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Dutch Regulator Still Unsatisfied With Apple's Rules Surrounding Dating Apps
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First of, no they haven't fulfilled all the requirements, and the court documents are available to you to read. A twitter statement isn't the complete story
I'm sure the App Store is making record profits, but your article says nothing about profitability. Its revenue numbers are also based on the faulty assumption that Apple takes 30% of all sales. And they include the amount paid to developers.If the cost of running the App Store is so much to contend with, why do you see record profitability?
Apple's App Store had gross sales around $64 billion last year and it's growing strongly again
The money that Apple makes from its App Store has become a flash point for critics of Apple that argue it has too much power.www.cnbc.com
And they should. Why support the App Store in a certain country if their laws don’t support their reason for being there? Making a profit is why the investments are made at the level they do. If that is not going to be supported, Apple should turn off the store there.
If these rules were clear before, these apps would not exist, because this would have been one of the countries deemed unfriendly to their model and they would have avoided them altogether.
All that says is that developers made record sales on the App Store and that developers made record profits. THAT IS A GOOD THING. By implication, it means Apple made record profits. So? What’s your point? Is Apple running a charity or is Apple running a for-profit business? Why is it your concern what Apple’s profit margin is? Doesn’t it follow that if developers are making record profits that Apple should also participate in the gravy train?If the cost of running the App Store is so much to contend with, why do you see record profitability?
Apple's App Store had gross sales around $64 billion last year and it's growing strongly again
The money that Apple makes from its App Store has become a flash point for critics of Apple that argue it has too much power.
I would remind you that when Apple introduced the App Store, the 30% announced cut was lauded as incredibly cheap. Most online stores at the time were charging developers 50-75% of sales. Apple brought down those costs to 30% for everyone because every other online store had to compete with Apple and were forced to match Apple’s 30%. Now people are complaining 30% is too high? What’s changed between 14 years ago and now where 30% was a great deal then but is too expensive now? Did the cost of the App Store go down when we weren’t looking?
Every other online store still charges 30%, but all the animosity is directed at Apple. Why?
My main point stands. If Apple did not charge 30% for in-app purchases, every app that is currently a paid app will be re-released as a free app tomorrow. That $299 app you bought yesterday on initial download is now free to download, but when you launch it, it’ll say, “To unlock even the tiniest bit of functionality for this app, you must pay us $299 in-app”. Hey, the developer just circumvented the rules. Apple gets zero while the developer gets 100% today when yesterday, Apple made almost $90 on that initial download. You’re asking Apple to be a charity.
When Apple actually does something of substance, perhaps we can then begin evaluating claims like "it will never be enough".
So far they've essentially done nothing of meaning and are more just playing games with regulators.
Please consider reading through some of the many threads on this from the past several months.
Everything you've brought up (and likely will) is fully covered by ample discussion and debate already.
Remember there are a lot of products that Apple doesn’t offer outside of a few countries because the policies are too complicated to navigate or just don’t make business sense.
Operating a store that has billions of customers you market to and bring them there to buy based on your name and goodwill with the goal of making a profit, but being forced to allow other companies to use your platform and resources to take your customers elsewhere when they are ready to buy without paying a commission qualifies as not making business sense.
Operating a store that has billions of customers you market to and bring them there to buy based on your name and goodwill with the goal of making a profit, but being forced to allow other companies to use your platform and resources to take your customers elsewhere when they are ready to buy without paying a commission qualifies as not making business sense.
People keep saying that Apple didn't fulfill the original order.
Here it is:
The order subject to periodic penalty payments
20. ACM orders Apple to put an end to the violation established by ACM. Apple must adjust its
conditions in such a way that, with regard to their dating apps that they offer in the Dutch App
Store, dating-app providers are able to choose themselves what market participant they want to
process the payments for digital content and services sold within the app. [suspended], and, in
addition, they must have the ability to refer within the app to other payment systems outside the
app.
Which part of that order does Apple's proposal violate?
Here it is:
The order subject to periodic penalty payments
20. ACM orders Apple to put an end to the violation established by ACM. Apple must adjust its
conditions in such a way that, with regard to their dating apps that they offer in the Dutch App
Store, dating-app providers are able to choose themselves what market participant they want to
process the payments for digital content and services sold within the app. [suspended], and, in
addition, they must have the ability to refer within the app to other payment systems outside the
app.
Which part of that order does Apple's proposal violate?
If the cost of running the App Store is so much to contend with, why do you see record profitability?
Apple's App Store had gross sales around $64 billion last year and it's growing strongly again
The money that Apple makes from its App Store has become a flash point for critics of Apple that argue it has too much power.
Apple is a business and they are entitled to profit. I don't understand why people have such a hard time with this concept. Apple develops software and systems so third party developers can build and sell their own software and systems commercially. I don't see criticism of McDonalds for not giving their drinks away because they are nearly pure profit and they already make enough money selling food. Business is business. I also don't see many charities making consumer electronics that we want to buy.
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This reminds me of the old joke where this guy sells a product that loses $1 for every sale. His buddy asks him how he expects to make money. He says, “volume!” We have no idea what it costs Apple to run the App Store and they aren’t likely to tell us. All we know is that they made record revenue, but so did the developers. You’re assuming they made record profits, but we don’t actually know how much they made. Revenue does not equal profits. But what if they did make record profits? So what? What’s the problem? That means the App Store is wildly successful.If the cost of running the App Store is so much to contend with, why do you see record profitability?
