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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

I’m curious to see what devs do.

On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel.

On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?

Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU only) and we’re in for some shaking out of what is and is not a good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone options in the mix.

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> On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?

An excellent question. I think the thing is that for the prices that often show up in apps, maybe not? Like, for a $3 app I don't think I'm going to go visit some website, go through their flow, and get out my credit card if I'm only going to save $1. (Ok, I'd probably do it on principle at this point to stick it to Apple, but that's not the same thing.)

If I were going to shell out $100, I'd certainly go to the extra trouble to pay $70 instead, though.

The dangerous thing is that with all these mobile games that slowly siphon money from you, you might over time end up spending many tens or even hundreds of dollars (where 30% off might be a significant amount of money). But if each transaction is small, you might not think much of the difference of a dollar or so per transaction.

I would expect from a developer's perspective it makes sense to stick with Apple's mechanism until ARR * 0.30 = whatever it costs to run your own solution. (More power to you if you're the developer who can do that from the start, but that won't be most people.) I wonder, though, if the slow siphon becomes more obvious if it's attributed, in a customer's credit card statement, to [Game Co.] instead of [APPL]. I won't be sad if fewer people spend money on those types of games.

I agree for the developer. But there’s the cost of users who don’t want to go outside Apple that you’d need to account for.

And right now we don’t know how big (or small) that effect is.

Exactly.

- no need to enter a CC number in another site (and maintain it)

- no need to create another account to make that payment (or unironically use Apple Pay flows)

- trivial cancellation

- trivial cancellation of limited time trials

Maybe I'm fortunate, stupid, or a combination but not being able to pay for Netflix using Apple subscriptions really bugs me and I'd pay more to avoid it. Which reminds me I need to cancel it...

Depending on the developer, there is also quite a lot of trust I need to impart on them too. I am reasonably confident in Apple keeping my data secure. I would likely be confident in it for the bigger apps out there, like your Netflix or Spotifys. But some rando app, would I be comfortable putting my personal and financial info on their server, instead of just using Apple's?

I paid a lower price until I did not.

2023 New years day I signed up for an offer 6 bucks a month. I knew it was only for a year, but then I forgot. On new years day 2024, I got charged 50 bucks. Maybe I could have fought it, maybe I could have spent some time challenging it, but it was not worth my time, so I canceled my subscription. But what cost me 12 X 6 = 72 for a year now cost me 50 bucks for a month.

This is the difference Apple's payment system can make. You visit the store regularly (hopefully), so you know when the renewal is up, and at what price. Even if you do not visit regularly, I presume you can set up alerts to notify you of expiry, and IIRC they allow small adjustments to the price without notification, but 6=>50 would be notified. Pretty sure.

Of course this does not work for some companies who thrive on people slacking off on canceling re-priced subscriptions.

You don’t have to set up alerts. They automatically notify you when subscriptions are going to be rebilled with the amount, at least for yearly ones.

I don’t think I have any monthly or weekly subscriptions so I can’t be sure about those. I would expect they’re the same though.

At least apps can provide transparent options now. Your payment page could have a "pay us through the App Store" button that costs 30% more than the "pay us through our website" button, and explain why the numbers are different. Safari supports ApplePay, so your app could link you to a website which has a one-click payment option: no entering credit card details required.

Would be hilarious is Apple decided to make ApplePay less convenient in Safari now to hobble the competition.

It won't be 30% less. It'll be 10% less.

The vast majority of App Store transactions incur a 30% fee. The most common credit card fee is ~3%. It's gonna make a pretty big difference.

~3% plus costs of chargebacks, foreign exchange fees, time spent resolving disputes, customer service, etc.

App Store payments are independent of customer service for the app itself. App developers would have to provide that either way.

App Store refunds are not that different from credit card chargebacks. They mostly happen automatically, with some automatic abuse mitigation as well as a mechanism for the developers to report abuse.

With Stripe, foreign exchange is an extra 1%. The rest of those are taken care of as part of the 3% fee. It doesn't cost that much to process payments.

The one nice thing about the App Store is the centralized recurring subscription management. Seems like a nice juicy low-hanging fruit for Strip to disrupt now that they're allowed to.

The AppStore still charges developers for chargebacks and you still deal with dispute resolution and customer service. Foreign exchange fees are generally 1-2%, so they're not a huge consideration.

It's actually worse with the AppStore, because Apple provides absolutely no assistance to the developer unless you're a billion-dollar plus company.

But regardless of where it is purchased the developer still needs to pay Apple 30%.

So Apple gets paid. The customer who has to pay more loses.

And the debate is whether Apple or the app developer gets the blame. I suspect the latter.

It would be 3% less, assuming 0% fee credit card processing (and there is no such thing).

Apple will still be collecting 27%: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/16/us-app-store-alternativ...

> There is no way 3rd parties can match it.

The EU will attack this eventually and demand that the number of taps/clicks/screens to do an apple payment match those of third parties...

Funnily enough I think third parties will integrate Apple Pay to maintain the seamlessness. Apple likely would be hit for anticompetitive practices if they forbid developers from using Apple Pay for third-party In-App Purchase payments.

This doesn’t apply to the EU.

"But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?"

Well, Apple Pay makes that way easier. But that brings them back to Apple.

As far as I know, Apple Pay does not cost merchants any extra than any other card payment mechanism. Apple actually collects fees from the card issuing banks to be able to work with Apple Pay:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pay-fees-vex-credit-card-...

That's right, I just meant they have control over it and could theoretically exert that somehow.

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