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I remain utterly confused how apple's rule that you can't link to a purchase page, and can't mention the 30% tax in-app, hasn't had its day in court yet.

Like, you can have a free app in the store, with a website where you can purchase premium, and then in the app have an "upgrade" button that just displays the error "You cannot upgrade to premium in the app" and hope users find your website.

You aren't allowed to have "You can upgrade to premium using our site, at https://site.com" message because if you can pay money on site.com, having that error message is seen as evading the app store tax.

In both of those cases though, apple did the same amount of work, so the justification you sometimes hear, that "30% is fair because you're paying for app store resources and apple to advertise your app", seems like it doesn't really apply.

Like, spotify is a perfect example of this. They don't let you upgrade on iOS because paying 30% to apple would mean they'd lose money on every sell (music has very thin margins), and spotify isn't even allowed to display a good error message because linking to their webpage, or mentioning the app store tax, would be against app store ToS.

And then apple music also exists, and ignores the 30% tax. It seems so blindingly obviously harmful to consumers.

This all applies to the google play app store too, but at least on the google play app store, there's no "thought crime" of informing your users they can go punch in a credit card on the web.

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lolinder 4 days ago | parent [-]

All of these things did have their day in court in Epic vs Apple. Apple won on most counts but lost on the anti-steering provisions:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple

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TheDong 4 days ago | parent [-]

> lost on the anti-steering provisions

Also from that article:

> Apple allowed developers to include [information about other payment methods] but required that developers give Apple 27% of all sales made within seven days of being directed to these sites

That doesn't really sound like losing, a 27% penalty if you "steer users" is effectively the same as steering not being allowed.

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lolinder 4 days ago | parent [-]

That's not a penalty for steering users, that's Apple's commission for running the store. Their position has always been that the 30% is not a payment processing fee, it's an App Store fee, and the court agreed with them that that is acceptable.

So steer away, but pay your dues manually if you do so.

I'm honestly shocked how many people thought that the outcome would have been anything else. Apple has been very consistent in emphasizing that the 30% is not the payment processing fee, so the idea that getting paid with your own payment processor would bypass the fee was always absurd.

The best developers can hope for is for US regulators to follow the EU and force Apple to allow alternative stores with lower fees. There was never a chance that the government would ban Apple from charging its fee.

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talldayo 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm honestly shocked at how many people seem to ignore Apple's developer fee. The Core Technology fee is a hackneyed attempt at trying to preserve the same broken system, and it too will be removed in time. It was only allowed to exist unchallenged when Apple created a minuscule loophole for nonprofits, and even then it was the cause of a second EU probe: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/24/apple-app-store-rules-are-in...

You keep showing up in these threads to repeat the same "this is how it is" shtick, but you're seemingly terrified of the "what could be" aspect. Apple's abuse of their coalesced power is still illegal in Europe and Apple is still in the process of designing their remediation. If the US wasn't fundamentally corrupt Apple would have been put on trial years ago - citing America's preliminary rulings is less of a feather in Apple's cap and more an example of how far consumer protections have fallen in the West.

	▲	lolinder 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> You keep showing up in these threads to repeat the same "this is how it is" shtick, but you're seemingly terrified of the "what could be" aspect. You have to understand the way that things are in order to effectively advocate for the way that things should be. If you approach the world with a broken mental model and try to use that broken mental model to advocate that the world needs changing, you'll accomplish nothing. We have spent years with people thinking that if they could just charge for their apps outside of the App Store that they'd magically be able to avoid the fee. That was never the case, it was never going to be the case, and I'm just here to clear that up. If you want to abolish the 30% fee, you need to ask for something besides abolishing the anti-steering provisions because the fee was never about the payment method. People can advocate for whatever changes they want, I'm sincerely just here to try to make sure we're all talking about the way things really are, because otherwise it's just hot air.

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TheDong 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apple is happy to take 0% of offsite payments if you don’t link to them though, so clearly apple is fine with an app store fee of 0, ie for spotify.

The only difference is if the app error says “You can’t pay in-app” or if it says “You can’t pay in app, you can pay on our site”

Restricting apps from informing users still seems like obvious harm to users, like if a retail store made a rule that “the manual that comes with your product can’t contain your homepage because you have an online shop that might have better prices than us”

If it were the cost of running the store, truly, it would charge based on app downloads or such. Not based on if users click a link to amazon.com in the kindle app and then buy 2 books or 3.

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YetAnotherNick 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> it's an App Store fee

I think Apple said something like SDK fee, which should even apply outside app store.