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App Store Developers in South Korea Can Now Use Alternative Payment Providers
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So, in your mind, if a game is distributed for free and funded by a monthly subscription (say, a hypothetical mobile version of World of Warcraft) that would be a service and Apple should have no part? But if it’s distributed for free and funded by micro transactions (say, like Hearthstone) then Apple should get a cut?
Netflix doesn't sell individual movies or shows. So they have no need for IAP. Uber, Amazon sell physical goods. And are exempt from paying Apple anything.
This would be a bad idea. All your "updates" could also come from said servers too. Bypassing any review process. Which is exactly what EPIC did (hidden code in Fortnite) and bypassed Apple's payment system. You can sneak in anything if the data came directly from the Developers systems. And if something bad happened. The customer would blame Apple, thinking it came from them. Think Tic-Tok today but way worse.
I wouldn't' be willing to give up any security/privacy to a 3rd party app. If you're into that, buy Android.
Yeah, why not give them 100% of their sales they’re doing through their own Apps and payment processors?
Amazon or Uber also get 100% of sales they‘re making on their iOS apps. And after all, without these thousands of developers and their hundreds of thousands of iOS apps, Apple wouldn’t make nothing from iPhone hardware sales.
Why should it?
Apple is raking in billions of hardware sales.
It’s their choice to give away developer tools and app store „space for almost nothing.
And that’s exactly why they became as dominant as they did.
This. Apple spent billions of dollars making the iOS ecosystem be a thing where millions of customers wanted to spend money. They took a big risk on making the iPhone in the first place, and breaking the wireless carrier's grip on phone customers, to reach a point where end users can deal directly with the company making the hardware, OS, and ecosystem, and it really paid off. Without what Steve Jobs pushed through, the smartphone landscape wouldn't be anywhere near as vibrant as it is today. And now a bunch of entitled idiots are treating everything that Apple worked hard to build as if it's some newly-discovered natural resource that should be shared equally by everyone, essentially nationalizing the ecosystem they build. I hope these various governments are planning to pay Apple several trillion dollars for this ecosystem working to take away from Apple.
If two companies got a duopoly on a market (mobile app sales), free capitalism will be restricted by law and regulation to allow competition and/or prevent them from abusing their market power.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
So you bought a product from a store. Then you notice: „Oh, there’s very useful accessories, extensions or upgrades available for that product, directly from the manufacturer.
Does your local store do anything when you buy these directly from the manufacturer and they ship it to you?
Do they prevent you from buying directly from the manufacturer?
Well, my stores don’t.
Sure, some of them may insist on exclusivity contracts and throw out products whose manufacturers do direct sales to end-users.
When there’s two chains of such stores that control 99% of all such types of stores in the country, regulation will ensue against such practices. At least if the products are very important to society and other businesses. If necessary, we create new laws to do it.
TBH apple doesn’t really assist with refunds it’s not exactly if you don’t know what your doing.
Yes, exactly like that. If a game has a monthly subscription and you can login on Android, PC, PlayStation, whatever with the same account, Apple is not part of that transaction.
If you’re paying micro transactions to keep playing, Apple should take a cut.
Yes, those two situations are similar, but fundamentally different.
To be fair, this kind of complete ecosystem was also the reason for a lot of the anti-trust laws were made a century ago (e.g. oil trusts would own means of production, refining, distribution, consumptions etc.). That being said, Apple shouldn't count given the lack of overwhelming marketshare in any the categories.
The argument against that would be that Netflix is streaming on iOS and uses many of the APIs Apple developed that makes their app work. While the application itself is not that big, downloading from anywhere in the world near instantly means that you need a network of servers. You can debate whether Apple should be taking as much as 15%, but what they provide for Netflix is far from nothing.
The situations aren’t different at all. Apple is a party to both transactions, as the software is distributed and updated through their network. And Hearthstone card packs bought on iOS are usable on Android/Windows/Mac, and vice-versa, so the microtransaction payment is every bit as platform agnostic as the subscription.
You’re clearly not a developer. The Software industry must be the only industry where you can find pretty much every single tool you need for free, legally. There’s nothing like the open source community.
In short, you’re wrong.
Simply put, Apple most likely wouldn’t have sold that iPad if people weren’t able to install third party apps like the kindle app.
