Telegram CEO Accuses Apple of Destroying Dreams and Crushing Entrepreneurs

[quarkysg]

The national brands sold in Walmart are available in thousands of non-Walmart stores.

Apps published in the iOS App Store is available to about 1B iPhone/iPad users.

Anyway such arguments are pointless. If any developers wants to sell apps to iOS users, they have to follow Apple's rules. No different to game console store fronts.

Companies have full rights to determine the lawful business models that works for them.

 

[MacBH928]

Apple is the IBM from 1984 /s

---

Although I do not like monopolies, Apple is not holding any one from competing. There are like 7 Billion people out there with thousands of billions and millionaires. Some one make competition. If everyone is just going to stand there like a stooge well then Apple did their work and deserve to get the profit. Guys at GrapheneOS are attempting something. Someone else give it a shot too.

Either way, because of the App store and iOS many people have made a decent living and many people got great smartphone apps. IMHO everyone wins and Apple has the right to charge whatever they want, they are not stopping any one else from competition.

 

[svish]

Unnecessary complaints. Without Apple and its app store, many of the apps would not have been successfull.

 

[inkswamp]

Oh I forgot that universal rule that entrepreneurs should never face rules or any hurdles. What is Apple thinking being such a meanie?

 

[Abazigal]

Telegram is wildly popular on Android and on the desktop. They'd still exist without Apple's userbase.

Popular and profitable are two very different things.

I suspect why telegram is making such a huge fuss is because they know that iOS users will make up the bulk of their revenue source.

 

[Fred Zed]

Mr. Durov, why you do this on iPhone 14PM?

 

[Gasu E.]

Can someone explain why I can use my credit card on apps like Amazon but not on other apps?

You mean to order physical, manufactured products from a retail catalog? As opposed to using automated online services? Could it be because Amazon's margins are also something like 30%?

 

[Michael Scrip]

I always hear people complaining about Apple's 15% or 30% cut...

But doesn't YouTube take a 45% cut?

🤔

 

[Arbuthnott]

Telegram's CEO has accused Apple of destroying dreams and ruining entrepreneurship with its App Store rules, more specifically, the company's 30% commission […]

If Durov was selling his wares in the local mall, he would be paying rent. If he was selling through a supermarket, they would take the lion’s share of the profit margin. Just because Durov can’t see bricks and mortar does not mean that selling his wares should be free. Either he is unutterably stupid to not see this, or just bloody mindedly pursuing what he sees as his own advantage, regardless. And honestly, Telegram is pretty crap anyway, so he has even less of my sympathy than he might.

 

[George Dawes]

Guy seems a bit of a drama queen to me

Talk about over reaction 😆

 

[jinnj]

Can someone explain why I can use my credit card on apps like Amazon but not on other apps?

Apple and Amazon have an agreement to trade services. For a while, Apple TVs were not available on the Amazon store. Similar to Costco and Mastercard, you can't use a Visa or American Express card at Costco.

 

[return2sendai]

K, you build your own smartphone platform, hardware, infrastructure, and accessories. THEN tell us HOW 30% is unfair.

“us”? You were involved in building the Apple ecosystem?

 

[jinnj]

This whole tax nomenclature is stupid. Apple runs a store and marks up the price like any other store. Telegram and others want access to Apple ‘s user base for free, plain and simple, and be allowed to profit off of it without Apple getting anything for it.

They should be careful what they wish for, as Apple can simply change the fee structure to make access more costly than today, especially for popular apps.

And you pay for boxed software from a store that also marks it up. Same thing.

The boxed software markups are huge. A developer would pray to get 30% of the sale. You would have to be EA or Activision to get anything more than 30%.

 

[sunstarfire]

I never understood why a company that created a platform should be criticized for making money of it. Apple created the iPhone. It created the AppStore. It created the ecosystem Telegram is using. What if Apple decides to stop making the iPhone? If they decide to close the AppStore? It is theirs. They can do that.
Apart from that, Telegram is Russian. Right now, I do not think anything Russian should get anything at all.

