting up
| the review and payments system and it took years for App
| Store revenue to catch up with the sunk investment and
| expenses. Also practically everyone in the industry at the
| time was saying Microsoft and Google would imminently wipe
| Apple out of the mobile market.
|
| This is a tough one, I think 30% made perfect sense in 2008
| but does seem steep now. Apple makes huge profits on the App
| Store, but it mostly seems to have happened by accident,
| their original strategy seems to have genuinely been to just
| break even and maybe make a modest margin, with the store
| mainly just being a competitive advantage. The huge success
| and profits have been a windfall.
|
| However that all happened and we are where we are. I don't
| object to Apple's app store margins or IAP charges, it's
| their product, their rules.
|
| I do think banning developers from informing users of how to
| get subscriptions and such outside the store is foolish.
| That's clear overreach. I see why they do it, otherwise
| subscription services can cut Apple out and free-ride, but
| they probably just have to take the hit.
| grapist420 wrote:
| nooo aha don't take away our profit margins haha it was an
| accident we promise haha
| bostik wrote:
| > _It 's a pretty typical margin from the console industry,
| which was the main point of reference at the time._
|
| It may have been the closest equivalent but it doesn't make
| it any less extortionate.
|
| If your neighbour's wife only ever goes out wearing
| sunglasses to hide her two black eyes, it doesn't give you
| the right to start beating yours. Even if it is less awful
| than what the human trafficker living down the road does.
| simonh wrote:
| I just don't even.
| mattl wrote:
| 30% was the iTunes deal for apps. On iTunes songs were all 99
| cents and Apple got 30 cents.
| jandrese wrote:
| > Apple made these rules when they were not a monopoly by any
| definition
|
| Didn't Apple have the only app store for iOS devices at that
| point? For that matter the competing app stores of the time
| (for Symbian devices) were dreadful and all of them are long
| gone.
| tsycho wrote:
| You can do all sorts of "monopolistic abuse" on your platform
| as long as it is small and inconsequential. No one cares, even
| if it was illegal, though it mostly is not.
|
| But the rules and scrutiny changes once you become large enough
| to be "considered" a monopoly i.e. once your decisions and
| policies start affecting a significant portion of the
| market/ecosystem, then your policies are going to be subject to
| new regulation.
|
| Google supporting side loading from the very beginning was a
| smart idea, even if its too complex and scary for the majority
| of Android users. They should have done the same for payments.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Ask yourself - is there a difference between a small company
| acquiring another competitor and a large monopoly acquiring a
| competitor? They're both acquisitions. Same event at two
| different market conditions attract two different reactions by
| regulators.
|
| To answer your question - when developing for Apple went from
| being a choice to a necessity to run your business.
| yyyk wrote:
| >So in terms of the framing of "market abuse", at what point
| between the launch of these rules and now did Apple cross that
| threshold between free-market competitor who can legally
| control their own platform to monopolist abusing its power?
|
| When Apple launched Apple Pay (in 2014, not that long ago), its
| App Store rules turned from dubious to outright market abuse by
| using one market where it had a strong position to infiltrate
| another very different market of payment processing (there are
| other issues, but this story is about payment processors).
|
| By the way, 'monopoly' has little to do with it. It's about
| market power, monopoly is an nigh irrelevant term to the issue.
| criddell wrote:
| There's no definable line that Apple crossed. It's a long, slow
| transition.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Didn't they become a monopoly when they stopped allowing other
| app stores. From that point they were a monopoly on iPhone. But
| being a monopoly is not enough to warrant action, it's abusing
| the monopoly position that is market abuse, i would have
| thought?
| tshaddox wrote:
| When did they ever allow other app stores?
| yholio wrote:
| You are framing this as if there is a magical "growth curve"
| that must take you from an inovative startup to a 800 pound
| gorilla that has a complete chokehold over the market.
|
| No, if regulators do their job, nobody gets to ask that
| question because there is continuous competition. Getting to
| that monopoly or oligopoly requires sustained effort from would
| be monopolists, it's a strategy they have been executing for
| more than a decade. And if you do that, you must expect there
| is a moment where society says: ok, it's time to regulate it
| and not let company X extract economic rent solely based on
| market dominance.
| simonh wrote:
| Not at all, there was nothing inevitable about Apple's
| success, many analysts, pundits and their competitors have
| been adamant Apple would fail for the first decade or so of
| the iPhone. After that these claims started looking a bit
| thin.
|
| You're presuming that market abuse has occurred and that
| market abuse is the only way to get popular, but I don't see
| that's a given. Maybe people simply genuinely like iPhones
| just the way they are, and maybe network effects just
| legitimately lead to the most popular platforms dominating.
|
| Apple don't have a monopoly on the phone market anyway, they
| only have 27% of the South Korean phone market. In the US
| it's 65%, high but not a monopoly, but it only went over 50%
| in 2020.
|
| What changed to make them a market abuser and when did it
| happen, as you allege? That's the question OP is asking.
| kbenson wrote:
| They've expressed anti-competitive behavior from the
| beginning, but it's advanced over time. It's the confluence
| of factors that makes it particularly bad in Apple's case.
| You can't chance the software (OS) on the device. You can't
| run iOS on a different set of hardware. You can't run any
| store but the App Store on iOS. You can't deliver software
| to customers without using the App Store (or jumping
| through hoops for very limited methods of getting it on
| there otherwise). It's not that 30% was ever good or bad,
| but that initially there was no competition, and at every
| step Apple has taken steps to make sure competing is
| extremely hard to do, by tying you to an entire ecosystem.
|
| Android is better in some respects, but is mostly happy to
| not actually compete on a lot of levels because that would
| possibly endanger the 30% industry standard. What we have
| is two extremely large players, so large and so establishes
| and in a market that takes so much money to enter that new
| competitors are at an extreme disadvantage agreeing, even
| if tacitly, that the fees for their stores are not
| something they will compete on.
|
| That's not better than when they agreed they wouldn't hire
| each other's employees (which they were punished for). It
| benefits only themselves at the detriment of everyone else,
| and through market manipulation. If they actually cared to
| compete, we would see competition in store fees.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "What changed to make them a market abuser and when did it
| happen, as you allege? That's the question OP is asking. "
|
| There is no clear line or answer, as the topic is
| incredibly complex.
|
| Electronic devices are not just gadgets anymore, but tools
| to participate in modern life. We never had that situation
| before.
|
| So by traditional meassures like absolute market share,
| apple might not be a monopolist, but because of the massive
| lock in and market dominance (of the luxory segment), with
| all its implications, I surely would say they abuse their
| power since a long time. But I also do not believe in
| regulations as the magic bullet to really solve it, exactly
| because the lines are too blurry.
| fsckboy wrote:
| abuse of monopoly power is a big area, there's no one answer,
| but you're asking good questions. It's not really going to help
| future companies though, because any company in a position to
| think about this problem has the type and quality of attorneys
| who already best know the answers.
|
| In any case, though, that's not what's going on with this
| Korean law. Antitrust violations of existing law are generally
| determined by courts and or regulatory agencies, whereas this
| is a new law from a legislature signalling that they want to
| encourage a competitive marketplace in this manner. Of course,
| with lobbying and nationalism, it's quite possible that this
| law was guided by powerful Korean interests or nationalist
| parties who simply want to hobble foreign entities in favor of
| local companies: still not an example of antitrust, except
| possibly in the other direction.
|
| in any case, in the US it's not monopoly that's against the
| law, it's that market power being used to abuse market
| participants or influence prices. And there is no clearcut
| answer, but there are "guidelines", for example if you control
| 70% of a market and your major competitor controls 25%, you
| have a good basis to say that you are not a monopoly. Notice
| that Microsoft invested to prop up Apple when Apple was on the
| ropes in the late 90's. That type of action shows how tricky
| and pernicious these regulations can be, Microsoft gets the
| excuse "we have a major competitor" and also benefits from the
| success of the competitor.
