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Comment by passivate | Hacker News Reader

Grabbing 30% of sales just to run a billing system is absurd.

Yep, that's absurd, but that's also not Google's or Apple's stance on the fee. Both companies argue that the 30% is the platform fee which happens to include the payment processing fee as a small portion of it.

Charging 30% of any and all transactions as an app store fee is also absurd, especially for content apps, but it's important that we talk about this issue in the terms that are actually being used in court. There was a lot of confusion about the implications of the Epic v. Apple decision because of misunderstandings like this.

From the article:

" That’s because, while Google expected apps to use Google’s own billing system for purchasing digital goods, it rarely actually enforced the expectation."

"But Google is currently cracking down on app developers skirting around its rules. Starting June 1st, Google said it would remove apps that didn’t comply with its billing system rules. "

Nowhere does that say that Google is charging 30% for their billing system. It says Google has started requiring people to use their billing system in order to use their app store.

That's how I read it. Okay, we just have a difference of opinion, its no big deal.

It's not a matter of opinion, there's been at least one court ruling on the subject. Have you read the court documents in the Epic cases? Apple and Google are both very explicit that the 30% fee is a platform fee. This is the reason why both of them are offering to remove around ~3% from the fee in countries where they're not allowed to force people to use their billing system. That number is their billing fee, not the 30%.

>That’s because, while Google expected apps to use Google’s own billing system for purchasing digital goods, it rarely actually enforced the expectation

>The billing system crackdown

>Starting June 1st, Google said it would remove apps that didn’t comply with its billing system rules.

>Oddly, in March, Google announced a pilot program to let app developers use their own billing systems. The pilot program includes Spotify but not Amazon.

The article says its the billing system, and mentions it multiple times. I'm not reading any court documents, as I am not a legal scholar to offer an opinion on them. I would invite you to write your own analysis, and I'm sure there will be people who would be interested in your scholarship.

This distinction between payment fee and platform fee (ignored in this article) is relevant even to non-legal-scholars bc. if you ignore it you get results like this (yes, this is based on real rulings):

> Apple plans to charge developers of dating apps a 27 percent commission on any in-app purchases made via alternative payment systems in the Netherlands, the company has announced. The change comes in response to an order from Dutch competition regulator, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which has demanded that Apple allow dating app developers — and only dating app developers — to use alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system in the country. Twenty-seven percent represents a reduction of only 3 percentage points compared to the 30 percent commission Apple typically charges for developers using its own payment system.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/4/22917582/apple-netherlands...

Believing that all that's being provided is a "billing system" is equally absurd.

No, in this case that is the full extent of what they are providing. The digital goods make no use of any of the software platforms Google provides. Google is not hosting the goods or footing any bandwidth bill for their delivery. Google does not review the goods individually for approval into the store. The only thing Google is providing in this transaction is billing, and access to a captive market that they have no moral right to act as the gatekeeper for.

From the article:

" That’s because, while Google expected apps to use Google’s own billing system for purchasing digital goods, it rarely actually enforced the expectation."

"But Google is currently cracking down on app developers skirting around its rules. Starting June 1st, Google said it would remove apps that didn’t comply with its billing system rules. "

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