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Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

judge2020

It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the developer agreement. Via user lolinder ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020745 ):

> Apple is already pretty clear in its developer agreement [0] that the 30% commission is for "its services as Your agent and/or commissionaire" (Schedule 2 3.4), not for its services as a payment processor. They are contractually allowed to take the 30% fee out of payments collected, but merely using a different payment processor doesn't remove the obligation to pay them for their other "services as Your agent and/or commissionaire".

0: https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/apple-developer-pr...

In addition, from the original ruling:

> Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did not order Apple to do so.

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> It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the developer agreement.

Mind you, you can be blocked from doing needed Apple dev stuff (eg sign binaries, etc) until you've manually logged into your Apple account and clicked on the "I accept" button whenever they change terms.

This happened to us (sqlitebrowser.org) in recent weeks, as our CI just stopped working one day.

It turns out there was a new developer agreement that needed signing, and until I'd logged in and done that then Apples servers would no longer sign binaries.

There's literally no choice but to sign the things - regardless of terms - if you want your users to have software that runs.

>There's literally no choice but to sign the things - regardless of terms - if you want your users to have software that runs.

This gets to be a real nightmare in large organizations with multiple Apple Dev Portal admins, some of which may not even be authorized to sign legal documents on behalf of the company.

It’s a pain even in small orgs. There are some things only the account owner can do. You can make someone else an admin with every possible authorization, and if the person who set up the account is tied up or out of office, a whole dev team and testing can be stopped.

It's a massive pain when working with non-technical entities. Both professionally and in my side-business I have to do this and it's a horrible experience. I'll pay the damn $99/yr, just let me admin everything for the client. Tracking down the owner and getting them to login and click a button is harder than it sounds and it brings updates (even internal on TF) to a screeching halt.

> There's literally no choice but to sign the things - regardless of terms - if you want your users to have software that runs.

I suspect the EU will at some point, they have haven't already, make terms that must be accepted to continue void.

EU already forbids consumer contracts from e.g. having the business force a change of terms (though ending the contract on disagreement might count as good enough behavior).

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...

I suspect if the EU courts consider denying access to a website if they refuse GDPR permissions illegal they'll probably consider ending a contract based on not accepting new terms as forced.

To add, I'm not sure what legal basis there is for "you're charging too much". My only guess is filing against Apple and Google jointly for being a duopoly, but Epic has made it extremely hard to do something like this because of their existing jury trial against Google which gives a lot of concessions to third-party app stores in terms of functionality.

"You're charging too much" seems unlikely to be the actual argument presented though. Something along the lines of the scare message, still not actually allowing it to be handled via in app flow like a first party payment, and intentionally making a 3rd party choice potentially impossible to compete vs a 1st party choice by arguably hiding part of the processing fee margin in the overall fee would be the kinds of arguments I'd expect.

I.e. Epic's goal here isn't about whether Apple charges 99% or 1% rather it's about allowing other payment methods (theirs in their case of course) to compete with equal footing regardless what Apple wants to charge to do it through them instead.

I think the percentage charged is very relevant though.

And the fact the developer is to hide the fee and not list it on the receipt (subscription: $10, Apple tax: $3)

And the fact you cannot charge less for the same service if you sold it outside the platform (as you'd like to do as you didn't need to collect the Apple tax).

Honestly Apple does not act as an agent for companies that are known outside of the Appstore.

Netflix has an app, Netflix “is not” an app. Google Chrome, Airbnb, Epic, anyone who has spent marketing bucks promoting their service and providing a supporting app, was rather acting as a marketing agent for Apple than the opposite.

Apple’s new stance has no merit. We all understand it’s fair to participate in the funding of the Appstore, but it is a very bad defense.

> And the fact you cannot charge less for the same service if you sold it outside the platform (as you'd like to do as you didn't need to collect the Apple tax).

I thought that was expressly permitted - just that Apple Tax still must be collected:

> The link can mention the specific price of content on a website, or that content is discounted on the website from the App Store price. Comparisons are allowed.

