81
votes
Apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps
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- Title
- A judge just blew up Apple's control of the App Store
- Authors
- Jay Peters
- Published
- Apr 30 2025
- Word count
- 165 words
Good. The fact that is was allowed is shameful, it's pure bullying from a dominant position.
Yup, same reaction. Rent seeking at its finest and I can't believe companies didn't fight this a decade+ ago. Guess they got other deals with Apple until hard times came.
Holy baloney Batman, there's a huge tidbit in the ruling itself:
Bolded emphasis mine. There's a non-zero chance that everyone named, excepting Phillip Schiller, ends up in jail. That would be a nice signal to stop ignoring the courts. We should do this more.
Edit: Oh my, and this final line:
Mic drop.
I would love to see criminal charges regularly made against Silicon Valley billionaires.
It's almost like that should be the default state of affairs when they make willful defiance of the court.
Also IMO the C-Suite should always be held accountable for criminal actions of the company, regardless if they "knew" or not. The number of "leave no paper trail" policies to insure the ability for them to plausibly deny are too great.
I'm sure Trump will pardon them though.
Not to mention the fact that they regularly justify the huge compensation packages as their cut for taking responsibility for the company as a whole. Responsibility goes both ways, or at least it should…
You know what, I'm almost OK with the idea of letting CEOs earning millions of dollars so long as they can also be stripped of those millions and thrown in jail for their underlings breaking the law to keep profits up.
You can tell the judge is really pissed by Apple's deplorable behavior in this case. I love this footnote (citations omitted by me):
Man, this is gawker levels of crude. And Apple tends to be thought of as one of the least tech corps.
P.s. It was in fact, not their store. Hence the case of them over taking money from services outside apps.
Funnily, that's something Steve Jobs would totally say.
Honestly it's much milder than anything jobs would say.
Please happen. It's getting more and more common for people to lie under oath. They need a reminder on why that's the worst thing you can do. Courts have been much too soft on white collar BS like this.
Unfortunately, perjury in civil cases is rarely prosecuted as criminal courts won't take them, so at worst your credibility is destroyed with the judge / jury, but whatever fine you'd get would pale in comparison to the judgement for damages so it's not often pursued.
EDIT: I see this is getting some attention so it's worth clarifying that this knowledge is from Mark Bankston, the trial attorney who sued Alex Jones, Owen Shroyer, Newsmax, and Steven Crowder for various cases of defamation, during an interview. While he absolutely has expertise and credibility, he practises in Texas and civil perjury claims may be more aggressively pursued elsewhere.
Perjury probably isn't on the table, but the judge does say she's referring the case to the district attorney to investigate criminal contempt charges. My understanding is that this is a much more common charge -- way less severe punishment than perjury I assume, but honestly I'll be happy as long as the individuals in question get any punishment for their behavior.
I have to disagree that the 30% cut is or was ever greed from Apple. It only accounts for about 5% of their revenue, and it’s a very valuable service, especially considering the number of man-hours that must go into app review. It provides a consistently safe and reliable platform for users to download their applications without fear of malicious software.
The 30% cut is a levy on large software companies (remember, small developers only pay 15%) who benefit from Apple’s platform and user base. Apple spends a huge amount on R&D for its devices and operating systems, so the companies that build software that benefit from that should pay their fair share.
This doesn’t change if the payment is made through a third party provider, rather than the App Store, because the 30% is not a transaction fee - it’s a service fee for the platform the developer is benefitting from.
Forcing Apple to allow third party payments, and not letting them take their cut, is bad in several ways.
This is not good, and notice, the proponents of these changes are all big software companies like Epic, Spotify, and Netflix. These are not friends of the end user. All that this sort of change will represent is a shift of cost from these companies to the end user - not to Apple. It is wholly unreasonable to ask Apple to allow these companies to become parasites which benefit from Apple’s platform for free without making any contribution back.
Notice, the exact same problems apply to third party app stores.
If the 30% / 15% cut for app review is good value, why would they be so firmly against allowing alternative installation methods?
And the users already paid their contribution to that when buying the device. It’s reasonable to say the 30% covers the benefits of the App Store specifically, but suggesting it’s a “fair share” to be allowed onto a premium device that the user already paid a premium price for seems absurd to me.
Since pricing is based on what the market will bear, rather than having any direct relationship to costs, there’s no reason to think that Apple are reducing device prices just because they have additional income elsewhere. The price is simply the maximum they think people will pay.
