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Apple Faces New EU Antitrust Complaint Over 30% App Store Commission Rate
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First: everyone comply with the laws and regulations. THEN: your sentence.
The reason is that Apple don't have a store that competes with amazon.
Any digital service Apple want to compete with has a fee to steal their profits. Clear evidence of anti-competitive behaviour. Businesses should survive on their own merit, not the merit of other departments.
If Apple set up Apple Music as another company, and charged them the same fees as anyone else, with a different board of directors, it might be OK.
Kobo does not move on this without the support of Brussels. I’ll continue to sit back with my popcorn and watch the escalating power struggle between Brussels, Paris, and Berlin. 😉
Every one wants access to Apple’s estimated 1.4 active devices and estimated 1 Billion users. There really isn’t another example of a (relatively) secure ecosystem, targeted consumer and trusted brand in which to market and sell a product. 30% is actually not high compared to what other new-to-market products have to pay to to have their product faced, backed and marketed to the public. If you need an example of that, watch “Shark Tank” again. The struggle new products go through to get market exposure is massive. That is why we see so many failures in the “as seen on TV” strategy that never make it to your local retailer. And with the Apple approach, there is no distribution or production risk if your product becomes an overnight viral hit. A single person can become rich for making a simple app that looks like a lighter or makes a gastric sound effect. I don’t believe most people understand what it typically costs to get your product placed on a store shelf.
Really, basic payment management thats all you think Apple provides for the 30%? How about the hundreds of terabytes per day in bandwidth for pushing those app downloads and updates?
You think thats free? It costs an insane amount of money to provide that.
but there are other markets besides apple and google, look at the jailbreaking community.
Exactly. Apple has basically cut out all of the other middlemen and costs in exchange for a much smaller cut tahn if they were still in the picture; yet people complain about 30% when it is actually quite a deal for developers and writers.
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Google "slotting fees." Many stores do not shelve products for free.
The one in the summary the EU is proposing, the 10% one, increase it to 30%.
Are you kidding me? No value? These companies likely wouldn't even exist without Apple. Either pay what they ask, or go somewhere else.
Here in the EU we need to refill our popcorn buckets watching the cold civil war taking place in the US between level headed, science/fact driven folks and red hatted, fact free nuts while you let a pandemic and (valid) protests spread...
You do realize even original US anti-trust/monopoly laws like the Sherman act were intended to stop behavior like Apple's... too much domination and concentration makes not only an anti-competitive market, but a less innovative one in the long run. The US just re-interpreted the meaning of the Sherman act in the 80s.
This is exactly what anti-trust was made for.
Apple is using their market power in the OS market, to capture other markets (music streaming). They are acting anti-consumer as prices are going up due to their anti-competitive behavior.
Its a clean cut anti-trust case, they will be hammered hard.
Apple is using their market power in the OS market, to capture other markets (music streaming). They are acting anti-consumer as prices are going up due to their anti-competitive behavior.
Its a clean cut anti-trust case, they will be hammered hard.
While 30% is steep it is standard. Stream, Microsoft, Sony, etc all have 30% cuts. There is more to content distribution from a platform than just payment processing.
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OK well if they single out Apple they should go after all content platforms that charge similar rates. The creators know that they are signing up for. Try developing your own distribution management and payment processing platform yourself if you don’t like the publisher cuts.
There is a big difference between those services.
Steam has major competition from the various game stores which charge different fees, and it also doesn't own or force vendors to go through their payment system. Additionally there are still physical game sales, and you can import games purchased outside of steam into your library.
Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo, for console digital goods sales, still support physical media so you're not forced into buying games through their consoles. Although once digital downloads reach a certain threshold when it becomes the de-facto only way to purchase games they should be hit too.
Google with android is a bit better because they allow for different app stores to be installed, but still they are a defacto monopoly in the android market, and should likely be hit with anti-trust too.
Remember that Microsoft got busted for bundling IE with windows
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Before Apple Music and Books it was fine to take 30% but if Apple takes a 30% of it’s own app sales it still goes to Apple 😂 it’s anticompetitive
You have no idea what you are talking about. Anti-trust requires having a monopoly or close to it. Apple doesn’t have a smartphone monopoly by a long shot. Less than 1/3 of devices in Europe run iOS. How is that a monopoly?
I say Apple charges them 40-70% like the previous leaders in the market did. Apps on phones required a huge upfront and 70% commission paid to either the phone company or the game box maker. Then they would still be responsible for marketing. Apple is the driving force of the marketing of their platform and is where the value lies. They also handle the distribution and customer service which what a function of the developer previously.
Apple is facing another European antitrust complaint, this time over its 30 percent cut on ebooks in the App Store. The complaint was made to the European Commission by Rakuten's Kobo subsidiary, which alleges that Apple's commission rate is anti-competitive when it also promotes its own Apple Books service.
According to a Financial Times report, Kobo argues that having to pay Apple 30 percent commission on each ebook that it sells through the App Store via the Kobo app makes it next to impossible to turn a profit, whereas Apple's own Bookstore means it doesn't have to take an equivalent revenue cut.
