Apple Threatens to Remove Email App 'Hey' From App Store Over Lack of In-App Subscription Option [Updated]

[nitramluap]

As a developer, I can tell you, you'll fell different when you pay $30M out of $100M for it.

It's the same proportion. What's the matter; $70M not enough for you? Ugh... I hate greedy people. Or are you suggesting that only the HUGE companies get to pay a lower % - how very American...

If you're pulling in that sort of money, make your own device, App Store and employ all the staff skilled in dealing with the tax regulations in every country.

 

[pasamio]

Everyone is hung up on 30% as some sort of usary but it is not that bad. Sure, everyone loves to give a smaller cut but the fact remains the 30% cut is a lot better than the old system. Apple doesm't even force developrs to have an app to stream services or check mail, I check mail and stream shows just fine form Chrome or Safari.

The juxtaposition for folk is essentially a wholesale model where the payment processor takes their 3% and you factor in your own costs. The interesting thing for me is that whilst the 30% cut appears to be reviled on all of the platforms that have it, people still sell in stores like Steam on platforms where there is no ostensible gatekeeper. Part of me wonders if there was a side load feature how well it would be used. Of course with sideloading you introduce the free rider problem where in folk want the benefits without any of the costs, as exemplified by Epic who sideloaded Fortnite lamenting the 30% fee they'd have to pay on the Google Play Store yet went on to release their own store with a 12% cut. People aren't juxtaposing to retail where a 30% cut is normal and it's the status quo for the consoles as well. Part of me wonders if people don't actually realise how much middleman add to the price and just how many of them there are.

I also find the "coerce" arguement specious. Apple is not forcing anyone to develop for iOS and sell on the App Store. That is a decision developers need to make and factor in the 30% cut. If they can't price to make a profit with a 30% cut they need to revist their business model. Developers use the app store becuse it brings them a good market, and Apple charges accordingly.

I also add into this the sense of entitlement that seems to exist. I pointed it out a while back that Hey is upset about Apple dictating the terms of working in their ecosystem whilst intentionally wanting to contribute nothing to it. I empathise with the inconsistent application of the rules at times but ultimately they capitulated and did what Apple asked and got listed. Great marketing for them though I must admit I won't know why I'd pay that much for email when most of their features are built in to GMail.

As for market power, Apple does not have market power in the app market as their is plenty of competition from Andriod, which is the market leader.

This is the one area I feel the EU might decide it disagrees with for some reason that whilst Apple has less than a quarter of the market they some how magically have a monopoly. It's the reality distortion field in reverse. I do hope some of the other EU based manufacturers advocate for Apple though because if Apple can be found to have a monopoly over their phone and distribution with less than a quarter market share, what does that bode for other companies? Can they be forced to open their devices to allow third party access?

 

[Kyanar]

The juxtaposition for folk is essentially a wholesale model where the payment processor takes their 3% and you factor in your own costs. The interesting thing for me is that whilst the 30% cut appears to be reviled on all of the platforms that have it, people still sell in stores like Steam on platforms where there is no ostensible gatekeeper. Part of me wonders if there was a side load feature how well it would be used. Of course with sideloading you introduce the free rider problem where in folk want the benefits without any of the costs, as exemplified by Epic who sideloaded Fortnite lamenting the 30% fee they'd have to pay on the Google Play Store yet went on to release their own store with a 12% cut. People aren't juxtaposing to retail where a 30% cut is normal and it's the status quo for the consoles as well. Part of me wonders if people don't actually realise how much middleman add to the price and just how many of them there are.

What you just described is a market working - Epic Games provided competition for Google Play Games and Steam at a lower price point allowing customers and sellers a choice of where they can go.

This is the one area I feel the EU might decide it disagrees with for some reason that whilst Apple has less than a quarter of the market they some how magically have a monopoly. It's the reality distortion field in reverse. I do hope some of the other EU based manufacturers advocate for Apple though because if Apple can be found to have a monopoly over their phone and distribution with less than a quarter market share, what does that bode for other companies? Can they be forced to open their devices to allow third party access?

I don't know where you guys get this idea. A monopoly is not required for a behaviour to be found to be anti-competitive or anti-consumer. It's utterly irrelevant if they have a monopoly, and the EU does not have to find that they are one to rule against anti-competitive behaviour.