And if the price were specifically constrained by Apple’s costs (something I don’t think is likely, given the pseudo-monopoly situation in all of this), the user was already paying, since the 30% fee on software purchases will also have been passed through by the software developers. Shifting that cost from the third party apps to the device itself would simply make things more transparent.
Surely that’s the point here? If those things are valuable, Apple has nothing to worry about. If they aren’t, Apple was profiteering by forcing users to pay for them and blocking competition.
They aren’t our friends, that we can agree on. But they’re the only organisations capable of going toe to toe with Apple. I don’t trust them, at all, but I do think the outcomes happen to align with the interests of the user base in general on this specific topic.
This seems equivalent to saying every PC software developer from the last 30 years was a parasite benefitting from Microsoft’s platform?
Which sounds, to me at least, utterly absurd - Windows was already paid for, just as iOS is now. Either Apple opens up the App Store or they allow alternatives; I see no reason to defend their right to a monopoly just because the technology makes it easy to enforce.
[Edit] Clarified price vs cost
Also, Apple has a margin on the order of 30% on the iphone. They could cut the price by 20% tomorrow and still be one of the most profitable companies.
The idea that the prices would ever go down in absence of a binary-compatible competitor is ludicrous.
Probably to guarantee a baseline quality of user experience and thereby protect the brand.
Now you'll think: "but you can install third-party apps on desktop."
But desktop users are significantly more 'technical' than smartphone users on average. (In my own professional observation.)
Back in 2015 (10 years ago), 34% of American adults reported that their only device is their smartphone. I'd solidly wager that figure is higher now. Plus, the US is technologically mature: Americans have been exposed to personal electronics for a long time. Outside the US, the vast majority of people only own (and know) a smartphone.
There's very likely a significant chunk of Apple smartphone users for whom the third-party app experience is linked to their perception of Apple's brand.
I'm personally divided on the 'Apple tax'. On the one hand, 30% is quite high, and I, a 1%er in tech savvy-ness (as all Tildes users are), want third-party apps. On the other hand, Apple is one of very few tech companies that chooses not to engage in the 'race to the bottom' that free digital markets incentivize.
I know what you mean - I like Apple products, and they’re an imperfect but reasonably reliable bulwark against enshittification a lot of the time - but there’s just no way to take them at their word on any of this being about quality or brand integrity when keeping that lockdown also just happens to give them a huge slice of everyone’s sales.
Ultimately, this is exactly what regulation is for. To hold up a hand and say “you’ve got too much power to be trusted with”. No business will voluntarily give up the ability to set fees like this, so it needs to be taken from them - or at least the threat of having it taken from them needs to credibly exist.
If they really, above all else wanted to maintain editorial control, I’d bet they could fairly easily come to an agreement for a cost-plus fee structure to cover app review and payment processing and make this whole debate go away. If they’re more concerned about setting their fees at a premium, they can keep that but need to allow competition. But one way or the other it’s in the public interest for them to be pushed to compromise, and that’s why regulators exist.
Also, court docs make it pretty clear that it was profiteering in this case, possibly to a criminal degree, so we don’t need to speculate too much on how fair they were or weren’t being behind the scenes.
I'm not sure if that for the better for society: https://www.raconteur.net/risk-regulation/gen-z-lack-tech-literacy-is-business-risk
And it's a negative spiral regardless. Apple doesn't low users to customize so they don't get more experience modifying tech, so they rely more on Apple to give the right solution, so they lock down the device even more... Is that really a desirable future?
How so? Apple has all the same kinds of cheap MTX ridden money sappers and subscription beggars as Android. The quality bar is a smidgen higher but it's still a shadow of a shadow of what the standards were 10 years ago.
I can understand why you got to this state of mind, but there are a few flaws in your argument.
App review can be quite good, but it is far from perfect. I am much more willing to download apps on my iPhone than I was on my Android phones. But let's not pretend that malicious software doesn't exist. Daring Fireball: In-App Purchase Scams in the App Store. The App Store is far from safe. Safer than the play store? Maybe. But they don't get any credit from me for being slightly better than terrible.
Yes, but services revenue has been the only consistently growing part of their revenue for years now. Even the iPhone business is tapering off. Also services have almost zero marginal costs. Apple famously has very big margins on products, but I can guarantee that services have larger margins than the rest of their businesses. It may look small if you just look at overall revenue, but if you look at the other metrics that financial people do, it is an important part of their business.