|
| But that's the market share part of the equation. The
| additional aspects are "can it be shown that the price of the
| good is being manipulated upward?" So, Microsoft offering big
| discounts to PC manufacturers to get them to exclusively offer
| MS OSes on their platform: are those discounts abuse of the
| market?
|
| I'm not a particular expert on this, there are many places to
| quibble with what I've said, I'm just trying to offer the
| flavor of what I thought when I read your questions.
|
| Oh, at what point did Apple cross the line? Has Apple even
| crossed the line now? Is not really the question. By the time
| enforcement actions are taken, companies are generally well
| over the line. The real question is "how much can we abuse our
| market power and get away with it before the clamor to regulate
| us gets too strong for politicians to ignore? And what is the
| temperament of the administration in office?"
| guerrilla wrote:
| > So in terms of the framing of "market abuse", at what point
| between the launch of these rules and now did Apple cross that
| threshold between free-market competitor who can legally
| control their own platform to monopolist abusing its power?
|
| I'd presume that would be when they became a monopoly, which
| may be seen as something that comes with new responsibilities.
| "With great [market] power, comes great responsibility" would
| probably make a lot of sense to a lot of people. We wouldn't
| hold tiny entrants to the same standards as those who can set
| prices, sue into dust or buy almost all of the competition.
| sharmin123 wrote:
| 5 Things To Check Before Taking Divorce Decision Or Separate:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/5-things-to-check-before-taking-d...
| mtgx wrote:
| And they would've gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for
| those meddling kids!
|
| Seriously, though, I can't believe both Apple and Google thought
| they'd get away with this. Of course it makes zero sense from a
| consumer point of view to only allow one payment system.
| elisbce wrote:
| As an app developer, I'm shocked that people just don't get it.
|
| The 30% cut of in-app purchase that Apple/Google collected is NOT
| a payment processing fee and has largely nothing to do with
| payment services. It is primarily a way to ensure the app
| developers pay a fair amount of "use tax" on using and benefiting
| from the entire ecosystem, including but not limited to reaching
| billions of users, covering the cost of developing and
| maintaining the ecosystem, tools and cloud services, etc.
|
| It is really no different from paying income taxes to the IRS for
| being a US resident and enjoying all the benefits of living in
| the US. Whether it is fair to collect 30% tax is debatable, but
| the idea is the same, collect a simple tax since it is extremely
| hard to quantify all the obvious and non-obvious benefits that
| are provided by the ecosystem.
|
| Since Apple/Google is not the IRS, they can't audit all your
| app's income sources. If your app gives users a way to pay via
| 3rd party payment services, you can effectively evade that tax.
| And that is already happening with some apps TODAY, some of which
| actually very big (e.g. some Chinese broadcasting apps). Do you
| think this is fair to Apple/Google?
|
| So the issue here is not just about choices. If the government
| allows 3rd-party payment services to be used by the apps, they
| should at the same time provide a feasible solution to audit the
| app income and negotiate a fair amount of use tax to pay the
| ecosystem.
| tristan957 wrote:
| That is not what the 30% is at all. Apple charges its tax as
| the $99/year fee everyone is required to pay to enter the App
| Store. If $99 is not enough, Apple is free to increase it as
| long as alternative app stores are available on iOS to keep
| costs competitive for developers.
|
| Apple isn't worth defending.
| stevespang wrote:
| Step in the right direction which US politicians fail to do,
| since they are all paid off by the usual suspects . . . .
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm wonder what method Apple and Google will use to comply.
| Current GPS location? Market where the phone was sold? Cellular
| carrer? Something else?
| sebyx07 wrote:
| Awesome news, but let's wait and see how this will turn out.
| hosh wrote:
| It makes sense since Samsung has its own payment infrastructure
| (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay). Although those are for
| retail payments for in-person purchases rather than app store
| purchases, I can also see South Korea not wanting to have foreign
| merchants controlling substantial markets, such as an app store.
|
| Those laws probably apply to Samsung as well, if Samsung deploys
| its own app store.
| hosh wrote:
| To put it in perspective for those who havn't been following
| what Samsung has been up to:
|
| - Samsung is a major conglomerate domestic to S Korea. LG is a
| similar congolmerate
|
| - They make consumer appliances and durable goods, similar to
| how General Electric in the US used to (washer, dryer, fridges,
| dish washers, TVs) and are on their way to make them "smart"
| and connected devices
|
| - They compete in the Android phone and smartphone market. LG
| (another S Korean consumer devices conglomerate) had recently
| withdrawn from that market.
|
| - They own their own cloud (Joyent acquisition). However they
| are cutting back on their consumer cloud offering in Mar 2021.
|
| - They own world-class semiconductor fabrication facilities,
| peers of TSCM and Intel. Samsung produces chips, memory for
| themselves and other customers. They also produce milspec,
| secure smartphones for the US military
|
| - They own an AI research team (Viv Labs acquisition, founded
| by the team that created Siri and sold to Apple)
|
| - They have Samsung Pay
|
| In other words, Samsung has its own flywheel going and controls
| a national stategic assets (semiconductor fabs). Maybe South
| Korean law is intended to open the market more, but I think
| this move is as much motivated as being able to project
| economic power through Samsung as anything.
| formvoltron wrote:
| We devs need to somehow contact the Korean authorities to thank
| them for this & to let them know that Apple's statement about
| "fewer opportunities for devs" is pure nonsense.
| [deleted]
| Hamuko wrote:
| How long do we have to wait for all those disaster scenarios
| Apple and Google have been promising us to become true? I want to
| mark a date on my calendar.
| simondotau wrote:
| At a glance, this law doesn't necessarily trigger any of the
| disaster scenarios. This doesn't mandate any changes to the
| security model and Apple could still adjust their terms to
| require a revenue share even if they aren't the ones executing
| the transaction--as a license fee for use of their software
| libraries.
| illuminated wrote:
| I wonder if this would lead to an increased number of company
| formations in S. Korea. My first impulsive reaction was to search
| about their local formation and tax laws.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I imagine that this would only apply to users in South Korea.
| illuminated wrote:
| The text mentions developers, not just users... I assume (by
| understanding the published text) they'd (Korean officials)
| want to target any users of apps published by Korean
| developers, no matter the location.
| simondotau wrote:
| Korean law cannot reach into sales performed in another
| country--at least not without some fairly tenuous moves.
|
| Apple's phone market share in South Korea is a moderately
| healthy 22% given the presence of strong domestic and
| regional brands, but I've no doubt Apple would sooner give
| up on South Korea altogether than have a weird law tying
| their hands globally.
| zaarn wrote:
| They can't but the korean developer has a relationship
| with Google or Apple that the government can reach.
|
| If Google forbade a korean dev from making an
| international app with external payment provider, then SK
| could very much punish Google SK for it. Doesn't matter
| if the target users are in Europe. Read the GDPR, same
| principle.
| minhazm wrote:
| > Doesn't matter if the target users are in Europe. Read
| the GDPR, same principle.
|
| Actually this is not true. It only applies to companies
| that are providing services to people physically in the
| EU. If you're an EU citizen but you're in America, it
| does not apply.
|
| > When the regulation does not apply. Your company is
| service provider based outside the EU. It provides
| services to customers outside the EU. Its clients can use
| its services when they travel to other countries,
| including within the EU. Provided your company doesn't
| specifically target its services at individuals in the
| EU, it is not subject to the rules of the GDPR.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-
| protection/refo...
|
| https://www.dyspatch.io/blog/gdpr-location-or-
| citizenship/
| cm2187 wrote:
| Does it merely prevent monopoly on the payment or does Apple
| still have full discretion on who is allowed to make an app
| available to your smartphone?
| superasn wrote:
| I hope India too follows suit.
|
| Our government is notorious for it's heavy handed laws on tech
| startups (read twitter, paypal, chinese apps, etc) maybe this
| time it could be actually be for some good.
| truth_ wrote:
| Unlikely. Indian market is the furthest thing possible from a
| free market.
|
| With Google's immense investments in Jio, the company of
| Ambani, it is very unlikely. Ambani is in entente with Modi,
| the Prime Minister.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Please, next time do not forget about the requirements to allow
| other marketplaces and push notification sources.