You’re talking hypotheticals there not the current reality.
I’m making no judgment on what commission should or shouldn’t be charged on.
The reality is that Apple charges a commission on the vast majority of digital transactions. That makes them X amount of money. If the rules are changed so they now make less than X from that commission they’ll look to make up that amount by charging more somewhere else. Companies don’t just willingly give up revenue, and nor should they, especially when it is a new law or regulation that prevents them from making as much as they were.
I think anyone who would expect Apple to just accept a huge reduction in revenue and not attempt to make up for it elsewhere is naive.
Please point me to where all these free Macs and computers are. I’ve been paying good money for mine all these years and now I feel like an idiot.
Apple sold phones perfectly fine without an app store and developers, so try again.
Good! Slowly Apple might be forced to offer alternate payment option everywhere.
Sorry I didn’t know Macs were development software as you said.
Danger Will Robinson! A company "could" abuse its market power. Watch out now.
I'll go back to EPIC and Fortnite on this one. You could have bought all that directly from EPIC. You could also buy it via IAP on the AppStore.
If your not shopping at say Store A but direct from the manufacture. Then no the "store" doesn't have any involvement in your purchase or actions that you do elsewhere. Which in relation to the AppStores. Buying direct from EPIC did not incur anything on the Appstore side. In the physical world, we do have stores within stores. Those "within" pay rent to the larger store. EPIC wanted to live in the AppStore and not pay Apple or Google rent for selling within its walls.
Same example as above. The answer is no.
You mean the stores you choose to go to. Unless you also "own" said stores. In which case same difference. And both your free to do. Go to the stores you want. Buy the products/services you want. And the stores that don't operate/work/function the way you want. You're not a patron of. Makes sense to me.
They are allowed to operate that way, nothing wrong with that.
I'm waiting for them to do something about T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. But, we are only down to 3 so. I guess it's when it's only down to 2.
Same example as the one above. However, again maybe I'm just naive. But, can we actually state what either Apple or Google did wrong to become the last 2 standing? I mean, why are we going after the lower of the two (Apple) in terms of market dominance. When they are affectively doing business in a manner that would prevent them from ever being the dominate player? They literally restrict access to their platform more than any other company (Microsoft or Google), to control their product to the best of their abilities. They are not trying to play in every playground. The don't even sell the latest and greatest tech most of the time. Not the best cameras, not the most customizable software, not the most open OS to do anything with it you like. Not the cheapest device either.
Boggles the mind.
You get everything you want from Google. Variety of devices, from expensive to practically free, VERY customizable OS, open to you doing whatever you want. Hack away. Want 3rd party stores, go right ahead. Want to side-load, go right ahead. Charges virtually the same 30%/15% or so fees for apps on its store. Yet, we beat up Apple cause they want to be closed (walled garden). I don't get it.
Amazon should flex and pull all theirs apps and services from Apple products until Apple start paying Amazon a commission for each book, movie, and product sold.
You are conflating the cost to developers as a product and the development process for these tools. Many popular open source tools and frameworks are often supported through big institutions, foundations, or donations, e.g. Swift (Apple), React (FB), Node (OpenJS Foundation), npm (Github/MS) etc. Yes they are made available for free, but that doesn't mean there was no development cost.
The idea is that Apple views this 15/30% as a reasonable rate for the role they play in facilitating that transaction between the developer and the end user.
Take fantastical for example. I download the app on my iPhone using Face ID, create a new account using Sign In with Apple, and subscribe via iTunes. And when I wanted to terminate my subscription last month, it was just one tap away in the App Store.
So at the end of the day, the developer still earns more from 85% of a larger number of app sales than 100% of a smaller sales total.
We can debate until the cows come home as to what a fair rate for Apple is, but I will argue that they do deserve something in the very least.
Sounds like you are no longer arguing that they shouldnt get a cut; just haggling over how much.
I totally agree, Apple should get a cut in that case if you’re using Apple for the entire process. If I was a small Indy developer, I would 100% use the Apple payment method so I wouldn’t have to deal with that overhead.
But for large developers that manage the relationship themselves across multiple platforms, using Apple for payment processing should just be an option.
I think it’s a good first step that Apple allows developers to direct users to a website now.