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I'm surprised that so many developers are siding with Apple in this regard. If other stores and payment options were allowed I genuinely believe that: - Apple'

I'm surprised that so many developers are siding with Apple in this regard. If other stores and payment options were allowed I genuinely believe that: - Apple's own fees would be reduced relatively quickly - Technological savvy users will be able to discern which external sites are safe and get even lower prices when available - Very few companies will be able to afford not being on the App Store (especially if Apple lowers their fees further) - Apple will still make it hard _enough_ to use secondary stores that grandmas will not end up with iPads full of malware

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
threeseed 3y ago
That's because most iOS developers aren't confused about the situation. Apple's commission is for the App Store, SDKs, Developer Support etc. Not just a payment processing fee. And so if there are other stores and payment options which there will be soon Apple is still within their right to collect that fee. As every court around the world has said. They could collect it as a percentage of sales like Epic or just lump developers with an up front large development kit fee like Sony or Microsoft does.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  No one is confused (by these rules). But that doesn’t mean developers like it. I haven’t seen a single reaction from developers supportive of this. They seem hell bent on destroying whatever reputation and good will they have left on chasing those casino games for kids.
- librish 3y ago
  Then force them to unbundle those fees if they want to collect them. It just doesn't make any sense that some developers have to pay up to 30% of their iOS revenue while others (including huge corporations like Uber, Starbucks, Target etc) pay nothing.
  - TillE 3y ago
    It's 15% for any developer making under $1 million. Even if we think the SDKs should be free, you're not going to find a significantly better deal for payment (with Apple handling all sales taxes etc), auto updates, crash reporting, etc etc. Smaller developers aren't being ripped off, not anymore. There's a philosophical argument that Apple shouldn't control your device, but that really has nothing to do with the 30% they charge larger companies.
    - librish 3y ago
      Wouldn't Stripe be significantly cheaper? I'm making the opposite of a philosophical argument, I'm making a practical one. Apple is not going to take away the App Store, or make it too difficult for developers to upload apps, since that would be a real threat to their iPhone business. Developers need Apple, but Apple needs developers too. Currently their market domination makes it an extremely hard collective action problem for developers. Not being on the App Store means losing out on the majority of your revenue, which makes it tough for enough developers to band together against Apple.
      - kj99 3y ago
        > Wouldn't Stripe be significantly cheaper? Can we stop pretending the app store fee is just for payment processing?
        librish 3y ago
        That is currently the only thing they're charging for. Like I said, let them unbundle if they want to. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually end up just taking a revenue hit to keep the ecosystem healthy, which would mean more money for developers.
        kj99 3y ago
        What are you talking about? Where do they say that they are only charging for payment processing?
- danShumway 3y ago
  > As every court around the world has said. https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-regulator-disputes-apples-commissions-dating-app-case-2023-10-31/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-regulator-disputes-... We're actually not 100% certain whether or not Dutch regulators are OK with those fees. We know that they consider Apple to still not be in compliance with the regulation, and there have been hints that the fee structure may be a part of that. But as far as I know we haven't gotten specific confirmation from Dutch regulators in either direction. We know that 30% was too high, so according to the Dutch there is an upper limit to what Apple can charge proportional to its normal fees for in-app payments: https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-antitrust-watchdog-studying-whether-apple-has-now-complied-with-order-2022-02-07/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-antitrust-watchdog-... 27% might be OK? We'll have to wait until after Apple's responses to the most recent fines to work their way through courts to know whether the concerns listed most recently by Dutch regulators are the full list or not. It seems a little premature to say that every court in the world is fine with Apple's system when it doesn't seem that Apple has built a compliant Dutch system for us to even point to as an example of what that system could look like. As it stands, we know that Apple's 3rd-party payment system is not compliant, but we don't know exactly why it's not compliant, and we won't know what a fully compliant system looks like for the Dutch government until after Apple has managed to come up with a proposal that doesn't get them fined for noncompliance.
detourdog 3y ago
Probably a familiarity with how brick and mortar business work and what it was like when software came in a box. 30% or 15% for one stop global distribution and multi-jurisdictional tax collecting is a deal all day long. Could Spotify have bootstrapped itself without the App Store?
- dataflow 3y ago
  Did brick and mortar stores have a monopoly on software distribution?
  - kj99 3y ago
    Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution. If alternative stores equated to better software, then Android would have easily outpaced Apple by now. The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them.
    - dataflow 3y ago
      > Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution It has a monopoly on iPhone software distribution... which is why they can set the fee at 27% without competition...
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution. This is just literally wrong, by-definition. You can claim that Apple's monopoly isn't illegal or harmful, but the monopoly itself is self-evident. You cannot distribute software without Apple; their system is designed with monopolistic capability. > The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them. Source? You're inventing hypothetical claims to support your rhetoric.
      - nodamage 3y ago
