Because stuff like this has a massive ripple effect. Apple gives a lot to developers for free because App Store costs cover it. As a small developer I don’t want to have to pay for tools I currently get for free because some big company has to whine about paying their fair share.
Your argument here is "Apple has to charge this. So better they pay than me".
Then you or someone should take Microsoft (or any other company) to court as companies have done with Apple, present the case and evidence, and let the courts decide if Microsoft (or anyone else) is breaking any anti-steer laws.
Until they cause them to lose more than they are worth. Which will happen at the rate these morons are going.
Isn't the problem the 30% cut Apple wanted to take?
Actually the EU also fines its own companies heavily, if they do not comply. The difference is that EU companies usually respect the rules from the start.
Being found guilty is not the same as “accused of”.
The EU has never said there's anything wrong with the 30% cut. They're saying that the anti-steering policy that Apple had was abusive because it prevented customers from knowing about cheaper alternatives online. I'm pointing out that Spotify didn't prefer to offer cheaper alternatives online. Their preference throughout their history on the App Store was to only allow sign-ups for the free version inside the app.
There is a browser on the phone that can be used with your favorite search engine to find alternatives. In fact, it has been a central feature of the phone since the very first iPhone.
Wait, people aren’t allowed to think different from you without being criticized by you? Maybe you need to think about your glass house before you throw stones.
Again, that's not what Apple's anti-steering rules are about. It's not even close as I explained earlier.
But you didn't explain why a musician shouldn't be allowed to advertise an alternate music platform within the Spotify platform. So you have one set of laws for Apple, and one set of laws for Spotify and 99.99999% of other businesses.
Why are these cheaper choices? Everybody wants to ignore the elephant in the room. The Spotify plans outside the AppStore are cheaper because they don't include Apple's Appstore IAP fees that Spotify is contractually obligated to pay and are obligated to pay even if they use a loophole that doesn't collect them at the time of purchase. The harm to customers is not because Apple charges 30%. The harm is because Spotify has made a business decision to pass that 30% on to its customers by making them pay the fee directly while Spotify reaps the benefits of being on the preferred mobile platform of its most lucrative market segment at no cost to them.
Does Epic take cut from customers ?
I’m a dev I can answer that. Yes it’s fair to pay Apple. People don’t realize how utterly expensive it is to run something like an App Store. Not every app is wildly successful but each app gets hosting, payment processing, sales and tax information, security, etc. That stuff isn’t free and before app stores an indie dev had to pay that themselves (and be on the hook for any kind of security breach) or work with a publisher that would take usually upwards of 90% (not a typo) of the sales in exchange for all that. Oh and dev tools weren’t free back then either. It was usually several hundred to several thousand dollars a for an IDE. Xcode is free.
It's a bit of a problem for third-party developers that Apple acts as the technology developer, only merchant and only payment processor for iOS/iPadOS apps.
In a (local/regional) duopoly or monopoly: Absolutely.
I can't remember the last time a taqueria controlled the entire food/grocery market in town (with its biggest competitor).
