Roblox offers purchases of robux (some kind of currency to use within their games eco system) on their website and also within their app that is available through the app store on iOS. The first one, obviously, is a direct purchase, whereas the second one is the in app purchase trough Apple.
However, what they don't do is offer the direct purchase of robux inside the app as an alternative to the in-app purchase. You have to know about that yourself, you need to open your account in a browser yourself, you need to go through the user experience there, trough a different process than the obviously easier process of the in-app purchase.
What is total legit here is that they do not mention neither promote the alternative purchase process inside their iOS app, which is totally logical.
What would be wrong by asking Epic to do the same?
I use a physical analogy (not by any means to be 100% valid tho)
Let's say we have a company that makes vacuum cleaners, with an own online store, and offering products through the common network of physical shops and perhaps their own concept / online stores.
You have a chain of electronic shops, and you have a nation wide brand awareness built on years of successfully conceptualising your shops. Imagine that you work with the shop in shop concept, where people are visiting a sales rep of the vacuum cleaners company, demonstrating the amazing sucker of a machine.
Would you then accept that brand's tactics to have their sales reps systematically tell customers that they can buy the same product elsewhere at a better price, or even more concretely: telling them that they can buy it in their own (online)shops?
The fact that you can buy the same stuff elsewhere is not the point of discussion, it is the fact that some apps choose to misuse their app distributed by Apple to promote sales outside of the ecosystem.
As much as I would want to condemn Apple or Google for that matter, for such policies... I simply cannot. And I do not believe that those days are over, as some people in the thread seem to be completely persuaded of.
It's not because these are large companies, with the powers that come along with it, and have their margin as any other company sets a margin, that these are malign. Then you set a double standard: Apple is great for what I want to offer my public, but only if that is on my terms. Sorry... by choosing to offer the app in the App Store, you abide by the terms and conditions stated in your contract. If that may be legal or not, doesn't matter. If that may be morally up to date or not, doesn't matter. Those are matters to be questioned by higher instances - e.g. the US vs Apple, or the EU vs Apple.
Only time will tell whether the legality and morality are indeed questionable. But going about and act by a potential modern standard is foolish to say the least. In fact it may be counter productive to the process at hand, since Apple and Google in this particular case will have the possibility to argument and solidify the current state of affairs.