        > This is just literally wrong, by-definition. No it's not. There are plenty of ways to distribute software without Apple being involved at all. Perhaps you meant to argue that Apple has a monopoly on iOS software distribution, but that's not actually what was originally written. It's also highly questionable given that the courts have rejected "iOS software distribution" as a valid antitrust market for the purpose of monopolization claims.
MBCook 3y ago
I think Apple should’ve won the lawsuit. Epic broke TOS they agreed to, got punished, and whined a bunch to the court. They deserved to lose as they largely did. They’re also not innocent. They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with developers. Right when they need it most. They should fix that, but won’t. Wall Street would crucify them for daring to lose revenue. And regulators should probably limit how much they can charge. But this lawsuit was not the way for that to happen. Don’t root for a bad lawsuit just ‘cause you hate the plaintiff. Fix it the right way.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Who cares what Epic wants? Their incentives align with mine so I supported them. Apples practices here clearly harm consumers by reducing competition on iOS. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS would be a better product, at least for me.
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    Some would argue that Apples practices clearly protect the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS could be a worse product, at least for me.
    - amiga386 3y ago
      Exhibit A: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-steve-jobs-email-books-amazon-apps-antitrust-investigation-schiller https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-... > Jobs said, “[i]t’s time for Amazon to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out [of the App Store],” > Jobs said: “I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.” Tell me how this clearly protects the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams.
judge2020 3y ago
Unfortunately the most vulnerable will be easily manipulated into bypassing whatever prompts are needed. The threat vector is facebook telling users to install Instagram/FB from their own app store instead of from the App Store, both eroding their privacy (since they won't be mandated to respect the "do not track" popup) as well as training them how to install apps from third-party sources and that "it's OK to sideload because Facebook and Instagram require it".
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  I doubt it, otherwise we'd see this in Android. And while it does happen of course, it's vanishingly rare. Anecdotally I have plenty of friends and family who are neither technically proficient nor well educated and they seem to be doing just fine. Instead it's a boon, especially for folks like myself who use a fair amount of software from alternative stores/installers.
  - judge2020 3y ago
    As far as I know, Android also doesn't have the same level of privacy requirements and permission prompts to show the user. Facebook et al. don't have much of a reason to push a third-party app store. In addition, exploitation might be transparent to the user, i.e. a botnet that runs in the background[0] or replacing ads in other apps to steal their revenue[1]. People use iOS and recommend it to their friends/family because of its simplicity and the built-in safeguards the App Store provides, since installing a sideloaded app is a much more involved process. 0: https://cyble.com/blog/daam-android-botnet-being-distributed-through-trojanized-applications/ https://cyble.com/blog/daam-android-botnet-being-distributed... 1: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-android-malware-25-million-infections https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-andr...
    - dns_snek 3y ago
      Thankfully iOS users don't have to worry about any of that because Apple uses state of the art sandboxing that stops apps from stealing your data. I don't know what kind of safeguards you think the app store provides, but most of them are either provided by the OS itself, which would also apply to sideloaded apps, or they don't exist at all.
turquoisevar 3y ago
> I'm surprised that so many developers are siding with Apple in this regard. I can’t speak for others, but I’m sick and tired of big corporate devs acting as if they speak for me, a small indie dev, resulting in outlets and everyday people echoing their talking points “in support” of me. They have their own interests, some of which directly contradict mine, and they only use people like me as pawns to make their plight seem righteous in the hopes of drumming up support. I was content with the 30% when I eagerly signed up. I’m downright happy with the 15% discount as a nice bonus to the point that I think the 15% is a steal for what I’m getting out of this arrangement with Apple. Of course, this is my opinion, and I have no interest in speaking for others. There’s already enough of that going around. I’d instead ask you to be open to the idea that what you’ve been seeing so far is corporate PR trickling down to you via outlets and other means and hear out the indie devs you come across here and elsewhere. On a separate note: As someone who has a legal background and practiced before pivoting to indie development, I’m surprised so many seem to think Apple’s latest move is a surprise or somehow utilizing a loophole. Legal proceedings aren’t always easy to follow, I’ll be the first to admit, but this was spelled out crystal clear in both the district court’s judgment as well as the appellate court’s judgment. What’s especially nonsense is that the likes of Spotify and Sweeny didn’t see this coming, like they now pretend. Either they all need to fire their entire legal team or stop being coy because the courts predicted this outcome black-on-white in their judgments.
generalizations 3y ago
To me, apple has made it to where they are in large part because of the strict control they maintain over their ecosystem. I was an android user forever, because I wanted the freedom to root my device and do things my way. I bought into apple because I need an appliance that just works. Trying to break apple’s control is pretty close to destroying exactly why their stuff is desirable.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

threeseed 3y ago

That's because most iOS developers aren't confused about the situation. Apple's commission is for the App Store, SDKs, Developer Support etc. Not just a payment processing fee. And so if there are other stores and payment options which there will be soon Apple is still within their right to collect that fee. As every court around the world has said. They could collect it as a percentage of sales like Epic or just lump developers with an up front large development kit fee like Sony or Microsoft does.

