Proton Sues Apple Over 'Artificial and Arbitrary' App Store Fees

[TruthAboveAllElse]

No, Proton is a public holding. But that’s beside the point, because nonprofits are allowed to make a profit, they just aren’t allowed to distribute that profit to private individuals (shareholders).

Considering how many for profit companies just reinvest profit into growth rather than pay dividends, it is kind of a strange "difference".

 

[Rogifan]

I think Steve would be so pissed at EU with USB-C, cookie popups, and now the DMA that he'd go thermonuclear on the EU gov body that gets in his way of making great products.

I think he would have made changes to the App Store so things like the DMA would never have happened.

 

[BaldiMac]

It's not solely Apple's platform. They simply hold the keys. They didn’t build it on their own. Third party developers have collectively put way more time into the platform than Apple has. If we were awarding money based on merit, developers would be getting a cut of iPhone sales instead of Apple getting a cut of app sales. The iPhone would only exist in history books today if they didn’t open up to third party apps when they did. Why shouldn't there be competition for access on "Apple's platform"? Shouldn't all who contributed have equal opportunity to benefit?

I have no idea how that answers my question. Rainbows and unicorns.

Then the legal answer: they hold monopoly control over a software market that serves well over a billion devices, and are leveraging it in manner to keep market competition out. That generally runs afoul of many anti-trust laws. Competition is a remedy to that foul.

Except that's not a legal answer. In the jurisdiction that we are discussing (US), the judge in the Epic case ruled that Apple wasn't violating any state or federal antitrust laws. That decision was confirmed on appeal.

But you're begging the question here. You're assuming that controlling access to your own platform is anticompetitive to justify finding that it violates antitrust laws which makes it anticompetitive. In the US, if you have legitimate business justifications for actions that may be exclusionary, the court has to consider whether the company's success is related to the business justification or simply from excluding competition.

Which gets back to the question. Ignoring Apple's market power, why should there be competition to sell access to Apple’s platform? Seems like it's perfectly legitimate business decision to control access to your own platform.

To your new point. I'd love to hear what your alternate remedy would be if you feel alt stores are a poor one. Honestly, my preference is simply to allow notarised apps to be installed from any source (if the user so desires). Apple's the one purposely making the alt stores as convoluted as possible.

Address the issues directly. Commissions unfair? Set commission limits. Apple not approving certain types of apps? Set up a group to override Apple's decisions for types of apps allowed. Apple having a competitive advantage in certain markets (like music) because of its fees? Limit commissions further when Apple offers a competing app.

There are ways to address the vast majority of the market issues without breaking Apple's immensely successful model.

As an aside, the number one change I'd like to see Apple make to improve the App Store is to have branded curation of the App Store. I'd love for Apple to recruit various companies to create curated sections of the App Store that organize and review a subset of apps to appeal to different groups. I think it would be huge for discovery.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I’m not talking about the DMA. I’m talking about Apple’s commission. I do think Steve would have lowered it by now. He wasn’t a bean counter like Tim is.

Should have done it a full decade+ ago and they'd likely not be in any of this legal & regulatory hot water.

It was a huge miscalculation from Tim.

 

[Rogifan]

Proton can stop paying the hosting for big tech at ANY moment. Just remove their App from the App Store and they never have to be concerned with Apple or Apple’s App Store ever again!

Why does Apple deserve 30% of Proton’s revenues but not Uber?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Why does Apple deserve 30% of Proton’s revenues but not Uber?

"Because one is offering a physical real world service and the other is offering a digital service."

An argument which makes exactly zero sense.

 

[Astrohunter]

Ppl like me who value security? Remember when celebrities were hacked on iCloud? Proton mail is actually a great app and it's better than Apple Mail.

Weren’t they hacked by sim swapping?

 

[tennisproha]

??? Google was sued over its Play Store practices and came to a 700 million dollar settlement. 630 of that going to Android users, so if you've ever owned one since they first released... check your email frequently for your claim.

but Amazon gets a pass?

 

[UliBaer]

I kinda think he’d have told the EU “have fun explaining to your constituents why they can’t buy iPhones anymore” and hung up the phone.

Yeah and i would have watched the shareholders scorching him on the pyre. 🤣 🍿

 

[surferfb]

Yeah and i would have watched the shareholders scorching him on the pyre. 🤣 🍿

Steve is literally the only person on planet Earth who I think who could have pulled it off and not immediately been fired by the board. (And I don't think he would have actually done it, just threatened to to extract concessions)

 

[BuffaloTF]

but Amazon gets a pass?

I’m not sure I follow. Kindles read EPUB files just fine…

 

[klasma]

Considering how many for profit companies just reinvest profit into growth rather than pay dividends, it is kind of a strange "difference".

Shareholders don’t profit only from dividends, but also from stocks going up. On average you often profit more from the latter than from the former. Technically stocks are valued by the sum of all expected future dividends, but in reality the market isn’t quite that rational.

In any case, the difference is that nonprofits aren’t beholden to shareholders’ private interests, but only to the company’s mission. In the US, NPOs have to operate for the public good, but there is also NFPOs (not-for-profit organizations) which don’t.