Only in the manner that it is silly: Since Apple demands a 27% tax on a linked purchase, there is no room for an actual discount anymore. You can't charge less for the same service because you're required to pay Apple either way.

In that manner, this ensures you cannot compete with Apple IAP on price, and is hence still wholly anticompetitive.

And the fact that you have to implement in-app purchases if you want to do out-of-app purchases!

Can you expand on this?

The fact that your example has a lower apple tax than actual ($3.9 apple tax for $13.0 subscription, not $3.0 as you've stated in the example where a developer would itemize the price or tariff) and none of the people who replied to you noticed is very relevant, too, in the same context as your comment.

Is it still enforced/rule that you can't charge a lower price for a subscription outside the app store? Perhaps thats why streaming services like netflix and max still charge the same price but spend that "Apple tax" to pay other kinds of distributers/promoters like american express, mobile carriers, etc. to offer promotions, bundles or discounts. I think this is how the largest players in the app/subscription market are trying to penetrate the apple tax fortress.

You can’t subscribe to Netflix inside the app.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/25097/

They’re a so called “reader” app which can send you to an external site to subscribe.

https://developer.apple.com/support/reader-apps/

Other streaming services fall into the same category.

If I recall, and from what I’m now able to find, Netflix didn’t lower their prices when they did that move. And remember they have added ads, are cracking down on password sharing, and prices keep increasing.

So while Apple’s cut is high, let’s not fall into the trap of believing that other big companies are somehow fairer and would totally pass the savings onto us. The overwhelming majority, if suddenly exempt from paying Apple’s cut, would keep charging the same thing and pocket the extra revenue.

> Epic's goal here isn't about whether Apple charges 99% or 1%

Epic's goal is to pay lower platform fees to Apple and Google, presumably lower than the (30%?) platform fees they pay to Nintendo.

The legal basis is that Apple is not privy to the transaction that happens outside. Purely on a data privacy basis, Apple cannot force a vendor to tell Apple what it does outside of Apple property. So any link tax that Apple wants to impose would have to be a fixed cost, and not a percentage of what happens in a different universe.

Have you ever looked into the world of retail space leasing? It’s quite common for retailers to be charged a percentage of gross sales per month.

(Not defending anything here)

Sounds like literal rent seeking behavior.

> To add, I'm not sure what legal basis there is for "you're charging too much"

Anti-price-gauging laws have already been ruled as constitutional, so there is case law for "You're charging too much"

But overpriced goods and services are fairly common and accepted in the marketplace. Gucci handbags, houses, TurboTax, any product or service at a car dealership…

The 30% App Store tax does suck but I’ve never understood why it’s singled out. My best guess is that people hate platforms because it’s a 3-way transaction, which makes everything harder, including price negotiation. And also the service isn’t particularly unique, unlike the house, or a status symbol, unlike the Gucci handbag.

Ironically, if Apple made App Store publication more expensive but invite-only, like a high end Bugatti sports car, I don’t think it would’ve ended up in court.

30% is a lot, but it's particularly egregious when your one and only option is to pay 30% to Apple, who is doing everything in their power to make sure it remains your only option. Apple is a monopoly in this specific scenario, and setting the fee so high comes off as a "fuck you, try and stop me" kind of move.

"Google's lawyer highlighted Epic's willingness to pay the same 30% commissions to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo for transactions on gaming consoles previously in the trial."

https://game8.co/articles/latest/epic-believes-nintendo-sony...

They're kind of in a weird position because each of those companies are sticking them up, but because mobile isn't the bulk of their revenue, they can afford the legal costs of proceeding against Apple even if Apple retaliates against them in the meantime. Whereas if they got kicked off all the consoles they'd be out of business before the court case is over.

The argument that the consoles are subsidizing the hardware is just an excuse which has the causation reversed. They're not charging 30% because they have to subsidize the hardware, they're subsidizing the hardware in furtherance of their scheme to charge 30%. Without it they would stop subsidizing the hardware, but so what? People would pay less for games and more for hardware.