madeofpalk 3y ago
No one is confused (by these rules). But that doesn’t mean developers like it. I haven’t seen a single reaction from developers supportive of this. They seem hell bent on destroying whatever reputation and good will they have left on chasing those casino games for kids.
librish 3y ago
Then force them to unbundle those fees if they want to collect them. It just doesn't make any sense that some developers have to pay up to 30% of their iOS revenue while others (including huge corporations like Uber, Starbucks, Target etc) pay nothing.
- TillE 3y ago
  It's 15% for any developer making under $1 million. Even if we think the SDKs should be free, you're not going to find a significantly better deal for payment (with Apple handling all sales taxes etc), auto updates, crash reporting, etc etc. Smaller developers aren't being ripped off, not anymore. There's a philosophical argument that Apple shouldn't control your device, but that really has nothing to do with the 30% they charge larger companies.
  - librish 3y ago
    Wouldn't Stripe be significantly cheaper? I'm making the opposite of a philosophical argument, I'm making a practical one. Apple is not going to take away the App Store, or make it too difficult for developers to upload apps, since that would be a real threat to their iPhone business. Developers need Apple, but Apple needs developers too. Currently their market domination makes it an extremely hard collective action problem for developers. Not being on the App Store means losing out on the majority of your revenue, which makes it tough for enough developers to band together against Apple.
    - kj99 3y ago
      > Wouldn't Stripe be significantly cheaper? Can we stop pretending the app store fee is just for payment processing?
      - librish 3y ago
        That is currently the only thing they're charging for. Like I said, let them unbundle if they want to. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually end up just taking a revenue hit to keep the ecosystem healthy, which would mean more money for developers.
        kj99 3y ago
        What are you talking about? Where do they say that they are only charging for payment processing?
danShumway 3y ago
> As every court around the world has said. https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-regulator-disputes-apples-commissions-dating-app-case-2023-10-31/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-regulator-disputes-... We're actually not 100% certain whether or not Dutch regulators are OK with those fees. We know that they consider Apple to still not be in compliance with the regulation, and there have been hints that the fee structure may be a part of that. But as far as I know we haven't gotten specific confirmation from Dutch regulators in either direction. We know that 30% was too high, so according to the Dutch there is an upper limit to what Apple can charge proportional to its normal fees for in-app payments: https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-antitrust-watchdog-studying-whether-apple-has-now-complied-with-order-2022-02-07/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-antitrust-watchdog-... 27% might be OK? We'll have to wait until after Apple's responses to the most recent fines to work their way through courts to know whether the concerns listed most recently by Dutch regulators are the full list or not. It seems a little premature to say that every court in the world is fine with Apple's system when it doesn't seem that Apple has built a compliant Dutch system for us to even point to as an example of what that system could look like. As it stands, we know that Apple's 3rd-party payment system is not compliant, but we don't know exactly why it's not compliant, and we won't know what a fully compliant system looks like for the Dutch government until after Apple has managed to come up with a proposal that doesn't get them fined for noncompliance.

detourdog 3y ago

Probably a familiarity with how brick and mortar business work and what it was like when software came in a box. 30% or 15% for one stop global distribution and multi-jurisdictional tax collecting is a deal all day long. Could Spotify have bootstrapped itself without the App Store?

dataflow 3y ago
Did brick and mortar stores have a monopoly on software distribution?
- kj99 3y ago
  Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution. If alternative stores equated to better software, then Android would have easily outpaced Apple by now. The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them.
  - dataflow 3y ago
    > Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution It has a monopoly on iPhone software distribution... which is why they can set the fee at 27% without competition...
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > Apple doesn't have a monopoly on software distribution. This is just literally wrong, by-definition. You can claim that Apple's monopoly isn't illegal or harmful, but the monopoly itself is self-evident. You cannot distribute software without Apple; their system is designed with monopolistic capability. > The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them. Source? You're inventing hypothetical claims to support your rhetoric.
    - nodamage 3y ago
      > This is just literally wrong, by-definition. No it's not. There are plenty of ways to distribute software without Apple being involved at all. Perhaps you meant to argue that Apple has a monopoly on iOS software distribution, but that's not actually what was originally written. It's also highly questionable given that the courts have rejected "iOS software distribution" as a valid antitrust market for the purpose of monopolization claims.

