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Comment by thrwn_frthr_awy | Hacker News Reader

> Apple continues to monopolize app distribution and in-app payment solutions for iPhones

Apple phones use Apple payment solutions and Apple's app store.

What is wrong with this?

It is argued that this is an example of illegal tying arrangement to between the markets of "mobile phones", "app distribution" and "payment systems" given the market power Apple has. This space notably is the one where Apple had its loss in the District Court ruling.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/tying_arrangement#:~:text=An....

For a less legalese read, FTC's article on monopolistic tying: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

IMHO "the 30%" - the fact that you have to use Apple IAP when you ship on Apple's app store - isn't the problem with Apple's policies. It's just a convenient way to express that Apple has a lot of market power and is willing to wield it.

If Apple had a change of heart tomorrow and opened up app distribution, they probably would still charge 30% - because everyone does, even things like Steam which runs on platforms Valve doesn't own. However, that doesn't change the fact that Apple can gain competitive advantage over their own partners by utilizing their app distribution chokepoint.

It’s not 30% for the vast majority of developers.

They should be allowed to charge 99% if they want... But they should not be allowed to have exclusive apps or exclusive App Store.

Pretty sure it is 30% for the majority of professional full time developers, as normally company size scales with revenue. If you meant majority of apps, sure.

Uh, where in his comment did he use the words “professional full-time”? He was just talking about developers.

Best I could find is that they’ll wave fees on the first $15,000 in sales, which is pretty damned low. Then it’s 30% until you get in the millions of dollars, and then they’ll cut it to 25%.

I’m not sure about “vast majority”, but I’m sure that lots of devs are making no money purely because they sell basically no copies. But if a game has even a moderate success, it looks like Steam’s cut will be 30%

You are just wrong. Its 15% until you have more than $1M in revenue.

Then the sources I found were out of date.

What sources did you use?

https://www.pcgamer.com/most-game-devs-dont-think-steam-earn...

Looks like you just misread it. The linked piece supports what I said, and nowhere says what you claimed.

It seems like you were talking about Apple, and I was talking about Valve.

Steam's 30% was based in a time when brick and mortar accounted for the vast majority of sales, and publishers were lucky to keep 30%.

Steam has competition though. Can you imagine if MS owned Steam and disallowed the Epic Launcher/Store on Windows? The Justice Department would be all over it.

Apple should literally be broken up like Bell System.

Along which lines? Hardware/Software/Services?

A nice matrix cut would also do.

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