It really doesn't matter who is worse morally here, just both situations are bad for consumer choice. I find it amazing that Apple things it is okay to attempt to take 15% of Audible revenue if they allowed you to buy books in the app, for example.
(Not that meal kit companies would be paying Apple 30%)
A typical customer lifetime might be somewhere between a year and two years, unless you happen to be a giant like Netflix.
Let’s say you expect your customer to churn after 14 months, so that means you only enjoy 2 months of Apple’s reduced royalty rate. Your total average rate is 27%.
This concept is why many sunscription services are able to offer lifetime subscriptions. They have already figured out what one customer is worth based on churn rate, so the lifetime subscription is set up to be a price that matches or exceeds that number.
The PKI industry is a good example of this.
The Certificate authorities have to abide by standards and any misbehaving Certificate Authorities can be removed.
I'd argue the integrity of the PKI industry is just as important, if not more so, than App Stores and they have managed to maintain a device agnostic market with healthy competition.
- Ben Franklin
I can, and I don't mind. Let it happen. Computer freedom is more important than preventing scams and fraud. Just have the corporations and banks eat the losses instead. God knows these trillion dollar corporations can afford it.
If that's not enough warning for someone then they probably shouldn't have a smart phone, or if they do it should have strict parental controls on it (blocking 3rd party installs, most sites, and phone calls/texts).
There have been many such cases.
A locked garden is a locked garden. But a locked garden that you go into knowing it's a locked garden is better than a locked garden that advertises itself as open and then locks you in. Both are locked gardens; one is also false advertising.
Out of curiosity, say that I'm not a techie that knows all about Apple vs alternatives ... and say I'm interested in buying Apple because I like the aesthetics of the device or something. Is there anything actually explicit in Apple's marketing that makes it clear to the consumer that they are buying into a "locked garden" ?
Part of this discussion has to do with definitions and what we're talking about, specifically. It's common in other industries to find yourself with some degree of vendor lock-in for "compatibility." I bought some high end Canon camera lenses, for example, so I have zero expectations that I can use those lenses with a Sony or a Nikon. I tend to buy Dewalt tools because I own Dewalt batteries etc.
Here we're talking about the "App Store." I don't know that it would register on the average non-techie's mind to assume they would have options ... but us techies know that the "locked garden" tends to mean "you're buying into the Apple ecosystem of products and will likely be stuck only buying Apple products for compatibility sake." Non techies might assume that because they assume that everything works that way. But is Apple making this extremely clear in their marketing so that people who don't assume would know up front? I'm genuinely curious since I don't buy Apple products.
If I must be in a walled garden, I'm choosing the better kept one. Android is quite simply inferior, I tolerated it because it gave me relative freedom but there's no reason to tolerate it any longer.