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Comment by musicale | Hacker News Reader

Let me get this straight: You work 50+ hours a week (40 of which Apple actually pays you for) at Apple on official Apple projects. Then you buy an Apple computer with your own money, spend a bunch of your own "free" time at home writing a new app for Apple's iPhone, and submit it to Apple's App Store. Now Apple apparently has the gall to demand 100% of the revenue rather than their (already generous) 30% standard cut?

Talk about egregious.

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That's why these FANG company pay outrageous salary.

It depends. There are some jurisdiction that argue, you are suppose to take rest and do your own personal stuff during your free time. Not working. Hence you are not allow to have a 2nd Full Time Job which will degrade your 1st full time job's performance.

My company doesn't get to tell me what I can do during my free time, does yours? Do you think that's normal?

All the companies I ever worked for did, so I think it's normal even though it's some BS

I think it is normal in Good Faith. Your Company is paying you for your full time job, most people describe it a 9 to 5 when it is not. You are working during those hours, traveling back to home and then "resting". While traveling is not counted inside your working hours, some laws protect employees from the moment they step out of their home to work.

While it is entirely up to you what you do in your free time, but if your free time activities hinder your Full Time Job's performance, then it is a problem. And your employees do get to tell you what to do. You cant party all night and come back to work feeling sleepy just because it is "your" free time.

And that is especially true for someone in higher up position.

To some extend, it's reasonable.

If somebody works at Apple, they might have access to internal iOS code or knowledge of upcoming APIs which gives them an advantage over external app developers. The person working at Apple need not be part of iOS team. They could get hands on this internal information through grapevine, friends or being in a cross-team meeting.

In such cases, there are 2 options:

(i) Allow the apps from Apple developers, not label them as belonging to Apple and pretend that the app developer has no extra advantage over external developers. This seems misleading and wrong.

(ii) The apps from Apple developers should belong to Apple.

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