| speg wrote:
| I really hope they implement this somehow that allows the same
| processes to exist.
|
| e.g., manage all subscriptions from one location, cancel
| subscriptions without losing time remaining (hello Creative
| Cloud!), and the entire parental control process.
| wilde wrote:
| Managing all subscriptions from one location is great, but
| Apple already exempts themselves from cancelling subscriptions
| without losing time remaining. I expect most of these to go
| away as processors compete for app business.
| djrogers wrote:
| > Apple already exempts themselves from cancelling
| subscriptions without losing time remaining.
|
| That hasn't been my experience - do you have a cite for that?
| wilde wrote:
| Ah, it looks like it only applied to the free trial of
| Apple Arcade. https://ios.gadgethacks.com/news/psa-dont-
| cancel-your-apple-...
| speg wrote:
| I just checked my Music and Fitness+ subscriptions and they
| both say "If you cancel now, you can still access your
| subscription until X."
| [deleted]
| dontblink wrote:
| Would allowing for more App Stores fix this problem? It would
| allow developers to simply withhold their apps from, say, Apple's
| in favor of a one that has lower fees.
| jjcon wrote:
| I tend to agree, my current thinking is let gapple run the
| store however they want but make them allow for other app
| stores (that have first party access). Additionally prevent
| them from anticompetitive practices to disrupt the formation of
| other app ecosystems.
| 404mm wrote:
| Unpopular opinion: I like it the way it is now, from end user's
| perspective. I don't want to share my payment info with apps. I
| like all being in one place and handled by Apple. I'd be even ok
| eating up the difference, if it meant it stays the same.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| You'll always have that option available.
|
| End users won't lose anything in the worst case.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| As a consumer, I'm pretty sad about this. I don't miss the days
| of having to go through 5 different user flows to cancel 5
| different subscriptions. With iTunes, all of my purchases and
| subscriptions are in once place. Losing that sucks.
| passivate wrote:
| I would think that the management of purchases and
| subscriptions can support multiple payment methods, no? Like
| VISA/PayPal/Apple Pay/etc?
|
| I can't imagine it would be difficult for Apple to implement
| this for their stores. Maybe someone who works in this field
| can chime in..
| summerlight wrote:
| Apple can still keep it by lowering the fee to a more
| reasonable level (like 10%) and convincing app developers that
| the cost is worth paying for. I'm pretty sure they will do if
| the UX is a priority over instant revenue. Not sure if this
| reflects the reality though.
| leshenka wrote:
| I don't think you'll lose this. It will be like "sign in with
| aplle" -- you will be able to use different purchase
| algorithms, or apple pay.
| xondono wrote:
| Except that there's an incentive to force users into using
| other services.
|
| If the choice is left to developers, each developer will
| choose what suits him best.
| androceium wrote:
| What's the difference between that and the current
| situation (forced to used Apple's payment system)?
|
| Isn't Apple just forcing everyone to use what suits them
| best?
| progbits wrote:
| Well, if apple wants to make the experience nicer for their
| users they can lower the cut which they take.
|
| It doesn't even need to be the same or lower than competition.
| Since there are so many apps already integrated (and even in
| future their API might be easier or more likely to be used by
| app users) and nobody wants to go through the friction of
| adding new ones they can still be slightly more expensive and
| retain majority of the market share.
|
| But if they won't then I guess you will know it never really
| was about protecting the user or whatever, just a cash grab
| from walled garden.
| yyyk wrote:
| There's nothing stopping Apple from still managing
| subscriptions. The difference is an extra call to the payment
| processor, either done by the vendor or Apple.
| josephd79 wrote:
| And.. How does this effect me in the United States?
| akmarinov wrote:
| Well, A) not everything has to "effect" you, you're not the
| center of Earth.
|
| B) switch your region to South Korea and bam - multiple
| AppStores while in the US
| MDWolinski wrote:
| I'm wondering how this will eventually play out if most companies
| start requiring Apple/Google to allow third-party apps to use
| their own payment system.
|
| The commission fee that Apple charges, 30% is partially to cover
| operating/marketing etc. Obviously, Apple makes a good profit off
| the App Store these days, even though Jobs said he'd be happy if
| it was break even at best.
|
| Here's an analogy I've been thinking on about this whole thing.
| The iPhone (or whatever phone you want) is the equivalent of a
| Walmart store. If you want your product to be sold in Walmart,
| you have to send it to their distribution center (ie App Store)
| and Walmart will handle sending that product out, etc. Walmart
| will handle the credit card transactions, etc and pay you the
| negotiated rate for your product (Yes, odds are Walmart buys your
| product first, then sells it, but with credit lines, etc it's
| almost the same thing).
|
| Does Walmart allow you to go in, put your product in the store
| and sit there with a square device and sell your stuff? Amazon is
| more analogous of physical to app in the sense that Amazon is the
| transaction point but may or may not actually maintain control of
| the product.
|
| So what's the end game? I suspect if Apple/Google has to allow
| developers to collect their own fees, Apple will start charging
| paid apps to be in the App store.
|
| They will continue to allow free apps to be shown, but if you
| want to charge for your App either one time or subscription,
| you'll have to pay an upfront fee to be listed.
|
| And that charge may depend on the number of downloads.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I don't have to go into a Walmart if I want to shop.
| ToruiDev wrote:
| But at least for apple you already pay a 100$/year fee for them
| to distribute your apps.
| MDWolinski wrote:
| I'm sure Apple will say that fee is to help pay for the
| development of the developer tools.
| giyokun wrote:
| Because Apple doesn't need those tools internally to
| develop their OS and apps?
| sumedh wrote:
| > If you want your product to be sold in Walmart
|
| No one is forcing you to go through Walmart. The problem with
| IOS is that you are forced to go through Apple. A user cannot
| pay, download and install the app directly from a developers
| website.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Nobody is forcing you to sell to iOS, though.
| belorn wrote:
| We can go up the whole chain and in the end the root
| platform are nations. If you want access to citizens in a
| country you got to go through that nations laws, and nobody
| is forcing apple to sell iOS in Korea.
| sumedh wrote:
| That argument does not work when there are only two service
| providers in town, Apple and Google.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| It works _precisely_ because there is an alternative with
| less onerous rules. It works even better because the
| alternative provider is BY FAR the larger player.
|
| Apple is a minority player in mobile.
| ballenf wrote:
| Walt Disney looked at Disneyworld/land as ideally break even.
| Sad how they both lost the battle for vision to the
| accountants. Disney parks now feels like a nightmare game with
| IAP at every turn. You grind through ride lines or can pay to
| skip them. Food, toys, etc that you see everyone else enjoying
| and feel a nearly irresistible pull to buy.
| IsoldesKnight wrote:
| > The iPhone (or whatever phone you want) is the equivalent of
| a Walmart store.
|
| The major difference here is that while I don't own the Walmart
| store, I do own my phone. What is allowed to be sold in the
| store is determined by Walmart, just as what's installed on my
| phone should be determined by me, the owner.
| MDWolinski wrote:
| Ownership is a valid point. I'm not arguing either course,
| I'd like to see the ability to be able to install Apps myself
| just as I do on a Mac or PC mostly because I'm tired of the
| forced puritism of companies these days.
| WA wrote:
| > The commission fee that Apple charges, 30% is partially to
| cover operating/marketing etc.
|
| Then by all means, please charge me separately for these
| things. Because I don't need them. Apple doesn't do marketing
| for me, never promoted my app. People find my app through my
| own marketing channels.
|
| Charge me roughly 2 % for In App Purchases just like Stripe and
| PayPal.
|
| Charge me a traffic fee for whatever download traffic I cause.
| This way, I at least benefit from my app being only like 5 MB
| in size.
|
| If I want to be featured on the App Store, charge me.
|
| The rest like App Store listing? Covered by my $100 developer
| fee.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Charge me roughly 2 % for In App Purchases just like Stripe
| and PayPal.
|
| This is so disingenuous and I'm so tired of seeing Apple's
| fee pegged at 30% (even though it 15% for the VAST majority
| of developers) and then turn around and pretend Stripe/PP
| offer anything close to 2%.
