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Comment by dleslie | Hacker News Reader

I wish journalists wouldn't refer to Apple's app store cut as "tax" ; it's a service fee.

That is the price Apple charges for providing payment-related services on its platform. It is not a tax.

Is my income tax a price the government charges for providing roads, schools, and protection? Just because there are services rendered doesn't mean it's not a tax.

There is no opt out, and price is a function of earnings rather than value added.

There is an opt out. You might not like the opt out, but it remains a choice. You don't have to use Apple's platform or services.

Taxes imposed by a government are compulsory.

Words still have meaning and using tax to refer to Apple's fees is completely incorrect.

> Taxes imposed by a government are compulsory.

You can opt out by moving out of the country. /s

In that sense, I don't think you can opt out of the "Apple tax" because there are exactly 2 platforms both of which you have to be present on, otherwise you're not gonna reach your users.

But that’s exactly the point. You pay it because they have something you want. You can say they shouldn’t be allowed to gatekeep their markets but that’s a separate thing. Taxes you have to pay even if you don’t want the services.

I can not do business in the US, or I can not do business with iPhone users. My only 'opt out' is to quit doing business in their market. I continue to see similarities here

You're right that it's more of a difference in degree and not kind. That said, the difference in degree is so vast as to be consequential. It's trivially easy to switch phone platforms (in the last 7 years, I've flip flopped between Android and iOS twice). In contrast, it's extremely difficult and disruptive to uproot your life and move countries; and that also presupposes that the destination country is willing to accept you.

In business terms, however, it's much easier to target consumers of a different country than of a different App Store. Even if you blacklist the top two countries, US and China, you still have a lot of consumers largely in India and Europe to buy your product. If you blacklist two major app stores it's effectively impossible to make money developing apps.

This isn't bad for consumers, it's bad for producers.

Producers in this instance are fairly described as "software developers", correct?

I think you'll find we have more than two customers for our wares.

I would say 'app developers' is the category

We all agree about what taxes are. Some just attach more libertarian sensibilities/fears/paranoia to that word.

> and price is a function

There are tons of things that are paid for on a percentage basis, and the "is this value added or not" line is pretty difficult to define clearly.

It doesn't make sense to think of it as a tax, really, sure taxes can be used to provide services (or other things) but the fee being paid here is directly tied to the service you are receiving. If you want to draw parallels with government, it would better match a toll road or bridge; you can still argue the total collected toll doesn't fairly match the cost of providing the service, but the mechanism is at least clear.

I can opt out of a toll road by taking the long way. If I was forced to take a toll road to get to my office, I would consider that a tax.

Regardless of how hard you try to justify it as being similar to government tax (which you go to jail for not paying), the fact is that calling it the "Apple Tax" is an editorial decision used to paint it negatively. Now, you may support calling it that (or not) depending on how you feel about Apple. But let's not pretend it is the appropriate, unbiased name for it.

Apple also insists that you must use their payment services, you can't use a competitor's. the policies are designed so that they get a cut of all revenue in the ecosystem, that's effectively a tax.

> Apple also insists that you must use their payment services, you can't use a competitor's.

Yes, you can. Put your app on Android. Done.

"Microsoft wasn't abusing it's monopoly. You could just use Linux!"

BS.

This isn't strictly true. Plenty of iOS apps use e.g. Stripe for payment processing, including the last company I worked for. The App Store billing/subscriptions requirement is only for apps providing strictly digital goods/services. Google has the same policy on the Play store.

devs also pay $100 - $300 a year for the privilege

Not all devs do.

If you are someone who can't afford 30¢ a day to use Apple's App Store, you can get the fee reduced or waived.

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