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Comment by portman | Hacker News Reader

"All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app" -- http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

By this rule, all apps that offer subscriptions must additionally implement Apple's subscription mechanism.

This is what the OP (and everyone else) is reacting to.

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It would be bad enough if Apple was just demanding a 30% cut of all in-app purchases. Imagine if Visa or Mastercard tried to charge the same rates.

Not really - all apps that offer subscriptions must go through Apple's mechanism anyways. And subscription is (IMHO) well defined as referring to content, with types of content enumerated.

So unless you make the case that SaaS is content, the post is baseless.

Baseless? Because Apple would never try to skim 30% of all the revenue that flows through their devices. That's crazy talk. /sarcasm

The post is absolutely not baseless. Apple hasn't made their intentions clear regarding SaaS subscriptions, and it is likely that they want that money as well.

Making a statement of fact ("Apple is taking 100% of mobile SaaS revenue") with no basis in reality is pretty much the definition of baseless. Unless and until Apple speaks on SaaS, this is a figment of the authors imagination. I'm not saying "it can't happen". I'm saying "not true as of right now"

I'm surprised "making shit up" qualifies as news on HN these days.

The article begins with the premise, "It appears to me that the new "give Apple 30% of revenue" policy will apply to software subscriptions just as well as it appears to content." Assuming that sentence was always part of the article, it seems like you're just reacting to the headline.

SaaS was an angle I hadn't thought of in regard to Apple's new policies, and their decisions there have important implications. I'm glad I saw this article.

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