Apple Fined €5 Million for Ninth Time in the Netherlands Over Third-Party In-App Payment Systems

[Nuno Lopes]

And that is where we disagree. If M&M wants to charge $10 per M&M, they should be able as the use of them is completely optional and there are other substitutes to M&M.

Don't understand the comparison. Apple can charge whatever value it wants for their devices and OS as M&M. What in my opinion should not be able to do is cling the charge on the value delivered by others. If you happen to create a building out of M&Ms what is the reasoning behind M&M charge 30% of the value of your piece? I believe that Steve Jobs would agree that this would be absurd. Yet, Apple and Google just found a technical mechanism that could enforce this practice and scale to any business over billions of people and Tim Cook is riding the wave as much as possible.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

Developers were willing to pay 30% long before Apple had significant market power. It was obviously a good value proposition to them.

There are many things that played back that then that lead to developers contribution to the Apple business. Now, we may agree that such support was very naive and somehow banked on Steve Jobs credit as leading innovation personality. I believe he was in the game to effectively changing the world to a better future, not so much for the money, not to drill wallets like Tim Cook seams to be .... with his monitor Stands and App Store policies:

Don't think this kind of naivety will be seen in tech industry again.

 

[BaldiMac]

There are many things that played back that that lead to developers contribution to the Apple business. Now, we may agree that such support was very naive and somehow banked on Steve Jobs credit as leading innovation personality.

Naive? It was a clear value proposition. You make money on our platform, we get 30%. Pretending it was naive or a personality driven decision is silly.

I believe he was in the game to effectively changing the world to a better future, not so much for the money not can charge or gather like Tim Cook is:

The 30% was created under Jobs. It was lowered under Cook for almost all developers. People aren't one dimensional. Pretending Cook only cared about this and Jobs only cared about that are just lazy arguments.

Don't think this kind of nativity will be seen in tech industry again. In fact, digital business are fighting back in court.

Yes. Billion dollar corporation are trying to take power from trillion dollar corporations and they've convinced a lot of people that it's about fairness or the little guy.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

Yes. Billion dollar corporation are trying to take power from trillion dollar corporations and they've convinced a lot of people that it's about fairness or the little guy.

All we know is that now is way more difficult for the little guy to sell his services directly to his customers rather than through big corp middle mans ... App Stores. Exactly the liberal opportunity that the Internet and the economic nature of the digital material was hoping to unleash from the "shackles" of big corporations of the analog. Furthermore this is being implemented in ways that erode competition more aggressively then the the analog counterparts. Just as an example Apple removing itself say from the Russian market does not take with it just its digital services ... it takes all businesses that it controls through the App Store even if the businesses may think otherwise. This is unprecedented power of a business over all others. Don't think this is kind of power is what digital businesses in general signed up to give!!!!

PS: Yes the 30% over the sale of Software licenses built on iOS was under Jobs ... the App Store. Yet not the sale of dating arrangements. The in app purchase mechanism covering App licensing and anything beyond was fundamentally explored under Tim Cook rule. There is very much a difference between say a Car and Transportation Services provided by the owner of the Car, as there is a difference between a Dating App and Dating services ... Even though Tim Cook effectively distributes and promotes only the first, the App, policies look to charge the second with its revenue share. Why? Because indeed he knows the first and its components by itself, including SDKs, is worth very little as far as digital services go. So he needs policies to compound its products and services into other entities perceived value.

This is where my "naive" qualifier enters into the play. It was supposed to be an App Store. A place where people could buy and sell Apps, much like Cars ... and Games ... for that 30% looks reasonable. Yet don't think they expected that would then need to share the revenue generated using the Cars they sell. If at least there was a reasonable option to sell an App without compromising whatever commerce is built on top and through it ... much like a Car ... Yet not only that option is denied but seams to be "hunted" down by Apple in every way possible ... why? Well because Tim Cook would loose the ability to dilute his components with the value of third parties, and without compounding it would probably charge only 30% of the App license ... say 30% of 20 euros a year, the price of the App/Car rather than of 120, the price of say the video streaming service / transportation service. How else could he achieve such high profit margins?