|
| Paypal is 3.5% + $0.49
|
| Stripe is 2.9% + $0.30
|
| At low price points (you know, the price points that almost
| all IAP/Paid App are at save for longer, like annual,
| subscriptions) your fee is still substantial.
|
| If you are lucky Apple will create a special provision for
| 3rd party payment providers that will provide
| subscription/cancellation/refund/etc infrastructure. If they
| don't do that then you can expect the above rates to be even
| higher. 2% is only obtainable with a more bare-bones payment
| processor so you will have to build quite a bit up and any
| company providing full "app payment services" is going to
| charge more than Stripe/PayPal. Heck, even the prices I
| listed for Stripe are the lowest they go (unless you are
| doing over 1.5M annually and qualify for bulk/volume pricing)
| and if you want things like fraud protection that's extra. Oh
| you want to calculate tax? Extra .5%. Fraud protections? $.05
| or $.07/per transaction extra. Chargeback protection? Extra
| .4%, and the list goes on.
| WA wrote:
| - 15% is a rather new development. Most devs paid 30% for
| many years. I paid 30% for over 10 years.
|
| - Stripe is cheaper in the EU for EU cards. 1.4% plus
| EUR0.25
|
| - Apple didn't even notify me about individual refunds for
| what? 10 years? And it's still unreliable and annoying so
| that I don't even bother, because I get like 3 refunds per
| month. You could actually get a refund and still keep the
| app for a long time.
|
| - People complain to me if they want a refund, but Apple
| gives me no control. I have to redirect them to Apple
| customer support. I am perceived as the bad person and this
| costs me money in terms of customer support and I can't
| even help people, because Apple wants to own the
| relationship between app devs and customers.
|
| There are so many silly things about the App Store that
| your quotation of 15% as a generous service is laughable.
|
| Edit: but yes, Stripe and PayPal are more than 2% in
| reality, but far from 15% or even 30%, except for micro
| transactions.
| jamil7 wrote:
| > Then by all means, please charge me separately for these
| things. Because I don't need them. Apple doesn't do marketing
| for me, never promoted my app. People find my app through my
| own marketing channels.
|
| This, maybe it was different in the early days but they do
| literally nothing to help you market your app until you've
| already driven enough traffic to it yourself for them to take
| notice.
|
| If you do get featured you get an email indicating that you
| _might_ get featured and need to design and submit app store
| banner artwork with a whole list of things that you 're not
| allowed to display.
| the_solenoid wrote:
| All of these policies coming about are for the benefit of already
| monied interests and do not help small devs, or consumers.
|
| I also take huge umbrage that the framing of this is just as
| horrible as the framing of paying taxes in the US.
|
| People think, wrongly, that they make $100k, and have to pay 35%
| of that to the gov.
|
| Wrong. You always only made $65k. There are studies that show
| wages have always tracked with taxes (up to a point).
|
| Think of it this way - if your taxes went up to 75%, would you
| still work for 100k? No. Your take home would track in a few
| years (or sooner) to bring you back up to taking home 65k.
|
| ---
|
| So I am nexflix, I charge 9.99 and pay whatever entity processes
| my payments like 1-2% if even. There is some other costs to this
| - infrastructure and employees, probably a bunch more.
|
| Apple comes in and says "we build, and maintain a platform, that
| costs us x amount to maintain, and we sell 100's of millions of
| devices that utilize this platform, and provide fairly long-term
| support for those devices. We want you, if you want access to
| this platform, to pay y% of revenue derived from using this
| platform. We will call this the apple tax.
|
| Is this fair? If you think taxes are theft, you probably think,
| "no". But you are wrong. Taxes are the % of your "output" used to
| keep the commons going. You know roads, bridges, laws, money,
| military, water, clean air, safe food, yadda yadda.
|
| So the apple tax might be high, but it's mostly irrelevant. As a
| small dev, you would never have the reach you can have with the
| app store anywhere else. As a big dev, you look at where you can
| generate more revenue and think "fuck apple, let's start making
| legislation so I can use their platform but make more money
| without paying into it."
|
| These "solutions" are just monied interests wanting more profit.
| This should only be handled in a way that suits the interest of
| consumers but they are not at the table.
| malandrew wrote:
| > Taxes are the % of your "output" used to keep the commons
| going.
|
| The commons includes bombing other countries and waging
| unwinnable wars?
|
| I have no problem paying taxes if they were actually used for
| the commons, but only a fraction are used for the commons. Far
| too much is going to benefit special interest groups such as
| defense contractors, public sector employee benefits and
| pensions that are far above what private sector employees get.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| A related concept in economics is the Laffer curve [1], which
| describes the tax rate that extracts the most money from the
| population. If you tax everyone 1%, you collect very little
| money, and if you tax everyone 99%, very few people will work
| at all.
|
| Interestingly, the sweet spot seems to be in the mid-30s for
| the population in aggregate (which lines up with Apple's fees
| almost exactly), but is someplace around 70% for the highest
| earners. This implies you could jack up the top marginal tax
| rates to > 60%, and while most billionaires may grumble a bit,
| they will not ragequit from the economy.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#Income_tax_rate_a...
| xondono wrote:
| What?
|
| Google and Apple are giving them devs access to something
| _they_ built. That is not a tax.
|
| "Taxation is theft" is a very simple concept. If I don't pay my
| taxes, people with guns come to my house, even if I don't use
| public services. If you don't want to pay Apple or Google, go
| develop for other devices.
| dalbasal wrote:
| The concessions Apple & Google made to "stave off regulation" are
| informative in themselves:
|
| _It also agreed to let developers inform their users about
| payment options outside the App Store, using the email addresses
| that users gave them. Google said that it would only take 15
| percent of developers ' first million dollars instead of 30
| percent._
|
| Combined with "competition for monopoly" elements like paying
| Telcoms not to develop their own app stores or support 3rd party
| ones, the whole thing stinks to high heavens.
|
| Once upon a time, "net neutrality" had wide support, and there
| was understanding that it required constant vigilance. Google,
| ironically, was a big defender of net neutrality... even as they
| established their own dam immediately downstream of ISPs.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Net Neutrality just meant that Google got to shovel YouTube
| streams onto ISP networks without having to pay. Let's not
| pretend there were ever any noble intentions behind it.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| You think it's okay for ISPs to double dip on charging their
| customers for access and then charging their customers' most
| popular services (who are frequently competitors of the ISPs)
| for the privilege of accessing their customers? Why should
| any ISP think they can charge the source of my bits when I am
| already paying them for the bandwidth?
|
| https://www.theversed.com/2754/riot-games-seek-court-
| justice...
|
| Net Neutrality is not just about "shoveling YouTube streams
| without having to pay." In one case, an ISP was deliberately
| dropping packets for a popular online game (which, if you
| didn't know, online games are known for requiring very little
| bandwidth), and extorting the game developer with the loss of
| ISP's customers if they did not pay up.
|
| ISPs are monopoly-abusing extortionists. They deserve every
| bit of ire they receive.
| ysavir wrote:
| I think the post you're responding to is saying that
| _Google 's_ incentives for supporting net neutrality were
| self-serving, not noble. They weren't saying that ISP
| behavior was fine.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Correct.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| What do you mean "without having to pay"? Google pays for its
| connection to the internet, right?
| jaywalk wrote:
| No, in most cases they don't.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Do you have any explanation in addition to @hyperion's
| response?
| jaywalk wrote:
| Nope, he covered it.
| hyperionplays wrote:
| This. Google has amazingly helpful peering bilats with
| most major ISP's globally, they don't have to pay for
| transit nearly as much as the rest of us. they were a
| staunch defender of net neutrality because it let them
| avoid millions of $$ in transit.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Why do Gooogle's peers charge Google less money?
| jaywalk wrote:
| Peering is free by definition.
| kyboren wrote:
| There is no exchange of value between the parties, but
| there is definitely a cost to peering. You need to
| physically get your data to the meet-me room, and that
| isn't free.
