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Please, let's deal in reality. All 21 Nation States are controlled by Brussels. Brussels needs revenue in order to disturb enough aid to keep the Nation State Union together. That's all it is. No aid, no EU.

France is simply trying to help out and look good to the EU Overlords in Brussels. :apple:

OK, let's deal in reality:
  • There are 28 nation states in the EU.
  • EU doesn't have control over individual state finances.
  • This litigation is brought up by France, without EU participation - and the resulting potential payout will go to French government and nowhere else.
  • EU has multiple purposes, not just aid distribution to poorer member states.
 
OK, let's deal in reality:
  • There are 28 nation states in the EU.
  • EU doesn't have control over individual state finances.
  • This litigation is brought up by France, without EU participation - and the resulting potential payout will go to French government and nowhere else.
  • EU has multiple purposes, not just aid distribution to poorer member states.

Living the dream........ ;)
 
I'm going to keep out of the political debate, but I guess the thing about imposing prices may refer to Apple's tiered pricing system. AFAIK, developers can choose which tier to place their app inn but the exact pricing for all apps in that tier may be adjusted by Apple at any time. AFAIK, they usually do that to counter changes in exchange rate, but one could still argue that it limits options for developers. I have no idea whether or not it's legal to do so under French law, or whether the effect for developers is positive, negative, or neutral.
 
Usual side-stepping from Apple - address the answer by reframing the question.

It’s similar to the whole tax situation with Ireland and other countries. The topic at question has been what deals Apple has had in place and whether they are morally correct; but their response is that they “pay every dollar they owe”, something that was never challenged.
 
Quote: It's not very clear what Le Maire is referring to exactly. It's possible the bit about prices being "imposed" refers to the 30 percent cut that Apple and Google collect...

I think this is a reference to Apple's insistence on tiered pricing. You can price items as $0.99, $1.99, and so forth but not $1.49. At higher price levels, that may not matter, but someone who has a competitor selling at $1.99 may want to get a small advantage by selling at $1.49.

Also keep in mind that the retail price includes a hidden VAT. Tiered pricing makes it hard for developers to adjust a price up or down to take into account differing VATs in different countries. They are forced to either underprice for one country or overprice for another.

That said, Apple is to be commended for taking a flat 30% at all prices and charging no download fees. For Kindle books, Amazon plays a nasty, manipulative game. They punish pricing they dislike by paying only 35% for ebooks under $2.99 or over $9.99 and 70% for those inside that range (minus a grossly inflated download fee). That creates trouble for authors who want to price the first book in a series low to attract readers or school textbook publishers who need to price over $9.99 to recoup their costs. The French should go after Amazon for that.
 
When dealing with politicians the truth of the situation has little impact. If the EU powers that be have decided to hammer Apple and Google they will find an excuse to do it.
 
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If you don't like the deal offered, don't write the app. If you don't want to pay Amazon 30% don't post items to sell on Amazon. Pure and simple French government pandering to people who expect Apple/Google/Whoever to provide them with a platform to sell their products for free. Maybe the French developers will get a better deal from Huawei. Silliness, but the French attorney community will be smiling:)

It’s because life is about more then work, and did this baker make his staff work also? I do hope not...
 
This from the country that fined a baker 3,000 euros because he opened 7 days a week during peak visitor season. His was the only place in the village where you could buy freshly baked bread, so he opened every day to both provide a much needed service and make the most of peak season. He is now fighting the fine.

On a related note and more ridiculous, there was a story a number of years ago where a Frenchman emigrated to the USA and began a startup in Silicon Valley. The French government came after him for not obeying French labor laws while working in the US.

Yes, there is more to life than work, but if this guy wants to work, and not "harming" other French citizens...
 
Of course prices change. They are the wholesaler of a product and should set a retail price. Apple is like any consignment shop where the consignment shop takes a cut from the seller. Same is true for Best Buy or Amazon and any other retailer, everyone takes a cut. This is the problem when politicians get involved with things they don't understand. Very few have a background in business.
 
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So the developers earned 1 Billion Euros. How much, apple, did you receive for their development of your platform?


$1,000,000,000/70%=$1,428,571,428.57 = Total Revenue

$1,428,571,428.57 * 30% = 428,571,428.57 = Apple Fees

Might be controversial but I think Apple's infrastructure is way more impressive than many of the apps out.

Apple created a marketplace and charges a fee to use it. Should we now force eBay or Amazon to run their business for free? Who decides what price is "fair" if not the free market?
 
Usual side-stepping from Apple - address the answer by reframing the question.

