Dutch markets authority adds €5m to Apple’s dating app payment penalty | Hacker News Reader

Dutch markets authority adds €5m to Apple’s dating app payment penalty

dutchnews.nl

26 pointsDeusExMachina11 comments

Asking for 27% instead of 30% from every business in the world is still not reasonable. Who could have thought that?

edit: I know that these types of articles always draws out certain type of people who seem to fetishize Apple getting money even if it's out of their own pockets. I am fine by Apple getting 30% of app store sales as long as companies are allowed to sell the same gods outside the store for 30% less. It seems odd to be able to dictate pricing outside your ecosystem.

Xbox, PlayStation, Switch - they all take a similar cut for access to their platforms, and yet the video game publishers are worth billions. Why should these policies apply towards Apple and not other video game platforms? I can browse the web on my Xbox, watch Netflix, buy movies. I can even use a keyboard and mouse. Shrink the Xbox down to phone size, add a modem, and… how’s it different than an iPhone? Are we now going to legislate that razor blades must be sold at the cost of production?

You’re not wrong, but I think that’s an argument for regulating the maximum usury rates for all such platforms.

> Why should these policies apply towards Apple and not other video game platforms

Agreed. Those platforms should be forced to open up as well.

You are correct that this too must be addressed, but there are some issues you are ignoring here:

1. Consoles have traditionally been sold at a loss with the assumption that game sales will make up for our.

2. Console makers do not try to control prices outside their ecosystem (e.g. on other platforms).

3. The number of developers is significantly lower, increasing the development support cost (e.g. toolchain) per released game.

You can buy games and software outside of their stores, such as at GameStop, eBay etc. You cannot do this on iOS.

Those games at GameStop or other physical media have already paid their ~30%.

But I can always buy them used, or sellers can sell at stores that don't take such a large cut, if in the case of PC games for example. That console games have that 30% cut is not an argument to have them, it's in fact a counterargument that Xbox and Playstation should not necessarily take cuts like 30% when they aren't actually developing the games.

When similar arguments were made against suppression of legal speech by these platforms, the prevailing opinion here was: "it's a private company, they can do what they want. If you don't like it, build your own platform".

For these people to be intellectually honest, the corresponding opinion here should be: "it's a private company, they can charge what they want. If you don't like it, build your own phone".

Now let's expand it beyond dating apps, and make the penalties escalate till apple no longer has a monopoly on app store payments.

NL to AAPL: FAFO.

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