MBCook 3y ago

I think Apple should’ve won the lawsuit. Epic broke TOS they agreed to, got punished, and whined a bunch to the court. They deserved to lose as they largely did. They’re also not innocent. They don’t want to get rid of all of this, they want the middleman cashing in to be THEMSELVES, not Apple. They’re no underdog hero. Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with developers. Right when they need it most. They should fix that, but won’t. Wall Street would crucify them for daring to lose revenue. And regulators should probably limit how much they can charge. But this lawsuit was not the way for that to happen. Don’t root for a bad lawsuit just ‘cause you hate the plaintiff. Fix it the right way.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
Who cares what Epic wants? Their incentives align with mine so I supported them. Apples practices here clearly harm consumers by reducing competition on iOS. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS would be a better product, at least for me.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  Some would argue that Apples practices clearly protect the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS could be a worse product, at least for me.
  - amiga386 3y ago
    Exhibit A: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-steve-jobs-email-books-amazon-apps-antitrust-investigation-schiller https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-... > Jobs said, “[i]t’s time for Amazon to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out [of the App Store],” > Jobs said: “I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.” Tell me how this clearly protects the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams.

judge2020 3y ago

Unfortunately the most vulnerable will be easily manipulated into bypassing whatever prompts are needed. The threat vector is facebook telling users to install Instagram/FB from their own app store instead of from the App Store, both eroding their privacy (since they won't be mandated to respect the "do not track" popup) as well as training them how to install apps from third-party sources and that "it's OK to sideload because Facebook and Instagram require it".

xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
I doubt it, otherwise we'd see this in Android. And while it does happen of course, it's vanishingly rare. Anecdotally I have plenty of friends and family who are neither technically proficient nor well educated and they seem to be doing just fine. Instead it's a boon, especially for folks like myself who use a fair amount of software from alternative stores/installers.
- judge2020 3y ago
  As far as I know, Android also doesn't have the same level of privacy requirements and permission prompts to show the user. Facebook et al. don't have much of a reason to push a third-party app store. In addition, exploitation might be transparent to the user, i.e. a botnet that runs in the background[0] or replacing ads in other apps to steal their revenue[1]. People use iOS and recommend it to their friends/family because of its simplicity and the built-in safeguards the App Store provides, since installing a sideloaded app is a much more involved process. 0: https://cyble.com/blog/daam-android-botnet-being-distributed-through-trojanized-applications/ https://cyble.com/blog/daam-android-botnet-being-distributed... 1: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-android-malware-25-million-infections https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-andr...
  - dns_snek 3y ago
    Thankfully iOS users don't have to worry about any of that because Apple uses state of the art sandboxing that stops apps from stealing your data. I don't know what kind of safeguards you think the app store provides, but most of them are either provided by the OS itself, which would also apply to sideloaded apps, or they don't exist at all.

turquoisevar 3y ago

> I'm surprised that so many developers are siding with Apple in this regard. I can’t speak for others, but I’m sick and tired of big corporate devs acting as if they speak for me, a small indie dev, resulting in outlets and everyday people echoing their talking points “in support” of me. They have their own interests, some of which directly contradict mine, and they only use people like me as pawns to make their plight seem righteous in the hopes of drumming up support. I was content with the 30% when I eagerly signed up. I’m downright happy with the 15% discount as a nice bonus to the point that I think the 15% is a steal for what I’m getting out of this arrangement with Apple. Of course, this is my opinion, and I have no interest in speaking for others. There’s already enough of that going around. I’d instead ask you to be open to the idea that what you’ve been seeing so far is corporate PR trickling down to you via outlets and other means and hear out the indie devs you come across here and elsewhere. On a separate note: As someone who has a legal background and practiced before pivoting to indie development, I’m surprised so many seem to think Apple’s latest move is a surprise or somehow utilizing a loophole. Legal proceedings aren’t always easy to follow, I’ll be the first to admit, but this was spelled out crystal clear in both the district court’s judgment as well as the appellate court’s judgment. What’s especially nonsense is that the likes of Spotify and Sweeny didn’t see this coming, like they now pretend. Either they all need to fire their entire legal team or stop being coy because the courts predicted this outcome black-on-white in their judgments.

generalizations 3y ago

To me, apple has made it to where they are in large part because of the strict control they maintain over their ecosystem. I was an android user forever, because I wanted the freedom to root my device and do things my way. I bought into apple because I need an appliance that just works. Trying to break apple’s control is pretty close to destroying exactly why their stuff is desirable.