And why can’t apple ask for payment for developers code asking apples code to do something?
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Dutch Regulator Says Apple's Plan for Third-Party In-App Payments is Insufficient, Fines Apple 5 Million Euros
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Neither do I. I have the popcorn and am watching the movie to see what the ending is.
Apple is under investigation for anti competitive behavior. This can include apples commission. If apples takes 30% and also lowers their commission so the developers always pay 30% it can be anti competitive as it literally tries to remove any reason for developers to chose competing solutions.
But if the cost to Apple for providing payment processing services is 3 percentage points, and apple removes 3 percentage points from its commission, how is it apples fault if the developer can’t get another payment provider for less than those 3 percentage points? Surely that is the risk developers have to be prepared to take when asking for this freedom to chose a third party payment provider, that it might actually end up costing them more by introducing additional middlemen?
They can. It’s known as the 99$ developers members fee and the 15-30% cut on sales in the App Store.
The question is about developers having the option to chose a competing solution for in app payment
Sidebar:
Who does Apple use to process their payments?
Apple isn't a bank... even though they have more money than some countries. ?
So Apple is paying someone else 2.9% plus 30 cents on every transaction in the App Store... millions of times a day.
Sorry to derail the conversation... carry on...
Who does Apple use to process their payments?
Apple isn't a bank... even though they have more money than some countries. ?
So Apple is paying someone else 2.9% plus 30 cents on every transaction in the App Store... millions of times a day.
Sorry to derail the conversation... carry on...
A different payment processor does not mean it’s not an App Store sale. It’s still selling content in a app the user obtained from the app store.
The thing is, in purchases made inside the app. Apples 30% cut doesn’t provide for anything to the developers outside of payment processing, refunding etc.
there is marketing, no support, no infrastructure etc that they provide.
So it’s just an expensive payment solution.
And apple should be allowed to provide nothing to developers who chose to not use their solution.
Well it provides a license for developers to develop iOS apps and have them available in the App Store.
Of course developers are free to not agree with that and not develop for iOS.
The Dutch case only pertains to payment processing within apps. It does not pertain to whether Apple can or cannot be the only business that owns and operates an App Store on iOS devices. It does not stop Apple charging a fee and commission for giving developers access to sell digital goods on the App Store or within apps that have been downloaded from the App Store. It only stops Apple from allowing developers to only have Apple as the mechanism for taking payment for those IAPs. It does not stop any of the other stuff that Apple does and charges for in relation to iOS apps.
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Nobody ever claimed there was a legal barrier to entering a market, so while correct, also irrelevant.
Actually that the barrier into this market is time, money and people is very relevant as Apple is a legal monopoly.
I apparently don't understand this comment, as you're now saying Apple is a monopoly, a position you've steadfastly argued against.
You don’t Need a license to develop iOS programs. Only to distribute it in their store. Otherwise how do you think cydia developers does it?
Indeed and I have never argued differently.
100% agree
It very much can. If it’s anti competitive
It does if it’s anti competitive. And the ACM said apples response was still anti competitive
Apple haven’t said what and how they will take a commission so the ACM haven’t responded to something they haven’t provided yet
So nothing to regulate yet.
There have always been other platforms available. You just need Xcode if you want to distribute on the apple store.
You’re right, Apple is not a monopoly, but even so, a almost duopoly of this sort (iOS, Android, App Store, Play Store) does create problems that are similar to a monopoly. For example, I think it’s fair to say that Windows Phone didn’t fail because it was such a bad OS, I mean the market is just not easy to enter, making the status quo quite powerful.
I also don’t think Apple is the problem. The problem is probably the duopoly.
Apple charges 30 percent - Google charges 30 percent. Apple lowers first million to 15 percent - Google lowers first million to 15 percent. If one is price wise a copy of the other, and if it’s so easy to cut rates in half (and only because of fear for legislative actions) without going broke, then the market is not doing its job very well, right?
What do you think?
A. Mobile hardware = effective OS duopoly of Android/iOS
B. Desktop/laptop hardware = effective OS duopoly of Windows/macOS
The desktop/laptop duopoly has a wide variety of stores for consumers to buy apps from, as well as the ability to download apps directly from an individual developers web site. That is being promoted as the better competitive environment, but it doesn't actually provide better prices for software. The mobile OS duopoly has the lowest prices for software, and there's no real pricing difference between the single store approach for iOS and the side loading approach for Android. Despite the claims that side loading increases competition, nobody is able to provide broad pricing comparisons that prove there is a significant difference.
I said Apple is a legal monopoly, not an (illegal) monopoly. You keep saying Apple is getting all of this attention due to the fact that in conjunction with google, they are a duopoly in the mobile phone market. People have voted with their wallets to make them as such.
I don't recall seeing you acknowledge that Apple was even a legal monopoly before. However, it doesn't really matter that people voted with their wallets which then created the duopoly market that we have today. It's quite an interesting take of yours that this somehow means Apple and Google now have some kind of super special exemption from being regulated by governments. "People voted with their wallets! Can't regulate!" It's nonsense.
I understand. But to me it seems that on mobile we have a lot more apps than on desktop. So the player most successful in pushing an easy to use app store, which is of course Apple but Google just as well with their preinstalled play store, has a LOT of market power right? To me it seems that regardless of the OS, the user doesn’t consciously choose for a specific app store because one is provided for them. The app stores themselves create a very competitive environment for the developers that publish apps on them, but Apple/Google takes 30% of their profit so Apple/Google always wins virtually only because of their power over the OS. Isn’t that questionable?
Yep, this is nonsense and not something I endorse. Obviously none of this is up to you or me (although the first Tuesday of November we can all say where we stand) and the behemoth we call the government wins some and loses some.
Perhaps, though I've got about a dozen other things more important to me than a politician's stance on this issue.
Couple of items of clarification:
Revenue != Profit. Commissions are on overall revenue, and a wise company prices that overhead into their product.
Also, the commission is 15% for those under $1MM annual revenue, and 30% above that level.
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I figured it was obvious, but the dozen other things was in reference to political positions when at the ballot box.
Profit: Sure, my mistake. Non native speaker here. 15%: yeah I used that in my previous post, but since that was actually one of the first actions that Apple took because of the growing pressure, I think it’s okay to use 30% especially for brevity’s sake.