| sigjuice wrote:
| how do I get free internet at home using this method ...
| i hate paying comcast every month
| jaywalk wrote:
| Peering is a one-to-one relationship, not "Internet
| access" like you're thinking. If you peered with Comcast,
| for example, you'd only be able to reach Comcast
| customers over that connection. A more "Internet access"
| type of connection would be transit, which is definitely
| not free.
| cletus wrote:
| Good.
|
| I've been saying this awhile, most notably when Apple (of course
| followed by Google) introduced a discount on commission for
| smaller developers.
|
| This is completely backwards.
|
| I know why they did it. They wanted some positive PR that didn't
| cost them anything. Thing is, it's the larger publishers who are
| going to lobby regulators and challenge things in court. It's
| those same publishers who already have their own payment
| processing systems where the 30% is pure overhead (minus the CC
| fees). Small publishers actually get a lot of benefit for that
| 30% (IMHO).
|
| So what Apple/Google should've done is give larger publishers a
| volume discount. Of course this should force them into binding
| arbitration and otherwise challenging the discount should void
| that discount.
|
| Why? Because it changes the calculus for Epic, etc. Currently
| that is:
|
| Option 1: Keep paying 30%
|
| Option 2: Leave the app store
|
| Option 3: Challenge the 30% cut in court
|
| Game theory will tell you that there is essentially no downside
| to (3). Worst case you will be back on the app store at 30% or
| will leave.
|
| But what if the options were:
|
| Option 1: Keep a volume discount and pay 10%
|
| Option 2: Leave
|
| Option 3: Challenge the cut and possibly end up paying 30% or
| leaving
|
| Now they have something to lose.
|
| More importantly, it takes the sting out of efforts to lobby
| regulators because now we're talking about the difference between
| 1-2% (CC fees at volume) and 10% not 30%.
|
| I stand by my position that end users don't actually want
| competing third-party app stores. That's just a usability
| nightmare. But backend payment processing is something else
| entirely and is the likely first step in breaking the
| stranglehold.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| What an incredibly shitty contract to be forced to sign.
|
| Apple overstepped, and they are going to get reeled back.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| There's an entire cottage industry of jailbroken app stores.
| You might argue that those using alternative stores are a
| minority (1-5%), but the act of jailbreaking a phone is quite
| challenging and we still have a lot of people doing it. If
| iPhones were able to run third party stores I think you'd see
| 30 or 40% of users opting in to that.
|
| Is it a usability nightmare? Perhaps. But device makers
| shouldn't make that "choice" for their users. Likewise you
| might not like the fact that your city has small businesses
| instead of a single large warehouse store on the basis of
| convenience and usability. But the public would not agree with
| you and that's why we enact laws against anti-competitive
| behavior.
| elefanten wrote:
| It's way less than 1%
|
| Waay less.
| saagarjha wrote:
| That's because Apple has waged war on these stores for over
| a decade. The fraction used to be much, much higher several
| years ago.
| threeseed wrote:
| They've merely fixed the security holes in iOS that
| allowed these stores to exist.
|
| Unless you're suggesting Apple ignore them which would be
| insane.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Perhaps the iOS security model is incorrect if it only
| allows Apple's store to exist?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| In some third world countries going to a shop to get your
| device jailbroken at least was quite popular.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > Game theory will tell you that there is essentially no
| downside to (3). Worst case you will be back on the app store
| at 30% or will leave.
|
| Worst case is you want to be on the app store at 30% but are
| not allowed back in.
|
| > I stand by my position that end users don't actually want
| competing third-party app stores
|
| I disagree. More stores bring more competition. Both in terms
| of platform costs and in terms of promos for customer
| acquisition.
|
| The epic game store is kind of crap, but their weekly free game
| setup has offered some great content. I haven't given them a
| single dollar and I've gotten a number of titles including
| Control, Enter the Gungeon, Alien Isolation, etc.
|
| I say let them fight
| skrtskrt wrote:
| > Worst case is you want to be on the app store at 30% but
| are not allowed back in
|
| If 30% cut of your revenue is big enough, Apple will let you
| back in even if the two companies apparently just tried to
| murder each other in court.
|
| Money talks.
|
| Companies keep massive clients and vendors that they are
| locked in lawsuits with all the time, just look at Apple and
| Samsung.
| cletus wrote:
| While technically possible I consider that incredibly
| unlikely as a result of what's essentially a contract
| dispute. What would Apple's cause of action be to terminate,
| say, Epic from the App Store entirely?
|
| They sort of tried this at the beginning of the dispute when
| they claimed anything running Unreal Engine was a security
| risk and should be kicked. They overplayed their hand with
| that one and a court blocked it.
|
| Game theory applies to Apple too. What's their upside from
| banning Epic from the App Store? They face the risk that a
| court may take that decision out of their hands. And while
| they're doing it they are losing out on that 30%.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The reason Apple and Google would never offer up a volume
| discount for large publishers without legal action is because
| it's 99% of the app store's revenue. Giving a discount to small
| developers cost them nothing, giving a discount to Epic Games
| and similar would cost them billions.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| Google's Project Hug that was revealed in the Epic trial
| shows that they give discounts under the table. They just
| don't want it to be known publicly.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Project Hug is basically a bribe, rather than a discount:
| It's not offered to everyone. Just developers who are
| likely to strike out on their own. (EA and Activision both
| being companies who have bucked the Steam train before,
| demonstrating a willingness to launch outside of monopoly
| app platforms.)
| cletus wrote:
| I think it's certainly heavily weighted to the big publishers
| but 99%? I'm not so sure.
|
| But you know what's expensive? Private lawsuits, government
| lawsuits, a court or legislature deciding the outcome,
| compliance with legislation, compliance with consent decrees,
| compliance with judgements, etc.
|
| The biggest issue is that third parties will end up deciding
| the outcome. You're almost always better off heading off
| government action by instituting the least bad solution for
| you.
|
| What if the outcome of governent action is completely
| independent third party app stores? Apple and Google
| certainly don't want that. I would argue that neither do end
| users actually. A vocal minority thinks they do but they're
| wrong. That could happen if the wheels of the US or EU
| regulators start turning against you.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > So what Apple/Google should've done is give larger publishers
| a volume discount. Of course this should force them into
| binding arbitration and otherwise challenging the discount
| should void that discount.
|
| Binding arbitration is a uniquely US-legal system thing that is
| not legal elsewhere. (And imo it is better to have a more
| neutral third party than an arbitration private firm that has
| one of the parties as a recurring customer)
| sam0x17 wrote:
| It's also quite possible that if they had just set it at 10%
| from the beginning across the board, there would simply be more
| sales than there are now with 30%. I know a lot of apps make
| users foot the bill for the extra 30%, with different pricing
| if you buy not through apple. This just translates to lost
| sales. The market is the market.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| The tech giants simply flexed their power too hard during the
| last few years and now pretty much every country on earth
| realizes they are a threat to national security in various
| ways. They are getting sued, fined, or punished in almost every
| major country now and they deserve it honestly
| dogleash wrote:
| >I stand by my position that end users don't actually want
| competing third-party app stores.
|
| I have 9 chat apps on my phone. I just counted, and that's
| skipping things like email and basecamp that I might have
| included to inflate the number. It's not ideal, and the
| downsides can be exaggerated for the sake of banter, but
| overall the chat app situation is fine. Similarly, I wouldn't
| mind having more app stores.
|
| I expect there'd be one all the free software hardcores believe
| in, one that fills the role Steam does on PC, another with all
| the "too hot for TV" content that Apple and Google won't touch
| with a 10 foot pole, a few developer-publishers big enough to
| get traction, and dozens of also-rans that nobody uses. Yes,
| slightly more inconvenient like all the chat apps, but in
| reality it'd also be fine.
|
| I don't think it makes sense to say what consumers do and don't
| "want," because largely they don't understand the terrain the
| App Store and Google Play put down. Ask people if they'd like a
| 2nd store that lets them install apps that contain porn without
| putting it behind hidden curtains in otherwise general-purpose
| apps, then we might expect positive responses. Ask people if
| they want an app store that contains more malware because the
| app store monopoly provides a chokepoint to enact user
| protection that on-device sandboxing can't, then we'd expect
| negative responses.