 

[d686546s]

It’s tough to be popular. Produce a good legal product that people like and get broken up. Excellent lessons for history.

Well, tough luck I guess? Things change. Besides, it's quite easy to oversimplify a point so much that you can easily dismiss it. "Popular" isn't and has never been the yardstick and I think you know that.

Apple and Google are in the unique position that, between them, they control almost the entirety of global software distribution on the two platforms most customers increasingly use for basically everything: the smartphone.

Is it really not surprising that their practices will attract significant scrutiny.

 

[deevey]

I always hear people complaining about Apple's 15% or 30% cut...

But doesn't YouTube take a 45% cut?

🤔

And Tiktok apparently take 80% :-O

Telegram users who would have got 70% (minus whatever telegram takes), now get a big fat zero from millions of iOS users based on a snap decision by their CEO.

Did anyone in Telegram ask the content creators if they are ok with losing half their subscribers, or if they were willing to pay the 30% in order to keep subscribers ?

I know if I was a telegram creator I'd be pissed, and not at Apple.

 

[sirozha]

Dont like the Apple model ?They are free to develop for Android.

Apple's business model takes revenue from all aspects of the product portfolio. They decide what margins they want to sell at. When buying the product, you buy into the whole ecosystem. You know that all apps have to be purchased through them App Store. If you don't like that deal, buy another product.

They do develop for Android.

 

[sirozha]

That's great. They should drop support for Apple's platforms.

They really should.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

He's right.

This is why Apples App Store is going to be regulated, they are abusing their market power.

 

[alexonline]

Except Apple forbids developers from selling software to their iOS users outside of Apple's store.


Why should Apple profit from other people's efforts?

Why should other people profit from Apple’s efforts?

Or is the question not valid in your eyes?

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Why should other people profit from Apple’s efforts?

Or is the question not valid in your eyes?

Why should Apple profit from other peoples efforts?

If I install software on my windows desktop I can buy it from the developers website, same for my Mac.

Apple made a very healthy margin on my iPhone when they sold it to me, they don't deserve a cut of every subsequent digital transaction made on it.

 

[boyarka]

Yeah, it‘s very popular in German Nazi circles. Some dumb Nazi Telegram users used an open Telegram group to plan the abduction and killing of the acting German health secretary and got snatched by the police. These people are so dumb or sure of themselves that they even use their real names as their Telegram usernames. 😂

You know where else it'd popular? Among BOTH ukrainians AND russians on BOTH sides of each their own country's political spectrum. Freedom isn't free, and it will always be abused.
Abuses however are the extremist's argument for not having freedom.

 

[I7guy]

Well, tough luck I guess? Things change. Besides, it's quite easy to oversimplify a point so much that you can easily dismiss it. "Popular" isn't and has never been the yardstick and I think you know that.

Sure. That is the American dream. Start a company, work hard, produce a product that’s popular, innovate like all hell, grow the business because people like your product.become a gatekeeper, get broken up. It’s that simple.

Apple and Google are in the unique position that, between them, they control almost the entirety of global software distribution on the two platforms most customers increasingly use for basically everything: the smartphone.

Yep, same for google except “you” are the product.

Is it really not surprising that their practices will attract significant scrutiny.

Sure, because apple and google have done in their respective spaces what others haven’t been able to.

 

[I7guy]

Why should Apple profit from other peoples efforts?

If I install software on my windows desktop I can buy it from the developers website, same for my Mac.

Apple made a very healthy margin on my iPhone when they sold it to me, they don't deserve a cut of every subsequent digital transaction made on it.

We’ll they do if of an app developer is using apples intellectual property to make a buck.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

We’ll they do if of an app developer is using apples intellectual property to make a buck.

They aren't using Apples intellectual property are they, not really. Regulators won't see it that way.