Correct we disagree with your Monday morning quarterback approach. The App Store is apples property and the rent on the property is 30%. Of course even landlords have to comply with laws as does apple.
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Apple Must Let Dating Apps Offer Alternative Payment Methods in App Store, Dutch Regulator Says
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From a sales point of view, this doesn't matter.
The whole discussion always comes down to two lines of arguments, and we should not mix them up:
1) Apple provides a lot of things, SDKs, dev tools, hosting, download/update traffic etc. That's why companies need to pay sales cuts.
I do not agree. Apple should just charge for their services and dev programs. This would be a fair solution.
2) Apple facilitates a sale in their market place. And as such it is entitled to a cut. I am in this camp. BUT: In my opinion Apple *must* allow alternative stores. However, in their store they can set the rules. Because the difference between initial sale and subsequent sales is completely arbitrary in the Apps world, and because this fact can be misused to circumvent initial sales fees, Apple must be allowed to set/negotiate sales terms beyond the initial sale. It is not unreasonable to tax the total transaction volume of a sold App (initial sale + subsequent sales + subscriptions), because without the initial sale there also would not be subsequent sales. Realistically though, models with fees decreasing over time would be used. Or a negotiated one-time kickback fee that includes future sales (as is the case with printers, Nespresso machines and Microsoft 365).
But again, in order for this to be a viable solution, alternative App stores must exist. The current model with Apple dictating terms in the only store available is anti-competitive and cripples innovation, it therefore cannot last and will be regulated.
Alternate payment options is completely different than alternate app stores. Alternate payment options will take apples revenue, perhaps reduce the customer experience. (Of course apple should be allowed to recoup its fees). Alternate app stores have the potential to give the apple experience a black eye.
I am not accusing Apple of doing anything illegal. But just because a practice was permitted in some conditions in time, in another time, different conditions and more understanding … it may not. The law envolves like everything else … it’s not static.
I think at the center of this turmoil is actually the concepts of property and the challenges the digital bring to it. Before between users and software and now between businesses.
So I do not understand the relevance of your assertion given the discussion. The absence of something does not take merit out of its existence in the future.
Look at the title of this thread … the issue is under debate.
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Of course it does. If it did not matter we would not be having this discussion. A sale is a transaction between two parties. There is no Sale point of view … just the view of the parties involved in the sale ….. The funny thing in this process is that we have 3 points of view, 3 parties, say Netflix, the person that wants access to it and a middleman with a cash register because it allowed the user to install the app (App Store).
One argument is that the user does not care less. But if it does not care less than what’s the problem of having the option of either pay through the App Store or directly to the digital service in App? The fact is, the App Store recognizes this is important, it knows that the user cares, otherwise it already be complying with the recent court order … instead has a mega team of lawyers working to avoid it.
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Using another’s property to distribute (give away and sell) your own property. I’m not sure why there actually needs to be a distinction between analog and digital property.
I don’t agree with your argument, some in the world do, some in the world like the US are looking further at this concept. May go somewhere or may not.
Agreed. You see, we don’t disagree with everything. I guess the event is still on going. Maybe not a quarter back after all and not a silly boy.
Not long ago you were totally against multiple cash registers / payment methods in app. Apple App Store in app cash register along with devs. Let the user decide which works better for him.
I’m not in favor of multiple App Store or sideloading … but Apple starts equating say videos streams and streams games with Apps I’m open to that possibility to be enforced seeing how deep can Apple go to assure that it can collect for things and services it does not offer as a gatekeeper. But I do not see it as necessary … its on Apple, no one else.
Hey … but even if it goes all the way in Apples path …
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I’m not against apple recouping lost revenue from forced government mandates. For example for each .99 IAP apple should be able to .15 or .30 no matter who processes the payment.
Have no idea what this means. I understand that you seam to be anti government … beyond that have no idea.
But one thing in history I got. If it was not for the formation of the US government and democracy the Brit’s or the French (kings and queens) would take over … I guess the challengers of that position are now the Big Tech corporations and Wall Street. If that is basis of anti-gov … I agree … it is not gonna end well.
PS: Fine, fix 30%/15% on royalties instead of pretending none exist.
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Why is it so hard for you to understand the concept of sales commission? Again: Canon printer sold for $0, and all engineering+manufacturing expenses recouped through Cannon's own direct ink cartridge sales. Do you think anyone would offer it in their store? What if the store must offer it by law and cannot negotiate a deal with Cannon? Would that be fair? That's exactly what is happening here.
It’s not that hard the understand. What is hard to understand is a sales commission when one does not do the sale just offers a mandatory cash register in the end of the process it. You are the products / service owner, hand the sale and distribution to a store … and the store hand it all back along with its cash register, sorry we only distribute the App … brilliant.
Currently I have a real state property for sale, a company is handling everything, from visitors, to promoting on the net, publishing it in marketplaces, paper work, all that … 5%. It would not get 5% if I handled it all, promo on the web, follow ups …. and on top closed the deal myself. Why is this hard for you to understand … have absolutely no idea.
PS: Of course by handling myself I would probably hire someone to handle digital marketing … post on the sites etc etc … or maybe handle it myself.
It depends. But I choose not to, not forced to, my potential customers don’t use the iPhone
, because my time is better spent elsewhere. Talking about time well spent … time to go. It was entertaining.Maybe in the future people will not have such a clearer option. You know, smart homes and all. Maybe then leaving 30% on the table is the way to go. When will Apple start charging for stock transactions in app? 30% on top of brokers commissions looks yummm
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There’s the issue, I don’t view this as a mandatory sales register. I view this as someone wanting to rent space in a building and agreeing to pay the landlord a percentage of the sales.