| andjd wrote:
| Just wow.
|
| > Of course this should force them into binding arbitration and
| otherwise challenging the discount should void that discount.
|
| So you want apple and google to act as even more monopolistic
| bullies ...
|
| I see that you're taking this position as what you would do if
| you were Apple or Google, not what is the best course of action
| for all stakeholders. But you then opine that this is justified
| because the status quo is better for consumers.
|
| The thing is, we already know that it's not. Apple and Google
| allow third party payment processors for _some_ of their apps.
| Would it be your best interests as a consumer to pay 40-50%
| more then you currently do for Uber and GrubHub? There's a
| reasonable argument to be made that those businesses simply
| would not be economically viable if they had to pay a 30%
| apple/google tax on every transaction. How many other apps or
| services went under (or were never made in the first instance)
| because Apple decided that their business needed to pay them a
| 30% cut of everything.
|
| Which brings us to another salient point. Apple claims that
| they need to charge their 30% cut to pay for the cost of
| running the app store and for the developer tools they provide.
| But if this is the case, why should Uber and Facebook get to
| use them for free?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| I don't think he's saying that it'd be good _if_ Apple and
| Google did that. He 's saying they _should_ have done that if
| they had had their strategic thinking caps on.
| mc32 wrote:
| That's my take too on what poster is saying.
|
| Yet, it's not out of the ordinary to presume apple and
| google have good strategists among the management ranks...
| so what gives? What do we not know?
| derefr wrote:
| Presumably, that they already do volume
| discounts/sweetheart deals with certain vendors. Apple
| allows Microsoft to publish packages through their App
| Store that install non-sandboxed apps, for example. I'm
| sure they're giving them a discount as well. They're a
| "strategic partner." Epic is not.
| yunohn wrote:
| Which apps does MS do this with? Office is a bundle,
| right?
| sam0x17 wrote:
| The fact that these two things are different is the problem
| with corporate America. The morally correct thing is always
| the better thing for shareholders in the long-run, but
| corporations don't see it that way.
| BeefySwain wrote:
| > The morally correct thing is always the better thing
| for shareholders in the long-run
|
| Are you asserting that this is the case in reality, or
| that we should strive for a society and economic system
| in which this would be true?
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Both. I think that when corporations do exploitative
| things, they are being short-sighted, and will eventually
| suffer in the long run.
|
| And really what I would advocate for is stricter
| regulations so we don't have to rely on the good will of
| corporations in general. Their track record is terrible.
| kernoble wrote:
| The thing is this "long run" is a hypothetical for
| investors and their finite lifetimes and finite windows
| of return.
|
| Companies aren't accountable to some infinitely long
| running algorithm or timeless dynasty of shareholders,
| their accountable to living breathing greedy humans who
| want to make a buck NOW, not when they are dead or for
| their heirs.
| [deleted]
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > How many other apps or services went under (or were never
| made in the first instance) because Apple decided that their
| business needed to pay them a 30% cut of everything.
|
| Probably very few apps fit this. This rule basically only
| applies to digital goods, which are "free" to manufacture.
| There is some fixed server/dev costs, but its practically
| "free" to serve n+1 users.
|
| This applies especially true to games where you buy in-app
| "coins". They're free to the dev, and giving our more / de-
| valuating the currency is a not-issue.
|
| Of course, it probably takes a toll on licence-based apps
| like netflix/spotify and mostly server-heavy apps like Hey
| (by basecamp)
| karatinversion wrote:
| Hmm, I don't think the marginal analysis tells the whole
| story here. If you imagine a business that made revenue
| through sales through an App Store without a 30% tax, with
| a 20% profit margin, that's a healthy business. With the
| 30% cut, they lose 10% and go under.
|
| These missing smaller players are the deadweight loss from
| the cut. You either need the scale to cover your fixed
| costs from a reduced revenue stream, or a revenue stream
| which avoids the 30% (like ads).
| Closi wrote:
| > So what Apple/Google should've done is give larger publishers
| a volume discount.
|
| From Apple/Google's perspective this is a terrible strategy.
|
| The problem is that, if we assume the Pareto Principle holds,
| the larger publishers probably generate 80% of revenue on the
| App Store.
|
| So assuming 5% is operating at cost, you are talking about them
| probably sacrificing 70%-75% of their current profits (i.e.
| moving to 5% margin vs 25%, profit for high-grossing apps is
| probably closer to 1/5th previous rather than 1/3rd).
|
| So they avoid the lawsuit, but they also lose all the profits
| they are trying to protect anyway.
| zrm wrote:
| Not only that, "we charge 10% to the big monster and 30% to
| the little guy" is _terrible_ PR against the amount of money
| they would generate from just the little guy. It 's so bad
| that by that point they might as well just charge the lower
| rate to everybody. Especially when they're trying to stave
| off legislation.
| cletus wrote:
| Paying lower unit price for higher volume customers is
| literally how the entire economy works. People deal with
| this every day. It's why jumbo packs in the supermarket are
| cheaper. It's how Costco exists. It's the one capitalist
| principle almost nobody has a huge problem with.
| Closi wrote:
| > Paying lower unit price for higher volume customers is
| literally how the entire economy works.
|
| That's not how the economy works - it's a very simplified
| view which IMO is incorrect in this instance.
|
| Companies in theory only offer volume discounts when it
| makes commercial sense to do (i.e. 'second degree price
| discrimination'). Price discrimination opportunities
| happen when you believe that you will _sell more_ to a
| customer by changing the price for a particular segment
| / volume target (companies in theory always try to sell
| at the maximum price that the buyer will accept, and
| price discrimination is just strategy to help sell at a
| higher price to certain segments if the market will
| accept it). Companies will also only do deals which are
| profitable (sometimes higher volume deals are profitable
| while lower volume deals aren't, for instance it might be
| practical to sell 1 million cans of beans to a large
| supermarket chain for 20 cents, while it's only practical
| to sell 10 cans of beans for 50 cents each to a smaller
| shop).
|
| In the AppStore in reality this would mean you would need
| to believe that the reduction in fees would encourage
| enough big developers to the platform to offset the
| change in fees (at the moment I'm assuming the
| profitability threshold is met - as Apple is clearly
| already making money on the bigger apps here).
|
| Now in order to pay for the 30% to 10% swap, you would
| need to bring c5 times the number of big developers to
| the platform to offset the reduced margin, which is very
| unlikely to happen, particularly as Apple have the
| dominant platform (i.e. most developers are already
| probably on iOS that are going to be on iOS).
|
| Now if the industry was heavily competitive, and mobile
| developers could leave and go to another platform with
| lower fees and reach the same audience, then the
| competitive pressure would exist to do what you are
| describing and volume discounts may become a thing - but
| because Apple can block any competition in this space
| they don't need to offer any discount to encourage these
| big developers to use their platform - the developers
| _have_ to keep using them (which is what the lawsuit is
| about).
|
| i.e. Apple's market position allows them to act as a
| market-making monopsony, which means it's not in their
| interest to provide a discount as they can exploit the
| situation to generate super-normal profits. Economics &
| business strategy 101.
| ece wrote:
| Steam is doing this 30%-20%, and it seems to be working
| fine of them.. so far. I generally think volume discounts
| come a bit too close to price fixing, if proven in court.
| Granted, it's tough to prove, as we've seen in Intel vs.
| AMD which settled out of court AFAICR.
| Closi wrote:
| Yes - although I think Steam is in a different market
| position where there _are_ substitutes (e.g. developers
| /publishers can choose to submit via GOG, Epic store,
| Microsoft Store or sell direct so there is no monopsony),
| so providing a lower revenue split to encourage big
| developers to the platform is a good/valid strategy. The
| strategy is different for Apple (where there are no
| perfect(ish) substitutes, and they can exploit this to
| have higher margins).
