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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Don't Apple take a 30% cut if someone signs up via them? So this isn't an anti-Apple play, this is Google charging Apple users the same as everyone else (from Google's perspective, they get $9.99 from Apple/non-Apple users), essentially they're passing on an Apple "convenience fee" to Apple's users.

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Whats amusing is they charge the same 30% tax to every developer on Google Play/Android store but for Youtube Red since its their own property, they can give themselves the 30%.

You have the choice, as a developer, to not use the IAP functionality of the Play store. You can do your own credit card processing and order/subscription management.

Apple forbids this. You are required to use their IAP features and pay them their 30%.

As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, see the difference between the Kindle app on iOS and the Kindle app on Android. On iOS, no store. On Android, full store.

No, this is incorrect. Google requires that you use their payment system (which takes 30%) [1]:

> In-store purchases: Developers charging for apps and downloads from Google Play must use Google Play’s payment system.

> In-app purchases: Developers offering products within a game downloaded from Google Play or providing access to game content must use Google Play In-app Billing as the method of payment.

> Developers offering products within another category of app downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play In-app Billing as the method of payment

The only exception they allow is if you're selling physical goods (which is the same as Apple's policy).

[1]: https://play.google.com/intl/en/about/developer-content-poli...

It's odd that you cut&pasted so many references to IAP, but totally missed the 2nd clause (immediately following the one about physical goods): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10429681

What I particularly love is that you didn't actually read the rest of the bullets in the ToS, and you completely ignored my citation of the Kindle app which I intentionally provided as an existence proof.

I think he's referring to how some services just push you to sign up on their mobile web page and then it avoids the 30% hike. It's fairly easy to do, the only concern being potentially confusing new sign-ups, but I don't think it's that confusing.

If you pay cash vs credit card you usually pay the same amount, but the seller makes less money from the credit card sale because of fees.

> If you pay cash vs credit card you usually pay the same amount, but the seller makes less money from the credit card sale because of fees.

And they have more labor costs associated with dealing with cash. Whether that's a net win for cash or net loss depends on the particular market that the retailer is in.

And some places pass that on too. A lot of places choose not to, but that is their choice.

Plus there's a huge gap between a 2-5% fee and a 30% fee. I imagine if Apple took a smaller cut, Google wouldn't be doing this.

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