Plain and simple, this is pure rent-seeking. The idea that the app stores should inherently incorporate some form of gatekeeping makes some degree of sense on the surface, even though the far more restrictive nature of iOS means that you simply do not control the device you purchase from Apple in any meaningful way. But the value-extraction level of 30% is just prima facie absurd.
We've been conditioned into paying silent, embedded taxes like merchant fees essentially throughout our economy, but even the Mastercard and Visa cabals have the good sense to temper their greed and merely skim 3% off the top. The app stores taking a 30% swing right out of the gate was always a bold decision. I'd love to see the internal Apple emails when that was initially being discussed.
It's hard to identify what would be a "fair" price point that wouldn't arouse the ire of, well, everyone, but there are some instructive examples, including some of the "sweetheart" deals Google struck with big players like Netflix--a 10% rate that Netflix rejected anyway.
In any event, the egregious anticompetitiveness isn't in the app stores charging usurious in-app purchase rates. It's in the behavior that they would reject your app if you offered an alternative payment method, or even offered a lower price elsewhere that wasn't at parity with the app store pricing. THAT is pure anticompetitive greed, and they deserve to burn for it. Yes, even accounting for the creation of the market itself and the management and maintenance of all that entails, and all of the other arguments. But this chilling effect is real and we're being hurt by it in ways we don't even really know, and that's a real shame.
I'm curious what the fallout will be on Apple now that there is some legal precedent going the other way against Google, even though there are differences as the article cites. (And Apple has relaxed some of their prohibitions towards alternative payments. But you still cannot offer a purely non-IAP payment option openly in your app, and that still feels criminal to me.
When you build the apartment building, you get to charge rent to people who decide to live there.
Good thing most countries (even the US) have laws regulating this. You can't suddenly triple rent prices right before a year long lease is about to end.
Obviously there's a breaking point, and we see plenty of companies (like, obviously, Epic) buck at the 30% threshold, but you better believe Apple modeled the hell out of this and landed at 30% as "the most we can get away with while keeping a straight face."
Great for Apple shareholders, horrible for innovation, startups, and novel business models that can't survive a 30% cleaving of their top-line revenue.
Trial documents show that Google charges 0%, 10% or 15% - depending on a situation. Lower than 15% rates were called “bribes” by Epic lawyers. The jury seemed to agree.
Additionally, I feel like repeatedly calling the charge to bill through the app stores a tax misleading, since there are plenty of similar service charges for things like credit cards. Maybe I'm wrong about that, though.
However, this was a good article for laying out the relevant information on a tidy list.