It’s similar to the whole tax situation with Ireland and other countries. The topic at question has been what deals Apple has had in place and whether they are morally correct; but their response is that they “pay every dollar they owe”, something that was never challenged.
Similar to “have you stopped beating your (spouse)”?:rolleyes:
 
...
Jaques Lemaire était un grand joueur de hockey
...
Vive Canadiens
[doublepost=1521146336][/doublepost]Medicare tax rate is 1.45% and has been for a long time. Some states charge zero income tax.
 
Of course prices change. They are the wholesaler of a product and should set a retail price. Apple is like any consignment shop where the consignment shop takes a cut from the seller. Same is true for Best Buy or Amazon and any other retailer, everyone takes a cut. This is the problem when politicians get involved with things they don't understand. Very few have a background in business.
The difference is I can negotiate with Best Buy. I can sell my product with one of Best Buy’s competitors. And I can sell my products directly instead of on Amazon.

With Google and Apple, they write the contract they don’t allow any negotiation, and they change the contract a couple times every year, and if I don’t agree to the new contract my only alternative is to stop selling my product.

I think the French government has a point. We are fast moving towards almost all software in the whole world being sold through just two stores and both of those have an unprecedented level of control over the products they sell. You’re not even allowed to use emoji in your buttons on iOS for example. Or have a “buy” button in an audio book app that uses your monthly free credit instead of charging money and giving some of it to Apple.

It would all be fine if there were alternative app stores or if sideloading apps was more commonplace. But since almost nobody is willing to side load, developers are operating under a benevolent dictator.
 
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The difference is I can negotiate with Best Buy. I can sell my product with one of Best Buy’s competitors. And I can sell my products directly instead of on Amazon.

With Google and Apple, they write the contract they don’t allow any negotiation, and they change the contract a couple times every year, and if I don’t agree to the new contract my only alternative is to stop selling my product.

I think the French government has a point. We are fast moving towards almost all software in the whole world being sold through just two stores and both of those have an unprecedented level of control over the products they sell. You’re not even allowed to use emoji in your buttons on iOS for example. Or have a “buy” button in an audio book app that uses your monthly free credit instead of charging money and giving some of it to Apple.

It would all be fine if there were alternative app stores or if sideloading apps was more commonplace. But since almost nobody is willing to side load, developers are operating under a benevolent dictator.

You think they have a point if they can force Apple to amend an agreement you willingly entered to your benefit.

Yeah. Right.
 
There are two main problems with the iOS App Store:

1.) Apple has a complete Stranglehold on App Discovery, and even more so now that it's basically a Curated App Store.

2.) Their "App Rankings" algorithm is catastrophically broken !

The problems could be EASILY fixed in just a few days by a competent team of Engineers / Developers, but for whatever reason, Apple likes to keep it the way it is.

Games and Streaming Media Content apps do well in the iOS App Store ... everything else doesn't !

Apple has never provided a breakdown, by category, of Revenue, and it's because Apple doesn't want that Info getting out ... the Retard so-called Pro Stock Analysts have never figured things out, AND Apple probably loves it that way !


There are various apps that you can buy on the App Store or directly from the developer.

The Ranking system is almost worthless though. There are probably paid trolls to bump up ratings. Its also strange that non-obscure apps have 3 ratings.
[doublepost=1521150357][/doublepost]
This from the country that fined a baker 3,000 euros because he opened 7 days a week during peak visitor season. His was the only place in the village where you could buy freshly baked bread, so he opened every day to both provide a much needed service and make the most of peak season. He is now fighting the fine.

I really don't understand the overly protective nature of French employment law. Whilst it's a great country that really values regional specialities, sometimes it feels a little bit too keen to shoot itself in the foot!!

Nobody forces anyone to put apps on the App Store. They know the deal they are getting in to.

Yeah its crazy that a country prohibits business on Sunday. Only a crazy country would do that! Hey, by the way, have you been to Bergen County, New Jersey (Fort Lee, Englewood, Edgewater, etc) across the river from NYC? They have "blue laws" which don't allow any retail sales on Sunday either. You can go into Costco on a Sunday near Teeterborough airport across the river from midtown Manhattan but only buy food - they prohibit you from buying underwear, socks, blankets, heaters, toothbrushes, chairs, rice cookers, etc ... because thats the law.

The US Supreme Court has upheld these"blue laws repeatedly :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

So, yeah, the French are crazy ... just like us. By the way, they have a different way of life, which actually attracts millions of Americans, Brits, Australians, Germans, etc.
 
