> If you buy an iphone there is no one to compete
This. The problem is not the 30%, the problem is that iPhones do not have an option to buy apps from, lets say a Amazon Store or Epic Store.
This. The problem is not the 30%, the problem is that iPhones do not have an option to buy apps from, lets say a Amazon Store or Epic Store.
However then people get shocked that Apple says ok, we've rolled out the ability for third party app stores, we still review all the apps before signing, and the store owes us a 20% commission.
Their App Store monopoly is the most literal definition of anticompetitive bundling in the 21st century; they're tying the primary product (Apple hardware, software, APIs, etc.) to a secondary product (the App Store) that can be offered from multiple competitors.
Apple will continue to take a cut to make apps for the phone. The App Store and in-app purchases are how they take their cut today.
The bundling is anticompetitive against the potential market for third party payment providers and third party app marketplaces, sure. However, decoupling it is independent of reducing Apple's high fees. Apple will continue to charge a substantial fee for their part, even if due to regulatory compliance they offer less services to developers.
Someone would need to make a legal case directly against the fees Apple charges. I suspect that is a very challenging thing to do - least of which because they have never raised rates. The fees Apple collects have been the same since the first app was sold for iPhone, and the success has grown under that framework.
What I expect is that, for the first time, Apple and their App Store partners will be forced to reckon with user choice. Their business will have to change if their success is predicated on a neverending source of R&D funding from payment processing revenue.
If it's shipped via Amazon.
And also if we were talking about software rather than physical goods, and there were about a thousand other complications that made it not quite a 1:1 metaphor.