The complaint is similar to one that Spotify filed with the EC in March 2019. Spotify specifically took issue with Apple's 30 percent fee collected on App Store purchases, which has forced Spotify to charge subscribers through the App Store $12.99 per month for its Premium plan instead of the $9.99 per month fee it normally collects.
Spotify argued that the iPhone maker enforced App Store rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience."
Apple swiftly hit back at the accusation, labeling it as "misleading rhetoric" and arguing that "Spotify wants all the benefits of a free app without being free." Spotify's antitrust complaint is still under investigation.
The EU can force companies to change business practices they deem unlawful and levy fines of up to 10 per cent of a company's global turnover. However, investigations by the European Commission can take years to resolve unless the companies involved offer to settle the probes by making legally binding agreements to change their behavior.
Article Link: Apple Faces New EU Antitrust Complaint Over 30% App Store Commission Rate
Maybe they should break it down. 10% for processing, 10% platform access and distribution, 10% customer service, 10% marketing. They should offer this to anyone wanting access and complaining. 40% instead of 30% for all those services integrated.
And you can buy digital goods outside of the app at what ever rate the vendor wishes to charge and have them in your library on your iOS device. My entire Kindle library is this way.
Every game for those platforms already has a cut though either through someone selling you the physical media or the digital stores. IGN has an article on the 30% cut being an industry standard.
The market isn't generally defined as an operating system, the market is defined by the category, in this case smart phones. Android has a monopoly on the smartphone market, iOS does not. Apple has an advantage on Apple's own platform however that doesn't raise to a monopoly because consumers not only have a choice to pick a different device (Android) but consumers in the case of Kobo (and others) have the option to purchase the product outside of Apple's ecosystem. Apple does prevent them advertising this fact inside their apps and linking to them but Apple also is distributing their app for the $99 yearly developer license to those same consumers.
If I understand it correctly, the 30% cut for Apple on digital good sold through their apps also existed prior to Apple selling books.
The biggest issue is Apple is forcing companies that sell digital goods to use the Apple payment system when enrolling through an app even if the company has its own existing system. 30% isn't a bad rate if you want Apple to handle collecting the payment, paying the credit card company fee, and remit the money to your bank account. But then you've got companies like Amazon, Kobo, Spotify, etc. that don't need or want to use Apple to collect the payments, yet Apple won't allow them an alternative inside the app even though they don't require it for physical goods or services.
It will be up to the commission to see if Apple appears to be doing so for a valid reason or if they are unfairly benefiting from stifling competition for iBooks, Apple Music, iTunes videos, etc.
It will be up to the commission to see if Apple appears to be doing so for a valid reason or if they are unfairly benefiting from stifling competition for iBooks, Apple Music, iTunes videos, etc.
Rakuten is free to invest it’s money in an OS or use a free Android one. And it can take payment in bitcoins.
Apple is facing another European antitrust complaint, this time over its 30 percent cut on ebooks in the App Store. The complaint was made to the European Commission by Rakuten's Kobo subsidiary, which alleges that Apple's commission rate is anti-competitive when it also promotes its own Apple Books service.
According to a Financial Times report, Kobo argues that having to pay Apple 30 percent commission on each ebook that it sells through the App Store via the Kobo app makes it next to impossible to turn a profit, whereas Apple's own Bookstore means it doesn't have to take an equivalent revenue cut.
The complaint is similar to one that Spotify filed with the EC in March 2019. Spotify specifically took issue with Apple's 30 percent fee collected on App Store purchases, which has forced Spotify to charge subscribers through the App Store $12.99 per month for its Premium plan instead of the $9.99 per month fee it normally collects.
Spotify argued that the iPhone maker enforced App Store rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience."
Apple swiftly hit back at the accusation, labeling it as "misleading rhetoric" and arguing that "Spotify wants all the benefits of a free app without being free." Spotify's antitrust complaint is still under investigation.
The EU can force companies to change business practices they deem unlawful and levy fines of up to 10 per cent of a company's global turnover. However, investigations by the European Commission can take years to resolve unless the companies involved offer to settle the probes by making legally binding agreements to change their behavior.
Article Link: Apple Faces New EU Antitrust Complaint Over 30% App Store Commission Rate
I’m a big supporter of strong regulation for properly functioning markets, but a company’s own operating system is not a market. It’s property.
Similarly, these publishers and the fools who use Facebook, also need to grasp that that is private property, not a the public commons.
Me: I want to sell my stuff in your building and pay rent.
Apple: Sure. Only rent's a percentage, not a flat monthly fee. Also we're opening a new store in the same building that sells the same stuff you do but doesn't have the rent overhead 'cause we own the building so we can undercut the **** out of your business.
Me: wait
The rent argument doesn't make any sense. Malls charge all their storefronts rent. Malls do not also open up their own stalls with the same product as their stores after noticing how successful those stores are. Apple does this regularly. They definitely have a case for a very flagrant conflict of interests here.