What about when companies don't benefit from Apple's platform and user base? If I, as a user, have used an existing service since before I had apple products, it is pretty clear that Apple had nothing to do with me finding that company. If I find a service on Tildes, Google, or elsewhere on the web, how does me having an Apple product have anything to do with that? My business relationship with Audible, Amazon, Netflix, etc has nothing to do with Apple. I just happen to have an apple device. Why is that relevant? It isn't. To clarify, there are many developers and companies that do benefit from Apple's platform and user base. But there are also plenty who do not.
This is the best argument Apple has. But if this is the case, then they need to itemize it out and let developers handle transactions themselves.
Nope, this is just wrong. There are plenty of small developers who also want these changes. All of the hosts of Accidental Tech Podcast want this (although they sometimes disagree with the EU implementation). The most interesting thing is that all of them have said without a doubt that they would continue to use Apple as a payment processor. Since it is better for the end user, they benefit from the lower friction experience that it provides. And the return policy, easy cancellations, and protections that apple provides are just as appealing to them as they are to their users. The reason they want it is because it gives apple competition. That single magic word that means capitalism is actually working as intended. Apple as a payment processor does some things well, but some things terribly. If they had competition, Apple would actually be incentivized to improve these aspects. I will provide just one example, but there are plenty. Let's say a user pays for an in-app purchase. But for whatever reason the app doesn't provide the features that they want. They contact the developer. The dev agrees, and tries to offer the user a refund. NOPE, developers cannot give users refunds. They can't even request that Apple provide them a refund. The user has to reach out to Apple directly through an obscure website. Will Apple provide a refund? Who knows, since their refund policy isn't super transparent. This process is worse for the consumer and worse for the developer. In an open market, Apple would have incentive to change this.
It's beneficial for most app developers to at least leave the option to process the payment directly through Apple. Using a 3rd party payment processor involves a lot of friction.
Woah dude, seriously?
Yeah, apps are what make the phone worth buying. Who would buy an iPhone without apps? The phrase “there’s an app for that” is what sold iPhones to the public for years.
You also have to pay Apple just to be a developer and publish an app.
That's one of the main reasons I switched from Android to iPhone over a decade ago. The Google Play store was absolute garbage. I had an iPod Touch, so I was familiar with the high quality of the App Store. So at my next upgrade, I moved to iPhone and never looked back.
Don't get me wrong; there's a lot of garbage on the App Store these days. But I still think it's easier to find what you're looking for. Though since I haven't touched an Android phone regularly in years, I don't really have a up-to-date comparison.
And this would be a great advertisement for the App Store competing on merit for those who want to keep that premium experience, rather than it being the only option because Apple says so.
Both stores are full of garbage. I'd say the only thing that changed is that the stores or more or less at parity with any app that matters. Likely due to popular frameworks making it a priority to export to both. If anything, Android has more apps exclusive due to apple policies not allowing them on IOS (the usual Faire, adult apps, robust emulators, a few high profile apps Apple kicked off that news covered, etc.)
Idk how Apple owners navigate, but you don't really "find new apps" on Google play anymore, not in the way you may organically find new Steam games. You find other news/social media and see if anything captures your glimpse to lead you to a download.
Been a very long time since I searched Google itself for a new app. Even when I was replacing my file manager it was better to search around Reddit for recommendations than just type in "file manager" on the store.
It’s pretty much the same here on iOS. The only time I open the App Store, I already know what I am downloading. Discoverability is terrible.
Although I will mention that iOS has some very good indie apps that aren’t on Android. My personal favorite is Callsheet (like IMDb but not terrible) and overcast (a really good podcast app). They are iOS exclusive because the devs just like the Apple platform (but hate this bullshit payment stuff).
Even if Apple can run their own shop in their own App Store, which I can be talked into, it feels like an overreach to go to Patreon and say "change your billing to monthly, or we're pulling your app," when those sorts of subscriptions can be done outside of the app and don't need to deal with Apple at all.
Apple's profit margin is so huge they can afford to have the App Store to be a loss leader in order to sell the phones. If it isn't....why did Apple claim that it has no idea what the profit margin on the App Store is? The indepenent estimates put it on the order of 75% or higher. Which means that the actual cost to provide the service would be more like a 8/4% cut or lower.
This is also a solvable problem for Apple by allowing alternate stores which do all of this overhead themselves. Which they also really oppose for some reason.
Given that Phil Schiller, the product/customer experience guy at Apple, said they should just let people go offsite without a fee and a basic scare screen and it was the finance guys who got Cook’s ear to overrule him I’m not so sure.