 

[jlc1978]

This is the one area I feel the EU might decide it disagrees with for some reason that whilst Apple has less than a quarter of the market they some how magically have a monopoly. It's the reality distortion field in reverse. I do hope some of the other EU based manufacturers advocate for Apple though because if Apple can be found to have a monopoly over their phone and distribution with less than a quarter market share, what does that bode for other companies? Can they be forced to open their devices to allow third party access?

Very good point. Other companies should be concerned that if the EU decides to take action against Apple will they be next? o they want the EU setting profit margins on products.

What you just described is a market working - Epic Games provided competition for Google Play Games and Steam at a lower price point allowing customers and sellers a choice of where they can go.

Sure, but the point was they diidn't want to have others take a cut and then turned around and take a cut for anything they distribute. Since they probably have a much smaller user base they can't take 30% and expect any developers to come on board.

I don't know where you guys get this idea. A monopoly is not required for a behaviour to be found to be anti-competitive or anti-consumer. It's utterly irrelevant if they have a monopoly, and the EU does not have to find that they are one to rule against anti-competitive behaviour.

Besides fundementally disagreeing that taking a cut, even 30%, is anti-competitive and anti-consumer. Will comapnies lower prices if Apple lowers its cut? I doubt it since they already can sell at a higher price and the money just gets split differently. What happens if Apple decides to eliminate unprofitable or free apps from the store? They can't be expected to support companies that cost them money; leaving less choices for consumers; or raise developer fees to make up for losses, driving smaller developers out of business.

To extend your point, why should booklstores and publishers take most of the money from a book sale? The author creates to product but gets a small fraction of the sales price. Why should bookstores prevent authors from putting in self published books for free in their store? Or grocery stores decide how to display goods and offer store brands at lower prices and greater margins?

In the end it's a market transaction and both sides are free to decide whetehr or not to do the transaction.

Personally, I suspect if it were an EU based company the EU would be much less inclined to be interested in actions and the companies would make a different argument; look at how the EU complains about large foreign corporations getting subsidies while France and Germany do the same and argue they should be allowed to have major sectors merge to betetr compete. In the end, this is about politics, not helping developers or consumers.

 

[Kyanar]

Besides fundementally disagreeing that taking a cut, even 30%, is anti-competitive and anti-consumer. Will comapnies lower prices if Apple lowers its cut? I doubt it since they already can sell at a higher price and the money just gets split differently. What happens if Apple decides to eliminate unprofitable or free apps from the store? They can't be expected to support companies that cost them money; leaving less choices for consumers; or raise developer fees to make up for losses, driving smaller developers out of business.

If Apple decided to eliminate unprofitable or free apps from the store, they'd probably face antitrust investigations for the fact that they're unilaterally deciding what apps are allowed to be available to iOS users. They made their bed, they can lay in it.

To extend your point, why should booklstores and publishers take most of the money from a book sale? The author creates to product but gets a small fraction of the sales price. Why should bookstores prevent authors from putting in self published books for free in their store? Or grocery stores decide how to display goods and offer store brands at lower prices and greater margins?

Bookstores and grocery stores take control of a product to sell. Your argument would have merit if a developer set a price, and Apple paid them for a fixed number of units of the product regardless whether a customer bought them or not. For books and groceries, a creator simply creates a product and sells it to the retailer, which ends the transaction from the viewpoint of the creator. If the product doesn't sell, tough - the creator still got paid. For physical books, the publisher takes a cut to reflect that they fronted up a massive amount of money to provide physical printing, editing, copywriting, art and design, pagesetting, logistics, user research, and countless other things I forget about - the first three pages of the last book I started reading was literally just thanking the various people at the publishing house in 12 point font in a trade paperback.

In the end it's a market transaction and both sides are free to decide whetehr or not to do the transaction.

We've been over this ad nauseum, no they're not. A developer does not get to choose what platform their customers use. They cannot respond to a request from a customer asking "when's the iPhone version coming?" with "piss off, it's never coming. Buy an Android".

Personally, I suspect if it were an EU based company the EU would be much less inclined to be interested in actions and the companies would make a different argument; look at how the EU complains about large foreign corporations getting subsidies while France and Germany do the same and argue they should be allowed to have major sectors merge to betetr compete. In the end, this is about politics, not helping developers or consumers.

