EU's Digital Markets Act Failed to Lower App Store Prices, Apple-Commissioned Study Says

[WarmWinterHat]

Including Apple correct?

You didn't ask me, but I'll answer your question. Apple got a ~60% profit on the phone I bought, and even more on the Mac, and the developer is paying them to be on the App store already, even if they have zero sales. Their good.

I don't need someone standing between me and the developer I'm trying to purchase from.

 

[platinumaqua]

Apple commissioned study: conflict of interest

 

[turbineseaplane]

Including Apple correct?

Yes, via their annual developer fee as well as reasonable fees to cover operational & servicing costs of running the App Store. (which is way below what they charge now, which is why they are even in these pickles)

Again, I'm pro competition, as I still have capitalist leanings in my heart.
On platform competition for software sales, like exists on macOS, solves all this mostly auto-magically!

Given alternatives, Apple would all of the sudden be able to offer much more reasonable terms.
Amazing how that works!

The beauty of markets!

 

[platinumaqua]

The DMA is more than about lowering prices. It's about user choice and freedom. It's about being able to get apps from places besides Apple's App Store because when Apple's in charge, they can pull apps off their store.

Apple pulls two gay dating apps in China under government order

Apple says it has pulled two popular gay dating apps in China following an order from Chinese authorities in the latest evidence of their tightening grip on the LGBTQ+ community.

apnews.com

Apple pulls two gay dating apps in China under government order

November 11, 2025

BANGKOK (AP) — Apple said it has pulled two of China’s biggest gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, under pressure from Chinese authorities, in the latest sign of a tightening grip on the LGBTQ+ community.

An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company removed the two dating apps from China “based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China”, without further elaborating.

Another popular gay dating app, Grindr, was pulled from Apple’s app store in China in 2022.

Last year, Apple also reportedly removed apps including WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China under an order by the Cyberspace Administration of China.


or Apple can be the moral police and decide what apps (e.g. porn) you cannot have.

I have seen some apps self censor because of Apple's moral police over incidental nudity (well no full nudity: the pictures have people wearing swimsuits) even though that level is completely legal for that age range where the app is being distributed.

 

[ikramerica]

It’s the same misunderstanding of pricing that those who are tariff fear mongers espouse.

Market prices have little to do with direct costs of inputs in a mature market. That ship already sailed. In a mature market, the profitable ones are the players who are very efficient or who have a supply product they can charge a premium for.

If you artificially lower one input cost, it won’t impact the sales price in a meaningful way. It will just increase profits for the players. If you increase input costs, it won’t magically increase prices because consumers don’t magically have more money to spend. So either companies find a way to compete or they fail.

 

[ikramerica]

What this report does is expose the ignorance of those who wrote the DMA.

Whether or not you want to believe this report is irrelevant when we have data to support it from other sources long before the DMA was written.

When fees dropped for small developers App prices didn’t drop. This happened on both The Ap Store and Google Play Store.

When subscription prices dropped to 15% for subsequent years most developers/content companies didn’t drop their prices after the first year.

Third party stores on Android (which have existed for years) didn’t see a shift to lower prices due to lower fees.



It’s beyond amazing the people who wrote the DMA had all this existing evidence before them and STILL used lower prices for consumers as a talking point.

That’s because people are stupid. Most consumer laws are written to benefit unnamed wealthy people, it’s just figuring out HOW the law does that is the challenge.

In the USA, many of the consumer laws are lobbied and written by trial lawyers who want to use the laws to sue and take huge class action fees.

 

[Kidseeghost]

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[WarmWinterHat]

Why should others profit from Apples work then? They created the platform. Or do companies give other companies free shelf space in their stores.

Why should Apple profit from the developer's work, on a device that I own.

No, they shouldn't give free shelf space, but they should let me go to another store with the device that I own, if I wish. If I was renting or leasing my device from Apple, I would sorta understand, but I'm not.

It's like leasing a car; you have to take it to the dealership. I own my car outright so I take it where I want, or do the work myself, even though it's VW's platform.

 

[Kidseeghost]

…

 

[MilaM]

Why should others profit from Apples work then? They created the platform. Or do companies give other companies free shelf space in their stores.

Free shelf space, no. But in some sectors competitors do get regulated access to infrastructure. Utilities and internet last mile access works that way in many parts of the EU.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Done nothing expect created the store and build up the costumer base so developers have an easy distribution for their Apps. Most Apps are trash even in iOS and are only successful because of iOS.