Apple's App Store had gross sales around $64 billion last year and it's growing strongly again
The money that Apple makes from its App Store has become a flash point for critics of Apple that argue it has too much power.
Your argument doesn’t actually say what you think it says. Say Apple cut all of its fees and decided to run the App Store charity. They earn zero from every sale, in-app or initial download. That story would still say App Store earned record revenue. So what’s your point? That story does not advance your argument. The record revenue is completely independent of what Apple charges developers. Whether Apple makes 30% or 0% and developers make 70% or 100% would not affect that story one bit. The App Store would still record record revenue. As I said above, THAT IS A GOOD THING.
There was a study done before (I think it was by Microsoft?) where it was reckoned that 15% was he minimum commission required to run the App store and turn a profit. The regulator is overstepping by trying to regulate profit margins without saying as much.
The regulator wants dating apps to be able to skirt around this on the basis that they are ONLY paying for payment processing and not seeing the bigger picture which is the infrastructure allows the free app market to blossom.
These arent mom and pop operations, these are multi billion dollar companies that are ALSO saving a heck of a lot of money by:
A. Being listed on the App store, which saves them a bundle in marketing.
B. Using IAP's which allow instant sales rather than abandoned checkouts.
C. Global reach
If there was little value to IAP's these companies would not be squabbling so hard over commissions. The fact is, that they could have accepted payments through their website instead in order to use the app, but that would mean spending on additional marketing informing users how to do it.
By fighting tooth and nail over this, they have proven that IAP's do add massive value.
Also most of these Apps would function fine as a PWA, allowing them to bypass the App store completely.
Apple have decided that 3% is what the payment processing aspect of the ecosystem is worth and 27% makes up the rest of the value.
Dating apps would only be the first of many industries that would have cases if this pushes though. If everyone decided to use external payments, the only money being made from the App store would be the $99 dev fee. Thats not going to keep the lights on in the Apple Campus
Free Apps are Subsidized by paid apps, they would disappear if a per MB fee was introduced.
Apple are not the only one charging devs high commissions due to being a proprietary system (Xbox, Playstation & Android if you do not take side-loading into consideration)
But they do collect, use & sell your data. So I guess it depends on your notion of free.
Only certain Apps are allowed to have 3rd party payments on the Play store, just like on the App Store.
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”I could explain it in one to two sentences, but I think you should go read the 200,000 pages of court documents written in a foreign language you don’t know instead.”
Sorry, but not one person is going to care enough to locate or read those court documents, especially if they’re in Dutch. If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine and is your prerogative. Sorry that was a bit snarky, but your answer wasn’t very productive.
Not to step on your point (which I agree with, in general), but I posted the order a few posts up. It's available in English from the ACM website.
From the excerpt you posted, I still don’t see what Apple is still violating. It seems they’ve met both conditions. They allow developers to choose an alternate payment processor and they are allowed to refer to external payment options. Note that the second has always been permitted in apps, though direct linking is disallowed for security concerns, just like most website comment sections are forbidden from including direct links. Those can be dangerous. But the excerpt only mentioned “refer” not “link to”, so it’s still clear as mud what Apple is still violating.Not to step on your point (which I agree with, in general), but I posted the order a few posts up. It's available in English from the ACM website.
AFAIK there is no disclosure of revenue for the App store, Epic tried to get the court to push Apple to disclose that. All we have is assumptions about it.
What’s the difference? ACM is a government agency, just like our own alphabet agencies.
Again, revenue is easy enough to estimate based on published developer payouts. Your article just did a horrible job.
Back of the envelope estimate based on the number in the article (45 billion paid to developers), Apple had somewhere between 53 and 64 billion in app sales. Which comes to between 8 billion and 19 billion in revenue after payments to developers.
What we don't know are expenses. We can make some assumptions. Obviously, they'd have credit card fees on each transaction. 3% would be between 1.6 and 1.9 billion in credit card fees. Add in data center expansion, hosting costs, bandwidth, reviewers, etc. I'd guess another couple billion a year, but feel free to make your own guess.
That would mean the App Store made between 4.4 and 15.4 billion before taxes in 2021. All things being relative, that's not exactly a crazy number. Their total corporate gross profit was 152 billion.
does dell get 30% of each pc game on steam if you buy an pc from them?
Does ford get 30% of each fillup when you buy an car?
Does ford get 30% of each toll or parking fee paid?
Does USPS , fedex , ups get 30% or any mail order item sold that uses them?
The Netherlands called. They want you to offer more payment options by which we can receive your two cents.
How the HELL does one address 'intent'? That's just a smokescreen excuse. Lay out, in plain language, what the expectations are. "Intent" just means "we want to keep changing things and getting fine revenue."
Who said Apple charges 30% because of payment processing? Thats a bogus argument.
They integrated their royalty gathering for all aspects (developer accounts, tooling and support, store listing/marketing, security review and hosting, etc) into the points where the user is paying, through Apple.
Apple stands to lose way more than 3% from a company using an alternative payment system, because Apple _also_ has to audit their books to figure out the relevant royalty per contract. The reason Apple set up things to take a percentage of payments and to mandate payments through that method is that they never had to do reporting or audits of third parties.
If they charge per MB, I _guarantee_ you that it won't be S3 market rates. It would be in replacement of or in addition to other ways that Apple profits from their App Store and developer tooling investments.
(Which BTW I would be in favor of - I'd love to see Facebook and a few other apps have to pay for their hundreds of MB a week in vague app updates.)
To be perfectly clear - this is false. These are revenue numbers. Many developers, and theoretically Apple, could potentially have not covered costs with the revenue received.