I think Schiller has a much better handle on what’s best for Apple’s product quality and customers/users than either the finance people or Cook himself. NOW the ruling is bad, because Apple isn’t even allowed to do any caution language or enforcement against anything that happens on the external screens to protect people from falling for scams. Because they were feeling too damned entitled to their gatekeeper cut.
Incidentally Schiller also believed that once the App Store was self-sustaining Apple should take their cut of the revenue down to a nominal fee and I think it’s hard to refute the logic of his preference. App Store revenue has been toxic to Apple’s culture in ways that have been terrible for developer relations and their brand promise as well. Yeah it sure would be nice if they strictly limited shovelware and scams, but the App Store is rife with scams. Apple wants to cut them off for quality reasons, but ultimately it’s hard for them to say no to the huge sums of money they skim off of people selling casino games to children. I do not think you’d see nearly as many gambling or gambling for all intents and purposes apps on the App Store if not for this money spigot.
It's worth noting that the claims you make here about the lack of a commission for off-app purchases exclusively benefitting large software companies as opposed to small developers is precisely the opposite of Apple's own internal assessment of the situation, as revealed in the communications that were reviewed as evidence in this case (emphasis mine, citations omitted for clarity):
Moreover, even setting aside the fact that they were deliberately defying a Court injunction (even by the advance assessment of one of their own top guys) and concealed their knowledge and consideration of the legal issues with their approach from the Court and that their VP of Finance lied about this multiple times under oath, it's very difficult to argue that Apple was justified in collecting their "service fee" as laid out when (emphasis mine):
I keep hearing this argument when it comes to these antitrust moves. I think having a higher but more accurate price is beneficial to all consumers. Let them decide if it's worth it. Apple is often marketed as a luxury brand after all.
Yeah I don't see this as valuable at all personally. I recently had to deal with them recently, and both Apple support and the developer were pointing fingers at each other. Going to your financial provider is a better form of recourse.
I would not describe Apple as being a luxury brand. They make quality products overall, but quality is not luxury, and it's sad if people are starting to think that. Their products are sometimes luxurious, like the gold Apple Watch or Airpods Max, but overall they do not position themselves as a producer of luxury goods.
Not to be derogatory, but that seems to me like a uniquely US-American view. Correct me if I'm wrong though. Either way, here in my parts of (western) Europe, Apple are definitely seen and marketed as a luxury brand. And I'm rather certain most of the rest of the world would share this view.
Still, what an interesting point, perhaps even doing some explaining, for the vastly higher market share the iPhone has in the US.
As an American, I feel like it's on the borderline? I don't think it's marketed as a luxury brand and it's a household name, but the high prices essentially act as a gate. Owning an iPhone, Macbook or an iPad individually don't ping as notable since Apple products are so widespread here, but owning exclusively Apple products feels like a wealth signifier.
iPhones are definitely the rich person's phone in my part of the world too. There are even jokes made about the three-camera models (the Pro?).
Person: [Complains about the price of something]
Friend: Just sell one of your three cameras
I don't know if it translates
iPhones aren’t really seen as particularly “luxury” here, but having the latest Pro model is somewhat more so. Some of Apple's other products (vision, for example) are definitely luxury, but it’s more the price in any case. An older or more basic iPhone isn’t more expensive than a midrange Android device, and many people don’t buy devices outright but finance them through their mobile plans.
Really, many of the qualities of MacBooks should be part and parcel with laptops as a whole. High rigidity, low flex, no creakiness, excellent screen, trackpad, and speakers, competent keyboard and webcam, and best in class battery. It’s depressingly common for competing laptops to cut corners on most and sometimes all of these things, even with similarly or more expensive models.
Especially on the lowest end a lot of the stuff commonly sold is so bad it’s borderline manufactured e-waste. The bar for quality across the board needs to be raised quite a lot.
The issue is apps and services launch on different platforms. So you can't have a "service fee" taking revshare from everyone. It's not on apple anymore, but Fortnite was on IOS, Android, Epic Games Store, Playstation, Nintendo, and Microsoft. Outside of EGS, are all 6 companies due a "service fee" everytime someone makes a purchase for Fortnite? Does it make sense for Apple to take a cut of an EGS purchase of Fortnite, through the payment system Epic took time to setup themselves? It doesn't add up.
Nor is apple, who locked down hardware you owned for nearly 2 decades. There's no good guy in business. You just need to understand what you value and see who greed with you.
Have you read the judge's opinion on this case?
