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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

Yes, currently Apple prohibits developers from linking to their websites subscription signup. I agree if Apple provides payment processing, they should get some cut (though not 30%). The issue is that Apple prohibits signing people up from anything but their IAP feature.

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Apple is charging for the reach accessible by participating in their platform, it's effectively a distribution and marketing cost not a payment processing cost. The no linking requirement is so you don't use the accessibility enabled by their platform to bypass their fees. So if Spotify wants to bypass the App Store's subscription fees they'll need to find another way to notify and acquire new Customers, i.e. outside the App Store via their website or general advertising/marketing.

This is the clearest way to say it. Spotify has utterly no argument in this case. Their claims make no sense, it’s just a lot of noise for Spotify to drum up an angry mob of people who vaguely misunderstand “monopoly” and hate Apple for whatever unrelated reasons.

If you want to put your product into the distribution channel that Apple spent shitloads of money to create and operate, then you have to pay their fees and that means you can’t engage in a practice like linking to an outside signup page that is solely for the purpose of circumventing the fees you rightly owe for use of the distribution channel.

Nobody has to distribute your app for free. You don’t like the prices Apple charges for it? Go to Android, or make your own distribution channel, whatever.

Spotify is free to not participate if they don’t like the pricing.

Nobody is talking about the price of app distribution though. It's about the cost of a Spotify subscription. This subscription has nothing to do in the slightest with Apple. Apple doesn't have to promote it, distribute it, host it, pay for its bandwidth, nothing.

Spotify already has their own distribution channel (sign up on their website), and Apple is prohibiting them from mentioning it on iPhones and instead forces them to use Apple's distribution channel, which comes with a hefty price tag.

So if they want to distribute their free app on the iPhone, they are welcome to do so, as long as they don't mention that people have to go to their website to sign up for the premium service.

We can still argue about whether Apple is allowed to behave this way, but at least we'll be arguing about the right thing.

The only thing anyone is talking about is the price of app distribution. That price includes obeying the terms of Apple’s distribution channel.

> “Spotify already has their own distribution channel (sign up on their website)”

Yes, and if they don’t like the prices for oveying the rules of Apple’s distribution channel, they are free to remove the app from Apple’s app store, and notify customers that they cannot use the service on iOS devices.

The cost of distribution is the cost of selling their commercial digital services on Apple's platform.

If Spotify deems 30%/15% split is too much to be able to sell their services on iOS, they don't need to participate in that market, they can continue selling their online streaming services on the Web and Android and and spend the money they would've paid Apple in distribution costs in more advertising/marketing to acquire new Customers.

If the App Store revenue share is so lucrative they can also consider that as an opportunity and are free to build and sell on their own platform, invest their resources in building hardware + mobile devices, OS, Apps + software, dev tools, distribution channels, retail stores, marketing/advertising to entice everyone to use it and enjoy the 30%/15% revenue share from everyone else choosing to participate and thrive on it. Or maybe it will end up being cheaper for them and they'll get more revenue because of iOS's larger and quality user base to just pay the App Store fees for being able to offer their commercial services to the iOS ecosystem created with Apple's investments.

I think the % for processing/platform is justifiable and hard to argue against setting that % for them. The most likely outcome is that they will either remove the restriction from advertising alternative payment methods on signup, and in exchange Apple can do what it wants with in-app payments.

I agree that the best case is that Apple sets the price it does business at, but that there are reasonable ways for the app to use a different payment provider, even if just by linking to the web. This keeps Apple's price in check naturally... As they'll need to keep the price competitive enough that the convenience of using their service is worth it.

I can also see the argument that for users that discover an app through the App store, they must pay the platform/acquisition costs. But I agree a lifetime 15% is unfair.

Best case scenario is

1) Apple switches their platform monetization to a more direct model where you pay to advertise your app in the App store. This will get tricky because their "Top apps" list still serve as advertising but you can't just remove an app from there because it refuses to pay.

2) Apple removes the restrictions against advertising alternative payment/subscription methods

In this case users should also be able to install from outside sources and not be forced to use the app store.

Perhaps one reason people buy iphones, is because you can't install from outside sources. It's part of the feeling of trust in iPhone. If you get a subscription in-app, you can easily cancel it on your phone, without having to worry about going through some kind of retention hell (call to cancel, dark ux patterns to prevent cancellation, etc...) As well as level of security in that it's one less company with my credit card to worry about being leaked/hacked/whatever.

They already have a way to pay for ads when searching.

If Visa or MasterCard tried to charge 30% transaction fees, they'd be laughed out of the market.

The problem is that you can't laugh Apple out of the market for payments on iOS devices, because they don't allow other entrants into that market.

Visa and Mastercard do actually charge 30% if you don't pay within 30 days or so. Why is that not equally laughable?

Is it because they provide a service in exchange for that 30%, a service that many people are willing to pay 30% for?

I'm talking about the merchant fees, not the interest rate for cardholders. The cardholder interest rate is not at all analogous to Apple's revenue share.

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