RE: sales commission
I think it was easier to accept when apps were $1 and Apple kept 30 cents. Hardly anyone had a problem with giving Apple their commission. And that's why it stood unchallenged for over a decade.
But now we've got things like IAP, digital virtual currency, and monthly subscriptions... so it gets a little murkier.
For instance... yes... Apple and the App Store should get paid when the user discovers and downloads the app in the first place.
But does Apple need to collect a percentage of a subscription fee... every month? Or a percentage of every ebook downloaded from someone else's servers? Or media streamed from elsewhere? That's where this idea of a flat percentage-based commission fee falls apart.
Basically... Apple says every transaction is subject to a 15% or 30% commission fee... whether it's a single app download or a recurring monthly fee.
But perhaps that's not the best idea anymore.
The solution? I dunno. I've seen people suggesting that Apple should charge developers more up-front for SDKs and dev tools so they don't have to pay such high fees later. Or charge developers a per-download fee for bandwidth or whatever.
In either of those examples... Apple will have to totally revamp their operation of the App Store if they are no longer allowed to collect a flat commission fee anymore.
It'll be interesting. Stay tuned!
I think it was easier to accept when apps were $1 and Apple kept 30 cents. Hardly anyone had a problem with giving Apple their commission. And that's why it stood unchallenged for over a decade.
But now we've got things like IAP, digital virtual currency, and monthly subscriptions... so it gets a little murkier.
For instance... yes... Apple and the App Store should get paid when the user discovers and downloads the app in the first place.
But does Apple need to collect a percentage of a subscription fee... every month? Or a percentage of every ebook downloaded from someone else's servers? Or media streamed from elsewhere? That's where this idea of a flat percentage-based commission fee falls apart.
Basically... Apple says every transaction is subject to a 15% or 30% commission fee... whether it's a single app download or a recurring monthly fee.
But perhaps that's not the best idea anymore.
The solution? I dunno. I've seen people suggesting that Apple should charge developers more up-front for SDKs and dev tools so they don't have to pay such high fees later. Or charge developers a per-download fee for bandwidth or whatever.
In either of those examples... Apple will have to totally revamp their operation of the App Store if they are no longer allowed to collect a flat commission fee anymore.
It'll be interesting. Stay tuned!
I'm not familiar with commercial real estate.
Do landlords actually demand a percentage of your sales?
I always assumed that you just paid your rent every month.
Not the best analogy IMO, but yes, that model exists. It's called turnover rent.
The problem is again the blurry mix of consumption device vs. service. Of course Apple should not be entitled to fees related to services offered completely outside of their plafform (such as licensing and streaming of a movie). But they are entitled to a fair share of the app sold through their platform to consume such streams. However, the app is given away for free. This is only possible because Netflix develops the App AND provides the service. Ideally the two would be separated and the app would need to be sold at cost, in which case Apple would get their fair share of what is actually offered through their store. Similarly, in your eReader example, Apple should get their share of the initial reader App sale and all its updates. And absolutey nothing for the content that is bought/consumed.
On the other hand, ToDo list App X offering a free app with virtually zero features and a yearly subscription to just even use the app, should be taxed over the whole lifespan, because, contrary to Netflix, the subscription covers no additional services, but 100% App development costs. It is just distributed with a different payment model for the sake of tricking customers to spend more. And therefore, yes, in this case Apple is IMO morally entitled to fees for the initial sale and all future sales/subscriptions because all of it can be seen as a single sale.
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Who would ever agree with that? maybe probably if 50% of your customers were “tied” while using a VR glass projecting that they have bought an apartment when was indeed a marketplace for rent. Hummm clever. how much? 30c on the dollar … cheap
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Commercial leases can work like that. So yeah, if you want the space enough you'll agree to the terms.
I can agree with that. The problem is that right now, even if say Netflix sold the App through the App Store, they could not still offer their own in App subscription for their services as per the App Store policies.
So Apple is not into really charging for the App sale or the use of the required OS centric SDKs, but the business generated through the App at their own discretion. That is why they are fighting hard to overturn the current court order. They aim to charge fees to businesses operating through their own customers devices, period. Or aren’t Netflix customer also Apple customers … don’t they overlap? … all the time. The App Store and its policies are simply instruments to this aim. There is no other interpretation to the policies.
This is no Retail, Store or Marketplace practice. It may look like it is but it is not.
This wouldn’t be much of a problem if 50% of customers of any digital business weren’t buying iPhones for entirely different reasons … of course. Can you imagine if they told users that they could charge them 30% of whatever they buy through an App? It would be a giggle. Better to do the marketing around cameras, performance and all that jazz.
Than you go to Android and watch Google trying to impose exactely the same thing. It looks more like an tax over the digital business transactions where the App Store is just a front. An iOS city tax where some transactions are tax free … others are not
Welcome to the Big Tech gaslight. Will they manage to create a tech entanglement around people and third party businesses to than charge fees to the (digital) economy itself? Will see, I thought that would be impossible … today not so sure. Smartphones is just an essay to this practice. We have people like the I7guy already of the opinion that they, Big Tech, can do whatever with the power gathered.
”Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large ...” — App Store + in app purchase interaction model makes it impossible to discern the value (state) of the business an App (particle) generates from the one generated by the App Store (another particle) … entanglement …
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on 2) it would be a simple solution to just take a "purchase fee" for free apps or "cheap" apps with millions of downloads. this forces apple to have a fee correlated with cost and profit margin, not related to the price of the app. And it would not affect streaming services.
Example every app purchased that costs 0-5$ would pay less than 0.01 cent or whatever number they deem fair and wiht more than 500 downloads. This gives apple money for every free app or those who tries to circumvent the system with third party options.
everybody winns
"lawfull" and harmfull can be the same thing. We won't cry for a trillion-dollar company losing 1% of their profit margins