Your suspicion is typical American tinfoil-hattery. European companies get smacked down by the EC all the time.

 

[pasamio]

If Apple decided to eliminate unprofitable or free apps from the store, they'd probably face antitrust investigations for the fact that they're unilaterally deciding what apps are allowed to be available to iOS users. They made their bed, they can lay in it.

Which is the crazy thing that we've got an expectation that a company be unable to stop distributing something that doesn't make them profitable.

Bookstores and grocery stores take control of a product to sell. Your argument would have merit if a developer set a price, and Apple paid them for a fixed number of units of the product regardless whether a customer bought them or not. For books and groceries, a creator simply creates a product and sells it to the retailer, which ends the transaction from the viewpoint of the creator. If the product doesn't sell, tough - the creator still got paid. For physical books, the publisher takes a cut to reflect that they fronted up a massive amount of money to provide physical printing, editing, copywriting, art and design, pagesetting, logistics, user research, and countless other things I forget about - the first three pages of the last book I started reading was literally just thanking the various people at the publishing house in 12 point font in a trade paperback.

Yes and it is precisely this reason that publishers are careful about which books they pay an advance on and if a book doesn't sell enough to make back it's advance then that author has even more of an uphill battle to get their next book published. Bookstores also take a cut of the books they sell and whilst they pay the publishers for the books they also generally have the ability to return those books that don't sell for a refund. That model is actually the above comment that anything unprofitable would be removed.

We've been over this ad nauseum, no they're not. A developer does not get to choose what platform their customers use. They cannot respond to a request from a customer asking "when's the iPhone version coming?" with "piss off, it's never coming. Buy an Android".

There are plenty of folk who only offer Android or only offer iOS apps. In fact if the person is already a customer then no worries, they've got a subscription from somewhere else (otherwise they wouldn't be a customer). If it comes to iOS, the expectation for non-reader applications will offer IAP for new customers who want to purchase digital products. The customer can't force you to build an iOS app though obviously the custom has the option of not buying your product.

By definition you're observing the value of the ecosystem that Apple is providing. Someone else might decide that for them it is worth doing that and they capture those customers.

 

[jlc1978]

If Apple decided to eliminate unprofitable or free apps from the store, they'd probably face antitrust investigations for the fact that they're unilaterally deciding what apps are allowed to be available to iOS users. They made their bed, they can lay in it.

Really? If eliminating unprofitable products a company sold warranted an anti-trust action a lot of companies would be in trouble. Companies are under no requirement to sell unprofitable products.

Bookstores and grocery stores take control of a product to sell. Your argument would have merit if a developer set a price, and Apple paid them for a fixed number of units of the product regardless whether a customer bought them or not.

and ofteb retune unsold products, charge slotting fees, demand payments for advertising the product, etc. There are a lot of ways Apple could drive App Store revenue but chose a very simple model.

For books and groceries, a creator simply creates a product and sells it to the retailer, which ends the transaction from the viewpoint of the creator. If the product doesn't sell, tough - the creator still got paid.

Not always, book sales are often counted against an advance, so if the advance isn’t covered the aithor is SOL for further payment no matter how many are printed.

For physical books, the publisher takes a cut to reflect that they fronted up a massive amount of money to provide physical printing, editing, copywriting, art and design, pagesetting, logistics, user research, and countless other things I forget about - the first three pages of the last book I started reading was literally just thanking the various people at the publishing house in 12 point font in a trade paperback.

Apple does a lot to maintain the app store and takes a far smaller cut.

We've been over this ad nauseum, no they're not. A developer does not get to choose what platform their customers use. They cannot respond to a request from a customer asking "when's the iPhone version coming?" with "piss off, it's never coming. Buy an Android".

Sure they can, just as some do not make Windows versions of Mac apps. A developer can decide not to program for a device, no one holds a gun to their head. If they don’t program for teh device soemone users then they are not their customer. It’s as simple as that.

I’ve told prospective customers I’m not interested in tehir busienss, although a bit nicer than how you suggest.

Your suspicion is typical American tinfoil-hattery. European companies get smacked down by the EC all the time.

You assume I have no experience living in the EU and thus resort to an ad hominem while still proving my poiunt about EU regulators.