Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

Imagine a bunch of game developers join forces to create something called the Game Asset Service. When you unlock a feature in a game by one of these developers, it gets delivered through the GAS.

The GAS is legally a separate entity from the game companies (although controlled by them), and it sets a varying fee for its delivery network. Maybe the fee is quite high, and unlocking a $6 game feature actually consists of $5.50 fees paid to the GAS and $0.50 paid to the game developer.

Would Apple say: “Sure, this delivery fee you’re paying to GAS is something completely separate from the in-app purchase. We’ll just take our cut only from the $0.50 and let you pass all of the $5.50 through to this GAS corporation that you partially own.”

Of course not, because that structure would be such a transparent attempt by the game developers to evade Apple’s fee.

The situation in crypto isn’t all that different. These gas fees are ultimately paid to Ethereum stakeholders, and Coinbase happens to be a big one.

This is true and matters, but there is a key difference that affects our sense of justice and morality.

Coinbase didn't create Ethereum, and the vast majority of Ethereum stakeholders are not apps on the app store. The fact that ETH gas is mostly unrelated to Coinbase and the app store should also matter in determining how we feel about this.

Even if Coinbase created ethereum and gas went directly to their wallet, would that be any different than Chase collecting a fee when I send a wire using their mobile app? Does Apple collect 30% of bank fees that are the results of actions taken within the various bank's apps? Does Apple charge Venmo a portion of the bank fees that are a part of the stransaction when users transmit money between each other?

Sending dollars is not the same thing as trading NFTs.

The latter is essentially similar to pseudo-gambling in-app purchases like loot boxes, of which Apple certainly takes their cut.

Strawman.

Besides, I can go gamble my money on stock options via Robinhood, but Apple doesn’t take a cut of that.

You start off saying "this is true and matters", but then describe a bunch of reasons it's not true. What are you saying?

No, reread. Both are true, both matter. It's true that apple would not allow the scheme described. It's true that it's similar to gas on Ethereum. But there are also differences that are important.

I read you. Their analogy only "matters" if it closely aligns with the Coinbase situation. It makes no sense to say the comment "is true and matters" if it doesn't work by the same logic ("important differences"). You could say it's "true" that Apple wouldn't tolerate the proposed scheme, but it doesn't matter if no one actually does that. With the failure of the analogy one of "true" and "matters" will be wrong.

I guess I'm using the word "matters" differently. I'm using "matters" to mean, "we ought to consider this when we think about the justice or morality of the situation". Similar to "relevant" or "useful".

I guess we agree on substance, then, and I just think you used a confusingly mild and conciliatory phrasing for criticizing an obviously, shall we say, silly analogy.

> that structure would be such a transparent attempt by the game developers to evade Apple’s fee.

That’s the core of this of course. It’s not the scheme, or how many intermediary there is, or wether entities are separate or not.

It’s about money flowing on the platform that Apple doesn’t get a cut of. Some cases have been grandfathered in at the start of the App Store (mainly physical goods and traditional banking) because there was no way for them to tax that at that time.

I trust Apple to fight tooth and nails to not let any additional money flow escape their tax, whatever it is.

You’re suggesting that coinbase launched NFT support on its app so it could make a pittance in gas fees?

An even easier analogy as to what Apple is probably trying to prevent is a "wallet" app which allows purchasing NFTs for the immediate and continued use and consumption of digital content such as music and music videos which would creating an alternate content store for distribution.

The purchase page for the content would show the purchase price in crypto coins but list the USD equivalent price just below.

To go even further, because of volatility, it would probably be a fixed USD price driving the crypto coin price displayed.

Yeah but the GAS is run by artists and they transact in Tater Tots (TOT). When users unlock the feature in the game the developer charges $2 which covers the cost of the content ($0.50) which is delivered outside of the app to their Windows PC at home running the game and so is not subject to the in app purchase restrictions in the first place, and actually is a TOT anyway, plus overhead in case the developer needs to buy more TOTs (which they already have on hand) and then, because they employ a small army of artists who contribute assets to the GAS, have structured their own product such that many of the Tots that the GAS is expecting for the transaction would be paid right back out to their own artists. Never mind that TOTs are worthless because everyone else eats french fries (FFX). But the artists aren't picky and have to eat so they don't complain. Apple is getting hungry for TOTs but realize they have no artists to eat them because they don't participate in the GAS and their designers eat FFX just like everyone else. So instead Apple seems to want to demand 30% of the fair market value of however many TOTs change hands every time the GAS distributes assets to a user who initiated the request from their phone. How does any of this make sense?

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