 

[BaldiMac]

Yeah, we’re not in the 90s anymore. Hosting your own app is incredibly cheap and there’s a lot of open source software and extremely affordable cloud options available. (Source: I sell software).

What percentage of your app related revenue to you spend on things covered by the App Store?

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

We all know who uses protonmail 😏

Exactly who uses Proton mail? If they interfaced with Apple mail I would’ve switched a long time ago. I hate spam and my email provider isn’t doing a damm thing about it.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

Apple needs to let go of the App Store as a revenue source. You charge what you need for operating costs but the percentages they're getting are loan sharky.

Yeah, and then who will do QA on what gets posted to the store? I think 30% is too high but no one wants to admit that Apple does do some QA and that adds some value.

 

[JordanCautious]

Unlike Epic, I actually use Proton everyday (Mail, VPN) and I generally trust them as a company. I have to agree with them here. I dont know if they have any real chance to win the lawsuit but I can say as a person who has used their services for some time now, this is a generally good company

 

[dk001]

Except we’ve had alt stores available on android for more than a decade and the vast, vast majority didn’t care. 😉

I use an S25 Edge and I among many “Samsung users” do care. For full functionality I need the Galaxy Store and the Play Store. Other Android OEMs have OEM alt stores that are needed.
Now the other alt stores like F-Droid, I like but do not need.

Not sure which “alt stores” you are referencing.

 

[dk001]

You're looking at it at the wrong way. If you can walk into a website, I'd love to know how you to that. I guess Tron is reality for some. 🙂

How is Apple the only single store being the option? I can go to Disney+ on their website and subscribe. Like someone mentioned before, Safari exists. Apple isn't taking anything for that.

I recently picked up a Pixel 9, and downloaded Disney+ from the Play store.. How's Apple involved there?

There are more options than Apple to subscribe to Proton.

Not exactly….

“
No, original Proton Mail subscribers did not have to go through iOS to subscribe.
Here's why:

• Direct Subscription through Website: When the Proton Mail iOS app was first released in 2016, Apple did not require apps to use their in-app payment system. This allowed users to subscribe to premium Proton Mail services directly through Proton's website.
• Crowdfunding and Invitation Only: Proton Mail initially received funding through a crowdfunding campaign and offered early access by invitation only. It was later opened to the public in 2016.
• Early Subscription Methods: In the early days, Proton Mail was funded by donations and subscriptions were primarily managed through the Proton website.

Important Note: Apple later began enforcing their in-app payment policy, requiring Proton to offer subscriptions through the App Store. This led to a price increase for in-app subscriptions to cover Apple's commission. Therefore, while original subscribers could subscribe directly, users who signed up later through the iOS app may have had to use Apple's payment system.
”

 

[John Bachini]

Historically did electric power distribution ever work that way? 30% though have been applied for decades on software purchases.

Historically we had slaves, 'for decades'....

 

[I7guy]

Historically we had slaves, 'for decades'....

and your point is that fees and commissions are still charged on software distribution.

 

[John Bachini]

Apple didn’t start the model back in the 19&0s. They continued with the model.

History is called History for a reason...

 

[John Bachini]

and your point is that fees and commissions are still charged on software distribution.

ah Yes... 🙄 thats exactly my point ????.....

 

[John Bachini]

If they say Apple ruin them why don’t they just stop making apps for the iPhone problem solve? Just make an app for Android? Or perhaps maybe learn from Huawei do your own OS so you don’t get held hostage to paying the fees?

"so you don’t get held hostage to paying the fees?"... Yes, because that shouldn't be considered a bad thing...

 

[breenmask]

And I‘m also pointing out that it‘s a single point of failure.

In 17 years of App Store operation, there was only one outage I could recall that caused some loss by app developers.
In 17 years, we've had more MAJOR outages by AWS.

Apple uses a mix of their own infrastructure and cloud providers. So if one cloud provider goes down, App Store is still running.

Hosting your own app on AWS would have resulted in more downtime than letting Apple handle it.

And it prevents both consumers and developers from benefitting from more efficient distribution and economies of scale.

100% false. Apple setup agreements with China so you literally have access to #1 smartphone market in the world without setting up special infrastructure. Even Apple Maps works in China which is free for developers and users to use.

Had you setup your own distribution, you'd need a minimum a Chinese phone number to sign up for China cloud services. There's no way you can argue that it's more efficient and better economics of scale by deploying your own app yourself.

If cinema operators or department stores have even nearly the market concentration and barriers to consumers switching, government should regulate them.

Why? Consumers and developers benefit from choice and competition.

Amazon doesn't have the market concentration? They have 40% of the market. Kindle ereader has 72% of market. Alexa has 67% of the market.

Amazon doesn't have barriers for consumers to switch? Amazon prime? Free same/Next day shipping infrastructure all over the country? Amazon photos/music/gaming/Alexa all work with Amazon prime?

Tell me again why aren't you advocating for regulation on Amazon but are so focused on Apple when literally Amazon is doing the same thing.

Also Apple/Google makes it pretty easy to switch in and out of iPhone

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[I7guy]

History is called History for a reason...

And things have historical value for a reason as well.