I play a game that is developed by French developers. It’s a very popular game, and is available worldwide. However the support for non-French players is just not there, and the game is geared towards French players.

I believe initially it was only available in France, before being available worldwide. As a result it has French players who have been playing the game much longer than players from elsewhere. The game has developed over time though, it’s actually an airline game where you set up, manage, and develop your own airline. Over the years new planes have been released in the game as they are released in the real world. These have better fuel efficiency etc than older planes, however these new planes are hit with ‘other costs’ as the long term French players would have to pay (game money) to buy new aircraft which they don’t want to do. To make matters worse many older aircraft which are now cheaper to run than newer aircraft to keep the older French players happy are now only available if you buy coins which you barely earn during the game but can easily pay real money for.

Not only this but the moderators are only active on the French game chat and don’t look at or moderate the English one, this has led to the English speaking players using a Discord chat instead. They developers only recently started having announcements in English.

I can’t say for all, but there certainly is some French developers out there who have an attitude and French only attitude which makes them think that they are entitled to better.
 
You think they have a point if they can force Apple to amend an agreement you willingly entered to your benefit.
This is possible already: contract clauses can be declared null and void even if both parties willingly agreed to them.

The issue raised is the bargaining power imbalance between Apple/Google and the developers. Basically France considers Apple and Google to have excessive bargaining power compared to developers, so they want to curb it to allow developers to get a chance for better deals.

As far as I know it's actually pretty typical for the law in EU to give particular protection to the weaker party when there is a large imbalance in bargaining power. I guess in the US freedom of contract is much less limited by such considerations.
 
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I've worked in France a fair bit. Love the country and people. Impossible to work with though.
I've found the French difficult, to say the least, to deal with if your technology is
1) German 2) American 3) Japanese.
Even if it's just a little bit of it that comes from one of those 3 countries.
Just recently I had a client, who I'd written a highly specialised iOS App for, tell me he probably needed an Android port due to a potential French customer who, and I quote, "had taken 3 months to source an iPad to try the App". WTF?
The App controls a highly specialised portable device, via bluetooth.
With an iOS App we have only 3 versions of iOS to support and a very limited, and uniform, range of hardware platforms to support.
With Android, which this customer tells us is company policy (I think he meant "country" not "company"), we face a real struggle to support a horrific range of software/hardware platforms.
You can shout me down all you like but the hard reality is that if you want stability in underlying software/hardware iOS is king.
We'll do their App if they sign a good contract but we'll make them specify exactly the Android version and hardware we'll support - and no other.
I still shudder at the thought of dinning with the French devil once more...
 
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Honestly, Google and Apple should just agree to stop selling or allowing the sale of their devices in the French market and stop pushing updates there. It's getting ridiculous how greedy the European countries and European Union are getting. A bunch of bureaucratic hypocrites. They are even trying to force Apple to pay taxes they think they owe to Ireland, while Ireland says they don't owe any! It's getting stupid.
[doublepost=1521176850][/doublepost]
So the developers earned 1 Billion Euros. How much, apple, did you receive for their development of your platform?

Uhhh....30%, that's what they said and is in their contracts.....
[doublepost=1521177160][/doublepost]
And which country would have a significant lower tax rate that is part of the western world? (Hint: the US has a max income tax rate of 57% according to wikipedia).

I don't know which wikipedia page you're looking at, but it actually says 39.6% as of last year, and this year it says 37%. Maybe you misread it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States
[doublepost=1521177265][/doublepost]Not to mention, the
While France is in the EU, the EU is not France.



I don't pay 55%
And as for your EUSSR remark, keep that comment to yourself, the USA has also problems EU citizens don't understand at all.

Also, effective tax rates top out at 29% because of deductions.
[doublepost=1521177904][/doublepost]
Says the guy who only quotes the federal tax rates but conveniently forgot about the state individual income tax rates (max 13.3%) and medicare tax (3.8%). Makes a total of almost 57% - so exactly what I said.

So shouldn't you include all of those taxes along with the European Union and individual nation states income taxes? Luckily, I'm from Texas and there is no state income tax. Also, your math is still wrong. 38+13.3+3.8=55.1, not 57. Needless to say, a few years back, France authorized a temporary tax of 75% on its highest earners. Not sure where that went, but I remember businesses being pretty peeved about it.
 
Which they did of their own free will and choice.

I assume you are not working as a freelancer, and in a market that is dominated by large corporations .

As a content creator, the contracts you have to sign demand everything plus a kidney .
Or you don't accept the terms, and will not ever work for any of the larger clients - that's the choice one has .
 
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