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Comment by zaidf | Hacker News Reader

I think Apple is going to find itself standing alone by the time the dust settles on this issue. Their 30% tax is a disservice to its own customers, not just app publishers.

Apple tries to counter that the problem is Spotify. It's Spotify that is money-hungry, Apple claims:

Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work.

The only problem with this argument is that Spotify is just one example. App publishers of all sizes have expressed grave dissatisfaction over this issue. Ultimately, this has led to a poorer experience for Apple's own customers in the form of higher fees for in-app purchases or weird, convoluted checkout flow that requires you to goto your browser to finish a transaction.

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Yup. Another prominent example is Amazon’s inability to sell books in the Kindle application on iOS, which has the same anticompetitive undertones given that Apple sells ebooks to users of its platform.

Just like other online book shops don't sell their books on the Kindle device store app.

But, at the very least, Amazon doesn’t prevent you from reading ebooks from outside their store on a kindle. They just don’t favilate their discovery. (Unless things changed since I last owned a kindle which was quite a while ago)

Just like Apple does when you import books via iTunes.

Big fan of iTunes, aren't you?

Big fan of pointing out hate agenda of others, that leave details out to make their points.

Apple allows you to have PDFs and ePub files in their Books app as well.

So not sure what you mean.

I just airdrop/send/email even open ePub/pdf in the browser and I can open them in books (the app) to read them!

It’s the same (technically easier as I don’t need to convert ePub to mobi)

That's not a good comparison. An iOS device is not like a book shop. The iBooks application is. Nobody's asking that you can buy Kindle books in iBooks, but you can't even buy Kindle books in the Kindle app because Apple would demand 30% of the book. If you open the Kindle app on Windows you can buy books in there and Microsoft doesn't take a cut of the sale. People would lose their mind over this. Why is Apple different?

You can import books via iTunes.

You're still missing the point.

Apple owns a mall (iOS). In that mall, Apple owns a book store (iTunes). Amazon also has a book store in the mall (Kindle).

Apple does not want to sell Amazon's books (Kindle format ebooks) in it's store (iTunes). Ok.

Apple decrees that no store in the mall shall sell any books but iTunes books, which only they may sell. Not Ok.

Amazon is free to sell books in their app, they just need to pay a portion of their revenue for the privilege of doing so much like in the mall.

And Apple is forcing everyone to sell in their mall and no other. That's pretty much the point.

There are other malls available, across the world Apple's mall is quite small.

We're not talking about the world. We're talking about the universe of the iPhone.

In the brick-and-mortar world, malls are fungible, and stores that sell the same goods are fungible. The iPhone is not fungible.

We are talking about the universe of mobile devices.

You are; I don't think we are. Spotify certainly isn't, and it may be entirely reasonable to view the world through that lens.

In relative numbers yes, but I wouldn't call short of a billion active devices "quite small".

Still, there is a choice for anyone that wants to sell products.

Anyone that wants to constrain themselves to a single market, needs to accept the rules of focusing on a single market.

Are you really free to do something if it comes with highly unfavorable conditions then?

Do malls take a portion of the revenue generated from the stores? I assumed they just paid rent and kept the money generated.

How malls and stores negotiate rental agreement is very ad-hoc and strategic but yeah it is often directly or indirectly tied to revenue.

Oh that's a shame, most books I buy today are through the Kindle app on Android (or my Kindle device).

Apple won't find itself standing alone. Other major distributors like Google and Valve are both happy to take 30% off the top of app sales too, and if the chance comes to speak up in support, they will. But the difference is both of them can be circumvented by competitors, for instance Epic Games, who is challenging both. (Epic is launching an Android store soon.) Apple can't be, and that's likely to be the crux of any action against them.

I currently subscribe to Spotify, use the iOS Spotify App, and do not make payments through in-app payments nor do I pay the 30% Apple tax. So it is circumventable, and Spotify is just "optimizing" their revenues here. So at least compared to Steam, Apple's platform is actually more open since you aren't required to pay through Apple's platform. Though I'm not sure on the current requirements for in-app purchases, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Discussion or capture of money must go through apple. The hinting of circumventing has to be really vague And creates a weird ux. IMO you have to follow the rules and pay the toll

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#in-...

I buy Steam games from Humble Bundle all the time. The developers can actually generate steam keys and sell their game directly. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

As far as I know you can't do that on iOS. There's also nothing stopping the devs from selling IAP themselves on their own website. So no, Steam is much much more open than Apple's App store. Not to mention the fact that Steam is completely optional and the App store is not.

> As far as I know you can't do that on iOS.

Not at scale, no, but you can generate promo codes (up to a limit - maybe 100?) to distribute your paid app for free.

But the difference is both of them can be circumvented by competitors

If the App Store could be circumvented as easily, Spotify probably wouldn't be raising this issue to begin with.

It can be circumvented quite easily and Spotify already does.

You can upgrade to Spotify Premium through a website which they advertise during their free tier ads.

I think Spotify's complaint here is that they can't tell users of the iOS app to upgrade via the website.

Apple doesn't allow that apparently.

steam gets 30% of sales from within the steam storefront, but O from sales of steam keys from other channels

epic is not the saviour here, they're dumping cash to bring shitty console practices to the pc ecosystem, namely storefront exclusives

Let's not forget that you can't buy Kindle books on iOS because of this policy. Apple wants 30% of the cost of every book, which would kill Amazon's margin. (Of course, this is just businesses fighting over the lion's share of the money; the publisher is only going to give the author ten cents on the dollar in royalties anyway.) But Apple will happily sell you books in their store, which smells like anticompetitive behavior.

Steam Link faces a similar issue. Apple, apparently, considers buying desktop games through an app that can remotely play them on your phone to be the same situation, and demand that payments go through them.

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