| majormajor wrote:
| I'm surprised discounts for big publishers hadn't already been
| more of a thing. It's certainly happened before from time to
| time: https://www.cultofmac.com/319040/apple-only-takes-15-cut-
| on-...
| jclardy wrote:
| That's exactly it, so many users are afraid that this will mean
| every random app you download will have a credit card entry
| field. Nope. Those random apps will still benefit from the
| simplicity of the system IAP, one tap, auth, done. The ones
| asking for a credit card will drop in ratings and search
| results.
|
| The big players are the ones that will switch, amazon, Netflix,
| Spotify, Hulu, etc. And beyond that, competitors like Square
| and Stripe will release SDKs that make purchasing just as easy
| as the system IAP, and will actually force Apple to improve
| their system.
|
| If Apple thinks hosting costs are of any consequence, then
| charge people for hosting if they don't actively use IAP. For
| 99% of apps hosting is pennies on the dollar, but for games
| like Fortnite it may actually cost a decent amount, especially
| for the binary size.
|
| The end point is that there are no technical limitations to
| anything here, it is all political and Apple has the ability to
| change this at any time. There just isn't any point when they
| can continue to rake in 30% of every digital subscription
| service on the internet that wants to exist on their platform.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > The ones asking for a credit card will drop in ratings and
| search results.
|
| Ratings and general search are already useless in appstores,
| dominated by apps filled with pay2win dark patterns and
| optimized/gamed to be higher in ratings. The times where you
| could go to top games section and find a genuine good app are
| over more than a decade ago. So you can find the app you need
| only be it's exact name or via link from external source.
|
| So now appstore is nothing more than a very restrictive
| guardian/censor. No value lost.
| eropple wrote:
| It's more than just one-time IAP, though. I'm generally
| "whatever" on what payment processor people use, but one of
| the things that _does_ concern me is subscription management.
| To me there is a lot of value to having a central place where
| _all_ my subscriptions are and where they can be canceled
| easily, even if I don 't have the app installed anymore.
|
| YOLOing something with Stripe doesn't give me that without a
| bunch of fundamentally opt-in stuff on the part of the
| developer, and that's pretty concerning. If the platforms can
| (and _do_ ) solve this, then I feel a lot better about it.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I haven't heard of any actual regulation or court proceedings
| that would end with Apple Pay being _removed_ as a payment
| option from apps.
|
| Apple can always require an Apple Pay option for any app in
| its app store which collects payments. And honestly it'd
| probably be okay if they require devs to charge users the
| same amount regardless of how they pay.
|
| The issue is that they ban other options entirely, which
| reeks of monopolistic anticompetitive behavior.
|
| Just let devs tell their users about Apple's 30% cut, then
| let devs give users an option to pay however they want.
| grishka wrote:
| No. This would entrench their monopolies even further.
|
| It should be legally required that any device that is marketed
| as a general-purpose computer, whether pocketable or not, and
| is shipped in a locked state, is fully unlockable by the end
| user. Without a single network packet sent to manufacturer's
| servers. That's the only way we as a society could fix this
| dire situation.
|
| In other words, if I buy a phone from Apple, I should have the
| choice for this to be the only interaction I have with Apple.
| They sold it to me. I gave them money, they gave me an iPhone.
| It's mine now. They're no longer in possession of it. I thus
| should be able to run arbitrary code on it with highest
| privileges possible with no hindrance.
| kryptozinc wrote:
| Sure, though they may chose to wipe iOS from your device if
| you unlock it. Then you are free to build your own os and
| execute root level code if you wish.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Okay, so you want to live in a world where you buy a car
| and the manufacturer will wipe the engine firmware or lock
| the vehicle if you change oil without their permission?
| Thats already happening to farming equipment.
|
| You will love in a world where you own nothing, and have
| less control over your life than a medieval surf - all
| devices are becoming 'smart', frok door locks to toasters
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| They've had their opportunity over the years to reduce their
| supracompetitive commission down to 20% or 15%.
|
| Instead they chose to dig deeper, but government can be heavy-
| handed. I hope more countries do this?
| endergen wrote:
| I care way less about this than alternate stores have no or much
| less stringent app reviews
| bubblethink wrote:
| Is there a better source and the text of the law ? Payment
| systems are a proxy for the fee since there isn't an explicit
| publishing fee. It would be quite straightforward for both Apple
| and Google to charge a publishing fee, which may end up close to
| the current rent. The larger issue is that there aren't
| alternative app stores. Apple doesn't allow them at all, and
| Google severely restricts them at the technical and business
| level.
| darkerside wrote:
| A publishing fee would also be regressive compared to the
| payment tax. Right now, people don't pay until they are
| successful, at which point they may pay a LOT. But it keeps the
| app marketplace much more of a free marketplace.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| It's not exactly a publishing fee, but today you have to pay
| Apple $99/year to distribute software into Apple's ecosystem;
| otherwise they'll hide your application behind a non-obvious
| ctrl+click+run flow. To my knowledge, this fee is collected
| regardless of your distribution channel.
|
| I wouldn't call $99/year "not paying."
| simondotau wrote:
| The $99/year gives you additional developer tools and
| access to the App Store storefront. It's up to Apple what
| constitutes a sufficient license fee for the commercial use
| of Apple's proprietary software libraries.
|
| Apple's libraries are licensed to developers under whatever
| license Apple chooses. They could require a certain revenue
| share regardless of which payment gateway is used. Heck,
| they could license it under the GPL and require all
| developers who build programs against their libraries to
| release their source code. It's their code, it's up to
| them.
|
| Similarly, Epic Games can decide when developers might have
| to pay Epic for software they distribute with Unreal
| Engine. Whether it's a flat fee, a revenue share, a profit
| share, if there are discounts or incentives--all of that is
| entirely for Epic to decide.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _It 's their code, it's up to them._
|
| Well, until the regulators step in (again).
| simondotau wrote:
| Are you suggesting that regulators can force Apple to
| give away their stuff for free if they want to
| participate in that market? That doesn't sound right to
| me.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Why yes, regulators can force Apple to do what they want
| in their country. And they can very easily dictate how
| much Apple is allowed to charge for licensing. Fair
| licensing agreements already exist in the patent space.
| mathnmusic wrote:
| No, Apple is free to stop operating in countries with
| such regulators. No business activity => No violation of
| competition-related regulations.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| The thought that a government could force your favorite,
| richest, international megacorporation might feel not
| right to you, but that is actually how the world works.
| Apple does not get to dictate how its products are
| available, no matter how much they would like to.
|
| They are free, however to not come sell in places it
| feels the rules are unfair towards it.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Yes, regulators can do that, and they would have pretty
| clear antitrust grounds to do it as well.
|
| The difference between random people using the GPL and
| Apple is that Apple is worth a trillion dollars. That
| matters quite a bit.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > _The $99 /year is predominantly for access to the App
| Store. It's up to Apple what constitutes a license fee
| for developers to have commercial use of Apple's
| proprietary software libraries._
|
| Interestingly, the $99/year fee is to access the app
| store, but there's a a $299/year fee to _bypass_ the
| appstore.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/enrollment/ notes:
| The Apple Developer Program annual fee is 99 USD and the
| Apple Developer Enterprise Program annual fee is 299 USD
| simondotau wrote:
| It is hypothesised that the main reason Apple persists
| with the $99/year fee is as a glorified CAPTCHA, to stop
| developers from mechanically creating account after
| account in order to upload scummy app after scummy app.
| If that's the reason, I wouldn't entirely blame them.
|
| The $299 enterprise program probably costs Apple
| substantially more than $299 per customer/enterprise in
| order to run. While I have no idea about the numbers, I
| wouldn't be surprised that it is a substantial loss-maker
| for Apple, justified only because it's necessary to keep
| the iPhone/iPad relevant in some enterprises.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree. In order to distribute my Electron
| app to Mac users via a direct download from my website, I
| must pay Apple $99. Otherwise Apple will present my users
| with a scare dialogue that gives the impression the
| software can't be run.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| Apple and Google won't know what developers using outside
| payment systems for purchases such as subscriptions or "in-app"
| stuff are making. So they'd have a problem deciding what a
| publishing fee should be. Monikers such as popularity can be
| bad estimators. They might end up charging developers a lot
| less or a lot more - the latter of which might ruin some
| developers or hike prices for customers even more.
|
| I am not against a publishing fee instead of what there is now,
| but it should be fair and transparent. Not that the current
| system is fair and transparent...