For the others who didn't (I didn't until seeing this comment, despite agreeing with the decision), I'll post the summary paragraph from the judge's decision, which you can read in full here:
For context, the Court's original order in this case was in 2021, and Apple has been willfully defying it as described in the court order ever since. Even if you disagree with the original decision, there really isn't any good reason to disagree with this one unless you want mega-corporations to be able to defy the courts with zero consequences. Apple already appealed this decision, as is their right, and the relevant portions were upheld by the higher court. The Supreme Court declined to grant Apple's petition for a Writ of Certiorari, which means they won't hear the case and thus won't overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling. Even if everything @LumaBop said in their comment were 100% correct and exclusively good takes, this decision would still be the right one and a good one for everyone who benefits from the rule of law and corporations not having the limitless power to defy it -- which is all of us.
To add the next couple paragraphs from the judgment (emphasis mine), in which the judge justifiably goes hard:
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I have moral quandries about Apple"s model, but you highlighted the real reason this is all hapoening: because the courts ruled on this and apple all but legally defied the order. I'm sure they were paying attention to their actions in the EU as well with the DMA, so that only made things worse.
I hope people, especially in the US as of late, understand why allowing rich people to ignore or drag the courts is an absolutely awful idea.
Honestly I'm glad I was prompted to read the actual decision, because the conversation here in this thread really didn't leave me the right impression of what was going on! I was already of the opinion that Apple's ecosystem should open up, but without reading the decision I truly wouldn't have known just how egregious Apple's behavior was here.
You’re right, Apple flouting the court order is completely unacceptable, so this decision is just regardless of where one’s opinion lies on the on the overall debate.
Pretty sure Apple has the cash on hand to take a 0% cut and still be the must valuable company in the world. They make money from their legendarily high hardware margins.
It seems I sparked a bit more conversation than I expected, though I should have realised my view here would come off as a bit controversial.
It’s infeasible for me to reply to everyone who replied to me, so in this comment I’ll reply to as many of the point raised in this sub-thread as I can, and also reflect a bit on my original comment.
The overall argument I want to present is that forcing Apple to allow transactions via third-party which are cheaper than transactions via the App Store could be bad for consumer. Obviously this scenario would be better for the developers, and could have some benefits for the consumer, but I tried to argue that on balance this was a move by large and greedy developers to avoid contributing to a platform they benefit from. My argument had some flaws, though I believe these don’t necessarily undermine my position.
Issue 1: Lack of consideration for Apple violating the court’s orders
Thanks @sparksbet for your excellent comment on this. I agree that Apple should face the full repercussions for breaking the law or violating court orders, and it sounds like the relevant internal decisions that led to this were very problematic and flawed. It’s disappointing to see this. However, I view this problem as ultimately orthogonal to the debate I’m interested in.
Issue 2: Incorrect assumptions about how these changes impact small vs. large developers
Again thanks sparksbet and also @Weldawadyathink. I’ve probably committed a slippery slope fallacy in assuming that allowing third party payment processing would lead to all developers big and small switching to only taking payment via third party. But isn’t it also true that larger companies would have the most leverage over their consumers to push/force them towards payment via third party? It seems to me this would still lead to larger companies getting a “free ride” on the backs of the consumer and smaller developers who are “stuck” with payment via App Store.
Issue 3: What about companies that I have a relationship with prior to / outside of the Apple ecosystem?
@0x29A and @skybrian mentioned this. However, I think this is already handled appropriately: if I already have a Netflix subscription, because I watch it on my TV, and I download Netflix on my iPhone, Apple doesn’t get a cut of the money I pay to Netflix because my business with Netflix is separate to Apple. But, if I only watch Netflix on my iPhone, then Apple is facilitating my relationship with Netflix, so if I subscribed to Netflix via my iPhone (which of course you can’t, but just suppose I could), then I think Netflix owed Apple for effectively sending my business their way.
Issue 4: The 30% cut is too much
Quite possibly, but we aren’t arguing about reducing Apple’s cut, we are arguing about cutting them out of the equation entirely.
Issue 5: Apple doesn’t need that money - they have enough already.
Sure, but I didn’t argue that was the case.
Issue 6: It might be wrong to assume that consumers would face higher costs if the App Store revenue stream was reduced/lost
Due to @Greg. Perhaps this true, but I still stress it creates an unfair situation where large developers can pad their bottom line while smaller developers don’t reap the benefits.
Addressing issues 4, 5, and 6, I think it’s fair to see I would prefer Apple be forced to reduce their cut, rather than allow payment via third-party.