Their "store" is nothing but a forced collection of Apps.
Have a look at the Mac App Store and you'll see how it looks when developers and customers have choices.

Also, Apple does not "own us" as customers, nor our relationship with all 3rd parties, simply because folks individually chose to buy Apple products.

 

[Kidseeghost]

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[MilaM]

In the USA, many of the consumer laws are lobbied and written by trial lawyers who want to use the laws to sue and take huge class action fees.

A law system that has these kind of incentives seems pretty broken to me.

 

[lusty]

Why should others profit from Apples work then? They created the platform. Or do companies give other companies free shelf space in their stores.

They created the platform, yes. I paid for that and they made a profit.
They didn’t create the content or platform I’m buying from Spotify, so they shouldn’t make a profit. Simple.

 

[Kidseeghost]

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[trusso]

I thought the aim was to prevent mafia style profiteering from other peoples work and let the people earning the money keep their hard earned profits.
I’m not sure many users thought apps were overpriced, and to me this still feels like a win for consumers and developers

Precisely. Apple might be hinging its argument here based on a subset of words somewhere on what might happen with an open marketplace, but that was by no means the reason for shutting the cookie jar lid.

Apple has exhibited odious rent-seeking behavior, which the majority of people agree is far beyond what they are entitled to. They make insane profits from their hardware, which is only valuable because of the software developers write for it. I’d have to imagine that some developers are keeping prices the same to simply make up for the lost revenue they previously had to fork over to Apple.

Very disingenuous from Apple, if you ask me. But sadly, not surprising.

 

[Kidseeghost]

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[Diopter]

Isn't it weird that when it comes to Apple doing things like removing apps from the Chinese App Store, Apple's all like "We follow the laws in the countries where we operate. Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these ...", but when it comes to complying with the EU's laws they kick and scream and do everything they can not to comply. They even pay to have studies made to support their position!

 

[trusso]

It was more about the EU "protecting" their own tech companies cough cough Spotify. Spotifys business model didn’t made a profit until recently. They were in trouble. Why else should they go after Apple of all tech companies. Apple doesn’t have a big market share in Europe. The EUs target was the 30%. The whole thing was lobbied by Spotify and others.

And the North was pissed that the South’s slaveholding gave them an outsized and unfair economic advantage. But slavery was still rapacious and inhuman and needed to end. Just because there were some economic incentives informing certain people’s opinions against it did not mean that the evils perpetrated were themselves okay. They were not.

 

[Kidseeghost]

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[Rogifan]

An Apple commissioned study isn’t going to say anything other than what Apple wants it to say. And if it did they wouldn’t release it.

 

[djphat2000]

Seriously? Apple went out of its way to charge developers extra to allow them to publish apps on other app stores and is now pretending to be shocked that prices didn't go down? The fox is guarding the henhouse, here.


No, Apple's choice to be actively hostile to users is what is leading to a worse user experience. The very fact that AirPods are getting Live Translation makes clear that it wasn't due to any EU law that it couldn't launch. They said PWAs on iPadOS couldn't be done in the EU anymore and rolled that back too despite nothing changing in the DMA. Their competitors are happily providing these features to EU users, despite having to follow those exact same laws.

The problem isn't the EU's laws. The problem here is Apple.

The study says that the percentage of fee reductions does not change over a longer eight-month period, and that the Core Technology Fee paid by apps with more than one million first-time installs per year also does not change the results. 80 percent of the apps in the study did not pay the CTF.

I think Apple is saying that even with the CTF for outside App Store purchases. 80% using that 3rd party store. Did not need to pay the fee anyway. Because they are under the 1 million mark. So even though they did not pay the fee. They did not lower the price. Hence what I said all along. No prices will go down. They almost never do.

 

[djphat2000]

An Apple commissioned study isn’t going to say anything other than what Apple wants it to say. And if it did they wouldn’t release it.

And EU commissioned study isn't going to say anything other than..... Oh right.

 

[MilaM]

It was more about the EU "protecting" their own tech companies cough cough Spotify. Spotifys business model didn’t made a profit until recently. They were in trouble. Why else should they go after Apple of all tech companies. Apple doesn’t have a big market share in Europe. The EUs target was the 30%. The whole thing was lobbied by Spotify and others.

This does not make sense, at all. Most of the companies that would benefit from lower fees and strict enforcement of the other rules are actually US companies.

But sure, the EU did all this just to help a single music subscription serivce.

 

[djphat2000]

“Apple-commissioned study” agrees with Apple.

Well, if Apple based it off of Maths. Then it's fairly easy to verify the findings.