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > Apple and Google won't know what developers using outside
| payment systems for purchases such as subscriptions or "in-
| app" stuff are making.
|
| Then again, why should Apple and Google charge fees for
| something they have no hand in?
|
| If they want to charge fees for distribution, they should
| just do that.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| >Then again, why should Apple and Google charge fees for
| something they have no hand in?
|
| Same reason as now: because they can and are in the money
| making business.
|
| I'm not saying this is right, just that it is what it is.
| Google and Apple will not just forgo millions if not
| billions of "easy" dollars. My guess is that especially the
| big players, who make Google and Apple the most money, will
| switch to different payment processors with better terms
| for them as soon as that option becomes available to them.
| [deleted]
| lionhead wrote:
| Give it a few days then check this link:
| https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/recentlyLawList.do
| vbezhenar wrote:
| There are plenty of alternative app stores for Android. Google
| restricts them, but not severely. Android 12 will lift some
| important restrictions from alternative app stores.
|
| I'm not trying to portrait Google as innocent, there's still
| work to be done. But they are absolutely in different leagues
| with Apple when it comes to user freedom.
| traspler wrote:
| Google allegedly forced Android OEMs to not ship devices with
| a pre-installed Fortnite / Epic Games Store launcher.
|
| Also forcing users through multiple warning screens and
| settings until you have finally installed an app might look
| trivial if you know what you are doing but for everyone else
| might not be as easy. There are many, many articles about how
| you should simplify your websites onboarding process to
| increase the amount of customers so the Android flow is
| pretty much the anti-thesis to that.
| snarf21 wrote:
| While true, they wouldn't be so generous if they were making
| it on the backend via search. They don't care that much what
| store the user uses as long as they search on Google. Do they
| offer any "user freedom" there?
| commoner wrote:
| Google does make more money from other revenue sources, but
| I don't think this is the best example. Chrome (on all
| platforms) allows the user to set any custom search engine
| as the default. On the other hand, Safari limits users to
| four choices: Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.
| [deleted]
| Vespasian wrote:
| Not only the technical hurdles but also the legal ones need
| to be significantly lower.
|
| Google has enormous power over phone suppliers and can force
| them to preinstall their apps and store and nothing else.
| grishka wrote:
| > there isn't an explicit publishing fee
|
| I remember paying $25 or so to open a google play developer
| account. For Apple, you pay $99 yearly.
| simondotau wrote:
| According to the FSF, the distribution of a binary computer
| program which substantially relies upon GPL libraries is
| considered a derivative work and would require you to abide by
| the terms of the GPL license.
|
| Similarly, an iOS app which substantially relies upon (and must
| be compiled with) Apple's libraries in order to work is subject
| to whatever the terms Apple includes in their software license.
| Of course Apple isn't requiring code to be open source like the
| GPL. Apple could choose whatever terms they want. It would be
| perfectly within Apple's right to require a revenue share for
| use of those libraries--say, the Metal graphics APIs--just as
| Epic Games does for the use of Unreal Engine libraries.
|
| Therefore it's entirely reasonable to imagine that if third
| party payment gateways are permitted, Apple could still
| organise things so that they are legally entitled to a
| percentage cut of app sales. Again, just like Unreal Engine.
| simondotau wrote:
| To the people down-voting this, I realise that my post
| espouses a controversial opinion for Hacker News. But could
| you please explain what you disagree with?
| misnome wrote:
| > which substantially relies upon GPL libraries is
| considered a derivative work and would be a GPL violation
| if it's distributed without source code.
|
| I didn't vote either way, but I'm not sure that this is the
| way the GPL works. As I understand it, you can distribute
| only binaries as long as you supply _on request_ the source
| code. FWIW the link to the GPL reads as quite tenuous and
| what I would guess the downvotes were for.
|
| > Similarly, an iOS app which substantially relies upon
| Apple's libraries in order to work is subject to whatever
| the terms Apple includes in their software license
|
| Yes, they are free to do what they want, barring
| regulation. Which is what this is. Deliberately loopholing
| around the legislation is an option, but a risky manoeuvre
| that might just invite more legislation.
| simondotau wrote:
| Thank you, I did err in how I described the GPL. I have
| edited my post to correct this.
|
| > _FWIW the link to the GPL reads as quite tenuous_
|
| The link is that any developer--whether they're Linus
| Torvalds or Apple Inc--should be allowed to choose the
| terms in which they release their copyrightable works
| into the public.
|
| * One developer could choose the GPL.
|
| * Another developer could choose a license which requires
| a flat, one-off fee.
|
| * Yet another developer could chose a license that is
| free up front but mandates a revenue share under certain
| conditions, such as Epic Games does with Unreal Engine.
|
| In all instances, it is copyright law which enforces
| these license terms. So if you like the fact that Linus
| can distribute Linux under the GPL, you must also accept
| that some other company will have the right to distribute
| their software under their license.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > To the people down-voting this, I realise that my post
| espouses a controversial opinion for Hacker News. But could
| you please explain what you disagree with?
|
| The issue is not that your argument is controversial. It's
| that it falls flat because it's based on an incorrect
| assumption.
|
| > Apple could choose whatever terms they want. It would be
| perfectly within Apple's right to require a revenue share
| for use of those libraries
|
| No they can't.
|
| There are a broad set of laws restricting how companies can
| or can not do business. These laws severely limit the terms
| Apple can set. Laws restricting anticompetitve behaviors
| would be part of this set, same for the new regulations in
| South Korea we are currently discussing.
| simondotau wrote:
| My apologies, when I said "whatever terms they want" I
| was being somewhat hyperbolic, even if I do think the
| spirit of the sentence is clear when read in context.
| Obviously terms of any such license cannot violate law.
|
| Are you suggesting that Apple charging developers a
| percentage-based license fee for use of their work is
| unlawful anywhere, under any law current or proposed?
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > Are you suggesting that Apple charging developers a
| percentage-based license fee for use of their work is
| unlawful anywhere, under any law current or proposed?
|
| The crux of the discussion generally focus on the parts
| of the contract preventing developers from using
| competing works in addition to the fees. That seems to
| fall squarly into your "whatever terms they want". And
| yes, I do personaly think there is a case to be made that
| Apple licensing terms are anti-competitive, an opinion
| which seems shared by the EU's competition chief.
|
| Your opinion seems to be that Apple could just stop
| charging a fee for using the App Store and charge it for
| the use of a different but similarly unavoidable part of
| the system instead. But that's merely a technicality. It
| doesn't fundamentaly change the question.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Microsoft Visual Studio was not free in the past. And
| even now free version is limited. I don't see it
| different from hypothetical paid Apple library as long as
| there are other ways to write software for the given
| platform.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Developers will avoid Apple libraries. Native apps already
| are not so popular with Cordova, Flutter, React Native and
| other options.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You cannot develop an app for iOS without using Apple's
| libraries.
| [deleted]
| xondono wrote:
| In the end it was bound to happen, consumers always lose to
| special interests, even if app devs don't want to admit they are
| one.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Really, this is a "loss" to consumers how?
| xondono wrote:
| By outlawing what _a lot_ of consumers considered a very
| useful feature, and that is limiting the choices of
| developers. Developers may not like it, but there's a value
| in restrictions, especially in something as sensitive as
| payments.
|
| With sensitive data flowing through a lot more companies,
| it's going to be a shit show, it's just a matter of time.
| gigel82 wrote:
| How is this limiting anything? I see this as adding
| options, and I'd like to see it adopted across the world.
| xondono wrote:
| It's adding options to developers, not necessarily to
| users.
|
| The Apple and Google payment systems were in effect a
| market driven standards, now we'll have a soup of systems
| on a race to the bottom on a very sensitive part of the
| ecosystem.
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