Issue 7: Apple isn’t your friend either
I accidentally implied that Apple was a friend to the end-consumer by saying that all the other companies weren’t. It’s true that Apple are also not your friend - indeed no for-profit company is ever your friend. But I do like Apple’s business practices better than some other companies due to their respect for quality, privacy, and security (though I think these could all be improved, and pressure on Apple to do better in these areas is always a good thing).
I think, by only arguing that the current moves to force Apple to allow third party payments and app stores is flawed, I came out too pro-Apple. I think some of these moves are well intentioned but flawed (e.g. the DMA in Europe, unlike Epic’s suit which I view as a purely greedy move).
It’s probably just true that what Apple originally intended the App Store to be is incompatible with what it’s become, but they are still trying to impose those old business practices, because they are profitable.
I would prefer to see Apple keep control of payments for apps in their own App Store, but be forced to allow third party app installation much like on Android. I think we have seen how well this works on Android in terms of better user freedom, without being too risky for less technically inclined users. I also think that, perhaps, maintainers of third party app stores and repositories should have a reasonable duty to keep them free of malicious software, which can be enforced by Apple revoking signature (but this may give Apple too much power over them).
My fear is this would lead to many apps leaving the App Store and only being available via third party, which could lead to the average user having a lower quality and less safe experience, but looking back at Android we can see that the Play Store has remained ubiquitous (though there may also be anticompetitive elements at play there).
I think this is the real key. Right now, when iPhone/iOS/App Store are effectively synonymous, I read all of your first post through the lens of upholding Apple's total control over the ecosystem - and of saying it was right and fair for them to keep that control.
Third party installation is the optimal answer as far as I'm concerned: actual competition for the App Store to put pressure on the fees and service from a market perspective, and consumer choice from an ethical/OSS/free-as-in-freedom perspective.
I still don't really agree with a lot of your assumptions, but those are more matters of opinion - it's far easier to understand where you're coming from with the context of App Store and iOS as separate entities (which it seems like we're getting close to thanks to the EU) rather than one and the same.
As others have mentioned, having a good app library contributes to the platform. I think the parity on smartphones between Apple and Android app stores have made this less noticeable, but it is very much a thing. If you look at the tablet market, iPads are more popular, so they have a more robust app ecosystem, which creates a feedback loop that Android has struggled competing with for years. In the pro A/V market, it is not uncommon for control software to only be available on iPads, and so AV techs buy iPads and do not even consider buying an Android tablet.
It's always been a massive overreach that Apple can insert itself, and coercively so in app restrictions, into a consumer-developer / consumer-business relationship it was otherwise not privy to, and ask for a 30% fee on it, and no amount of "but the App Store is a service" arguments will ever convince me otherwise. At most, they should be able to take a reasonable fee on each app purchase or in-app purchase/subscription that goes through them specifically, and also should not be allowed to force users (or restrict devs/businesses) by trying to force/coerce them to only ever go through Apple to pay for things they could otherwise be paying directly to those devs/businesses outside of Apple's control.
If I pay for webhosting and use an iPad app to administer the control panel for my web hosting account, there is zero reason Apple should be able to, in any way, attempt to insert itself into the relationship and take a cut of what I pay for the webhosting, even if I renew via going through the App's UI. They have nothing to do with said webhosting, so why the f**k should they be inserting themselves?
If and only if an option to use Apple as the payment processor is specifically elected by a user (and devs should be able to present all options within their Apps, including those that do not involve Apple) should they be able to take a fee, and that fee should be restrictively low.
If the App Store is a service Apple provides to developers that gives them benefits, then they should find a reasonable, fair way to charge app developers a minor recurring fee for using the App Store (scaled maybe on users, size of business, income, etc), but if this is the case, then the App Store should not be the only way to install apps on the device, either
If I use a contractor-locator app to locate a local painter and contract them to paint my house, should Apple get 30% of that too, just because the app happened to be on their device? Give me a break
To be clear, using the App Store already requires developers to pay an annual membership fee of $99 (Google Play has a one-time $25 registration fee).
True, and I'm aware, but yeah, something like that, but even if they structure it differently, that's fine, just shouldn't ask for a fee AND on top of that try to tax every other business relationship on the planet just because an involved party has an app on the store.
I often download samples of Kindle books and read them on my iPad. If I get to the end of the sample, I usually buy them. This restriction means I have to do a Google search to get to the Amazon page to buy the book.
It’s not that hard, though? It will be nice to have a button to go to the Amazon page, but It’s funny that a bit of inconvenience makes such a big difference.
It totally is funny that the single button matters so much.
But I'm sure we're talking tens of billions in profits (not revenue) a year in value. Bonkers!