You might even pay less for hardware, because there would be no more reason to restrict games to a particular console and then you would only need one to play all the games, and Sony/Nintendo/MS would compete like (or be replaced by) Dell/HP/Lenovo.

> Anti-price-gauging laws

Price gauging has a very particular meaning; it isn't simply a subjective "you're charging too much".

It is the practice of significantly increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities during a time of crisis or high demand. This can happen when there is a sudden shortage of a product, like during a natural disaster, or when there is a surge in demand, like for popular concert tickets.

Characteristics of price gauging include:

- unconscionable prices

- taking advantage of a crisis

- limited supply or high demand

In the United States price gouging is illegal after a state of emergency has been declared.

Your tone is unexpectedly adversarial, and yet you're not disagreeing. I was simply answering gp's question about legal foundation of whether one can be considered to be "charging too much" under the law.

Will be interesting to see Epic file a lawsuit questioning the legality of per-sale licensing models for SDKs.

You know given they charge exactly the same way for Unreal Engine.

Doesn't sound interesting at all, as the two matters are unrelated.

Apple isn't charging for use of the iOS platform SDKs; the developer agreement is much more vague and weasely about what they're charging for, being the developer's "agent and/or commisionaire".

Per-sale licensing for a copyrighted (or patented) work is pretty normal and done in many industries. Apple's agreement doesn't specify any fees for licensing at all.

Moreover, if they would actually admit what they were nominally charging for then someone could create a third party implementation of whatever that is, people would want to be able to use that instead of paying the fee, and what is their excuse supposed to be then?

The case has been about whether preventing others from competing on pricing is anticompetitive not whether having pricing should be illegal in itself. Whether that's about the App Store or the SDK it would be extremely odd to suddenly expect Epic to instead try to argue it's the payment model that's the problem not the anti-competitiveness of only allowing 1 option.

Apple's justification seems counterintuitive, given that the commission only applies to app sales or in-app purchases. Since free apps don't pay anything, what is the commission for if not for "services as a payment provider"?

It's very normal for companies to charge some customers more than others based on their ability and/or willingness to pay. See: student, senior, and military discounts, SaaS with organization pricing vs individual pricing, etc.

I don't know for the US but in many countries that's just illegal if you have a monopoly.

The judge in this ruling found that Apple does not have a monopoly, so it wouldn't matter either way.

>Yvonne-Gonzalez was skeptical of the 30% fee during the trial, and in the ruling she was suspicious about Apple's justification of the commission, writing that "the 30% is not tied to anything in particular and can be changed," but did not order Apple to do so.

We really do live in clown world

She basically signaled that she wished she could do something about it but that Epic didn't challenge the 30%, they challenged the existence of a commission at all. Epic overreached and she can't just make up a judgement about things that haven't actually been brought before her.

Holy crap!

> Apple is charging a commission on digital purchases initiated within seven days from link out, as described below. This will not capture all transactions that Apple has facilitated through the App Store, but is a reasonable means to account for the substantial value Apple provides developers, including in facilitating linked transactions.

> Apple’s commission will be 27% on proceeds you earn from sales (“transactions“) to the user for digital goods or services on your website after a link out (i.e., they tap “Continue” on the system disclosure sheet), provided that the sale was initiated within seven days and the digital goods or services can be used in an app.

So tl;dr: of that page is that Apple is saying "if you wanna link to your website, it can't be prominent (only a single text link with our language in our chosen placement) and we still get our commission."

Yes. Which the judge explicitly said they'd be entitled to do:

> As discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.

> In such a hypothetical world, developers could potentially avoid the commission while benefitting from Apple's innovation and intellectual property free of charge. The Court presumes that in such circumstances that Apple may rely on imposing and utilizing a contractual right to audit developers annual accounting to ensure compliance with its commissions, among other methods. Of course, any alternatives to IAP (including the foregoing) would seemingly impose both increased monetary and time costs to both Apple and the developers.

https://casetext.com/case/epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2

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